GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) Students at Garden City High School will each get their own iPad to use at school and take home, starting next school year. The district’s board of education approved a measure Monday to provide the iPads to each student. Darren Dennis, the district’s assistant superintendent for learning services, said the iPads will be useful for a new type of testing, as school districts move to Common Core Standards for state testing. Technology administrators announced Monday night that the initiative’s cost will be lower than previously reported because the district will use iPad 2, instead of the…
Author: KMAN Staff
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) At least two people remained in critical condition Tuesday after a recreational vehicle crashed in northeast Kansas, killing five family members from Minnesota. The accident on Sunday injured 13 people. The crash happened as the family returned from an annual motocross vacation in Texas. Their Freightliner cab and Haulmark trailer broke through a guardrail on Interstate 35 outside Williamsburg, Kan., and plunged into a ravine. The injured ranged in age from 2 to 30 and were taken to various hospitals. Several had been released by Tuesday. The critically injured include an 18-year-old and an 8-year-old boy,…
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas won’t be able to issue driver’s licenses or non-driver identification cards for at least several hours because of a computer problem. The state Division of Vehicles said Tuesday that a problem with a vendor’s server took down the computer system issuing licenses and ID cards at all 111 offices statewide. The division said the vendor expected to replace a part in its server by mid-afternoon. The division is in the midst of a $40 million upgrade of its computers. About 3,000 people visit driver’s license offices each Tuesday, which is typically a busy day because the…
GREAT BEND, Kan. (AP) A Great Bend man was sentenced to five years in prison in the death of a girl he injected with morphine last July. Thirty-one-year-old Joseph Jeffrey Rykiel was sentenced Monday for the death of 15-year-old Jessica Shearer of Garden City. Rykiel entered an Alford plea in February to involuntary manslaughter. The Garden City Telegram reports that Shearer was reported missing from the Barton County Youth Care Home three days before her death. She was found dead last July 4th in a basement room Rykiel was renting in Great Bend. Barton County Attorney Doug Matthews says Rykiel…
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) Hutchinson Regional Medical Center has laid off 55 employees, effective immediately. Hospital officials announced Monday that 44 full-time and 11 part-time employees were laid off. The hospital also eliminated the equivalent of 45.3 full-time positions through attrition since January. Hospital president Kevin Miller says the combined job reductions will save the hospital between $3 million to $4 million this fiscal year. He says that savings, combined with other expense reductions, could reverse a $5.5 million operating loss the hospital reported in the fiscal year that ended last June. The Hutchinson News reports that the hospital’s interim head…
While the Manhattan Urban Are Planning board had a full agenda Monday night, it was an off-agenda item that might have been the most interesting. One of the members brought a resolution of support for public transportation, and the group voted in favor of the resolution, by a vote of 4-2-1, with one abstention. The item wasn’t on the original agenda. Final plats for Grand Mere Village received the blessing of the Manhattan urban area planning board Monday night, as items on the group’s consent agenda. Board members also had a public hearing to consider amendments to the Riley County zoning and…
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) State lawmakers from south-central Kansas will hold their final public forum of the 2012 session later this month. The gathering is scheduled April 21 from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. at Wichita State University’s Metroplex. Members of the House and Senate will take comments and questions from the public. The Legislature ended its regular session last Friday with several major issues unresolved, including a new state budget. Lawmakers are taking a break before returning to Topeka on April 25 for the annual wrap-up session.
FORT LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) Military officers from three countries will be at Fort Leavenworth on Thursday to be inducted into a hall of fame on the northeast Kansas post. The officers are from Turkey, Moldova and the Caribbean nation of Trinidad and Tobago. The International Hall of Fame is located at the Command and General Staff College and has 245 members from 69 countries. The honorees are graduates of the command college who have achieved their nation’s highest military rank or held a top position in an international military organization. The hall of fame was established in 1973.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) Kansas officials and university economists will meet next week to issue new forecasts of state revenue through June 2013. The forecasting team includes legislative researchers, members of the governor’s budget staff, Revenue Department officials and economists from three universities. The April 13 meeting will include a review of economic trends. The forecasters will then issue revised revenue projections for the current fiscal year, which ends June 30, and the 2013 fiscal year, which starts July 1. The most recent forecast was issued in November and showed Kansas collecting $6.2 billion in revenues in both fiscal years. But…
Concern about the death of Trayvon Martin in Florida that has generated national attention came to Manhattan Monday night, with a march on the Kansas State campus to recognize the tragedy. Manhattan Mayor Jim Sherow took part at the invitation of the Beta Sigma Chi Christian Sorrority on campus. Mayor Sherow says he was happy to participate and shared some comments with the group. Sherow indicates those in attendance weren’t pre-judging in the case, just want to see justice to be served. The event also featured a gathering in prayer, a dance selection from the Black Student Union, and words…