– A California auto warranty company has been fined $10,000 for violating the Kansas No-Call Act, Attorney General Derek Schmidt said today.

“Kansans who register on the Do-Not-Call list have an expectation that telemarketers will leave them alone,” Schmidt said. “We are continuing to enforce the law against those who violate the No-Call list and are working with the legislature to strengthen the Kansas No-Call Act.”

Auto Protection Alliance LLC, doing business as Auto Processing Center and Lead Services LLC, agreed to a consent judgment ordering the company to pay the state $10,000 in penalties and fees for violations of the No-Call Act. The Attorney General’s Consumer Protection Division began investigating the company in January 2013 after receiving seven complaints from consumers in Douglas, Johnson, Lyon and Miami counties. The investigation revealed that the company had solicited Kansans by telephone, marketing their extended auto warranty products and services. Some of the Kansas consumers who were called were on the National Do-Not-Call list. The company also agreed to refrain from future violations of the Act. A consent judgment ordering the fine and injunction against future violations was approved last week by Shawnee County District Judge Larry Hendricks.

Last month, Schmidt asked the Kansas Legislature to update the Kansas No-Call Act to allow the Attorney General’s Office to enforce the Act against telemarketers who call consumers’ cell phones. The bill is scheduled for a hearing in the Senate Utilities Committee next week.

Last year, Schmidt’s office litigated 17 cases against violators of the No-Call Act, resulting in $3.4 million in penalties and fees.

Kansans who wish to register a phone number on the Do-Not-Call list may do so by visitingwww.InYourCornerKansas.org and clicking on the “Register for the Do-Not-Call List” button.

(AP)  — Women with dense breast tissue would have to be notified about the need for additional screenings at their mammograms under legislation passed by the Missouri Senate.

The measure was passed 32-0 by senators on Thursday and it now heads to the House.

Sponsoring Republican Sen. Dan Brown, of Rolla, says mammograms might not pick up cancer if a woman has dense tissue. He says his wife was diagnosed with breast cancer only after a biopsy was taken after several mammograms turned up negative.

Starting in 2015, the bill would require facilities that perform mammograms to notify patients that if they have dense breast tissue that additional tests might be required to detect cancer.

 

(AP) — Missouri Public Service Commission staff say in a report that Missouri Gas Energy failed to take “prompt and adequate” steps to ensure safety before a fatal restaurant explosion in Kansas City.

The 120-page report released Thursday says Missouri Gas Energy workers waited too long before checking whether gas levels had reached unsafe conditions inside JJ’s restaurant on Feb. 19, 2013. An explosion and fire leveled the building, killing a JJ’s employee and injuring more than a dozen people.

Authorities have said the explosion and fire were caused when a natural gas supply line was breached by a cable company’s subcontractor.

The PSC staff also filed a complaint against MGE asking the commission to find the utility violated the agency’s safety rules.

Officials with the utility declined immediate comment.

 

(AP) — A man serving a life sentence for a 1988 explosion that killed six Kansas City firefighters will argue in court that his sentence should be reduced.

U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson agreed Wednesday that Bryan Sheppard, who was 17 at the time of the explosion, will be able to argue his case before a federal judge.

Sheppard was one of five people convicted in the firefighters’ deaths in an explosion at a construction trailer fire in south Kansas City. One of the defendants has died. All of them always maintained they were innocent.

Sheppard’s attorney sought the re-sentencing hearing after a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that sentences of life without parole for juveniles violated the Constitution’s prohibition against cruel and unusual punishment.

 

(AP) — A Kansas native will have a front-row seat at the opening ceremonies of the Winter Olympics. Bryan Pinkall is one of only two Americans on a 250-person team that is producing the opening ceremonies, which air Friday evening. He’s managing production operations and directing for part of the ceremony, and is one of several music directors.

The 28-year-old Pinkall is a native of Great Bend and currently is a voice instructor at Kansas State University. He graduated from the University of Missouri-Kansas City’s Conservatory of Music and Dance last year.

The Kansas City Star reports Pinkall can’t reveal much of what will happen during the opening ceremonies in Russia. But he’s promising that if everything goes well, it will be an “astounding production.”

 

(AP) — A lightning strike that injured an air traffic controller at Baltimore’s main airport has exposed a potential vulnerability at airport towers during storms. The Sept. 12, 2013 incident at the Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport is prompting Federal Aviation Administration officials to inspect hundreds of towers nationwide.

The FAA will be looking for problems with the lightning protection systems for airport towers, where air traffic controllers do the vital job of choreographing the landings and takeoffs of tens of thousands of flights each day.

The FAA told the AP about the planned inspections after responding to a Freedom of Information Act request.

The FAA says the agency plans on “assessing the condition” of lightning protection systems at the 440 air traffic control towers it’s responsible for nationwide.

 

(AP) — State health officials say 16 Kansans have died from the influenza during the current flu season.

Flu season is generally considered to run between November and March.

A spokeswoman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment says at this time last year, 42 people had died from the flu. The state’s reporting period is from September to May.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the H1N1 flu strain this season is the same strain that caused killed more than 18,000 people in the U.S. in 2009. But state epidemiologist Charles Hunt says this year’s strain won’t be as severe because people have developed more immunity to that strain.

State health officials remind Kansas residents that it is not too late to get a flu shot to hold off the disease.

 

(AP)   A suspect wanted in three states was captured in southwest Missouri after a chase that included two car thefts, ramming a sheriff’s car and robbing a store.

Authorities say the 46-year-old man from Pineville is wanted in South Carolina, Ohio and Louisiana for charges including burglary, assault and theft of weapons.

The chase began Tuesday near Noel when the driver refused to pull over for a traffic stop. McDonald County authorities pursued him into Oklahoma and then back into Missouri.

The man is suspected of robbing a convenience store in Missouri and stealing the clerk’s car. He was finally arrested after Missouri Highway Patrol officers chased him to Southwest City, where he hid behind a home.

He’s being held in McDonald County. Charges are pending.