Sorted by date Results 51 - 75 of 78
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita man was ordered to pay the government back for his court-appointed attorney after authorities discovered he bought a luxury car while his case was pending. U.S. Attorney Tom Beall said in a news release that a federal judge on Tuesday ordered Antoine Beasley to pay the federal treasury $34,640. That's the amount Beasley paid on a 2015 Audi A7 Quattro. Beasley was sentenced earlier this month to just over five years in prison on gun and drug charges. He had said he was indigent and was given a court-appointed a...
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man has been sentenced to federal prison in a child pornography investigation that began in Germany. U.S. Attorney Tom Beall announced Tuesday that 31-year-old Noah Martin, of Lawrence, was sentenced just over eight years in federal prison for two counts of possession and distribution of child pornography. The investigation began when police in Baden-Wurttemberg, Germany put together a list of 155 people in the United States who used a peer-to-peer network to download a video of a young girl being sexually a...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Missouri-based foundation that promotes gender equality plans to work with Kansas officials to improve the Legislature's sexual harassment policy after women complained last week about being harassed at the Kansas Statehouse. Attorneys for The Women's Foundation will work with the Kansas legislative counsel and make recommendations to the Legislative Coordinating Council in December, Senate President Susan Wagle announced Monday. The foundation's work comes amid accusations made last week by some women that they were h...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — One of three people charged in a fatal shooting outside a fast food restaurant in Topeka has pleaded guilty. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that 17-year-old Shayden Byrd admitted Monday to first-degree murder and two other charges in the death of 18-year-old Justice Mitchell. Mitchell was found suffering from two gunshot wounds June 26 in the parking lot a Church's Chicken. He was taken to a hospital, where he died. Police say another suspect is accused of shooting Mitchell during a botched effort to rob him of drugs a...
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas lawmakers have created a committee to study public education funding after the state Supreme Court order directed them to boost spending. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the interim committee created Monday could make recommendations on education funding as well as draft a Constitutional amendment to reduce the Supreme Court's authority over school finance. The Legislative Coordinating Council passed the measure unanimously on a voice vote. The Supreme Court ruled earlier this month that legislators did not i...
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, is speaking at Kansas State University. Dunford's Nov. 27 appearance is part of the Landon Lecture series. The series is named for former Kansas Gov. Alf Landon, who was the 1936 Republican nominee for president. The series was established in 1966 to bring in speakers to discuss issues facing business, politics and international relations. Dunford became the 19th chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff in October 2015. He serves as the principal military a...
DALLAS (AP) — Exxon Mobil settled violations of the clean-air law with the Trump administration by agreeing to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty and spend $300 million on pollution-control technology at plants along the Gulf Coast. Federal officials said Tuesday that the settlement will prevent thousands of tons of future pollution, including cancer-causing benzene, from eight petrochemical plants in Texas and Louisiana. Some environmentalists criticized the settlement as insufficient punishment for years of violations by the giant oil c...
JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Empire District Electric Company wants to more than triple the amount of energy its gets from wind and eventually close its Asbury coal plant. The utility based in Joplin filed an application Tuesday with the Missouri Public Service Commission seeking permission for a $1.5 billion project to construct wind turbines in southwest Missouri. The Joplin Globe report s the utility plans to pursue an equity partnership to advantage of $800 million in federal tax incentives for the project. Empire's total investment would be $700 m...
GENEVA (AP) — The head of the U.N. environment program said Tuesday the United States is likely to live up to the Paris climate deal despite President Donald Trump's planned pullout, because "all the big American companies" are working toward greener operations. The comments from UNEP executive director Erik Solheim came as the U.N. agency presented its latest "Emissions Gap" report , which gives a scientific assessment about how national efforts are affecting the greenhouse gas emission trend. The report's release ahead of a crucial climate m...
BEIJING (AP) — A Chinese official said Tuesday that his country still wants to cooperate with the U.S. on climate change and hopes an upcoming meeting on the issue in Germany will produce a draft agreement on implementing the Paris climate accord. China's Special Representative on Climate Change Xie Zhenhua told reporters that China wants to boost joint efforts in clean energy, carbon capture and research. "China is willing to step up cooperation with the United States in climate change negotiations after the United States said it will stay i...
DUBAI, United Arab Emirates (AP) — The Middle East's oil producers are bracing for continued pressure from lower oil prices, with the International Monetary Fund projecting cumulative budget deficits of $320 billion over the next five years, according to a new report released on Tuesday. Approximately half of that amount — or $160 billion — will be sustained by energy-rich Gulf Arab nations between 2018 and 2022. Still, the projection is significantly lower than the shortfall of $350 billion that Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, K...
FORT COLLINS, Colo. (AP) — Two Western governors on Tuesday warned the Trump administration against making big changes in a plan to protect a ground-dwelling bird across the West, saying it would send a message to states not to bother working together to save other imperiled species. Colorado Democrat John Hickenlooper and Wyoming Republican Matt Mead said a 2015 conservation plan designed to save the greater sage grouse was the product of long negotiation among state and federal governments, conservation groups, industry and agriculture. "...
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) In 1940, just a year before Pearl Harbor plunged the United States into a world war, Walter and Cordelia Knott began construction on a notable addition to their thriving berry patch and chicken restaurant in the Orange County, California, city of Buena Park. This new venture was an Old West town celebrating both westward expansion and the California Dream – the notion that this Gold Rush state was a land of easy f...
