BOYS
Bishop LeBlond 52, Mid-Buchanan 42
BULLDOG CLASSIC QUARTERFINALS @ KEARNEY
Lafayette 65, North Kansas City 32
Fort Osage 65, Benton 53
FAIRFAX TOURNAMENT
Tarkio 56, St. Joseph Christian 51
GIRLS
FAIRFAX TOURNAMENT
Rock Port 28, St. Joseph Christian 12
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Marcus Foster scored 18 points, Nino Williams made four clinching free throws in the closing seconds and Kansas State held on to beat No. 25 Oklahoma 72-66 on Tuesday night.
Shane Southwell added 16 points for the Wildcats (13-4, 3-1 Big 12), who rallied from a 62-56 deficit with just over 5 minutes to play to turn back the streaking Sooners.
Ryan Spangler had a career-high 21 points and 14 rebounds, and Buddy Hield scored 12 points for Oklahoma (13-4, 2-2), but it wasn’t enough to offset a lousy night by Cameron Clark.
The Big 12’s leading scorer, Clark was held to two points on 1-for-9 shooting. He was stripped of the ball with 24.5 seconds left and the Sooners trailing 67-64.
The turnover forced Oklahoma to foul, and Williams made both free throws. Je’lon Hornbeak missed a 3-pointer at the other end and the Sooners fouled Williams, and again he knocked down both foul shots to help seal the game.
Wesley Iwundu added 11 points for Kansas State while Williams and Will Spradling finished with 10 points apiece.
The Sooners, the highest scoring team in the Big 12, got the up-and-down game they wanted in the first half. The only problem was that Kansas State, which tends to struggle offensively but is the league’s best on defense, was knocking down shots from all over the court.
The Wildcats hit 3-pointers on five straight trips midway through the first half. Foster had the first three, thumping his chest on his way back to the bench after the last of them.
Kansas State eventually pushed its lead to 28-19 on Iwundu’s 3-pointer before the Sooners started to find some success in the paint. Isaiah Cousins’ driving layup started an 18-5 run over the next 7 minutes, capped by Hield’s basket for a 37-33 lead.
The Wildcats answered with a 3 by Southwell, and Spradling was fouled just before the halftime buzzer and made three free throws to give Kansas State a 39-38 lead.
Oklahoma slowly took control in the second half as the Wildcats cooled off. Spangler’s three-point play with 6 1/2 minutes left gave the Sooners a 58-56 lead, and a breezy jumper by Cousins from just inside the 3-point arc extended the lead with about 5 minutes to play.
Once more, Kansas State clawed right back.
Big man Thomas Gipson stuck back a miss by Southwell for his first field goal with 2:59 left in the game to knot it 63-all. Foster then buried a 3-pointer from right in front of Kansas State coach Bruce Weber to give the Wildcats a 66-63 lead.
They managed to hold onto the lead through a tense closing stretch.
— Associated Press —
(AP) – A southwest Missouri woman has been sentenced to 18 months in federal prison without parole from embezzling nearly $115,000 from her Joplin employer.
The U.S. Attorney’s office says 47-year-old Roxanna Sue Rindom was also ordered to repay the money to Neal Construction Group under the sentence she received Tuesday.
Rindom, of Webb City, pleaded guilty in September to bank fraud and credit card fraud.
She admitted forging 68 checks on the company’s bank accounts and making them payable to herself. She also admitted making 174 unauthorized purchases on Neal Construction Group’s credit card.
Investigators said Rindom’s actions were discovered when she tried to transfer $2,200 from the company’s bank account to pay make a payment on her daughter’s student loan.
(AP) – The Kansas City school district has released a school-improvement plan that was developed with a local coalition.
The plan’s submission Tuesday to the State Board of Education comes one day after a consultant released a competing proposal. The consultant’s plan calls for a state-run entity to recruit community groups and educators to operate schools in failing districts.
Unlike that proposal, the new plan calls for the unaccredited Kansas City districts to be designated as provisionally accredited. That would stop students from taking advantage of a state law to transfer to accredited schools. Instead, schools would be accredited individually.
Struggling schools would pick from interventions that include adding teacher training and extending the length of the school year. Schools that are unable to improve could be reconstituted or closed.
(AP) — San Francisco’s city attorney and New York’s attorney general are joining forces to investigate allegations that Monster Beverage is marketing its highly caffeinated drinks to children.
The recently revealed alliance was formed last month, around the same time a federal judge tossed out a lawsuit Monster filed seeking to stop San Francisco City Attorney Dennis Herrera’s investigation of the energy drink maker.
Herrera then filed a lawsuit accusing Corona, Calif.-based Monster Beverage Corp. of misbranding its energy drinks and marketing them to minors.
Meanwhile, New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman has issued subpoenas to Monster and other energy-drink makers as part of his investigation.
The Food and Drug Administration has been investigating reports of five deaths allegedly linked to Monster beverages.
The company has repeatedly said its drinks are safe.
(AP) – A 22-year-old Independence man has been charged with second-degree murder – or an alternative count of first-degree manslaughter – for a crash that killed a 35-year-old Kansas City man and seriously injured two passengers.
Investigators say Andrew Stark was fleeing from police Monday morning when he drove into Kansas City, ran a red light and plowed into the side of a car driven by Jason Lewis, who was killed. Stark is accused of running from the scene before being taken into custody a block away.
Police say Stark’s license was revoked at the time of the crash, and that he has two prior convictions for leaving the scene of an accident. He also has five convictions for driving while suspended.
