AP Top Kansas News at 5:45 a.m. CDT

Thursday, November 5, 2009

Division's soldiers prepare for changing Iraq

FORT RILEY, Kan. (AP) -- In the coming months, the 1st Infantry Division will roll up its "Big Red One" flag and plant it in Iraq for a year, the scene of a fight that's slowly becoming America's other war.

It's far from the war that many officers and soldiers of the division fought just a few years back. But none of them have a problem with that new reality.

As the 1st Infantry Division's commanding general and his staff prepare for their upcoming turn in Iraq, the nation's focus has shifted to what was once considered "the other war" being fought in Afghanistan.

"It's a different environment that we're going into," Maj. Gen. Vincent Brooks said Wednesday. "It's easy to lose focus on the work to be done when it's not the primary focus. Afghanistan is the primary focus."

President Barack Obama is considering recommendations from Gen. Stanley McChrystal to change the strategy in Afghanistan, including a request to increase troop levels from between 10,000 to 60,000. At the same time, the U.S. continues to wind down Iraq operations, eyeing a near complete withdraw of combat forces by the end of 2011.

Brooks will lead about 850 soldiers who will provide command and control over coalition forces from a base in Basra in southern Iraq, an area that comprises nine provinces. U.S. forces will remain in an advise and assist role as Iraq holds national elections and takes steps closer to full transition of security to its forces.

------ Family doctors group loses members over Coke deal

CHICAGO (AP) -- One of the nation's largest doctors' groups is getting criticized and losing members over its six-figure alliance with the Coca-Cola Co.

The deal will fund educational materials about soft drinks on a health Web site run by the American Academy of Family Physicians. The group is based in suburban Kansas City, Kan.

The academy's leader, Dr. Douglas Henley, said Wednesday that the deal won't influence the group's public health messages. But critics point to research linking soft drinks with obesity, and they think Coke will try to water that down.

A Coca-Cola spokeswoman says the partnership will provide education based on sound science.

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On the Net:

------ Dodge City reporter faces subpoena

DODGE CITY, Kan. (AP) -- The Dodge City Daily Globe is challenging a county attorney's efforts to obtain a reporter's notes and testimony about a jailhouse interview she conducted with a man charged in a fatal shooting.

Ford County Attorney Terry Malone issued a subpoena to the Globe and reporter Claire O'Brien, seeking details about an Oct. 7 interview with shooting suspect Samuel Bonilla. An Oct. 13 story in the Globe based mostly on that interview included a few statements attributed to anonymous sources.

Bonilla is charged in the shooting over Labor Day weekend of two Dodge City residents, which left one man dead and another wounded. In the interview, Bonilla told O'Brien he acted in self-defense.

Attorney William Hurst, who is representing the Globe and O'Brien, filed a motion Monday to quash the subpoena. O'Brien was scheduled to appear at an inquisition Tuesday, but it was postponed to give Malone time to respond to O'Brien's motion.

Hurst's motion contends that Malone is trying to force O'Brien to become an investigative agent for the government, rather than an independent reporter.

"Under the federal constitution, as construed by the courts of this State, a subpoena that undermines the ability of the press to serve its important public functions without advancing a substantial law enforcement or judicial need should be quashed," the motion says. "That is precisely the case here."

------ Business analyst gets 80 months in junk fax scam

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- A Milwaukee man has been sentenced to more than six years in prison for his role in a blast fax operation that scammed thousands of small business owners across the United States, Mexico and Canada.

The U.S. attorney's office says 43-year-old Shaun Smoker was given an 80-month prison term Wednesday in a case prosecuted out of Kansas against Florida firm PBS Global, Inc. Smoker was a business analyst for the company.

PBS made more than $6.5 million between 2003 and 2004 by targeting small business owners who were seeking to sell their operations. Investigators found more than 4,000 victims in 48 states in addition to some in Mexico and Canada.

------ Officials see challenges for Kan. wind energy

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- State and federal officials say Kansas has great potential for developing wind power but lacks enough transmission lines to spur further development of renewable energy.

At a gathering Tuesday in Lawrence, more than 100 energy policy-makers and advocates heard that current transmission lines are near capacity. The lack of available capacity makes it difficult to move wind energy generated in the western areas of Kansas to larger cities and towns in the east.

Gov. Mark Parkinson said the federal government can help by offering more guidance on renewable energy development and helping getting transmission lines built.

"What we know from our experience here in Kansas is that no single state and no single utility has the resources to solve this problem," Parkinson said. "It is only going to be solved on a very large regional basis and ultimately on a national basis."

