Wire
Wichita’s Joyland Amusement Park for sale again
WICHITA (AP) — The owners of Joyland Amusement Park have again put the attraction up for sale after several failed attempts to reopen the park. Longtime owners Margaret and Stan Nelson are trying to sell the Wichita amusement park for at least $2 million. The theme park has been closed since 2006 as two other groups tried unsuccessfully to take over and keep it going. The Nelsons — Stan, 85, and Margaret, 75 — now have control of the park ...
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Boeing, striking machinists’ talks break down
SEATTLE (AP) — Boeing Co. says renewed negotiations with its striking machinists broke down over an issue crucial to the company’s “long-term competitiveness.” A labor leader says the union was being asked to bargain away 2,000 jobs. The failed talks are the latest twist in the five-week-old strike by more than 27,000 commercial jet production workers, with both sides seemingly far apart on key issues as the walkout enters its 39th day. The s...
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Government moves again to unclog credit lines
Martin Crutsinger AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — The government put itself four-square into the country’s banking business Tuesday, resorting to what President Bush conceded was the unwelcome choice of a partial nationalization in order to loosen paralyzed channels of credit. The president said the decision to to buy shares in the nation’s leading banks — a kind of federal intervention not seen since the Depression era — was “not i...
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Celebrities
LONDON (AP) — Ringo Starr doesn’t want to hear from you. If you do write, your letter will end up in the trash. That’s the message from Richard Starkey, aka Ringo Starr. After 45 years of stardom, he doesn’t want to spend any more time answering mail or sending signed photos back to fans. The fan fatigue led the former Beatles drummer to post a sometimes angry sounding short video clip on his Web site telling fans that any mail sent to hi...
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Oddities
Pampered pumpkin picked as plumpest of them all HALF MOON BAY, Calif. (AP) — Thad Starr’s giant pumpkin really began putting on weight in August — a lot of weight. The pumpkin gained about 30 pounds a day on its way to victory Monday at the Safeway World Championship Pumpkin Weigh-off in Half Moon Bay. Starr’s pumpkin finished at a record 1,528 pounds. Starr won last year with a pumpkin that that was four pounds lighter and also set a re...
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Board hears from public on reprimanded coach
HUTCHINSON (AP) — Parents and current and former athletes filled a Hutchinson school board meeting to discuss a football coach’s use of profanity that administrators say was handled months ago. Randy Dreiling was reprimanded for a minute-long tirade to his team in June in which he used the F-word 16 times. The administration has released few details, and some have questioned whether he’s being given preferential treatment. Dreiling has won fo...
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Ask Amy
Dear Amy: My life has been pretty stressful lately. I am a high school junior who aspires to be an interventional cardiologist. I am taking hard courses, but I look at other students in my grade and see the super-hard classes they are in and feel as though I am not as smart as they are. I feel as if I’m behind. Next year I will be caught up, but what do I do now? Amy, please help me manage my stressed-out life. -- Stressed Out Student Dea...
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Payless to sell ‘green’ shoe line
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Payless ShoeSource is going green as it plans to sell a line of ecologically friendly shoes and handbags at prices that preserve the chain’s reputation for bargain footwear. The Topeka, Kan.-based chain announced the new line Monday with the first eight to 12 styles of women’s shoes being introduced in between 500 to 1,000 of its 4,500 stores and its online store early next year. The shoes will sell for an average of...
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Celebrities
NEW YORK (AP) — As Marcia Brady on “The Brady Bunch,” Maureen McCormick projected an image of the wholesome girl next door. But off camera, she spiraled downward into drug addiction and depression. Now 52, McCormick writes about her struggles in a new memoir, “Here’s the Story: Surviving Marcia Brady and Finding My True Voice,” hitting stores Tuesday. She discusses her romance with TV sibling Barry Williams, her dates with Michael Jackson a...
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Track owner wants Kansas to review slots law
Carl Manning Associated Press Writer TOPEKA (AP) — The owner of two closed race tracks urged Kansas regulators on Monday to wait to revoke the facilities’ operating licenses until legislators can reconsider how much slot machine revenue tracks should be allowed to keep. “We want an opportunity to go back before the Legislature. Give us four or five months before you jerk our license,” Phil Ruffin Sr., told the Kansas Racing and Gaming Com...
