Two Men Who Killed Kansas Children Will Be Put to Death
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCUR) - Two men convicted of raping and murdering Kansas children more than 20 years ago will be put to death. They are among four men scheduled to be killed in the first federal executions set to take place in 17 years. The Justice Department announced this week that Wesley Ira Purkey, who raped and murdered 16-year-old Jennifer Long in Lansing in 1998, will be executed on July 15th. And Keith Dwayne Nelson, who raped and murdered 10-year-old Pamela Butler in Kansas City, Kansas, in 1999, will be executed on August 28th. Since the federal death penalty was reinstated in 1988, only three federal executions have taken place. Purkey and Nelson are set be given lethal injections of the single drug pentobarbital, the same method used to execute inmates in Missouri.
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Kansas Cases of COVID-19 Increase by 262 Since Monday; Six K-State Football Players Also Test Positive
TOPEKA, Kan. (KPR) - Nearly 11,700 people in Kansas have tested positive for COVID-19. State health officials released the latest round of numbers Wednesday afternoon, reporting 11,681 cases statewide. That's up 262 cases since Monday. Kansas has also recorded 247 deaths caused by the coronavirus. At least six Kansas State football players have now tested positive for the virus. The Manhattan Mercury newspaper also reports that all six players contracted the virus in other states. Meanwhile, health officials are reporting 41 cases of the coronavirus and one death linked to funeral services and visitations in Shawnee County. The county's health department says the positive cases include residents from five different counties. Health officials urged families to follow guidelines from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention -- and work with funeral directors and religious leaders to keep funeral services safe.
- Related -
Kansas Cases of COVID-19 Increase to Nearly 11,700, Including 247 Deaths
TOPEKA, Kan. (KPR) — As of this (WED) afternoon, state health officials are reporting 11,681 cases of COVID-19 and 247 deaths. Cases have been reported in 91 of the state's 105 counties. The next update on Kansas coronavirus cases will be on Friday. ( Updated COVID-19 case numbers for Kansas are released Monday, Wednesday and Friday afternoons.)
- KPR's Coronavirus Information and Resources Guide
- Governor Laura Kelly's Plan to Reopen Kansas
- Live Coverage: Coronavirus in the Kansas City Area
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T wo Kansas City Area Casinos Lay Off More than 500 Workers Due to Pandemic
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KCUR) - Two Kansas City area casinos on either side of the state line are laying off more than 500 employees in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic, saying the lockdowns have disrupted their businesses. The Argosy Casino Hotel and Spa in Riverside, Missouri, said it would lay off 289 employees beginning August 15th. And the Hollywood Casino at Kansas Speedway in Kansas City, Kansas, said it would lay off 215 employees, also beginning August 15th. Both casinos are owned or partially owned by Penn National Gaming Inc. of Wyomissing, Pennsylvania, which said the layoffs will be permanent although the casinos will remain open. A spokesman for the company said the casinos would not be able resume normal operations for the foreseeable future because of social distancing requirements and uncertain business volume.
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St. Luke's Health System Furloughs Some Employees
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCUR) - St. Luke’s health system, which has several branches around northeast Kansas, says it's furloughing some of its employees to mitigate financial strain. St. Luke’s says that suspending non-urgent procedures during the stay-at-home orders and stocking up on personal protective equipment have had a significant financial impact and have forced the health care system to take cost-cutting measures. It will furlough some employees for 90 days, although St. Luke’s declined to say how many workers would be affected. St. Luke’s will also make salary cuts for senior leadership and look to expand telemedicine to save costs moving forward.
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KDHE Adds States to Travel Quarantine List, Removes Others
TOPEKA, Kan. (KPR) - The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has added three states to the quarantine list: Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas, and removed six states from the list: Connecticut, Illinois, Massachusetts, New Jersey, New York and Rhode Island. The list became effective today (WED) - June 17th - and will remain in effect until further notice. The state will review and possibly update the list on July 1. A comprehensive list of those individuals in Kansas needing to quarantine for 14 days includes those who have:
Traveled to:
Maryland on or after May 12.
Alabama, Arizona and Arkansas on or after June 17.
Been on a cruise ship or river cruise on or after March 15.
International travel on or after March 15.
For more information on COVID-19, please visit the KDHE website.
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Reports: T-Mobile Will Lay Off Sprint Sales Employees
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KPR) - T-Mobile reportedly is laying off large numbers of sales employees who came to the company in its merger with Sprint Corporation. According to the Kansas City Business Journal, T-Mobile told hundreds of affected employees that the company is doing away with Sprint’s Business Inside Sales Organization. The Journal quotes a report from TechCrunch, which said T-Mobile executives held several conference calls announcing layoffs to Sprint operations focused on both business and commercial sales. In a statement, T-Mobile declined to say how many employees are affected but the layoffs are expected to take effect in August.
