NICKERSON, Kan. (AP) After hearing from several angry residents, the Nickerson City Council voted for the second time to disband the city’s police department but added a chance for a vote on the issue in April. The council voted last week to eliminate the police department after the chief resigned in early October. On Monday night, about 50 residents of the Reno County town blasted the decision. The Hutchinson News reports council members voted again Monday to disband the department. But they included a provision that the public could vote in April to reinstate the department. Until then, the Reno…
Author: KMAN Staff
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) A University of Kansas student says she was robbed at gunpoint while she was on the campus in Lawrence. The student told police she was on a swing set Monday evening between Irving Hill Road and Stouffer Place Apartments when the man approached her, showed her a gun and demanded her property. The man left after the student gave him her cellphone and iPod. The robber is described as a black man about 6 feet, 2 inches tall and 170 pounds. He was wearing a black ski mask and a gray hooded sweatshirt.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The Kansas Children’s Discovery Center in Topeka is one of three pilot sites chosen after a national competition. Officials at the center announced Monday that the selection comes with a $65,000 grant, which is part of an initiative called “Going Wild at Children’s Museums.” The center’s expansion of its Outdoor Adventure was selected as part of the project funded by the Trustees’ Philanthropy Fund of Fidelity Charitable. The center must raise another $65,000 to match the grant. The money would be used to create a large water garden and launch two other national initiatives. The Topeka Capital-Journal…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) State Board of Education members are reviewing the progress of Kansas and other states in drafting common science standards. The board planned to hear Tuesday afternoon from the state official overseeing work on the standards and from a member of the state’s standards-writing committee. Kansas is working with 25 other states and the National Research Council on common standards for possible adoption in their public schools. A draft of the proposed standards released in May treats evolution as well-established science and a crucial concept for students to learn. Kansas officials expect another draft to be released in…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas driver’s licenses are about to get a new look and some new features. The Department of Revenue is unveiling the new design at an event Tuesday with Gov. Sam Brownback and Revenue Secretary Nick Jordan. Motorists will begin receiving the new licenses this week. Among the elements are new security features to protect against identity theft or illegal duplication. Revenue Department spokeswoman Jeannine Koranda says Kansas updates its driver’s licenses every four to six years as technology changes. Online: Kansas Department of Revenue: http://www.kdor.ks.gov
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) A former death row warden from Georgia will headline a conference in Kansas next month on abolishing capital punishment. The 2012 Abolition Conference takes place Nov. 10 in Olathe sponsored by the Kansas Coalition Against the Death Penalty. Allen Ault was responsible for overseeing executions as a death row warden in Georgia. Ault plans to talk about what he calls the traumatic impact of executions on himself and many of the corrections officers with whom he worked. Kansas Coalition executive director Mary Sloan says Ault’s story highlights an issue sometimes forgotten in debates about capital punishment.
A Manhattan man entered a plea of no contest Tuesday in Riley County district court to attempted murder in the second degree. Tyrell Brown, 27, entered the plea and then was found guilty in connection with an incident that occurred January 15th of this year. Brown reportedly got into a struggle that day with a handgun in his possession, and during the struggle with two other people, Marcus Cooper, 52, was shot in the right arm, with the bullet coming to rest in his torso. Cooper later recovered. The case was somewhat unusual as Riley county police indicated earlier in the day Cooper had given Brown…
Update: As of 8:30 Tuesday night, service has been restored to all customers affected by the outage. Cox sincerely apologizes for the outage, and assures KMAN that their engineers are monitoring the network to make sure that they do not have any intermittent service issues. Cox is still working to pinpoint the exact cause of the outage, and while exact numbers are not known, it is believed that the problem came from outside of Kansas. Cox Communications is experiencing problems with its business voice manager service not only in Manhattan, but as far away as New England. Coleen Jennison, Director of…
In a meeting that lasted less than 20 minutes, Riley County Law Board members still managed to cover a variety of topics, including concerns by the local Fraternal Order of Police regarding 12 hour shift changes. Local F-O-P treasurer Calvin Sanders addressed law board members during the public comment portion of the meeting, saying the Department is exploring the idea of moving all sworn officers to 12 hour shifts, which would have quite an impact on officers. RCPD Director Brad Schoen indicated it will be months before the matter is finalized, with this only being preliminary discussion. Meanwhile, a question was asked…
The Manhattan High girls golf team completed the 2012 season by finishing in seventh place at the 6A state golf meet on Monday at Rolling Hills Country Club in Wichita. The Tribe shot a team score of 369. Shawnee Mission East won the tournament with a 343, while Maize was five shots back in second, and Washburn Rural came in third with a 350. Manhattan High’s lone senior, Blake Fingalsen closed her career in the top 10 in 6A with an 82. Kelsey McCarthy also placed in a tie for 15th with an 89.