Wire
Official: Madonna wants to adopt Malawian girl
BLANTYRE, Malawi (AP) — Madonna wants to adopt a Malawian girl, a welfare official and another person close to the case said Friday, offering more detail on the second child the star is seeking from the impoverished African country. The two, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the subject, said the girl is about 4 years old and her mother, an unmarried teenager, died soon after she was born. Her father is believed ...
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Madoff scam breaks group that aided prisons
HUTCHINSON (AP) — Even before New York financier Bernard Madoff went to jail last week for operating a $65 billion Ponzi scheme, he had affected the lives of Kansas inmates. Donors to a private foundation that gave $4 million in grants to the Kansas Department of Corrections had invested with Madoff. Madoff, 70, was sent to prison after pleading guilty last week to securities fraud and other charges, admitting a ruse that lasted decades. H...
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NCAA Tournament Glance
The Associated Press All Times CDT Opening Round At UD Arena Dayton, Ohio Tuesday, March 17 Alabama State (22-9) vs. Morehead State (19-15), 6:30 p.m. EAST REGIONAL First Round Thursday, March 19 At Greensboro Coliseum Greensboro, N.C. Texas (22-11) vs. Minnesota (22-10), 6:10 p.m. Duke (28-6) vs. Binghamton (23-8), 30 minutes following At The Wachovia Center Philadelphia Villanova (26-7) vs. American (24-7), 6:20 p.m. UCLA ...
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Sedgwick County Zoo gives gorillas heart exams
WICHITA (AP) — Two 10-year-old gorillas at the Sedgwick County Zoo passed their heart exams with flying colors. That was the good news Saturday after Jabir and Samson underwent an elaborate medical screening performed by physician Ravi Bajan of Heartland Cardiology and several other medical professionals. Sedgwick County asked Bajan to perform the heart exam as part of a national effort to determine why gorillas in captivity are dying of h...
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Senate panel endorses gov.’s plan on schools
TOPEKA (AP) — A Senate committee has endorsed Gov. Kathleen Sebelius’ plan to use federal stimulus dollars to prevent cuts in aid to public schools. The Ways and Means Committee’s action came on a voice vote Friday. When Sebelius and legislators revised the current budget to eliminate a deficit, the state’s 295 school districts lost about $7 million of the aid they had been promised, or 0.2 percent. Sebelius wants to use $192 million in s...
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Late-term abortion provider faces trial
Roxana Hegeman Associated Press Writer WICHITA (AP) — For abortion opponents, the trial of one of the nation’s few late-term abortion providers has been a long time coming, a chance for a little bit of justice after years of seeing their efforts thwarted. To abortion-rights supporters, Dr. George Tiller’s trial is the culmination of repeated harassment, a witch hunt in which foes have been willing to do anything and everything to gain a convi...
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Early exit from Big 12 tourney shakes Kansas
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — So far, not so good for Kansas. Gone is the dream of beginning its defense of its NCAA championship as a No. 1 seed. Sunk is just about any chance of playing in always-friendly Kansas City, about 40 miles east of the University of Kansas. Evaporated is all the Jayhawks’ momentum. All the young team can do now is await whatever fate the NCAA selection committee chooses to give an up-and-down collection of athletes w...
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Pittman dominates again as Texas beats K-State
OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Texas center Dexter Pittman dominated inside for a second straight game and now the way appears clear for the Longhorns to return to the Big 12 Conference tournament final for a fourth straight year. The 6-foot-10, 298-pound junior finished with 19 points and a career-high 20 rebounds as Texas beat Kansas State 61-58 on Thursday in the quarterfinals of the Big 12 Conference tournament. Pittman’s three-point play with 1...
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Legislators struggle with Medicaid oversight
TOPEKA (AP) — A Senate committee wants to give the inspector general for the Medicaid program a new home to improve oversight of the program, but members couldn’t agree Thursday on where it should be. The Ways and Means Committee tabled a bill moving the inspector general’s office from the Kansas Health Policy Authority to the Legislature’s auditing division. The authority administers most of the $2.4 billion Medicaid program, which covers...
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Woman last to speak Wichita Indian language
WICHITA (AP) — She remembers when everyone around her spoke the language of the Wichita. Now they are all gone. So Doris Jean Lamar McLemore, 82, the last Wichita Indian fluent in the language of her people, carries a small tape recorder to save as much of it as she can. She doesn’t know how to play back her words, but she knows how to turn it on and speak into it when a word or phrase that must be preserved comes to mind. The loss of co...