Layoffs are not unusual after two large companies merge. And as the acquired party, few top Sprint executives made the transition to leadership of what has been called the New T-Mobile. However, T-Mobile and Sprint officials said the merger would result in more, not fewer, jobs as they sought approval for the deal from the U.S. Department of Justice and the Federal Communications Commission. T-Mobile had said it would retain Sprint's Overland Park operations as a "second headquarters" but has never elaborated on what that means. Even the number of area Sprint employees is unclear. The company reported having 6,000 local full-time-equivalent employees in 2018, but did not respond to a KCBJ survey for 2019. A company official also did not disclose the number of area employees on April 1, when the merger was completed. ( Read more in the Kansas City Business Journal.)
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St. Louis Area Starts to Open Up, but COVID-19 Cases on the Rise in Kansas City
O'FALLON, Mo. (AP) — As the St. Louis area begins to reopen more broadly after the coronavirus shutdown, new concerns are being raised about a rise in new cases in Kansas City. St. Louis city and county have been under stricter guidelines because the area has seen the worst of the impact in Missouri of COVID-19, the illness caused by the coronavirus. But things are starting to ease. Gyms and several other businesses that have been closed for several months were allowed to reopen Monday. But in Kansas City, KCUR reports that the rate of new cases has increased every week since May 10.
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Foul Odor Leads Police to Body of Woman in Kansas City Home
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) - Police say complaints of a foul odor in a northeastern Kansas City apartment complex led officers to discover the decomposing body of a woman in one of the units. Police officers found the woman's body around 4 am today (WED) in an apartment building on the southern edge of the South Indian Mound neighborhood. Police say neighbors reported that there had been a foul odor there for several days. Police have not released the name of the woman. Her death is being treated as suspicious.
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Crews Extinguish Large Blaze at Lake of the Ozarks Condos
LAKE OZARK, Mo. (AP) - It took a half dozen fire departments to extinguish the flames at a large condominium complex at the Lake of the Ozarks. State fire officials in Missouri are investigating the cause of the blaze that engulfed the Emerald Bay Condominiums. No one was injured in Tuesday night's fire.
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KCK Police Arrest Woman in a Fatal Hit-and-Run Cash
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) - Police say a woman has been arrested in connection with a deadly hit-and-run crash over the weekend in Kansas City, Kansas. Police say 25-year-old Kendra Womack turned herself in shortly after fleeing the scene of Sunday's crash. Investigators say Womack was driving a sport utility vehicle when she broadsided a car at an intersection. The driver of the car, 42-year-old Myron Gardner of Kansas City, Kansas, died at the scene. Two other adults and two children in the car were injured. Police say Womack fled the crash on foot. She's been charged with failure to stop at an accident resulting in death... and is being held in the Wyandotte County Jail on $100,000 bond.
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Kansas Mom Sentenced to Prison for Trying to Poison Her 3 Children
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A 39-year-old Kansas woman who tried to poison her three children with medication after losing custody of them to her ex-husband has been sentenced to nearly 29 years in prison. Therese Irine Roever was sentenced Tuesday on three attempted first-degree murder charges and criminal threat. Prosecutors said Roever's ex-husband called police in February 2018 to report Roever and their three children were drugged and groggy at her home. WDAF-TV reports Roever lost custody of her children when the couple divorced but was later given unsupervised visitation. Two of the children were 7 and one was 5 at the time of the incident.
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Man Killed by Law Enforcement in Lawrence Wanted for Murder in Nebraska
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A man who was shot and killed by Kansas law enforcement in Lawrence this week was wanted on murder charges in Nebraska. Omaha police say the man who was killed Monday is 31-year-old Nicholas Hirsh, a white man who faced a first-degree murder arrest warrant for the shooting death last week of 41-year-old John Miles, of Council Bluffs, Iowa. The U.S. Marshals Service said it appeared that the suspect had been in Kansas since Friday, when a car was stolen from Clay Center. The Kansas Highway Patrol spotted the car near Perry Lake in northeast Kansas and pursued it to Lawrence. The patrol says he was shot in an exchange of gunfire after pointing a gun at officers.
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Data Released on COVID-19 Cases in Federal Prisons
UNDATED (KNS) - Federal prison facilities in Kansas have seen about 50 cases of COVID-19 throughout the pandemic, and most of those people have recovered. The Kansas News Service reports that's a fraction of the almost 7,000 cases in federal prisons across the country. There are two active cases of COVID-19 at federal prison facilities in Kansas -- both at privately run facilities for people who are leaving prison and re-entering society. One of those programs, GEO Re-entry in Leavenworth, saw 48 cases overall, All but one have recovered. The U.S. Penitentiary at Leavenworth also had five positive cases of COVID among staff, but none among its 1600 inmates. That compares favorably to the 800 plus people who got the coronavirus at a state-run prison near Leavenworth. The Bureau of Prisons says it’s been expanding testing for inmates. But advocates for prisoners say they believe the government hasn’t done enough to know for sure how many positive cases there are.
