TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A young Topeka driver distracted by balloons lost control of her vehicle and crashed into a hotel, narrowly missing a woman inside one of the hotel’s rooms. Topeka police say the helium balloons inside the car were obstructing 17-year-old Kelli Young’s vision while she drove Thursday night. When she tried to push them out of the way, her SUV crashed through a perimeter fence, a fire hydrant and hit two vehicles in the parking lot of the Value Place hotel. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Young’s vehicle eventually ended up halfway into hotel room. Michelle Williams, 28, of El…
Author: KMAN Staff
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) An appeals court has revived a school finance lawsuit filed by some northeast Kansas parents. The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver on Thursday reversed a lower court dismissal of a lawsuit filed by parents in the Shawnee Mission School District. The parents want a judge to lift a state cap on local option school budgets so district patrons can raise their taxes to support local schools. U.S. District Judge John Lungstrum dismissed the lawsuit in March 2011. He agreed with state officials, who argued that ending the cap on local option taxes would…
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) A 31-year-old Lawrence man has been found not guilty of sexually abusing the 5-year-old son of a woman with whom he was living. The Lawrence Journal-World reports a Douglas County jury acquitted the man Thursday of aggravated criminal sodomy. He could have faced up to life in prison if convicted. A prosecution witness testified the boy’s DNA was found on the man’s genitals, which were swabbed by police shortly after the alleged incident in April. But the man told police the boy had touched him while he was using a toilet next to a tub where the…
ABILENE, Kan. (AP) Two experts on Dwight Eisenhower and Harry Truman will speak next week in Kansas about the paths the two Midwesterners took to the White House and their legacies as president. Tim Rives is deputy director of the Eisenhower Presidential Library in Abilene. Sam Rushay is the supervisory archivist at the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Mo. They’ll speak Tuesday night at the Eisenhower Library about the lives and times and legacies of the two presidents. Truman, a Democrat, was president in the final months of World War II while Eisenhower was serving as Allied commander in Europe.…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A leading Kansas Democrat is criticizing efforts by Republican Gov. Sam Brownback to solicit anonymous tips about inefficient use by schools of their state funding. House Minority Leader Paul Davis says a new website where people can offer tips and suggestions amounts to an online forum for criticizing schools. A task force on school efficiency appointed by Brownback launched the website this week. Brownback spokeswoman Sherriene Jones-Sontag said the governor wants to make Kansas a leader in education and get more dollars into instruction. Davis says the state should instead discuss innovative ways that schools have done…
The unemployment rates were just released for Manhattan and the surrounding counties, and the Manhattan metro area rates have dropped compared to the previous month and are among the lowest in the state. The Manhattan metro area, which includes the counties of Pottawatomie, Riley, and Geary had an unemployment rate of 4.6 percent compared to 5.8 percent in the month of August and 5.9 percent in September of 2011. Manhattan city alone shows a unemployment rate of 3.8 percent for September and that is down from 4.9 percent for August as well as from September of 2011 when it was also 4.9 percent. As…
Max Scherzer capped a stupendous stretch for Detroit’s starting rotation, and the Tigers advanced to the World Series by beating the New York Yankees 8-1 Thursday for a four-game sweep of the AL championship series. <iframe width=”425″ height=”239″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/uDbhyu7cWjs” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
A massive dust storm swirling reddish-brown clouds over northern Oklahoma triggered a multi-vehicle accident along a major interstate Thursday, forcing police to shut down the heavily traveled roadway amid near blackout conditions. <iframe width=”425″ height=”239″ src=”http://www.youtube.com/embed/SaOdcs2Tnqw” frameborder=”0″ allowfullscreen></iframe>
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A 14-year-old northeast Kansas girl has sued Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration in hopes of forcing it to impose limits on carbon dioxide emissions. Samantha Farb of Lecompton filed the lawsuit Thursday through her parents in Shawnee County District Court. It’s part of a campaign launched last year by environmentalists to file such lawsuits in all 50 states. The effort is led by a nonprofit Oregon group called Our Children’s Trust. The Kansas girl’s lawsuit argues there’s a public trust for the state in protecting the atmosphere and fighting global warming from manmade greenhouse gases such as CO2.…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) The defense attorney for a Kansas woman accused of stealing from the credit union where she worked says his client is a good person who found herself in a difficult financial situation and made a series of bad decisions to save her farm. Pamela Emig, 47, of Solomon has a court hearing Tuesday in federal court in Topeka to face one count of embezzlement. She is charged with stealing $817,167 from April 2005 to August 2011 from Enterprise Credit in Enterprise, where she was a manager. Defense attorney Christopher Joseph says there is a plea agreement and his…