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.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – A Jefferson City woman was sentenced to five years in prison for assaulting two people over splitting $200 in bingo winnings.

Fifty-two-year-old Margaret Thomas of Jefferson City was given credit for time served after pleading guilty Monday to second-degree assault in a plea deal. She was originally charged with first-degree domestic assault and armed criminal action.

Police say Thomas stabbed two Jefferson City residents with scissors as they returned from playing bingo in Moberly in October 2013.

The Jefferson City News-Tribune reports the three were on U.S. 63 near Ashland when Thomas stopped the vehicle and stabbed one victim, who required 32 stitches. Police say the second victim was hurt while helping the first victim. Thomas then left the two passengers on the side of the road.

CLAYCOMO, Mo. (AP) — Ford Motor Co. is adding 1,200 workers and another shift to a Missouri plant that makes its new Transit van.

The company announced Thursday that the workers already have been hired and are expected to start in late November at the plant just outside Kansas City in Claycomo. The second shift of Transit workers will bring the number of hourly workers at the plant to more than 6,000. The plant also has three crews making the F-150 pickup truck.

Ford spokeswoman Kristina Adamski says once the new shift is on duty, the Claycomo plant will be making more vehicles per year than any other Ford plant in the world.

The plant will have the capacity to make 500,000 vehicles, also the highest number in the company.

 

SPRINGFIELD (AP) – An inmate at a federal prison hospital in Springfield has been sentenced to nearly 20 years for assaulting a counselor at the facility.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says 34-year-old Willard Begay must also pay $2,500 for the counselor’s injuries under the sentence he received Thursday.

The attack happened in October 2012 at the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners, where Begay was serving more than seven years for an assault in Arizona.

Begay was convicted earlier this year of punching the counselor and smashing a computer printer on the man’s face, breaking a bone near his eye.

Prosecutors say the counselor was meeting with Begay to discuss problems he was having with other inmates. The counselor was handcuffing Begay before his move to another unit when the attack occurred.