CALDWELL, Kan. (AP) A 4-foot alligator that caused some concern while wandering through a small southern Kansas town is in police custody. Police in Caldwell caught the alligator Wednesday evening at a hardware store. The animal was seen wandering on main street earlier in the day. Because it escaped from a home about a block from an elementary school, students at the school were kept inside for recess. No one was injured. It was not immediately clear what would happen to the alligator now. Caldwell is about 60 miles southwest of Wichita.
Author: KMAN Staff
OTTAWA, Kan. (AP) A major theft at an eastern Kansas farm has authorities wondering just how to track down some stolen livestock. After all, says Franklin County Sheriff Jeffry Curry, chickens aren’t tagged or branded. KCTV reports that 100 chickens were taken over the weekend from a farm in a rural part of the county. The thief or thieves also took a $1,000 mower and a four-wheel ATV. Curry estimates the chickens’ value at $600. The farm is owned by Bo Tran, who lives about 40 miles away in the Kansas City suburb of Leawood and works the property on…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A Kansas doctor and his wife convicted in a moneymaking conspiracy linked to 68 overdose deaths are attacking a federal prosecutor’s changing position now that the case has reached the appeals court. In a filing with the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, new lawyers for Stephen and Linda Schneider say the prosecutor is “debasing” justice by now claiming the couple had conflict-free attorneys at trial. The same prosecutor aggressively pursued the opposite stance in the lower court. At issue is the involvement of a national patient advocate in the case. The Haysville couple was convicted in…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) A committee overseeing state employee pay is recommending about $11.4 million in raises for underpaid state workers, with corrections officers at Kansas prisons among the groups benefiting most. The Joint Committee on Employee Pay Plan Oversight on Tuesday recommended 7.5 percent raises for more than a thousand corrections officers. The funds were appropriated during the 2012 legislative session. Corrections Secretary Ray Roberts told the committee that the increases would bring officers who haven’t had a pay raise since 2009 closer to the market rate. The Topeka Capital-Journal reported the pay raises are part of a state program…
SALINA, Kan. (AP) Salina police and Saline County sheriff’s deputies plan to try a new “no refusal” policy during a saturation patrol Friday aimed at drunken drivers. Salina police Lt. Russ Lamer said if a driver refuses a breath or blood test after being stopped on suspicion of driving under the influence, the officer will seek a search warrant to collect a sample of the driver’s blood. He says new equipment will allow officers to ask for a search warrant electronically. Lamer says a representative of the county attorney’s office and a judge will be able to sign the warrant…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) A Wichita police officer is on administrative leave after firing at a man who appeared to aim a weapon at him. No one was injured in the shooting overnight Tuesday. Police say the officer was working on paperwork in a parking lot when he saw someone looking around the corner of a nearby building. The man went away and returned a few minutes later. Police say the officer got out of the car and began firing after it appeared that the man aimed a rifle at him. The man ran away and police say it’s not clear…
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) A group that believes a statue in a northeast Kansas arboretum is obscene has filed a petition to empanel a grand jury to consider whether the statue should be moved. The American Family Association of Kansas and Missouri filed the petition in Johnson County Court Tuesday. The group contends a statue at the Overland Park Arboretum that shows a woman with her breasts exposed violates a state law against promoting obscenity to children. The director of the group, Phillip Cosby, says members collected 4,700 signatures. The Kansas City Star reports the group needs just under 3,700…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) The latest government snapshot of Kansas crops shows slight improvement with limited rains, but major crops across the state continue to fare poorly. In its weekly update Tuesday, Kansas Agricultural Statistics Service said only producers in extreme eastern Kansas got any rain while the rest of the state remained hot and dry. The agency says that 71 percent of the Kansas corn crop, 73 percent of the soybean crop and 68 percent of the sorghum crop are in poor to very poor condition. Range and pasture conditions improved only slightly, with 89 percent still in poor to…
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) An eastern Kansas man who set up a nude photo shoot with a 14-year-old girl has pleaded guilty to possessing child pornography. The U.S. Attorney’s office says Kristopher Hausback (30), of Spring Hill, entered the plea Tuesday. He’ll be sentenced in December. Prosecutors say the girl went to a Johnson County hotel in August 2011 to be photographed by Hausback and texted the hotel name and room number to her brother. Leawood police went to the hotel after Hausback reported his camera had been stolen. In fact, prosecutors said, the girl’s stepfather showed up at the…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan will stop in Topeka this month as part of a national bus tour. Duncan will visit the Brown v. Board of Education National Historic Site on Sept. 18. He’ll be joined by members of the Kansas State Board of Education, Topeka city officials and students from the area. Topeka’s former Monroe School was designated in 1992 as a national historic site honoring the U.S. Supreme Court’s 1954 decision that declared segregated schools unconstitutional. Duncan will discuss recent education successes in Kansas and nationwide. His tour will also take him to Emporia and…