WICHITA, Kan. (AP) Police in Wichita are trying to identify a man found dead near railroad tracks in the northeastern part of the city. The Wichita Eagle reports police believe someone placed the body near the tracks but they don’t know when. Workers heading to a construction site came across the body shortly before 9 a.m. Wednesday. Police Lt. Doug Nolte says an autopsy will show the cause of the death, but authorities are treating it as suspicious for now. A homeless shelter is located not far from where the body was found.
Author: KMAN Staff
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Several law professors say they would favor a different system for appointing judges to the Kansas Court of Appeals and the state Supreme Court. The Senate Judiciary Committee heard testimony Wednesday on a proposed change in the Kansas Constitution to let the governor appoint appellate judges, with confirmation by the Senate. Voters would have to approve the constitutional change. Under the current system, the governor chooses appellate judges from slates of three finalists nominated by a special commission. The commission is made up of four non-lawyers appointed by the governor and five lawyers who belong to the…
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) A suburban Chicago woman has been sentenced to one year of probation after two of her children were found last June bound and blindfolded in a Walmart parking lot in Kansas. Deborah Gomez of Northlake, Ill., pleaded no contest in December to three counts of child endangerment. Her husband, Adolfo Gomez, has pleaded no contest to two counts of child abuse and three counts of child endangerment. Both parents have been in custody since they were arrested after a woman at a Lawrence Walmart reported seeing two children bound and blindfolded near the family’s vehicle. Douglas County…
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) A Johnson County man was sentenced to 15 months in prison and ordered to pay $1.3 million in restitution for his part in a scheme to fraudulently obtain millions of dollar in mortgage loans. Federal prosecutors say 55-year-old John T. Bradfield, of Overland Park, was sentenced Tuesday. He admitted that he submitted fraudulent information to mortgage lenders. One co-defendant, Paul Hartfield of Overland Park, obtained $4.9 million in loans to rehabilitate more than 40 homes in the Kansas City metro area. After he stopped rehabilitating the homes in October 2006, he persuaded friends and family to…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration is proposing phasing out property taxes on watercraft by 2016. Watercraft is currently taxed at 30 percent, prompting criticism that boat owners often register their watercraft in other states to avoid the high taxes. In November, about 53 percent of Kansas voters approved an initiative to allow lawmakers to reduce property taxes on watercraft. The Wichita Eagle reports the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism announced a plan Monday to tax boats at 20 percent starting in 2014 and 10 percent in 2015. Watercraft would be exempt from property taxes beginning in…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A federal judge has refused to amend his finding that the ex-wife of a University of Kansas official convicted in a ticket scalping scandal cannot keep assets fraudulently transferred to her in the couple’s divorce settlement. U.S. District Judge J. Thomas Marten on Tuesday again ruled for the government in its lawsuit against Ben Kirtland and his ex-wife, Mary Jean Kirtland. Ben Kirtland is the former Kansas associate athletic director in charge of development. The government is now trying to collect more than $55,000 from Mary Kirtland. Marten also refused to allow her to appeal the judgment…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Gov. Sam Brownback is preparing to give Kansas legislators the details of how he proposes to protect core state services while making state government more efficient over the next two years. Budget Director Steve Anderson was scheduled to make separate presentations Wednesday to the House Appropriations and Senate Ways and Means committees. The state must close a projected $267 million gap between anticipated revenues and existing spending commitments for the fiscal year that begins in July. The shortfall results from aggressive income tax cuts enacted last year to stimulate the economy. But Brownback’s proposals will cover two…
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) The daughter of the lead plaintiff in the Brown v. Board of Education school desegregation case will discuss the case and the 14th Amendment next month at Johnson County Community College. Cheryl Brown Henderson is scheduled to speak about the landmark desegregation case Feb. 12 at Craig Community Auditorium on the Overland Park campus. She’ll speak about the 14th Amendment during an appearance the following evening at the college’s Nerman Museum of Contemporary Art. The Supreme Court’s 1954 ruling in the Topeka case declared that separate schools for black and white children where inherently unequal. The…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A professor of African-American studies at the University of Massachusetts will deliver the second installment of Washburn University’s Lincoln Lecture Series. Manisha Sinha will present “Race and Equality in the Age of Lincoln” Feb. 6 at 7 p.m. at the Memorial Union. Her lecture is free and open to the public. Yale University Press is publishing her soon-to-be released “To Live and Die in the Holy Cause: Abolition and the Origins of America’s Interracial Democracy.” She also wrote “The Counterrevolution of Slavery: Politics and Ideology in Antebellum South Carolina.” Recently, Sinha was a featured commentator on “The…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A veteran state senator says he’s considering running for mayor and CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan. Kansas City Democrat David Haley says he’ll make a decision by the end of the week. Last week, two-term Mayor and CEO Joe Reardon said he won’t run for re-election because he wants to spend more time with his family. The mayoral primary is Feb. 26, with the general election set for April 2. The 54-year-old Haley was appointed to the Kansas House in 1994 and served there until he was elected to the…