Wire
AG sues Chad Franklin Suzuki over ad campaign
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Attorney General Steve Six is seeking to close down a Kansas City, Kan., car dealership over what he alleges was a fraudulent advertising campaign. Six filed a lawsuit in Wyandotte County District Court on Monday against Chad Franklin Suzuki — which has changed its name to Legend Suzuki — alleging it engaged in “unconscionable and deceptive” business practices. In television and radio ads that ran in the Kan...
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Recounts confirm outcomes in close races
TOPEKA (AP) — A recount of votes has confirmed Rep. Virginia Beamer’s narrow loss in the Republican primary in the 118th Kansas House District. Final, unofficial results gave Don Hineman, a Dighton farmer and rancher, 1,882 votes to 1,865 votes for Beamer, from Oakley. Initial results election night showed Hineman 19 votes ahead of Beamer. She picked up three votes, and he gained one. Hineman’s victory gives him the seat, because no one e...
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‘Boomerang’ storm Fay strengthens over Florida
NAPLES, Fla. (AP) — Tropical Storm Fay rolled ashore in southwestern Florida on Tuesday without much fanfare, but stubbornly hung around like an unwelcome houseguest, gaining power and threatening — once again — to become a hurricane. The storm first hit the Florida Keys, veered out to sea and then traversed east across the state on a path that would curve it toward to the Florida-Georgia border. The failure of Fay to weaken meant a whole new...
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Bigfoot just a rubber gorilla suit?
ATLANTA (AP) — Turns out Bigfoot was just a rubber suit. Two researchers on a quest to prove the existence of Bigfoot say that the carcass encased in a block of ice — handed over to them for an undisclosed sum by two men who claimed to have found it — was slowly thawed out, and discovered to be a rubber gorilla outfit. The revelation comes just days after a much ballyhooed news conference was held in California to proclaim that the remains...
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Celebrities
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — There was much dancing: Ellen DeGeneres and Portia de Rossi are married, according to reports. In the biggest celebrity union since California legalized same-sex marriage, DeGeneres, 50, and de Rossi, 35, wed Saturday night in an intimate ceremony at their Beverly Hills home, People and Us Magazine reported. A publicist for DeGeneres confirmed People’s report and gave no further comment. After the California Supre...
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Kansas siblings recount shipwreck, Nazi rescue
LINDSBORG (AP) — Like any typical family, the six Danielson siblings gather for reunions and catch up on the latest news. Over time, the topics of conversations have evolved. Now it’s who’s expecting the next grandchild? Who is planning to retire? But the topic inevitably turns atypical as their minds travel back to the spring of 1941. That’s the year the Danielsons were among survivors of the Zamzam, an Egyptian passenger ship sunk by the...
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Perkins tops list of state workers
WICHITA (AP) — Lew Perkins, the University of Kansas’ athletic director, topped the list of state employee paychecks last year, according to a newspaper report. The Wichita Eagle, reviewing a database of state employee compensation, said Perkins made $646,281 last year. Most of that pay came from Kansas Athletics Inc., the university’s private booster organization, with state dollars contributing less than a third. Almost 1,600 state worke...
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Oddities
Kentucky sheriff picks up wrong man in California MORGANTOWN, Ky. (AP) — A Kentucky sheriff drove 4,100 miles to California to pick up a fugitive, then realized when he got back he had the wrong guy. Butler County Sheriff Joe Gaddie and a deputy took the trip to find a man named Joe Oros, who was wanted on charges of fleeing and evading police and drunken driving. A man named Joe Oros was awaiting release from a prison in Tehachapi, Calif...
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Data shows wheat crop rates tops in quality
Roxana Hegeman AP Farm Writer WICHITA (AP) — The 2008 Kansas winter wheat crop looked good going into the bin earlier this summer, but now newly released preliminary data compiled by the Kansas Grain Inspection Service confirms it. The agency inspected 11,245 samples from 52 Kansas counties — looking at test weight, protein content, grade and defects. The report was made public Monday. Its results showed 71 percent of this year’s wheat c...
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The odds were long entering training camp that Dantrell Savage would make the Kansas City Chiefs roster when the season opened, but he has picked up a big fan in head coach Herm Edwards
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The odds were long entering training camp that Dantrell Savage would make the Kansas City Chiefs roster when the season opened, but he has picked up a big fan in head coach Herm Edwards. Savage rushed for 2,092 yards, averaging 6 yards a carry, in two years at Oklahoma State, but he was passed over in the NFL draft. The Chiefs signed him out of a tryout camp, and in the first two preseason games he has opened some ey...
