MILWAUKEE (AP) — Harley-Davidson will unveil its first electric motorcycle next week — a sleek, futuristic bike that hums like a jet airplane taking off.
Harley plans to show handmade demonstration models Monday at an invitation-only event in New York. The company will then take several dozen riders on a 30-city tour to test drive the bikes and provide feedback.
Harley will use the information it gathers to refine the bike, which might not hit the market for several more years.
The market for full-size electric bikes is small now, but Harley President Matt Levatich says no one knows what the potential will be down the road.
LONDON (AP) — Self-styled Druids, new-agers and thousands of revelers have watched the sun rise above the ancient stone circle at Stonehenge to mark the summer solstice — the longest day of the year in the northern hemisphere.
English Heritage, which manages the monument, says some 36,000 sun-watchers gathered on the Salisbury Plain about 80 miles (130 kilometers) southwest of London on Saturday. Police say the event was peaceful with only 25 arrests, mainly for drug offenses.
Couples kissed, dancers circled with hoops and revelers took part in a mass yoga practice as part of the free-form celebrations.
Stonehenge was built in three phases between 3000 B.C. and 1600 B.C. and its purpose is remains under study. An icon of Britain, it remains one of its most popular tourist attractions.
The Northwest Flute Quartet, consisting of (left to right) Jess Stoehr, Dr. Rebecca Dunnell, Amanda Mather and Audrey Kubayko, performs last month at Trenton High School as part of a series of performances and clinics for schools and community members. (Submitted photo)
NWMSU Media Release
Northwest flute students, with Associate Professor of Music Dr. Rebecca Dunnell, recently completed a series of clinics and performances for a range of audiences during the month of May throughout the Kansas City region. The group visited two high schools, a middle school, a retirement home and performed a concert at a community library.
The Northwest Flute Quartet featured Amanda Mather, a Kearney native who recently completed her bachelor’s degree from Northwest in instrumental music education and will begin work toward a master’s degree in music education this fall; Jess Stoehr, a senior music major from Emerson, Iowa; Audrey Kubayko, a senior instrumental music education major from Kansas City; and Dunnell.
The students also are members of Northwest’s Sigma Alpha Iota chapter, a women’s music honor society, which Dunnell advises. Through their membership in the society, the quartet members submitted a grant proposal to Sigma Alpha Iota Philanthropies and secured a $3,500 Impact Project Grant to support the school and community tour.
“This is a very exciting project and this first tour was a perfect start to the concept of the proposal,” Dunnell said. “The activities provided recruitment for Northwest in high schools, support to music programs in middle schools, and support to community life in retirement homes and community concerts.”
Northwest’s music program is a part of the University’s Department of Fine and Performing Arts and consists of degree programs in music, instrumental music education and vocal music education. The program also supports four choral ensembles and eight instrumental ensembles that are open to all students regardless of their major or minor. For more information about the department and its music ensembles click here.
If today’s crop of young farmers and ranchers plan to play a part in the future of agriculture, they must position themselves where this industry will be – not where it is.
John Schlageck writes for the Kansas Farm Bureau.
There are four key considerations young farm and ranch couples must take to heart if they are to reach their full potential. These include: be willing to change; be part of something bigger than yourself; accept the future; and give up your own independence.
Addressing change is something young farmers and ranchers are familiar with. They have no trouble recognizing change – it’s doing something about it that is so difficult.
Everyone tends to give change a chance but when difficulty pops up all of us tend to revert to our old ways of doing things. Change requires new thinking.
Secondly, we as humans, especially young farmers and ranchers must strive toward something greater than self-actualization to fulfill our own unique potential.
This means challenging ourselves with something bigger than we are. To accomplish anything of greatness, we must work with others.
Agriculture is not just about the local community, the family or the farm and ranch operation. It is not just about growing corn, wheat or raising livestock. Producers must see themselves as part of the food industry which remains the most critical industry in the world.
As far as accepting the future, some people will continue to dig in their heels and think, “That may be what the future is like, but I want no part of it.”
What alternative is there?
We can’t recreate the world in the image we want. Instead, we must identify the world as it’s going to be. In agriculture we must focus on the consumers of our products and not make this an issue about what we’re doing on the family farm. It’s not about us, it’s about the customers we serve.
The fourth block on which to build a future in agriculture includes giving up independence. Americans revere their independence. The United States was born out of independence.
However, unless farmers and ranchers move to interdependence they will not survive.
We can’t be focused on a single issue. We must look at the bigger picture and understand that we’re all in this together.
A farmer and rancher cannot remain independent and farm in the future. Producers must be willing to dedicate themselves to a common purpose and impact the world with the help of others.
