MELBOURNE, Australia (AP) — Four people have been confirmed dead from a rare condition known as thunderstorm asthma that sent hundreds to hospitals in Australia’s second-largest city.

Family confirmed on Wednesday that Clarence Leo had died at home early Tuesday morning after the wild thunderstorm in Melbourne on Monday night. It caused rain-sodden ryegrass pollen to explode and disperse over the city. The pollen caused asthma attacks in patients who had never suffered from asthma before.

Ambulance Victoria spokesman Mick Stephenson reported a six-times larger caseload because of the asthma attacks. One ambulance company responded to more than 1,870 cases.

Professor George Braitberg, head of the Royal Melbourne Hospital’s emergency department, likened the scene in the hospital on Monday night to a war zone.

He says seven asthma patients had been transferred to the hospital’s intensive care unit.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Environmental Protection Agency will test for radioactive contamination at a home near a St. Louis County landfill, a Superfund site where illegally buried nuclear waste sits near an underground fire.

Meanwhile, Region 7 Administrator Mark Hague said Tuesday that the agency is not yet ready to announce remediation plans for the West Lake Landfill site in Bridgeton. Those plans were expected by December. No new timetable was given.

Cold War-era nuclear waste was buried at West Lake in the 1970s. Making matters worse, an underground fire has burned in recent years just a few hundred feet away at the adjacent Bridgeton Landfill.

Last week, a lawsuit filed by Michael and Robbin Dailey of Bridgeton claimed that sampling conducted at their home found high levels of radioactive material.

NEODESHA, Kan. (AP) — Firefighters are working to contain a fire at a southeast Kansas chemical plant after an explosion there injured one employee.

The explosion occurred about 7 a.m. Tuesday at the Airosol, Inc., plant in Neodesha. Cassandra Edson, spokeswoman for Wilson County Emergency Management, says one employee was taken to a Wichita hospital with injuries that were not considered life-threatening.

Several blocks around the plant have been evacuated and the town’s schools are closed for the day. Residents also have been asked not to drink the water until further notice.

The cause of the explosion is under investigation.

The plant manufactures and packages aerosol, liquid and other specialty chemicals for industries.

Neodesha, a town of nearly 2,500 residents, is about 100 miles southeast of Wichita.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The woman accused of killing a Kansas woman and stealing her baby says in a jailhouse interview that the woman had agreed to give her the child but backed out of the deal at the last moment.

In a television interview in Spanish, Yesenia Sesmas told KUVN-TV of Dallas-Fort Worth that Laura Abarca-Nogueda had agreed to turn over her newborn daughter to her but reneged on the agreement. In the interview in the Dallas County jail, the 34-year-old Dallas woman admitted that she killed Abarca-Nogueda but said she did not mean to. She said she threatened Abarca-Nogueda with a gun when it discharged accidentally.

Police in Wichita, Kansas, say Sesmas faked being pregnant for months and had been a longtime acquaintance of the 27-year-old mother, who was found dead Thursday at her home in Wichita. Sesmas was jailed in Dallas on a Kansas warrant, with first-degree murder and kidnapping charges pending, and Kansas authorities are seeking her extradition.

The baby was reunited with family members in Kansas on Saturday.

 

VERSAILLES, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri state trooper charged in the death of an Iowa man who drowned while in his custody is scheduled for trial this summer.

A July 10 trial was set Monday for Trooper Anthony Piercy. He is charged with involuntary manslaughter in the death of Brandon Ellingson at the Lake of the Ozarks in May 2014. The trial will be in Morgan County.

The new trial date comes one week after the state of Missouri agreed to pay $9 million to Ellingson’s family. Piercy had pulled over the 20-year-old Ellingson on suspicion of boating while intoxicated. At some point, Ellingson fell into the lake while wearing handcuffs and an improperly secured life vest.

Piercy jumped into the lake but couldn’t save Ellingson.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Missouri colleges may have to prepare for measures pushing for the concealed carry of guns on campus when the state Legislature convenes in 2017, despite opposition.

State law currently prohibits concealed firearms at institutions of higher education without consent from the governing body of that college.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that at least four bills introduced in the House and Senate this year could have changed that.

Republican state Rep. Jered Taylor says he plans to introduce a bill similar to the one he previously sponsored. The final version of that measure prohibited guns in dormitories, college-run hospitals, laboratories and administrative buildings where disciplinary action might take place.

The measure was attached to a larger gun bill, but was removed before the bill passed.

Taylor says the willingness of higher education leaders to work with him on the bill was invaluable.

KIRKSVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Services were held in northern Missouri for a soldier killed outside a military base in Jordan earlier this month.

Matthew Lewellen was one of three U.S. Army sergeants from the 5th Special Forces Group (Airborne) from Fort Campbell, Kentucky, killed in early November in a shooting outside the base in southern Jordan.

The Kirksville Daily Express reports that services for Lewellen, a former Kirksville High School prom king and football and track standout, were held Saturday at the Kirksville Primary School gymnasium.

The service also included words from Lewellen’s and friends and fellow Green Berets, with stories that told of an American soldier who will be remembered with respect, admiration and love.

GLADSTONE, Mo. (AP) — A police officer and a suspect have both been shot near Kansas City, Missouri.

Multiple media reports say the shooting happened about 10:30 p.m. Sunday. The officer involved is with the Gladstone, Missouri, police department.

No further information has been released, but the Kansas City Fraternal Order of Police said on Twitter that the officer is expected to survive.

A message left with police was not immediately returned. A Fraternal Order of Police official declined comment.

The shooting came on the same day a San Antonio officer was fatally shot, and a St. Louis officer was critically wounded in what the police chief called an “ambush” attack by someone who pulled alongside the officer’s SUV.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Two police officers have been shot in separate incidents in what authorities are calling targeted attacks.

A St. Louis police sergeant is hospitalized in critical condition but expected to survive after being shot in what the police chief calls an “ambush.”

Police Chief Sam Dotson says the 46-year-old officer has been with the force for about 20 years and is a married father of three. Dotson says he was shot twice in the face but is able to talk.

The shooting happened about 7:30 p.m. Sunday. Dotson says the officer was not involved in a call or a traffic stop but was sitting in traffic when another car pulled up alongside his marked police vehicle. The officer told police he heard at least two shots. Police reported early Monday that the suspect was later killed in a shootout with police.

Authorities say a San Antonio detective writing out a traffic ticket to a motorist was shot to death in his squad car late Sunday morning outside police headquarters by another driver who pulled up from behind.

San Antonio police Chief William McManus identified the officer as 50-year-old Benjamin Marconi, a 20-year veteran of the force.