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Coffeyville kindergarten held in nursing home
COFFEYVILLE (AP) — A new kindergarten classroom in southeastern Kansas will be located inside a nursing home. The classes in the Coffeyville school district will start Aug. 25 at Windsor Place nursing home as part of a program called Age to Age. State and local officials attended a ceremony on Friday marking of the program. The class space was colored brightly and made where three residential rooms were previously located. Officials said ...
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Emporia author writes about Quantrill
LAWRENCE (AP) — “You’ll want to know about Lawrence, of course. Everybody does. If they don’t ask outright, they will make some oblique reference in hopes of sparking a conversation or perhaps an argument.” These are the opening lines of “I, Quantrill,” a novel told through the eyes of William Clarke Quantrill, a Confederate guerrilla warrior best known for his 1863 attack on Lawrence. The fictionalized story, as told by Emporia author Max...
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Homeless teen finds real-life success
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — She came up from a small Alabama town, caught in a black hole that was sucking her down faster than a bad mood. If your family didn’t do right, then you didn’t either. That was the way most folks felt, no matter how you really behaved. A last name went a long way. She attended high school and worked two part-time jobs but was moving every three months, one step ahead of something bad happening. She tried to keep po...
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Commissioners attend wind summit
OAKLEY (AP) — Commissioners from 13 northwest Kansas counties met to discuss how to deal with the emerging issue of producing electricity from wind. Sen. Sam Brownback was the featured speaker at the meeting Wednesday, and detailed some of his thoughts on what the federal government can do to foster wind generation. Brownback said he supports the idea of extending tax credits for wind development. “Not just for one year but five years,” he...
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Oddities
Texas police say 12-year-old girl drove mom to bar LONGVIEW, Texas (AP) — A 35-year-old Texas woman has been jailed after police say she made her 12-year-old daughter drive her to a bar. Police in Longview say they watched a minivan turn into a driveway without signaling on Wednesday and bump into a home at a low speed. They say the car was driven by Jennifer Lynn Rosenberg’s daughter. Police say the girl told an officer she had just drop...
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Celebrities
BEVERLY HILLS, Calif. (AP) — Donald Trump will soon be Ed McMahon’s landlord. Trump announced Thursday he would save the television personality’s Beverly Hills mansion from foreclosure by buying it for an undisclosed amount and leasing it to McMahon. The developer told the Los Angeles Times he doesn’t know McMahon personally, but acted out of compassion because helping out “would be an honor.” McMahon, 85, who was Johnny Carson’s sidekick...
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Foreclosure filings surge
Fannie Mae opens additional offices to speed disposal of foreclosed homes Alan Zibel AP Business Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The number of homeowners stung by the dramatic decline in the U.S. housing market jumped last month as foreclosure filings grew by more than 50 percent compared with the same month a year ago, according to data released Thursday. Nationwide, more than 272,000 homes received at least one foreclosure-related notice i...
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Oddities
Wisconsin man goes online to sell million-mile Chevy CATAWBA, Wis. (AP) — The owner of a 1991 Chevrolet Silverado that’s traveled more than a million miles is parting with what he calls his “old girl.” Frank Oresnik says his pickup will go on sale Thursday night on eBay. The minimum bid is $30,000. The 58-year-old northern Wisconsin man attracted attention in February when he reached the million-mile mark while doing a live interview on p...
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Coaches debate with profanity, one moons the other
Maria Sudekum Fisher Associated Press Writer KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A debate coach for Fort Hays State University traded profanity-laced barbs with another coach from the University of Pittsburgh during a tournament and at one point during the argument pulled down his shorts, exposing his underwear. An eight-minute segment of the teachers’ tirades, during which they hurled the F-word several times and one student near the camera can be h...
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Summer ‘break’ a misnomer for many school teachers
Alexander Parker The Lawrence Journal-World LAWRENCE (AP) — By her count, Lori Greenfield has spent time prepping her fifth-grade classroom two to three times a week since school ended in May. The Prairie Park School teacher moved classrooms as part of a switch from fourth grade to fifth grade. Just days before students return to school, Greenfield is still waiting for printed materials and dry-erase boards. “I’ve spent most of the rest of th...
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