Campus authorities at the University of Kansas are investigating report of a sexual assault over the weekend. According to a crime alert issued by the KU

Public Safety Office on Monday, a female student says she was the victim of a sexual battery that reportedly took place behind Pearson Hall on campus.

The victim reported she had asked the suspect for a ride home from a party at approximately 2 a.m. on Saturday prior to the alleged crime.

By John Schlageck, Kansas Farm Bureau

Genetically modified organisms (GMOs) still face challenges within the European Union; however, one Irish wheat farmer is optimistic change is on the way.

“With this challenge of feeding the world, we must embrace technology,” says John Dardis, who farms approximately 30 miles south of Dublin in Kildare County.

The challenge will be for farmers to double food production by 2050 to feed an estimated 9 billion mouths, Dardis told nearly 1,000 farmers and ranchers at Kansas Farm Bureau’s annual meeting the first week in December.

Originally the Dardis family raised beef cattle. Recently, John has moved exclusively to raising wheat, barley and oats. He is a 5th generation to farmer and serves as First Secretary of Agriculture and Food with the Embassy of Ireland in Washington, D.C.

While the EU clings to studies that say Western European consumers do not want bio technology used in their food, Dardis contends this attitude is changing.

The United Kingdom’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, recently talked about the shift in the UK’s attitude towards this technology. Cameron emphasized the importance of fostering a “pro-science” culture and said he’s ready to call on the EU to relax its stifling restrictions on biotechnology.

“There’s also a vigorous scientific effort on behalf of the European Food Safety Authority to ensure the proper scientific overview is given to GMOs,” Dardis says. “When you look at the facts they conclude biotech is safe.”

As a wheat breeder, Dardis is convinced that ultimately food products will all post labels saying whether or not they are genetically modified. Then the consumer will have the opportunity to decide what she wants to buy, he says.

Another challenge the Irish farmer said his countrymen continue to face is the inability to use growth promoters with beef cattle. This means more time and expense to ready their livestock for market.

“We have a wonderful resource in our native grasses, but we have to feed our cattle silage and protein for another three to four months to finish them off,” Dardis says.

Ireland exports nearly 90 percent of its beef, mainly in the European Union. Irish-produced beef is a close second on the grocery shelf running only behind domestic beef raised throughout Western Europe, according to Dardis.

“While I prefer the grass-fed beef of Ireland, a good steak is a good steak wherever you have it in this world,” he says.

Dardis is also excited about the prospects of dairy in his home country. Irish dairy farmers have been restricted by a quota for many years.

In the early ‘80s Irish dairymen were exporting milk on par with New Zealand, Dardis recalls. New Zealand has expanded its dairy exports threefold since then and Ireland now lags far behind.

“We’re excited that in 2015, the quota will be removed from dairy,” the Irish farmer says. “We have plans to grow our dairy exports by 50 percent and rank in the top five in the coming years.”

Today Ireland imports milk from other countries and adds value to this raw product and then exports it as infant formula and finished cheeses.

Wrapping up his comments to the farmers and ranchers from across Kansas, Dardis told them to be, “proud of what you do.

“Farmers and ranchers on both sides of the Atlantic are increasingly under pressure from outside our world,” he says. “The natural reaction is to go into your shell and back to what you do and not put the facts on the table.

“You are feeding the world,” Dardis says. “That’s not rhetoric. Be proud of this and mold the discussion. Don’t stay away from it.”

(AP) Authorities in Jefferson City are seeking a man who may have jumped from a Missouri River bridge.

Police identified the man Monday as a 21-year-old resident of the capital city.

Police say no one has heard from the man since then. The Highway Patrol’s Water Patrol division plans to resume searching the river when conditions are safe.

Monday update  The victim in a fatal head-on collision in southeast Kansas has been identified as a Pittsburg State University student.

30-year-old James Lee Potocnik was killed shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday on a highway north of Riverton when his SUV crossed the center line and struck a southbound tractor-trailer.