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Jenkins raises $640,000 in 2nd District race
WASHINGTON (AP) — Kansas State Treasurer Lynn Jenkins says she raised more than $640,000 since July in her bid to win a seat in state’s 2nd Congressional District. The Republican is trying to oust incumbent Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda, of Topeka. Jenkins has about $550,000 cash on hand to spend on television advertising in the three weeks before the Nov. 4 election. A spokesman says Boyda plans to report her latest fundraising totals when ...
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GOP hopeful championing Bush cuts
Incumbent Nancy Boyda wants to allow tax cuts to expire in 2010 John Hanna AP Political Writer TOPEKA (AP) — Republican Lynn Jenkins has made her vocal support for President Bush’s tax relief policies the center of her campaign to unseat Democratic Rep. Nancy Boyda in the 2nd Congressional District. As a legislator, Jenkins voted for what critics called the state’s largest tax increase to close a shortfall in Kansas’ budget. But as...
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The World Briefly
Stocks stage rally for the ages after worst week; Dow up 936 as Washington works on rescue NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street stormed back after its worst week ever and staged the biggest single-day stock rally since the Great Depression on Monday, catapulting the Dow Jones industrials to a 936-point gain and finally offering relief from eight consecutive days of stock market carnage. While no one was saying the worst was over for the staggering...
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Oddities
Pooh characters adorn vacant house in Flint, Mich. FLINT, Mich. (AP) — Characters from the beloved story of Winnie the Pooh are brightening one of the many vacant homes in the struggling industrial city of Flint. Twenty-year-old Kristina Pringle has a sketch pad full of cartoon characters. Since August, she’s been applying her hobby to beautifying an unoccupied house near her own home, painting Winnie’s friends on the boarded-up windows. ...
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Second out-of-state teen dropped at Omaha hospital under safe haven law
Detroit, Mich., mother drove 12 hours to leave her son in Nebraska Jean Ortiz and Josh Funk Associated Press Writers OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — A Michigan mother drove roughly 12 hours to Omaha, so she could abandon her 13-year-old son at a hospital under the state’s unique safe-haven law, Nebraska officials said Monday. The boy from the Detroit area is the second teenager from outside Nebraska and 18th child overall abandoned in the state si...
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Kansas Today
Machinists union confirms start of Boeing talks SEATTLE (AP) — The Machinists union has confirmed that negotiations to end a five-week strike at the Boeing Co. have begun. A note saying talks with a federal mediator were under way was posted Sunday on the union’s Web site. Spokeswoman Connie Kelliher said she did not know where the talks were being conducted. An agreement to renew contract talks for the first time since the strike beg...
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Singer survives accident
ABILENE (AP) — The words flow easily out of the mouth of the handsome teen-aged singer and he shows a quiet sense of humility. About a year ago, Jacob Henkel’s story was a far different one. Henkel, the 18-year-old rural Geary County man, was a hit with fans as he sang solo under the name Jake Holliday and also played with his dad, Mark, in the duo Sons of the Konza Prairie. They were featured entertainers along with Classic Heart on the en...
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Gas prices plummet in Kansas
WICHITA (AP) — In the shadow of the nation’s economic meltdown, there is at least one bit of good news for Kansans: Gasoline prices are dropping to levels that haven’t been seen in about a year and are well below the national average. The AAA Fuel Gauge report shows Kansas’ average price of a gallon of regular unleaded was $2.81 on Monday, down 73 cents from just a month ago. A year ago, the statewide average was $2.67 per gallon, and Wich...
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World Briefs
Stocks end wild session mixed as investors look for bargains after massive losses NEW YORK (AP) — Wall Street capped its worst week ever with a wild session Friday that saw the Dow Jones industrials rocket within a 1,000 point range before closing with a relatively mild loss and the Nasdaq composite index actually end with a modest advance. Investors were still agonizing over frozen credit markets, but seven days of massive losses m...
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Oddities
Fake realtor rented out unknowing owner’s NY home NEW YORK (AP) — A Long Island, N.Y., family thought they got a good deal when they found a rental house for $1,000 a month — until the owner showed up and asked what they were doing there. Nassau County police arrested Gregory Garvin on Wednesday for posing as a real estate agent and renting out the house in the hamlet of Roosevelt. Garvin was charged with grand larceny and fraud. Police s...
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