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(Photo Credit: U.S. Air Force)WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The Air Force has selected both McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita and Forbes Airfield in Topeka as finalists for basing air refueling tankers. U.S. Senators Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts said Wednesday that both installations are finalists for the main operating base. McConnell is also a finalist to house the formal training unit. Starting in 2017, the base chosen as the main operating base will support 36 active-duty KC-46A tankers. The two Republican senators say the decision shows the Air Force recognizes the critical roleKansas plays in national security and global air mobility.

(image credit: Aratana Therapeutics)Shares of pet medicine developer Aratana Therapeutics are soaring in their first trading day on the Nasdaq Global Market. The stock, ticker symbol PETX, is up 48 percent, or $2.90, to $8.90 per share in afternoon trading, while the Nasdaq exchange climbed less than 1 percent. The Kansas City, Kansas company raised $34.5 million in an initial public offering of 5.7 million shares that was priced well below the range of $11 to $13 originally expected. The banks managing the offering may buy an additional 862,500 shares to sell if there's demand. That would increase the IPO proceeds. Aratana is developing potential pet medicines based on compounds created by human drug companies. It has no approved products on the market, but is developing pain treatments for both cats and dogs.

Arrowhead Stadium, the home of the Kansas City Chiefs (Photo credit: commons.wikimedia.org)KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A group of Kansas City Chiefs fans is organizing an effort to break the world record for the loudest roar at a sports stadium sometime in the upcoming NFL season. The group calls itself "Terrorhead Returns" and says Guinness Book of World Records officials have given final approval for the record attempt, though no date has been set. Organizers say the effort is an attempt to unify the local fan base and revive Arrowhead Stadium's reputation as one of the loudest venues in the NFL. The effort follows a dismal season in which the Chiefs finished 2-14, dealt with the suicide of linebacker Jovan Belcher outside the stadium and saw the firings of head coach Romeo Crennel and general manager Scott Pioli.

(Image credit: www.agricorner.com)WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. House has passed a scaled-down version of a massive farm bill, putting off a fight over food stamp spending and giving Republican leaders a victory after a decisive defeat on the larger bill last month. The GOP leaders scrambled to get the bill to the floor Thursday and gather enough votes this week after making a decision to drop a politically sensitive food stamp section of the bill and pass legislation that contained only farm programs. The plan faced opposition from Democrats, farm groups and conservative groups. But Majority Leader Eric Cantor of Virginia navigated his colleagues to a 216-208 vote by convincing Republican members that this was the best chance to get the bill passed and erase the embarrassment of the June defeat.

Paleontologist David Burnham of the KU Biodiversity Institute (Photo Credit: KU Biodiversity Institute)LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Paleontologists long have debated whether the Tyrannosaurus rex was a vicious killing machine or a scavenger. But now David Burnham of the University of Kansas says new evidence shows the dinosaur is "the monster of our dreams." The new evidence is a T. rex tooth lodged in the fossilized spine of a hadrosaur. The plant-eater seems to have survived the attack. And because the T. rex regularly shed teeth, the hunter would have simply grown a new one. The university said in a news release that Burnham was part of a team that analyzed graduate student Robert DePalma's fossil discovery from the Hell Creek Formation of South Dakota. The team describes the find in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Diagram of a hydraulic fracturing process (Image credit: technorati.com)TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas utility regulators are considering new rules to require oil and natural gas companies to disclose some information about the chemicals they use in hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. The Topeka Capital Journal reports that the Kansas Corporation Commission outlined the proposed rules to legislators on Monday. The KCC also plans a public hearing August 10 in Wichita on the proposals. The rules would require companies to disclose the chemicals they use in fracking with water under high pressure to crack open rock formations and release oil and natural gas. The information would have to be listed on a KCC database or an online industry database. Companies could avoid some disclosures if their chemicals were a trade secret. Environmentalists said the rules don't go far enough.

Secretary of Revenue Nick Jordan speaking before the House tax committee. (Photo by Stephen Koranda)A House committee has been talking taxes this week. Legislators took testimony and asked questions about Governor Sam Brownback’s tax plan. It would eliminate some business taxes and cut income taxes with the goal of boosting the economy. It would also eliminate dozens of credits and deductions. As KPR’s Stephen Koranda tells us, the governor’s administration now seem open to compromise on at least one part of the proposal. 00000184-7fa7-d6f8-a1cf-7fa7a7970000

A Kansas tornado (Photo Credit NOAA)MONTGOMERY, Ala. (AP) — When deadly twisters chewed through the South and Midwest last year, thousands of people in the killers' paths had nowhere to hide. Now many of those families are taking an unusual extra step to be ready next time: adding tornado shelters to their homes. Sales of small residential storm shelters known as safe rooms are surging across much of the nation, especially in cities such as Montgomery and Tuscaloosa in Alabama and in Joplin, Missouri, where the storms laid waste to entire neighborhoods. Manufacturers can barely keep up with demand. Some states are offering grants and other financial incentives to help pay for the added protection. The interest in shelters was renewed by the staggering death toll of 2011 — 358 killed in the South and 161 dead in Joplin.

Union Pacific Locomotive 844 (Image Credit: AP File Photograph)This year is the Union Pacific Railroad's 150th birthday. To mark the occasion, an historic steam locomotive is traveling across the Midwest this week. Mark Davis is with Union Pacific:Steam locomotive number 844 made a stop at northwest Fillmore and northwest Norris Streets in Topeka yesterday (MON) afternoon. It's scheduled to leave this (TUE) morning around 8. Visitors are welcome for the duration of the train's time in the area. For more information and a schedule of locomotive 844's itinerary, visit www.up.com, and enter the word "steam" in the search box.

(Photo Credit: kansastravel.org)Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat, made clear his thoughts on a tax bill under consideration. Lawmakers advanced a major bill last week to cut income and sales tax rates. The measure would cost the state some 800 million dollars in 2014. Hensley says the loss means lawmakers won't be able to increase education spending or fund a property tax cut that has already passed the Senate.The House has passed its own tax plan. The bills are now going to a joint conference committee, where the two chambers will try to work out their differences. While a final product is likely to have a smaller pricetag, Hensley says he fears House lawmakers will threaten to pass the Senate bill in its current form.