They sting, damage crops and wildlife, and are extending their range in the United States. Imported fire ants are unwelcome guests here, and careless plant shipping helps them spread. A colony was discovered this spring in palm trees sent from Florida to Delaware, a state where the stinging insects have not yet become established. Two different fire ant species were introduced a century or so ago into Mobile, Alabama, hidden in soil ballast on cargo ships from South America, the U.S. Dept. of Agriculture says. Since then, they've infested 14 mo...
WASHINGTON (AP) — The head of the Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday he intends to replace the outside experts that advise him on science and public health issues with new board members holding more diverse views. In announcing the changes, EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt suggested many previously appointed to the panels were potentially biased because they had received federal research grants. The 22 boards advise EPA on a wide range of issues, including drinking water standards and pesticide safety. "Whatever science comes out of E...
JUNEAU, Alaska (AP) — The state of Alaska has sued the maker of the prescription opioid OxyContin, alleging deceptive marketing practices and laying blame with the company for the state's epidemic of opioid abuse. The lawsuit, filed against Purdue Pharma and its affiliates, was filed in state court on Monday and announced Tuesday by Attorney General Jahna Lindemuth. Lindemuth told reporters the state's investigation continues, and there may be additional claims against other manufacturers and distributors. Purdue Pharma, in a statement, said i...
HOUSTON (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union sued the U.S. government Tuesday to demand that it release a 10-year-old girl with cerebral palsy detained by Border Patrol agents after surgery because she is in the U.S. without legal permission. The ACLU filed a lawsuit in federal court in San Antonio, where Rosa Maria Hernandez, whose parents brought her to the U.S. from Mexico a decade ago, is being held in a facility for unaccompanied minors who have entered the country illegally. The Border Patrol has said its agents took the child into c...
LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (AP) — Applicants seeking to open medical marijuana businesses in Arkansas are suing the commission overseeing the proposals. The lawsuits were filed last week and placed under seal in Pulaski County, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported. They allege the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission wrongly assessed hundreds of applications last month when it rejected bids for failing to meet minimum requirements. Attorney Alex Gray prepared the complaints for the applicants. He said his firm became involved after the prospective e...
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — Connecticut's attorney general and 45 of his colleagues are seeking to expand a federal antitrust lawsuit against generic drugmakers to include more manufacturers and medications, as well as senior executives at two companies. Led by Connecticut, the states sought a federal court's permission Tuesday to widen their complaint, which alleges a number of illegal agreements among 18 manufacturers to fix prices and divvy up the market for specific generic drugs including treatments for high blood pressure, arthritis and a...
U.S. regulators have approved a new treatment for people with a rare form of non-Hodgkin lymphoma. The Food and Drug Administration on Tuesday granted accelerated approval to AstraZeneca PLC's Calquence for people with mantle cell lymphoma after chemotherapy or other treatments fail. The British drugmaker is now conducting further testing required by the FDA to confirm the drug's benefits and risks. Mantle cell lymphoma is a blood cancer that usually strikes middle-aged people and the elderly. By the time it's diagnosed, it usually has spread...
SAN ANTONIO (AP) — A San Antonio-area couple punished their young children by forcing one to eat and brush her teeth with cat feces, shocking the same child with a dog's training collar and beating them all with a thorny switch, according to arrest warrants provided by the Bexar County sheriff's office. James Howard Chalkley, 32, was charged Monday with one count of injury to a child and his 22-year-old wife, Cheyanne, was charged with two counts of injury to a child. James Chalkley is the father of a 3-year-old boy and two girls who are 5 a...
FRIENDSWOOD, Texas (AP) — The Barbie house is gone, and it's important for Matilda Rose Brown, 8, to explain this. The Galveston County Daily News reports her voice is a little raspy through her tracheostomy tube and her eyes are wide with a dreamy look as she walks through the skeleton of her Friendswood home, which flooded during Hurricane Harvey and took the Barbie house away. The Browns' house got 53 inches of floodwater, her father, Daniel Brown, said. Daniel and Beverly Brown evacuated their six special-needs children from their home n...
COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) — Allowing a condemned killer with health problems to partially sit up during his execution next month would be a "reasonable" accommodation, according to a doctor working for Ohio's prison system. Death row inmate Alva Campbell became mildly agitated when officials tried lowering him to a normal execution position in an Oct. 19 test, according to a medical review by Dr. James McWeeney, a contractor for the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. McWeeney noted there were no objective findings such as increased pulse r...
(The Conversation is an independent and nonprofit source of news, analysis and commentary from academic experts.) (THE CONVERSATION) White Americans live on average3.6 years longer than black Americans. If you look only at men, the difference becomes 4.4 years. As I found in a study, the main reason behind this disparity is that black Americans are at higher risk of most chronic medical conditions, such as hypertension, obesity, heart disease, stroke and cancer than other racial and ethnic groups. However, research suggests minority groups in...
CHICAGO (AP) — Investors will soon have another way to make or lose money on the digital currency bitcoin. CME Group plans to open a futures market for bitcoin before the end of the year, if the Chicago-based exchange can get approval from U.S. regulators. Tuesday's announcement is likely to give further credibility to bitcoin, a high-tech creation spawned about a decade ago as an alternative to government-issued currencies. Bitcoin initially was used primarily to buy illegal goods and services online. But in recent years, it has been a hot i...