In a statement Monday, Pittsburg State officials said Potocnik was a junior majoring in electronics engineering. He was a native of the southeast Kansas town of Frontenac.

 Saturday 4 p.m. A Kansas man died in an early Saturday morning head on crash in Cherokee County.

According to the Kansas Highway Patrol thirty-year-old James L. Potocnik Jr. of Frontenac was driving a 2008 Chevy Trailblazer northbound on U69 Alternate, a mile north of Riverton.

His vehicle went left of center and hit a 2011 Freightliner semi truck head on. The semi was driven by 46 year old John A. Shaw of Kansas City. Potocnik died at the scene. It is not known if he was wearing a seat belt. Shaw was transported to the hospital in Joplin.

AP) — After months of legal wrangling and false starts in a battle to resume domestic horse slaughter, plants in New Mexico and Missouri are working to begin processing equine for human consumption.

The efforts come on the heels of an order late Friday by a federal appeals court that lifted an emergency stay on the companies’ plans.

Blair Dunn, an Albuquerque who represents Valley Meat Co. of Roswell and Rains Natural Meats of Gallatin, Mo., says the plants Monday “are pushing full steam ahead to be ready to go as soon as possible.”

Rains Natural Meats, he says, even has horses on site. But it’s unclear if the plants will open before Christmas or wait until after the holidays.

The Humane Society vows “the fight for America’s horses is not over.”

 (AP) – As her trial was scheduled to begin, a Springfield woman admits that she smothered her infant son with a pillow.

Twenty-six-year-old Tatianna Light pleaded guilty Monday to second-degree murder in the October 2010 death of 2-month-old Kaiden Light at her home.

Prosecutors say the plea was not part of a plea bargain. Light is scheduled to be sentenced in February and faces 10 to 30 years in prison.

Authorities say Light originally told investigators that she found her son on his stomach on a bed and he was not breathing. She later admitted that she smothered her son with a pillow for about an hour.

(AP) — The Food and Drug Administration says there is no evidence that antibacterial chemicals used in liquid soaps and washes help prevent the spread of germs, and there is some evidence they may pose health risks.

The agency said it is revisiting the safety of chemicals like triclosan in light of recent studies suggesting they can interfere with hormone levels and spur the growth of drug-resistant bacteria.

The government’s preliminary ruling lends new credence to longstanding warnings from researchers who say the chemicals are, at best, ineffective and at worst, a threat to public health.

Under its proposed rule released Monday, the agency will require manufacturers to prove that their antibacterial soaps and body washes are safe and more effective than plain soap and water. If companies cannot demonstrate the safety and effectiveness of their products, they would have to be reformulated, relabeled or possibly removed from the market. The agency will take comments on its proposal before finalizing it in coming months.

“Due to consumers’ extensive exposure to the ingredients in antibacterial soaps, we believe there should be a clearly demonstrated benefit from using antibacterial soap to balance any potential risk,” said Dr. Janet Woodcock, director of the FDA’s drug center.

The agency’s proposal comes more than 40 years after the agency was first tasked with evaluating triclosan and similar ingredients. Ultimately, the government agreed to publish its findings only after a three-year legal battle with the environmental group, Natural Resources Defense Council, which accused the FDA of delaying action on triclosan. The chemical is found in an estimated 75 percent of antibacterial liquid soaps and body washes sold in the U.S.

The FDA’s preliminary rule only applies to personal hygiene products, but it has implications for a $1 billion industry that includes thousands of antibacterial products, including kitchen knives, toys, pacifiers and toothpaste.

Most of the research surrounding triclosan’s safety involves animal studies, which cannot always be applied to humans. But some scientists worry the chemical can disrupt hormones in humans too, raising the risk of infertility, early puberty and other developmental problems. Other experts are concerned that routine use of antibacterial chemicals like triclosan is contributing to a surge in drug-resistant germs, or superbugs, that render antibiotics ineffective.

In March 2010, the European Union banned the chemical from all products that come into contact with food, such as containers and silverware.