LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The retrial of a Lawrence man convicted of killing his wife in 2004 is stalled while he seeks a new prosecutor.

Martin Miller plans to ask the Kansas Supreme Court to disqualify the Douglas County District Attorney’s office from prosecuting him during this second trial.

Miller was convicted in 2005 of first-degree murder in the July 2004 death of 46-year-old Mary Miller at the couple’s home. The Kansas Supreme Court overturned the conviction in February, citing incorrect jury instructions.

6NewsLawrence reports  that a Douglas County judge on Tuesday allowed Miller’s attorneys request to delay the county case while attorneys ask the Kansas Supreme Court to disqualify the District Attorney’s office, alleging misconduct.

The District Attorney’s office opposed the effort, saying the disqualification was not warranted in this case.

CAPE GIRARDEAU (AP) – Same-sex spouses of employees and retirees at Southeast Missouri State University will now be eligible for university benefits.

The Board of Regents of the Cape Girardeau school voted Monday to extend benefits immediately to spouses in same-sex couples who were legally married in another state.

University vice president Kathy Mangels says the action follows an Oct. 3 order by a Jackson County circuit judge requiring the state to recognize such marriages. The Attorney General’s office declined to appeal, and the state’s main health-care and retirement plans have since expanded benefits to same-sex spouses with valid marriage certificates.

Southeast Missouri State officials say they expect to the cost to the university to be minimal.

BROCK VERGAKIS, Associated Press
MARCIA DUNN, Associated Press

ATLANTIC, Va. (AP) — NASA and officials from a commercial rocket company are searching for debris and answers following the explosion of a rocket and cargo module that were to deliver supplies to astronauts aboard the International Space Station.

Bill Wrobel is director of NASA’s Wallops Flight Facility at Wallops Island, Virginia. He says crews plan to hit the ground at daybreak Wednesday to search for pieces of Orbital Sciences Corp.’s Antares rocket and Cygnus cargo ship.

The cargo ship that exploded Tuesday evening was carrying 5,000 pounds of experiments and equipment for NASA, as well as prepackaged meals and freeze-dried Maryland crabcakes for a Baltimore-born astronaut who’s been in orbit five months.

NASA space station program manager Mike Suffredini says astronauts at the station currently have enough supplies to last until spring.

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MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — A commercial supply ship bound for the International Space Station has exploded moments after liftoff.

Orbital Sciences Corp.’s unmanned rocket blew up over the launch complex at Wallops Island, Virginia, just six seconds after liftoff.

The company says no one was believed to be hurt and the damage appeared to be limited to the facilities.

Flames could be seen shooting into the sky as the sun set.

The Cygnus cargo ship was loaded with 5,000 pounds of gear for the six people living on the space station. It was the fourth Cygnus bound for the orbiting lab; the first flew just over a year ago.

NASA is paying the Virginia-based Orbital Sciences and the California-based SpaceX company to keep the space station stocked in the post-shuttle era. This is the first disaster in that effort.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback are hitching their re-election campaigns together in a cross-state tour.

Roberts and Brownback were to set out Wednesday from Topeka on a four-day bus tour that includes stops in at least 19 Kansas cities and towns.

Both of the Republican incumbents are locked in close campaigns. Roberts faces a challenge from independent candidate Greg Orman, a Kansas City area businessman. Brownback is being challenged by Democrat Paul Davis, the Kansas House minority leader.

Election Day is next Tuesday.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City police officer has been injured after crashing his all-terrain vehicle while on patrol near Game 6 of the World Series.

Capt. Tye Grant says the male officer was conducting perimeter checks outside of Kauffman Stadium on Tuesday when the vehicle rolled over. Grant says the officer lost control of the vehicle while on uneven terrain.

It’s unclear if the officer was hospitalized. Police haven’t released his name.

Grant didn’t say how the officer was injured but says he will “be OK.”

JEFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — An inmate at Missouri’s maximum-security prison in Jefferson City has been charged with murder in the beating death of his cellmate.

The Jefferson City News Tribune reports (http://bit.ly/1wEvlZK ) a Cole County grand jury on Tuesday indicted 33-year-old Randy Teter on one count of first-degree murder.

Teter shared a cell at the Jefferson City Correctional Center with 35-year-old Mark Melton, who was assaulted Aug. 19. Melton was taken to a hospital in Columbia and died a few days later.
Melton was from the southeast Missouri town of Malden. He pleaded guilty in 2009 to attempted first-degree sodomy and was sentenced in Dunklin County Circuit Court to nine years in prison.
Teter is serving a sentence from Jackson County for second-degree murder and armed criminal action.

JIM SALTER, Associated Press

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The U.S. Supreme Court has stayed the scheduled execution of a Missouri man who was convicted of killing a woman and her two children in 1998.

The high court late Tuesday sided with Mark Christeson who claimed that his previous attorneys were inadequate.

Among other things, those attorneys missed a 2005 deadline for a federal court appeal of Christeson’s conviction and death sentence.

He had been scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. Wednesday.

Missouri Department of Corrections spokesman Mike O’Connell says the execution will not take place Wednesday and that no new date has been set.

Messages seeking comment from Christeson’s lawyers were not returned late Tuesday.

Christeson would have been the ninth person executed by Missouri this year.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Campaign finance reports show Republican Sen. Pat Roberts raised about $2.2 million in contributions over three months for his Kansas re-election race and ended mid-October with $927,000 in his treasury.

Federal reports available online Tuesday also showed that Roberts relied heavily on contributions from political action committees to fund his campaign. From July 17 through Oct. 15, he raised nearly $1.09 million from PACs.

The three-term Republican incumbent is in a close race with independent candidate Greg Orman.

The challenger is a wealthy Olathe businessman who covered $963,000 of his campaign’s expenses from mid-July through September. A report on Orman’s campaign activities in October was not available online.

Roberts had $1.4 million in cash on hand in mid-July. His campaign spent then spent $2.7 million through Oct. 15.

JENNIFER C. KERR, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — AT&T is being sued by the government over allegations it misled millions of smartphone customers about its unlimited data plans.

The Federal Trade Commission says AT&T failed to adequately disclose to customers that it would reduce data speeds if they went over a certain amount of data use in a billing cycle. The practice, known as throttling, slows down things like web browsing, GPS navigation or watching streaming videos.

The FTC alleges that AT&T began throttling customers on unlimited data plans in 2011.

According to the complaint filed in federal court in San Francisco, about 3.5 million consumers have been affected. The commission says some customers had their data speeds slowed by nearly 90 percent.