OZAWKIE, Kan. (AP) — Authorities have recovered the body of a man who was missing in Perry Lake.
Jefferson County Sheriff Jeff Herrig says the man’s body was recovered about 10:45 a.m. Thursday. The identity of the man in his 20s has not been released.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the man’s disappearance was reported around 8:30 p.m. Wednesday in the Devil’s Gap section of the Slough Creek Public Use Area.
Perry Lake is about 20 miles northeast of Topeka.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is renewing a contract with the state’s student assessment provider despite technical problems that caused delays.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that members of the Kansas State Board of Education voted Tuesday to renew the contract with the University of Kansas’ Center for Educational Testing and Evaluation. The renewal decision was put on hold in April. The move came two weeks after technical issues began when 15,000 students were simultaneously taking the assessments.
Testing center official Neal Kingston vowed to “continue to do better and better.” He directs the university’s Achievement and Assessment Institute, which oversees the center that has administered tests for the state’s school districts since 1989.
Testing problems also have occurred in the past, mostly recently last year when a fiber cable was cut in Lawrence.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Gun-rights advocates and Kansas hospital administrators will learn soon whether public health facilities will have to upgrade security to keep out concealed weapons.
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback had to act Thursday on a bill designed to allow state hospitals, other public hospitals and mental health centers to ban concealed guns without increasing security.
He can sign the measure, veto it, or let it become law without his signature.
Brownback has been a strong gun-rights advocate, and the National Rifle Association and its state allies oppose the bill. But hospital administrators and the University of Kansas Hospital System strongly support it.
A 2013 law requires public health care facilities and universities to allow concealed weapons into buildings that don’t have extra security, such as guards or metal detectors, starting in July.
SOUTH HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — Five people say they are interested in completing the legislative term of the late Rep. Patsy Terrell.
Terrell, a Democrat from Hutchinson, died June 7 in Topeka. Democratic precinct committee members will choose a nominee June 21. Gov. Sam Brownback will formally appoint the replacement.
The Hutchinson News reports the five who expressed interest at a Reno County Democratic Party gathering Wednesday are Jim Clark, former union steward and volunteer coordinator for Terrell’s campaign; Charles Johnston, producing director at Stage 9; Glenn Owen, former school principal and current paraprofessional; Jason Probst, Opinion/Sunday editor at The News; and Luann Trummel Wellborn, an attorney.
Terrell’s two-year term ends in January 2019 but party leaders hope the winner will run for a full term next year.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Board of Regents has approved tuition rates for the state’s six universities mostly ranging from 2.5 percent to 2.9 percent.
The rates for the next school year approved Thursday for resident and non-resident tuition include 2.5 percent increases at the University of Kansas; 2.9 percent at Kansas State University; 2.5 percent at Wichita State; 2.7 percent at Emporia State; 2.8 percent at Pittsburg State and 2.9 percent at Fort Hays State.
The exceptions are a 5.5 percent increase for the compact rate at Kansas, a 5 percent increase at the University of Kansas Medical Center and no increase at Kansas State University’s College of Veterinary Medicine. The compact rate allows incoming freshmen to lock in tuition for four years.
CARTHAGE, Mo. (AP) — A Springfield man is charged in a shooting that left one Carthage man dead and another injured.
Thirty-year-old Lafayette Starr was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder, first-degree assault and armed criminal action after the shooting Tuesday in Sarcoxie.
The Joplin Globe reports Starr was arrested by Springfield police and transferred early Wednesday to Jasper County, where he is being held on a cash-only $2 million bond.
Sarcoxie police say the Starr and the two victims knew each other.
Police found 22-year-old Tayler Andersen dead and 21-year-old Gage Williams suffering from a gunshot wound early Tuesday in Sarcoxie.
It wasn’t immediately clear if Starr had an attorney.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — Police say an off-duty officer has fatally shot a man who was attempting to rob a St. Louis gas station.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the officer, who was in street clothes, stopped at a Shell station late Tuesday after getting off work. Interim Police Chief Lawrence O’Toole says the officer was inside the store with two clerks when a man walked in, pulled out a gun and demanded money.
Police identified that man as 33-year-old Chazz Brown, whose last legal address was in Columbia.
O’Toole says Brown and the officer both fired, but only the suspect was hit. He died at the scene and a handgun he’s believed to have used was recovered.
The gas station is across Interstate 55 from the Anheuser-Busch Brewery.
LAS VEGAS (AP) — Court records show that a mother jailed in Las Vegas and accused of concealing the death of a child whose body was found in the garage of an abandoned St. Louis-area house is sought on criminal charges in two Illinois counties.
Documents obtained Wednesday by The Associated Press show that 35-year-old Elizabeth Odell-Quate was jailed June 6 on a felony forgery warrant issued in June 2016 in St. Clair County, Illinois.
She and her husband, Jason Scott Quate, now also face felony charges in Belleville, Illinois, of concealing the girl’s body.
Documents show Odell-Quate is named in a warrant issued on a larceny charge in December 2015 in Madison County, Illinois.
The sheriff’s office in Edwardsville, Illinois, told authorities in Las Vegas that her extradition wasn’t sought in that case.
GOODMAN, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a 5-year-old girl was killed and four others were injured after a freight train struck a minivan in southwest Missouri.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol says the crash happened Wednesday night after the van failed to yield for a Kansas City Southern train north of Goodman in McDonald County. The patrol says the crash killed Leah Robinson, of Goodman. The 24-year-old driver and a 26-year-old passenger were seriously injured. Another 5-year-old and a 3-year-old had minor injuries.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Event planners have issued a letter of apology to former Kansas City Chiefs player Joe Perez to settle a lawsuit after he was left to take the heat for a botched New Year’s Eve fundraiser.
The Kansas City Star reports that Perez’s name was used to market the Hangar 9 New Year’s Eve party in 2014 to benefit the city’s Airline History Museum. But he wasn’t involved in setting up for the event or problems that included inadequate food and drink.
Michelle Sedighi and Sundee Pickering said in a notarized statement that media inquiries were directed to Perez because they “wished to remain anonymous.” They owned a now defunct event-planning company called KC Connections.
Perez received no money. He says his goal was to “bring the truth to light.”
