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Bill addresses Open Meetings Act, dinners at governor’s home
TOPEKA (AP) — A bill inspired by a controversy last year over lawmakers’ dinners at the governor’s mansion is intended to clarify the circumstances under which government officials can discuss specific ideas without notifying the public, its sponsor said. Critics of the bill sponsored by Rep. Jim Howell, R-Derby, and 20 other House Republicans contend that it could make it legal for social gatherings to become places for discussions that are c...
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Space rocks hours apart point to danger
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A space rock even bigger than the meteor that exploded like an atom bomb over Russia could drop out of the sky unannounced at any time and wreak havoc on a city. And Hollywood to the contrary, there isn’t much the world’s scientists and generals can do about it. But some former astronauts want to give the world a fighting chance. They’re hopeful Friday’s cosmic coincidence — Earth’s close brush with a 150-foot aster...
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Meteor injures about 1,100 people
MOSCOW (AP) — A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over Russia’s Ural Mountains with the power of an atomic bomb Friday, its sonic blasts shattering countless windows and injuring about 1,100 people. The spectacle deeply frightened many Russians, with some elderly women declaring that the world was coming to an end. Many of the injured were cut by flying glass as they flocked to windows, curious about what had produced such a blinding...
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Celebs, environmentalists protest pipeline
WASHINGTON (AP) — Celebrities and environmental activists, including lawyer Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and civil rights leader Julian Bond, were arrested Wednesday after tying themselves to the White House gate to protest the Keystone XL oil pipeline from Canada. Sierra Club executive director Michael Brune also was arrested — the first time in the group’s 120-year history that a club leader was arrested in an act of civil disobedience. The club’s ...
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Carjacking victim says fugitive ex-cop was calm
BIG BEAR LAKE, Calif. (AP) — A driver whose truck was taken by a carjacker believed to be a fugitive ex-Los Angeles cop said Wednesday the man appeared calm and didn’t want to hurt him. Rick Heltebrake said he instantly recognized Christopher Dorner, who had an assault rifle pointed at him Tuesday on a Southern California mountain road. Heltebrake said the carjacker took the truck, and seconds later gunfire broke out. The carjacker then ran in...
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Hearing airs concerns over at-risk funding
TOPEKA (AP) — School officials voiced opposition Tuesday to a Senate bill that would change the way Kansas has distributed funds for at-risk students for more than 20 years. Administrators and education lobbyists told the Senate Education Committee that the state’s current definition for at-risk students works because it involves income. They said students from low-income families traditionally struggle academically because they come to school...
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Kansas parents enjoy watching son play bass on TV
WESKAN (AP) — It’s unlikely anyone could have torn Ed and Cindy Harold away from the television Sunday night. That’s when son Nate was on stage, playing the bass guitar for the band fun., which walked away with two Grammy awards, including song of the year and best new artist. “It’s pretty amazing,” Ed Harold said. “It is just surreal. We’re just proud as punch.” The Harolds, from Weskan, have been closely following their son’s successful care...
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Committee endorses plan to cut deduction for mortgage interest
TOPEKA (AP) — Most of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s plan for further overhauling Kansas’ tax system cleared a state Senate committee Tuesday, but its members jettisoned one revenue-raising proposal that helps balance the budget and deferred debate on other potentially unpopular provisions. The GOP-dominated Assessment and Taxation Committee spent less than 10 minutes discussing a bill containing the governor’s plan, which aims to position th...
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Towns resurrect Main Street organization
GARDEN CITY (AP) — Representatives of 25 downtown development programs are working to resurrect the Kansas Main Street organization, which provided funds and training for downtown revitalization and small business development before it was shut down by the state last year. Directors of the programs met in Garden City last week to sign articles of incorporation and plan to meet again next week to finalize bylaws and relationships with other gro...
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Northeast commuters struggle
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — The workweek opened with a white-knuckle ride Monday in the snow-clobbered Northeast as drivers encountered unplowed streets, two-lane roads reduced to a single channel and snowbanks so high it was impossible see around corners. Schools remained closed across much of New England and New York, more than 130,000 homes and businesses were still waiting for the electricity to come back on after the epic storm swept through o...