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Budget deficit reaches $765B in 5 months
Christopher S. Rugaber AP Economics Writer WASHINGTON (AP) — Lower tax revenue and massive government spending on the bank bailout pushed the federal deficit to $765 billion in the first five months of the budget year, well on its way to hitting the Obama administration’s projection of a record annual imbalance of $1.75 trillion. The Treasury Department also said Wednesday that the February deficit reached $192.8 billion. That’s a record ...
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DA: Alabama shooter had revenge list in his home
Hour-long rampage resulted in deaths of 10 people, many of them shooter’s family members Jessica Gresko and Desiree Hunter Associated Press Writers SAMSON, Ala. (AP) — A gunman who killed 10 people in the worst mass shooting in Alabama history had a list of employers “who had done him wrong,” including the nearby sausage plant he quit days before the spree and the metal factory where he shot himself, authorities said Wednesday. Investig...
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Plane makes emergency landing in NYC
Verena Dobnik Associated Press Writer NEW YORK (AP) — An American Airlines plane landed safely at a New York airport Wednesday with a failed engine dropping metal debris onto a home. No injuries were reported, either on the aircraft or the ground. The crew reported a loud noise just after takeoff, which Federal Aviation Administration spokesman Jim Peters said indicated the engine on the right side of the McDonnell Douglas 80 had failed. Amer...
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AG: Rapes in 2 college towns may be linked
John Milburn Associated Press Writer TOPEKA (AP) — The attorney general’s office announced Wednesday that it is investigating the link between 13 rapes that occurred over eight years in two college towns. Attorney General Steve Six said there are enough similarities between the college-age victims, time of attack and manner of attack to suspect the rapes are connected. Eight of the rapes were in Manhattan, which is home to Kansas State U...
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Teen gunman kills self after slaying 15 in Germany
Oliver Schmale Associated Press Writer WINNENDEN, Germany (AP) — A 17-year-old gunman dressed in black opened fire inside his former high school in southwestern Germany on Wednesday killing 15 people, 11 of them women and girls, before turning the gun on himself, authorities said. Police said the attacker’s father, a gun club member, owned 16 guns, one of which was missing. The gunman entered the school in Winnenden at 9:33 a.m. after cl...
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Oil rigs cut drilling, lay off workers
WICHITA (AP) — Kansas drilling rigs that once could not punch holes fast enough when oil prices hit record highs less than a year ago are now sitting idle, their crews laid off. Tax revenues in oil-rich counties are plummeting. Marginal wells are shutting down. With the world awash in oil supplies and oil prices down, states like Kansas are among the first to feel the economic aftershocks in its oil industry. Nearly 80 percent of the state’...
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Unemployment in January worst since 1983
TOPEKA (AP) — The Kansas Department of Labor reports that the state’s unemployment rate in January was the worst in more than 25 years. A slowing economy caused unemployment to spike at 6.4 percent, the department reported Wednesday. Agency spokeswoman Kathy Toelkes (TOHL’-kuhs) said it hasn’t been that high since June 1983. The department also said the number of Kansans who filed their first claims for unemployment benefits in January was...
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Navy to continue listing Gulf War pilot as missing
WASHINGTON (AP) — A U.S. fighter pilot lost nearly 20 years ago in the Persian Gulf War will continue to be listed as missing in action, the Navy announced Tuesday, although the Pentagon no longer suspects that he was captured by Iraqi forces. The decision to keep Capt. Michael “Scott” Speicher’s status open is at odds with a report last year from U.S. intelligence officials who concluded he is dead. But it came as welcome news to Speicher’...
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Defensive specialist helps lift Jayhawks
LAWRENCE (AP) — Brady Morningstar’s soul mate in football would be the cornerback, the guy out there on a lonely island chasing the other team’s most dangerous receiver. Game after game, Kansas coach Bill Self sends Morningstar out to the perimeter to guard the opponent’s best shooter. Usually, he does well. A couple of times he has been embarrassed. How far the No. 11 Jayhawks go in defense of their NCAA championship will depend in no sma...
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Plenty at stake at Big 12 tourney
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Most years, the Big 12 tournament has just a handful of teams with a realistic chance win it, usually starting with Kansas and Texas. The Jayhawks and Longhorns have plenty of company this year — and they’re not even the favorites. While a wild and unpredictable regular season is over, the Big 12 shifts to its season-ending tournament in Oklahoma City, where there’s sure to be a few more unexpected turns before Satu...
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