TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas legislator from the Wichita area has missed a day of meetings after reporting he was robbed while entering his room at a Topeka hotel where dozens of lawmakers stay. Republican Joe Edwards of Haysville did not participate in Thursday’s House session. House Speaker Ray Merrick says he visited Edwards Thursday morning at a Topeka hospital where Edwards was treated for a concussion. Merrick said Edwards planned to head home to Haysville. Edwards did not immediately respond to an email and a phone message left at his home later Thursday. Edwards told The Wichita Eagle he…
Author: KMAN Staff
GREAT BEND, Kan. (AP) Officials in a central Kansas county are calculating the damage done by vandals to several pieces of heavy equipment. The Great Bend Tribune reports employees with the Barton County Road and Bridge Department discovered the damage Thursday morning at a job site south of Ellinwood. Department foreman Mike Patton says windows were smashed out of two road graders, a power broom and a backhoe that were parked just off a road. He estimates the damage at $10,000 to $15,000. Crews had just started working Wednesday on a project that was scheduled to take about two weeks.…
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) A Hutchinson church that has gone from 120 to 1,300 members in the last decade is preparing to move into a new home while celebrating its growth. Besides the congregation of the CrossPoint Church who attend services in Hutchinson, about a thousand more members watch from nine satellite locations in central and western Kansas. The church’s growth began in 2002, when Senior Pastor Andy Addis arrived. Today CrossPoint has six services at two Hutchinson locations, as well as the nine satellite locations from Ulysses to Concordia. The Hutchinson News reports the church is in the midst of…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas House committee hears testimony from critics of a national movement to implement new K-12 education standards for math and English. Opponents of the standards told the House Education Committee on Thursday that the Common Core Standards were flawed, unproven and that states were pressured into adopting them. The Kansas State Board of Education adopted the standards in 2010. A bill before the House committee would require Kansas to abandon the standards, expend no money to implement them and require new state standards to be written in their place. Deputy education commissioner Brad Neuenswander told the…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Police say a suspect in a Topeka homicide is in custody after he engaged law enforcement officers in two gunfights in Nebraska. Topeka police say in a news release that the 33-year-old man was arrested early Thursday after he allegedly robbed a convenience store and engaged in two gunfights in Johnson County, Neb., about 25 miles north of the Kansas-Nebraska border. One deputy was injured. The man is a suspect in a shooting Wednesday in Topeka that left one man dead and a woman injured. The victim’s name has not been released. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports police…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Wichita fire officials say a woman is lucky to be alive after she was nearly crushed in a garbage truck. Battalion Chief Frank Buck says the woman crawled into a trash bin while looking for scrap metal early Thursday. Jeff Gillis, the Waste Management driver, told KFDI that he emptied the trash receptacle into his truck and was preparing to press a button to compact the garbage when the woman’s sister drove up and stopped him. When the driver turned off the engine, he and his sister could hear the woman’s screams. Firefighters were called to rescue…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A Salina man who escaped from prison while awaiting sentencing for killing his girlfriend’s 14-month-old son is back in custody. Antonio Brown, 29, called the U.S. Marshals office in Wichita Wednesday night to surrender, ending a search that began when he walked away from the Saline County jail Monday. U.S. Marshals say Brown apparently arrived in Wichita Tuesday and turned himself in because he had no place else to go. Brown pleaded no contest in January to first-degree murder and child abuse in the beating death. Authorities say he walked out of a jail holding cell after…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) The family of a Chinese exchange student who was critically injured while attending Emporia State University is seeking help to pay for her rehabilitation. Twenty-three-year-old education student Yali Huang was flown to a Wichita hospital in November after being struck by a Jeep while walking across a street. After coming out of a 10-week coma, she’s ready to be moved to a rehabilitation facility. But her exchange student insurance doesn’t cover that type of care, and she’s not ready to travel to a facility closer to her home Shenzhen, a city in southern China. University students plan…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas House committee is preparing to hear testimony on legislation to restrict where strip clubs can operate and what activities go on inside. The measure before the House Federal and State Affairs Committee on Thursday comes two years after the last attempt to regulate strip clubs. That bill died in the state Senate. The so-called Community Defense Act would establish where adult businesses can be located, ban lap dances and regulate dancing onstage in various levels of undress. Supporters say the measure targets businesses that hurt communities. Opponents argue the restrictions could cost Kansas as many…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The Kansas Department of Administration has rejected bids from two potential buyers for a historic home west of the Statehouse. Interim Secretary Mark McGivern said Wednesday the department now plans to sell the Hiram Price Dillon house at a public auction. A date hasn’t been set. The state has owned the 12,000-square-foot house since 1998, when a church nearby traded the property for a parking lot. Dillon was a prominent attorney and built the home in 1913. McGivern said neither of the offers submitted earlier this month represented a fair market value. A Topeka development firm bid…