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Kansas Senator: Full Funding Approved for New Prison at Leavenworth
WASHINGTON - Kansas Senator Jerry Moran has announced the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth will receive $356 million to construct the new Federal Correctional Institute and a satellite Federal Prison Camp in Leavenworth. After nearly 20 years of preparation, Moran says the project is now fully-funded and ground will soon be broken. The project will replace older prison buildings at Leavenworth.
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Fatal Shooting Leaves One Man Dead in Wichita
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) - Police say a shooting in northeast Wichita has left one man dead. Officials say the shooting happened around 3:30 Wednesday morning at a home in the Lambsdale neighborhood. Police say officers were called to the home for a report of a disturbance with a weapon, but when they arrived, they found a man in his 50s dead at the scene with a gunshot wound. Police say several people were at the home when officers arrived, and they were taken in for questioning. Police say they are also searching for another person. The victim's name has not yet been released.
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Patrol: No Gun Found in Car of Missouri Woman Shot by Deputy
LIBERTY, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say investigators found no weapon in the car of a Missouri woman who was shot and killed by a sheriff's deputy. Hannah Fizer died Saturday night after being shot by a Pettis County deputy following a traffic stop. The Missouri State Highway Patrol initially said Fizer told the deputy she had a gun and threatened to shoot him. Patrol spokesman Bill Lowe said Tuesday that investigators who searched the car did not find a weapon. He says no new information is available to explain why the confrontation escalated into a shooting. The deputy, whose name has not been released, is on paid administrative leave.
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Judge: U.S. Must Immediately Release $679 Million in Tribal Virus Relief Funds
FLAGSTAFF, Ariz. (AP) — A federal judge says the U.S. Treasury Department must release $679 million in coronavirus relief funding to tribes that it intended to withhold over a court challenge. U.S. District Judge Amit Mehta ruled late Monday that the department doesn't have discretion to hold back the money. The funding is part of a federal relief package that included $8 billion for tribes and was supposed to go out by late April. Mehta ordered the Treasury Department to disburse it among tribal governments by today (WED). He says continued delay in the face of an exceptional public health crisis no longer is acceptable. Kansas is home to four federally-recognized Indian tribes.
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Police: Suburban Kansas City Man Killed in House Fire
GRANDVIEW, Mo. (AP) — Police in suburban Kansas City say a man has died in an early morning house fire. Police say Grandview firefighters were called to the blaze around 5:30 am Tuesday. In the course of extinguishing the fire, crews found a man dead inside the home, located in the southeastern corner of Grandview. Authorities have not released the identity of the man, but say he was in his 70s. The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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Liquidation Sales Underway at JC Penney Stores in Kansas
EMPORIA, Kan. (KPR) - Liquidation sales have begun at more than a hundred JC Penney stores across the country, including three in Kansas. JC Penney locations in Emporia, Salina and Liberal started discounting merchandise today (WED) as they prepare to close. The long-time retail chain filed for bankruptcy protection in May. Not all JC Penney stores are closing. The company expects about 600 stores to remain open.
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Report: Kansas Wheat Harvest Underway
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas wheat harvest in Kansas is now underway in the state's southern counties, with progress about average for this time of year. The U.S. Agriculture Department's National Agricultural Statistics Service reports that 9% of the wheat in Kansas has now been cut. Winter wheat condition is rated as 6% very poor, 15% poor, 34% fair, 40% good, and 5% excellent, the agency said. Early reports from the harvest in the state's southern counties indicate that this year's wheat quality is good, with exceptional test weights, average or better yields and protein levels slightly below average, according to an industry update issued Monday. The industry harvest report is put out by the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Association of Wheat Growers and the Kansas Grain and Feed Association.
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Minnesota Truck Driver Killed in Northern Kansas crash
BELLEVILLE, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Highway Patrol says a Minnesota truck driver has died in a crash in northern Kansas. Television station KAKE reports that the crash happened Monday morning on U.S. Highway 81 in Republic County, killing 33-year-old David Fronning, of Breckenridge, Minnesota. Investigators say Fronning was driving a semitrailer southbound on the highway when it went into a ditch, hit an embankment and went airborne before crashing into trees, coming to rest on its side in a field. Authorities say Fronning died at the scene.
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University of Kansas Shortens In-Person Fall Semester
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas has announced it will shorten the time students are on campus for the fall semester as it seeks to block a coronavirus wave. Under the plan, classes would begin in person as scheduled on August 24 and in-person instruction would end just before the Thanksgiving holiday. The Lawrence Journal-World reports that after Thanksgiving, there will be a week to study for finals, which will be done remotely. On Monday, health officials reported nearly 11,500 COVID-19 cases in Kansas, including 245 deaths.
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KPR's daily headlines are generally posted by 10 am weekdays and updated throughout the day. KPR's weekend summary is usually published by 1 pm Saturdays and Sundays.