Online court records didn’t indicate whether he had an attorney.
(AP) — A million-dollar Powerball prize on a ticket sold in southwest Kansas remains unclaimed after nearly a year.
The Kansas Lottery said Tuesday the ticket matched the first five numbers but not the Powerball in the drawing of Jan. 26, 2013. Those numbers were 3-22-26-41-49, Powerball 18.
Holders of winning tickets have 365 days to come forward. If the prize isn’t claimed, the Lottery retains the jackpot money to be used in future prizes.
The Lottery said the $1 million ticket was sold in its 24-county southwest Kansas region. By policy, the agency doesn’t reveal the store where a winning ticket was sold until the prize is claimed.
(AP) — Kansas City police say two people have died and another is hospitalized after someone opened fire on a pickup truck at an intersection.
The shootings happened just before 1:30 p.m. Tuesday near Blue Parkway and Hardesty Avenue on the southeastern side of the city.
Witnesses and police said the pickup truck was stopped at a traffic light when multiple shots were fired from a silver Hyundai. Police said the Hyundai left the scene with its back window blown out by shots fired from inside.
Names of the two people who died were not immediately released. Injuries to the pickup truck’s third occupant were described as minor.
3:30 p.m.
A federal bankruptcy trustee has filed a new round of lawsuits seeking nearly $80 million from former officials with Mamtek, the company behind a failed plan to build a Randolph County sweetener facility.
The trustee Bruce Strauss filed several lawsuits last week seeking actual damages of $72 million and punitive damages, alleging a fraudulent scheme by the company’s leaders. The suits also are asking for repayment of $7 million received by former Mamtek officers and agents.
Mamtek claimed to own a patented process for making the artificial sweetener sucralose at a Chinese factory. The company did not own such a patent.
The company was marketed by Tom Smith, a former Missouri National Guard officer and spokesman, and former Gov. Bob Holden, who was chairman of the U.S. Midwest-China Association. Smith is named as a defendant, but Holden is not.
Smith and his company, Capital Business Development Associates, are being sued for $39 million, punitive damages and about $922,000 in fees he was paid. Smith, who now lives and works in Alexandria, Va., did not respond to a phone message from The Associated Press.
The lawsuit against Smith alleges that he, as project manager, participated in preparing fraudulent invoices for Ramwell Industrial Inc., which was to oversee construction of the factory. The company never legally existed, and all the money drawn from the bond fund based on its invoices was improperly used, according to the lawsuits.
Strauss also is seeking $33 million from Los Angeles attorney Stephen Peden and the two firms he worked for while handling Mamtek’s legal business, as well as punitive damages and the return of nearly $90,000.
Peden declined comment when reached by the AP, saying he had not seen the lawsuit.
Peden’s Beverly Hills office was listed as Mamtek’s business address when the company was formed. The lawsuit alleges that Peden ignored a warning from Rena Gordon, chief operating officer of Mamtek, that the company had misrepresented itself to obtain money from Moberly. Gordon resigned Oct. 1, 2010, when she became convinced Peden and company officers were ignoring her concerns.
“I cannot continue to work in an environment where Mamtek is using funds obtained through misrepresentations and continues to proceed with knowledge of these serious issues,” she wrote, according to the lawsuit against Peden.
A third lawsuit name Perkins Coie, a law firm that worked for the affiliated company Mamtek International. The final lawsuit names David Ho, a former senior vice president; Johnson Liu, a stockholder in Mamtek International; and the Mamtek Group, a parent company that received wire transfers from Mamtek US Inc. Perkins Coie did not respond to an interview request from the Columbia Daily Tribune.
Strauss’ effort to recover money for creditors has included a lawsuit against former Mamtek CEO Bruce Cole, a settlement to obtain $450,000 from former Mamtek treasurer Alissa Roston, and an auction of manufacturing equipment.
Cole is fighting a $1.3 million judgment, handed down in December by a federal bankruptcy judge. Cole also faces a criminal trial on five felony charges scheduled for June and is a defendant in other Mamtek-related lawsuits. The company’s collapse triggered nearly 20 legal actions in 10 venues.
8 a.m. Tuesday (AP) – A bankruptcy trustee has filed lawsuits seeking millions of dollars in damages against former officials with Mamtek, the company behind a failed plan to build a sweetener facility in Moberly.
Trustee Bruce Strauss filed lawsuits last week seeking repayment of $7 million that former officers and agents of Mamtek received. The lawsuits also seek actual damages of $72 million and punitive damages.
Moberly issued $39 million in bonds in 2010 to finance the proposed plant, which promised 600 jobs for the town. Mamtek missed a bond payment in 2011 and Moberly let the bonds default. Strauss was appointed trustee for Mamtek after the company filed for involuntary bankruptcy in late 2011.
(AP) — Southwest Airlines says a third person in the cockpit of a plane that landed at the wrong Missouri airport was a company dispatcher who had authority to be there.
The airline and federal officials said Tuesday they are continuing to investigate why a Southwest Boeing 737 with 124 passengers headed for the main airport in Branson, Mo., landed several miles away at a smaller airport with a runway roughly half as long.
Southwest spokeswoman Brandy King says a dispatcher was sitting behind the captain and first officer. Dispatchers work with pilots to plan flight routes after considering weather and other factors.
It’s not uncommon for airline employees to sit in the jumpseat with the pilots’ permission, but federal officials are likely to consider whether the dispatcher’s presence distracted the pilots.
