Wire
Shawnee County Commission considers cable at county jail
TOPEKA (AP) — Inmates at Shawnee County jail and the juvenile detention center could be without television starting Feb. 17 because the TVs at those facilities receive only analog signals that won’t be around after that date. The County Commission is considering a request to pay for cable service that would resolve the problem, but the estimated cost of installing the necessary equipment and paying initial charges for cable television servi...
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Kansas utility to try again for coal plants
LAWRENCE (AP) — A western Kansas utility is planning to push again next year for legislative approval of two proposed coal-fired power plants, and environmentalists are preparing for the debate. Sunflower Electric Power Corp. wants to build the plants outside Holcomb, in Finney County. Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ administration has been blocking the plants for more than a year over their potential carbon-dioxide emissions. During their 2008 sessi...
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Boy Scouts see Hispanics as key to boosting ranks
Juliana Barbassa Associated Press Writer SAN JOSE, Calif. (AP) — As it prepares to turn 100, the Boy Scouts of America is honing its survival skills for what might be its biggest test yet: drawing Hispanics into its declining — and mostly white — ranks. “We either are going to figure out how to make Scouting the most exciting, dynamic organization for Hispanic kids, or we’re going to be out of business,” said Rick Cronk, former national p...
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Hutchinson man arrested Thursday in wife’s death
HUTCHINSON (AP) — Police have arrested a 30-year-old Hutchinson man in the death of his wife early on Christmas Day. Police said officers were called to a Hutchinson home on a welfare check at 1:30 a.m. Thursday and found 30-year-old Sabrina Jones dead. About three hours later police arrested Stephen Jones on suspicion of first-degree murder. He’s being held in the Reno County Jail on $500,000 bond. Police are not discussing the woman’s i...
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Help a kindergartener learn to choose kind words
Angie Wagner For The Associated Press LAS VEGAS (AP) — The other day my girls put on princess dresses and paraded around the house. “I look pretty,” my 5-year-old told her younger sister. “And you look disgusting.” I was so shocked at the comment that she immediately was sent into a time-out while I tried to figure out why she said those nasty words. My husband and I wanted to know where this behavior was coming from. I assumed some of ...
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Briefly
Jenkins, Sebelius top 2008 Kansas political stories TOPEKA (AP) — Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius was the subject of sometimes intense speculation about whether she would be taking a Washington job, but Republican Lynn Jenkins got one instead by winning a seat in Congress. Jenkins’ and Sebelius’ career paths were the top political stories in Kansas in 2008. The state also ended the year with a new attorney general, state treasurer, Kans...
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Writer recalls truth, fiction of ‘Usual Suspects’
Jake Coyle AP Entertainment Writer NEW YORK (AP) — The story line on “Valkyrie” has focused on the “Tom Cruise-as-Nazi” angle, but it’s also a notable regrouping of the two minds behind one of the most beloved movies of the last 15 years. On “Valkyrie,” the writer and director of “The Usual Suspects” reunite for their most substantial project together since their 1995 film. Back then, director Bryan Singer and writer Christopher McQuarrie...
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Bestsellers
Fiction 1. “The Tales of Beedle the Bard” by J.K. Rowling 2. “Eclipse” by Stephenie Meyer 3. “Breaking Dawn” by Stephenie Meyer 4. “The Christmas Sweater” by Glenn Beck 5. “Scarpetta” by Patricia Cornwell 6. “Cross Country” by James Patterson 7. “Twilight” by Stephenie Meyer 8. “New Moon” by Stephenie Meyer 9. “The Story Of Edgar Sawtelle” by David Wroblewski 10. “The Host” by Stephenie Meyer Nonfiction 1. “The Last Lecture” by R...
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Celebrities
NEW YORK (AP) — Eartha Kitt, the self-proclaimed “sex kitten” whose sultry voice and catlike purr attracted fans even as she neared 80, has died. The singer, dancer and actress was 81. Family spokesman Andrew Freedman said Kitt, who was recently treated at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital, died Thursday in Connecticut of colon cancer. Dubbed the “most exciting woman in the world” by Orson Welles, Kitt’s career spanned six decades, from her s...
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Ask Amy
Dear Amy: My best friend’s dad has extreme anger problems. In the past he has hit his son at least once, though I don’t know if anything else has happened. Last night my friend ran away, but she was found out and came home. After she came home, I was over at her house and her dad was so angry he shoved her and told me to leave. I am afraid he is abusive, but she told me not to tell anyone. What should I do? -- Worried Friend Dear Worri...
