SPRRINGFIELD (AP) – Springfield police say it’s unusual that they have so many unsolved murder cases, but insist they are making progress on a majority of them.

While law enforcement has solved 25 homicides in the past two years, eight others remain open.

The Springfield News-Leader reports police – who are reluctant to discuss details of the unsolved cases or whether any are related – say witnesses in homicides involving people in the drug trade or violent crime often are afraid to cooperate for fear of retribution.

Police Capt. David Millsap says sometimes a victim’s lifestyle choices help investigators quickly identify on a potential suspect, while at other times those choices can point to multiple suspects or none at all.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Five teenagers are accused of stealing a goat from a popular suburban Kansas City children’s farm and taking it into a McDonald’s restaurant.

The Kansas City Star reports the goat was stolen from Deanna Rose Children’s Farmstead in Overland Park, Kansas, and spotted around 2 a.m. Sunday in a McDonald’s parking lot in Olathe.

Olathe police say the teens took the goat into the restaurant but were asked to leave. Officers found the goat outside when they arrived and contacted Overland Park police when they learned the animal was from the farm, a popular family attraction with around 200 animals.

Police spokesman Gary Mason says he doesn’t know how the teens managed to pull off the kidnapping.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A century after the assassination that led to the “war to end all wars,” social media users took readers on the June 28, 1914, parade route Archduke Franz Ferdinand traveled before he and his wife were gunned down.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports Saturday’s re-enactment on Twitter was the product of a partnership between the University of Kansas and the National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Missouri.

It included the failed attempt to bomb Ferdinand’s car and also touched on the love story between the Austrian archduke and his wife, Sophie, Duchess of Hohenberg.

Ferdinand’s car participated in the re-enactment and provided some comic relief with tongue-in-cheek messages like, “STOP THROWING BOMBS AT ME #rude #ruinedvacation #notstoic #KU_WWI.”

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Area farmers are dealing with damage to their crops and fences after all the rain that fell in June.

The Sioux City Journal reports farmers in northwest Iowa, southeast South Dakota and northeast Nebraska face significant work ahead because of the flooding on the Big Sioux, Rock and other rivers.

The flooding and heavy rains could also have a lasting effect on their crops because fertilizer may have been washed away and standing water in fields could have killed some plants.

Janna Whitlock says her pasture in Union County, S.D., was underwater, and three lawn mowers, a snow blower and some other equipment in a shed was damaged.

Farmer Jack Kruse says he knows he faces weeks of fence repair ahead.

 

TARKIO (AP) – A shuttered northwest Missouri college’s alumni association is working to return education to the 60-acre campus more than 20 years after financial problems led to the institution’s demise.

The Tarkio College Alumni Association is hoping to bring a two-year, degree granting college to the community of fewer than 2,000 residents, but several hurdles – including buildings that have been neglected for decades, a lack of funding and a complex state bureaucracy – must be cleared before that can happen.

The St. Joseph News-Press reports that two years after the college went bankrupt in 1992, Tarkio Academy, a school for juvenile delinquents, became the campus’ new tenant. The company leased the property for a decade before closing its doors in late 2004.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Supreme Court says University of Kansas Hospital will have to pick up the $140,000 tab for treating a man who broke his hip after jumping out of a jailhouse window.

Alberto Contreras Gonzalez was arrested in March 2006 on drug-related charges but entered a diversion agreement with Wabaunsee County before being transferred to Shawnee County for outstanding warrants.

The Lawrence Journal-World (http://bit.ly/1qVUPQE) reports Contreras bonded out of Shawnee County jail and returned to Wabaunsee County jail to retrieve some personal belongings. He was placed in a fourth-story room while a deputy checked on his status, and after Contreras couldn’t get the door open he broke a window and jumped.

The Supreme Court on Friday ruled Wabaunsee County wasn’t liable for his hospital bill, since Contreras wasn’t in custody.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas education groups are gearing up their political activities ahead of the Aug. 5 primary election, putting their money and sweat behind state House candidates that support public schools.

Organizers say teachers in particular have had enough, viewing recent changes in teacher licensing and loss of administrative due process as an attack on their profession.

The Kansas National Education Association, the state’s largest teachers union, has more than $400,000 to spend this election cycle. Others organizations are going door to door to boost turnout for pro-education candidates.

Countering those efforts is Americans for Prosperity, an organization founded by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch, which lobbied for many of the changes in teacher laws. The group says Kansans like the changes and want to go further.

Kansas City- A Kansas man was injured in motorcycle accident just after midnight on Sunday in Johnson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a motorcycle driven by Sean Stuart Losure, 27, Kansas City was southbound on Interstate 35 near the exit for Antioch in Merriam.

The motorcycle struck the left rear corner of a 2002 Mercury Sable driven by Loretta M. Murnan, 42, Overland Park.

Losure fell off the motorcycle and fled the scene.
The motorcycle slid 100 feet and was destroyed by fire.

Losure ultimately was transported to Shawnee Mission Medical Center.

Murnan and a teenage passenger were not injured.

CONNIE CASS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress is wildly unpopular.

In fact, two-thirds of Americans want their own House member booted.

And the tea party is dogging longtime Republican lawmakers.

So incumbents are sweating out this year’s election, right?

Nope. Mostly they’re not.

People talk about throwing the bums out, but voters keep sending the same bunch back in.

More than halfway through the party primaries, 293 House and Senate members have completed their quests for renomination.

The score: incumbents 291, challengers 2.

Over the past five decades, voters have routinely returned 9 of 10 incumbent candidates to the House. Senate races are a bit less predictable, but usually more than 80 percent of incumbents win