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Police search for ex-cop
IRVINE, Calif. (AP) — Police blocked off a street and stood guard in front of a home in a typically quiet Southern California suburb Sunday, protecting a man they believe has been targeted by a fugitive ex-police officer suspected of killing three people and setting the region on edge by eluding authorities in a sprawling manhunt that has lasted days. Irvine residents, meanwhile, were left to adjust to life in the midst of a heavy police prese...
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Convoys move equipment out of Afghanistan
KABUL, Afghanistan (AP) — The United States began its withdrawal from Afghanistan in earnest, officials said Monday, sending the first of what will be tens of thousands of containers home through a once-blocked land route through Pakistan. The shipment of 50 containers over the weekend came as a new U.S. commander took control of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan to guide the coalition through the end stages of a war that has so far lasted m...
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Pope’s resignation surprises church
VATICAN CITY (AP) — With a few words in Latin, Pope Benedict VXI did what no pope has done in more than half a millennium, stunning the world by announcing his resignation Monday and leaving the already troubled Catholic Church to replace the leader of its 1 billion followers by Easter. Not even his closest associates had advance word of the news, a bombshell that he dropped during a routine morning meeting of Vatican cardinals. And with no cl...
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Number of Kansas flu cases rises
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansans are reeling from influenza and flu-like symptoms, government health officials said, and the state’s death toll is near 700 since the flu season began. The state has recorded 699 deaths from Sept. 1 through Monday in which flu and/or pneumonia was a direct or contributing factor, The Topeka Capital-Journal reported Thursday. Kansas Department of Health and Environment spokeswoman Miranda Steele said the rate of people bein...
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Bill focuses on abortion training at KU
TOPEKA (AP) — A proposal in the Kansas House would allow University of Kansas Medical Center students to receive privately funded abortion training. The provision is part of a bill introduced this week that would more strictly regulate abortions in Kansas. A similar bill last year would have prevented state employees — including doctors in training at the medical center in Kansas City, Kan. — from performing abortions on state property or stat...
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State seeks mediation in school finance case
TOPEKA (AP) — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt and Gov. Sam Brownback have asked the Kansas Supreme Court to stay a lower court’s ruling on school finance and send the case to mediation. The documents were filed Thursday in Topeka in response to a Jan. 11 ruling in Shawnee County District Court that said the state’s system for funding K-12 schools was unconstitutional. The lawsuit also alleged that Kansas reneged on promises to abide by e...
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Tax plan meets GOP resistance
TOPEKA (AP) — Gov. Sam Brownback is meeting resistance to his tax plan from fellow Republicans because he’s mixing promises of future cuts in individual income tax rates with proposals to raise hundreds of millions of dollars in new revenues to plug holes in the state budget. The backlash was evident Thursday as Kansas legislators wrapped up hearings on Brownback’s proposals. Some Republican lawmakers worried about getting tagged as tax increa...
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Military tactics help rescue hostage
By The Associated Press Within hours after an armed, angry man shot a school bus driver and kidnapped a 5-year-old boy, workers feverishly unloaded boxes packed with percussive grenades, military C-4 explosives and an array of guns from a windowless DC-9 that had landed just miles from the suspect’s isolated compound. Helmeted officers decked out in tan fatigues, camouflage and body armor, many carrying long guns, rumbled in rented cargo truc...
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All dogs in England to get microchips
LONDON (AP) — Dog owners who refuse to fit Fido with a microchip may someday find themselves fetching a hefty fine, the British government said Wednesday. All dogs in England will have to be fitted with microchips by 2016, authorities said, meaning that canines across the country will be chasing cars with a tiny circuit embedded in the back of their necks. Britain’s Environment Department said that the chips would help reunite owners with lost...
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Antarctic base can slide across ice
LONDON (AP) — British researchers have unveiled a futuristic Antarctic research base that can move, sliding across the frozen surface to beat the shifting ice and pounding snow that doomed its predecessors. The British Antarctic Survey said Wednesday that the Halley VI Research Station is the sixth facility to occupy the site on the Brunt Ice Shelf — a floating sheet of ice about 10 miles from the edge of the South Atlantic. Most of the previo...
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