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Pittsburg schools emphasize technology, training
Andra Bryan The Joplin Globe PITTSBURG (AP) — When Pittsburg teacher Sherry Turnbull began her career in the late 1970s, she used a chalkboard to communicate concepts and facts to students, and they used handcrafted posters to communicate what they had learned. Those chalkboards slowly gave way to dry-erase boards and overhead projectors. “Technology has changed a great deal since the old purple mimeograph, filmstrip projector and overhe...
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Utah store has bone to pick with shoplifting dog MURRAY, Utah (AP) — A thief remains at large after pulling off a daring heist — in the pet food aisle
Utah store has bone to pick with shoplifting dog MURRAY, Utah (AP) — A thief remains at large after pulling off a daring heist — in the pet food aisle. Surveillance video at a supermarket in this Salt Lake City suburb caught a dog shoplifting, KSL-TV reported Wednesday. The video showed the dog walking in the front door of Smith’s Food & Drug in Murray, and heading straight to Aisle 16, the pet food aisle, where it grabbed a bone wort...
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Kansas VA hospital says it cut staph in half
WICHITA (AP) — The Veterans Administration hospital in Wichita reports it has cut contagious staph infections in half since 2007. The Robert J. Dole Medical Center credits screening all incoming patients with nose swabs. It isolates those who test positive for a staph germ called methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus. The measures were introduced in March 2007 at VA medical centers across the nation. In August, the Wichita hospital a...
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Sadsack Chiefs aim to avoid ignominous NFL record
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A good title for a movie about the 2008 Chiefs might be “Sackless in Kansas City.” In addition to having the worst record in team history, the young Chiefs (2-13) go into Sunday’s finale at Cincinnati in harrowing jeopardy of entering the record book as the worst pass-rushing team in the history of the league. While San Diego’s Philip Rivers and New England’s Tom Brady might disagree, no defense in the NFL has been ...
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Hays fifth-graders learn about photography at school
Diane Gasper-O’Brien The Hays Daily News HAYS (AP) — Photographs and the stories they tell are for sharing. That’s exactly what the fifth-graders at Roosevelt Middle School decided to do with theirs they took for a special project. When schools in the Hays district learned last spring that nationally acclaimed underwater photographer Michael Patrick O’Neill was coming to town this fall, they all chose different ways to decorate their sch...
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Gift card sales sink for Christmas 2008
Betsy Vereckey AP Retail Writer NEW YORK (AP) — Gift cards, the convenient catchall of holiday giving, lost their luster this year. Price-conscious shoppers became savvy bargain-hunters, realizing they could give bigger and better gifts by taking advantage of unprecedented discounts rather than by spending a set amount on gift cards, which had been steadily gaining popularity over the past few years. Practically everything took a backseat...
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U.S. Census Bureau planning to hire about 1,000 in Kansas
Most are temporary part-time jobs but could help struggling families HUTCHINSON (AP) — The nation’s economy may be soft, but the U.S. Census Bureau will be hiring in Kansas soon. Regional Manager Dennis Johnson, whose Kansas City, Mo., office oversees six states, says the bureau plans to hire about 1,000 people in Kansas, with at least a few workers in every county. “The bulk of the jobs will be hired in early 2009,” Johnson told The Hutc...
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Hutchinson group uses crochet skills to make clothing
Kathy Hanks The Hutchinson News HUTCHINSON (AP) — Once a week they arrive at the senior center, lugging plastic bags bulging with a week’s worth of work. Some can’t sit long without being busy, so they immediately pull out a current project, moving a shiny hook through yarn as they wait for the Wednesday afternoon meeting to begin. Others build mountains as they unload the bags of stocking caps, mittens, scarves and baby blankets. Meet the Cr...
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Greensburg in position to draw ‘green’ jobs
Edie Ross The Hutchinson News HUTCHINSON (AP) — The “green” in Greensburg continues to keep the community at the national forefront of sustainable building, living and thinking. And that position brings with it perks — such as the community finding itself smack dab in the middle of a genuine bright spot in the gloom and doom that is the U.S. economy. Despite the U.S. recession, the green industry continues to grow and is on its way to becomin...
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In NBA, coaches slammed, dunked
Brian Mahoney AP Basketball Writer Every year, at least a handful of NBA coaches wind up unemployed through some combination of bad play and bad luck. This season, there has to be another reason. Inflated expectations? The recession? A revolt against the coaching profession? Not even halfway through the season, NBA coaches have as weak hold as ever on their jobs. “I said tosomebody, I think there’s a coup out there,” Houston coach Rick...
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