More than 100 airline passengers were on board a jetliner that made an uneventful emergency landing on Christmas Day.

Southwest Airlines spokesman Paul Flaningan says a fuel valve problem prompted the crew of Flight 2879 to declare an emergency.

The Boeing 737 was diverted to Omaha’s Eppley Airfield and landed around 9:30 p.m. on Tuesday.

Flaningan says the plane landed without incident. It was carrying 109 passengers and five crew members from Denver to Kansas City International Airport.

He says the passengers boarded another plane and arrived at KCI about two hours later than their original schedule.

A jury trial in the federal lawsuit alleging abuse at a Kansas military boarding school has been put off to 2014.

Former cadets at St. John’s Military School in Salina filed suit in March of this year, alleging higher-ranking students were encouraged to discipline younger ones.

The plaintiffs contend the practice led to physical and mental abuse.

St. John’s has denied the allegations.

The trial was initially set for October 2013, but U.S. Magistrate Judge Kenneth Gale last week rescheduled it to March 2014.

Defense lawyers requested the extra time to prepare after more former cadets joined the lawsuit. The plaintiffs objected to the request.

Attorneys expect the trial to take two to three weeks.

Several companies that operate barges on the drought-stricken Mississippi River have asked Gov. Steve Beshear to intervene by calling for a presidential disaster declaration.

The companies, including three based in Paducah, said doing so could be a first step in getting the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to release water from the Missouri River to improve the flow of the Mississippi.

 

Crounse Corp., Marquette Transportation Co., AEP River Operations, James Marine and Ingram Barge Co., made the appeal in a Dec. 20 letter.

On the day the letter was penned, company officials said 15 towboats were waiting to travel an especially shallow portion of the Mississippi with barges that were only partially filled in order to navigate the channel.

Beshear previously declined to ask for a presidential disaster declaration.

Volunteers are pulling on their Santa hats, phone lines are set, and tracking screens are ready — NORAD Tracks Santa is primed for its 57th annual goodwill mission.

Santa trackers start taking calls early Monday, telling children — and some adults — when Santa is due at their house. The last shift won’t end until nearly 24 hours later.

The number is 877-HI-NORAD or 877-446-6723.

Updates will be posted online (http://www.noradsanta.org), on Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/noradsanta) and Twitter (https://twitter.com/NoradSanta).

The operation is based at Peterson Air Force Base in Colorado Springs, Colo., home of the North American Aerospace Defense Command.

NORAD Tracks Santa began in 1955 when a newspaper ad listed the wrong phone number for kids to call Santa. They wound up calling the Continental Air Defense Command, NORAD’s predecessor.

Missouri’s Conservation Department is helping count deer in Cape Girardeau ahead of a special election next April on whether to allow bowhunting of deer in the southeast Missouri city.

Conservation officials are working on the survey with the Cape Girardeau Police Department and the biology department at Southeast Missouri State University.

The survey involves using a spotlight to sight deer on several nights through the end of February.

Data will be run through a program that estimates the density of deer in randomly selected areas of the city.  Results are expected in March.

Proponents say a hunt is needed to reduce a growing deer population that causes traffic accidents and harms landscape. Opponents say better methods exist to cull the Cape Girardeau herd.

The wife of a man convicted of killing a rural Kansas woman is asking for compensation after her name was dropped from a wrongful death lawsuit.

The children of 58-year-old Patricia Kimmi of rural Horton filed a wrongful death lawsuit more than a year ago.

It named their estranged father, Eugene Kimmi; Roger Hollister; and Hollister’s wife, Rebecca Hollister.

The lawsuit claimed the three conspired to cause Patricia Kimmi’s death.

 

Hollister’s husband, Roger, is serving life in prison for the 2009 killing. But an Atchison County judge ruled earlier this month that the plaintiffs had presented no evidence to prove Rebecca Hollister was involved.

A motion filed late last week on behalf of Rebecca Hollister asks the court for sanctions, including expenses and attorneys’ fees.

The Missouri Department of Conservation says one adult deer has tested positive for chronic wasting disease out of about 800 recent test samples.

The department says it’s collected about 1,700 tissue samples from deer harvested during the fall archery and firearms seasons by hunters in north-central Missouri. The disease was found in that part of the state in five deer earlier this year.

The department says of the 800 test results received so far, one deer from Macon County tested positive.

Chronic wasting disease is a neurological disease spread among deer through physical contact or contact with soil containing the waste of an infected deer.

The hunter-harvest sampling effort continues until Jan. 15. Results of the full testing will be available next year.

Kansas City police say a 4-year-old boy who died after a shooting was the innocent victim of a gang dispute.

Police say Aydan Perea was taken off of life support Tuesday. He was shot Saturday night as he sat with his father and two other men in a car at a Kansas City home.

A 1984 tan-over-white Chevrolet Monte Carlo stopped behind the vehicle and fired at the car, hitting Aydan.

Police later found the assailants’ car abandoned.

It was the second time Aydan had been involved in a shooting. He was asleep at a house last year when someone fired four shotgun blasts in the middle of the night. No one was hurt in that shooting.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Two Topeka police officers who were shot and killed outside a supermarket will lie in state Friday at the Expocentre, where their funerals will be held Saturday.

Officials announced the arrangements Tuesday for 50-year-old Cpl. David Gogian and 29-year-old Officer Jeff Atherly.

Both were shot Sunday night while investigating possible drug activity in a parking lot. The shooter, 22-year-old David Edward Tiscareno was later killed following an armed standoff at a Topeka home.

The officers’ bodies will lie in state at the Expocentre from 1 to 8 p.m. Friday. Guards will be posted overnight.

Gogian’s funeral takes place at the Expocentre at 10 a.m. Saturday, followed by a procession to Penwell-Gabel Cemetery. The funeral for Atherly begins at 2 p.m., also followed by a procession to the cemetery.