TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s top budget adviser says the administration has identified $101 million in savings to help the state reduce a $238 million budget shortfall predicted for July 2016.

Budget Director Shawn Sullivan said Thursday the savings are in addition to efforts by seven major state agencies to review programs to find efficiencies.

Sullivan discussed the initiatives amid a debate over income tax cuts enacted at Brownback’s urging. The Republican is seeking re-election and Democratic challenger Paul Davis argues the cuts are wrecking the state’s finances.

Sullivan said the state is standardizing computer systems and lowering prescription drug costs in various programs. It also has lower-than-expected costs in state employees’ health plan, is refinancing Statehouse renovation bonds and is working with federal officials to collect debts.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An American aid worker who’s been cleared of the Ebola virus says he feels great but is still very weak.

Massachusetts doctor Rick Sacra hugged his wife for the first time in nearly two months Thursday morning after he was released from an isolation unit at the Nebraska Medical Center in Omaha.

Sacra says he never felt like he wouldn’t survive the virus, believed to have killed more than 2,900 people in West Africa. The 51-year-old says the odds are “pretty high” that he’ll return to Africa at some point but he expects a long recovery.

Doctors have said the combination of treatments Sacra received makes it difficult to know what helped him fight off Ebola.

Two other American aid workers who contracted the virus were treated at a hospital in Atlanta.

 

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OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The third American aid worker who contracted Ebola in Africa has been released from a Nebraska hospital.

Dr. Rick Sacra said he has been released from the Nebraska Medical Center at Thursday’s news conference.

The 51-year-old from Worcester, Massachusetts, began improving shortly after he arrived in Omaha on Sept. 5. He contracted Ebola while working at a hospital in Liberia.

Two other American missionaries who contracted Ebola were treated at Emory University Hospital in Atlanta, and released after recovering. A fourth American with Ebola is still being treated in Atlanta.

 

JIM SALTER, Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Ferguson Police Chief Tom Jackson has issued a video apology to the family of Michael Brown, saying the 18-year-old’s body was left in the street for too long last month after he was fatally shot by an officer in the St. Louis suburb.

NEW YORK (AP) — Iraq’s prime minister says his country’s intelligence operation has uncovered a plot for an imminent attack on subway systems in United States and Paris.

Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi said he was told of the plot by Baghdad on Thursday, and that it was the work of foreign fighters of the Islamic State group in Iraq. Asked if the attack was imminent, he said, “Yes.”

Asked if the attacked had been thwarted, he said, “No.” Al-Abadi said the United States had been alerted.

He made the remarks at a meeting with journalists on the sidelines of a gathering of world leaders at the United Nations General Assembly

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Construction is scheduled to begin on a renovated stadium in Joplin that will be the home of an independent league baseball team.
Joplin city officials and supporters of the new team, called the Joplin Blasters, participated at a groundbreaking ceremony Wednesday for the new stadium.
The Joplin Globe reports the $4.7 million project is expected to be finished by May 2015. The redevelopment includes new lighting and fixed seating for about 2,400 fans, as well as a hospitality plaza around the field for another 2,500 to 3,000 people.
Other projects include new ticketing areas, restrooms, locker rooms and renovated dugouts, along with box suites and a press box.
The Blasters’ 100-game regular season will start May 15, 2015. Player acquisitions could start next week.

ST. LEO, Kan. (AP) — Grasshoppers are once again infesting parts of Kansas, causing at least one small farmer in south-central Kansas to go out of business.

Experts say the years of drought left perfect conditions for grasshoppers although there numbers are not expected to be larger than normal in Kansas.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture shows significant grasshopper infestations from Kansas, Oklahoma and Nebraska west this year.

Gary Gantz, who operates DE Bondurant Grain in Ness City, says the insects are everywhere this year and farmers are worried any new growth they plant will be eaten.

The Hutchinson News reports Keven and Mary Ford are giving up their dream of running a small vegetable and livestock farm near St. Leo because, for the second year in a row, grasshoppers have decimated their crops.

NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Attorney General Eric Holder is resigning after heading the Justice Department for six years.

A White House official says President Barack Obama will announce Holder’s departure later Thursday.

Holder is the first black attorney general, and his tenure is the fourth longest on the job.

He plans to remain at the Justice Department until his successor is in place.

 

INDEPENDENCE, Kan. (AP) — Former Alaska governor Sarah Palin is calling for Republican Party to unify now that the primary is over.

Palin was in southeast Kansas Thursday campaigning for U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts at a breakfast in Independence. Roberts is locked in a close race with independent challenger Gregg Orman.

The 2008 GOP vice presidential nominee told the crowd of more than 250 that the nation is watching the race in Kansas in hopes voters will make what she calls the right decision.

Roberts told the crowd the GOP is united because supporters realize control of the U.S. Senate is at stake.

Kansas Republican Party Executive Director Clay Barker says it makes sense to have Palin in southeast Kansas because it is a strong area for tea party Republicans.