While these four building blocks may sound simple, implementing them is extremely difficult. Many will fail and start over. Some will not make it. For others it will remain a life-long commitment. The important thing is to begin.
John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Food companies and restaurants could soon face government pressure to make their foods less salty. It’s a long-awaited federal effort to try to prevent thousands of deaths each year from heart disease and stroke.
The Food and Drug Administration is preparing to issue voluntary guidelines asking the food industry to lower sodium levels. FDA Commissioner Margaret Hamburg says sodium is “of huge interest and concern” and she hopes the guidelines will be issued relatively soon.
The food industry has already made some reductions, and has prepared for government action since a 2010 medical journal report said companies had not made enough progress on making foods less salty.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri is relaxing its lifetime ban on providing food assistance to people convicted of felony drug offenses.
Legislation signed Friday by Gov. Jay Nixon will allow people with three or fewer drug felonies to receive aid through the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, so long as they meet certain conditions.
To qualify for food stamps, they would have to prove their sobriety through urine testing and must complete, enroll in or be determined not to need a substance treatment abuse program approved through the Department of Mental Health.
A 1996 federal welfare law banned people convicted of felony drug offenses from receiving food stamps or cash welfare payments. But it allowed states to opt out of the ban.
Missouri was one of about 10 states that still maintained a permanent ban on food and welfare payments for all people convicted of drug felonies.
During legislative hearings, people with prior drug convictions testified that the food-stamp ban has made it harder for people to climb out of poverty. Some also questioned its fairness, noting that the ban did not apply to convicted murders or sex offenders who are released from prison.
State Sen. Kiki Curls, D-Kansas City, had been one of several lawmakers pushing to modify Missouri’s ban.
“This is really important when these individuals are trying to re-establish themselves,” Curls told colleagues when the legislation received a Senate committee hearing earlier this year. “Sometimes, food stamps help get folks over the edge.”
The legislation also allows the Department of Social Services to establish a pilot program to encourage people to use their government food benefits to buy fresh products at farmers’ markets.
The bill includes several provisions intended to catch potential misuse of food and welfare payments. Electronic benefit payments would be temporarily suspended pending a state investigation any time a recipient does not make at least one electronic benefit transaction in Missouri during a 90-day period.
That provision comes after a state audit last year questioned the out-of-state use of welfare benefits through the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families program. The audit found 366 cases in which recipients used a total of $461,000 of benefits exclusively outside of Missouri for at least three months.
The legislation adds food stamps to an existing ban on using cash welfare payments to buy alcohol, tobacco products and lottery tickets or at casinos and strip clubs.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Gov. Jay Nixon has signed legislation reaffirming Missouri’s ban on protests near funerals.
The measure enacted Friday prohibits protests within 300 feet of funeral or burial sites from one hour before they begin until one hour after they end.
That already was included in a Missouri law that was upheld in court. But Missouri law also banned protests along funeral processions, which was struck down in court.
The revised law signed by Nixon removes the ban on protests along funeral procession routes. It also includes a definition of protest activities.
The measure leaves in place the current penalties – up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $500 for first offenders, and up to a year in jail and a $1,000 fine for repeat offenders.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A southwest Missouri prosecutor says he will seek the death penalty against a youth football coach charged with killing a 10-year-old Springfield girl who was kidnapped just two blocks from her home.
Greene County Prosecutor Dan Patterson on Friday announced that he will pursue the death penalty against 46-year-old Craig Michael Wood.
Wood is accused of raping and killing fourth-grader Hailey Owens in February after throwing her into his pickup truck while she walked home from her best friend’s house.
Patterson says that Hailey’s death was “outrageously or wantonly vile, horrible or inhuman in that it involved torture, or depravity of mind,” one of the legal standard required to seek death in first-degree murder cases in Missouri.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal office responsible for overseeing the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs is reviewing the death of a Kansas City, Missouri, veteran who was killed by police last month after they say he pointed his weapon at them.
Acting VA inspector general Richard J. Griffin told Kansas U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder about the review in response to the congressman’s May 30 request for an investigation into the death of 26-year-old Issac Sims.
Sims was killed May 25 after allegedly pointing a rifle at police officers following a five-hour standoff at his Kansas City home. A few days earlier he had been told it would be 30 days before he could get a bed at the VA Medical Center in Kansas City for court-ordered treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder.
COLUMBIA (AP) – The University of Missouri has added gender identity and gender expression to the school’s non-discrimination policy.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports the Board of Curators’ vote on Thursday makes the university the first public school in the state to make the change. Seven private colleges and universities have implemented some version of the same change.
Curator John Phillips says the board has received petitions from students and faculty from all four campuses supporting the change.
Curator David Steward cast the only vote against the change.
Student body presidents from all four university campuses sent out a joint news release lauding the curators for the vote.