A federal energy official said authorities need more power to decide where and how to build transmission lines across state borders, much like it does with natural gas pipelines. Phil Moeller of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission said the desire for cleaner, renewable energy and reducing carbon emissions was driving wind energy projects.

"The wind industry is fundamentally changing the (energy) industry," Moeller said.

------ St. George cemetery hit by vandals

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) -- The township of St. George is offering a $1,000 reward for information about vandalism that caused an estimated $5,000 damage at its cemetery.

Pottawatomie County Sheriff Greg Riat says at least 16 tombstones were damaged and several smaller displays were destroyed. Some of the damaged tombstones were more than 100 years old. The cemetery was founded in 1889 and is maintained by county funds.

The vandalism occurred over Halloween and included pumpkins being thrown at some of the headstones.

Riat says vandalism is rare at the 120 year-old cemetery.

------ Parents of dead Spelman student plan to file suit

ATLANTA (AP) -- The parents of a Spelman College student killed by a stray bullet while walking on the Clark Atlanta University campus have announced plans to sue the university for neglecting to provide adequate security.

Bunnie Jackson-Ransom, spokeswoman for attorney Rod Edmond, says Constance Franklin and Clint Lynn of Kansas City, Mo., will hold a news conference Thursday in Atlanta just after they file the lawsuit in Fulton County State Court. Jackson-Ransom says the pair are suing for wrongful death in the Sept. 3 shooting of 19-year-old Jasmine Lynn.

Lynn was killed outside a Clark Atlanta dorm when a fight broke out nearby and shots were fired. One person has been charged in the shooting.

Clark Atlanta spokesman Larry Calhoun declined comment because he had not yet seen the lawsuit.

------ Texas, NM rape suspect scrutinized in Colorado

PUEBLO, Colo. (AP) -- A man suspected of sexually assaulting more than 12 women in New Mexico and Texas and trying to kill a Pueblo police officer has prompted an inquiry from northern Colorado investigators.

Police in Fort Collins are looking into whether Robert Howard Bruce, 47, of Pueblo was involved in at least two sexual assaults in 2008, spokeswoman Rita Davis told the Pueblo Chieftain in Wednesday's editions.

Bruce is being held in the Pueblo County jail on $3 million bail on charges including attempted first-degree murder and being a fugitive. Jail officials had no record of an attorney for him.

Pueblo County prosecutors allege Bruce tried to kill an officer who was to testify against him in a Peeping Tom case.

DNA from the attempted-murder case linked Bruce to 11 sexual assaults in Albuquerque, N.M., starting in 1991 and one in Austin, Texas, in 2006, New Mexico authorities said.

Bruce is also suspected in three rapes in Lubbock, Texas, because of similarities with the New Mexico cases, Lubbock police Capt. Greg Stevens said.

------ Kansas State to break ground on Olathe campus

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) -- A groundbreaking ceremony will be held Thursday for the first building on Kansas State University's new Olathe campus.

The building will eventually house the $28 million National Institute for Animal Health and Food Safety.

Dan Richardson, chief executive officer of the Kansas State Olathe Innovation Campus Inc., says the institute will house educational and lab space for research, education and technology commercialization in animal health and food safety.

Richardson says the building is projected to be completed by late 2010 or early 2011, Richardson said.

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Information from: The Topeka Capital-Journal, http://www.cjonline.com

------ KU Hospital performs rare surgery

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- University of Kansas Hospital surgeons performed a unique procedure Tuesday on a 19-year-old man from southwest Missouri who had bone cancer in his left arm.

The 10-hour procedure involved amputating the cancerous limb and then saving as many nerves as possible to use with a prosthesis.

By saving the nerves and implanting them in his chest muscles, he should be able to use the prosthesis more easily and do more with it.

Only 35 of these procedures, called targeted muscle reinnervation, have been done worldwide and the University of Kansas surgery was the first to be performed on a cancer patient -- not a trauma patient. It also was the first to be done on such a high level of amputation. The first successful surgery was done in 2001.

Dr. Todd Kuiken, director at the Neural Engineering Center for Artificial Limbs at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago, developed the procedure and witnessed the operation.

"This surgery will greatly enable what his options are for controlling an artificial arm," Kuiken said. "He's a young man who's going to have a lot of opportunities with the improvements in time."

------ 2 brothers involved in separate homicide cases

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) -- A Lyons man charged in the death of his girlfriend has a brother who has been convicted in a separate murder in Barton County.

Prosecutors charged 35-year-old Armando Mosqueda with first-degree murder Monday in the death of 31-year-old Jeannie Jacobsen of Lyons. She was found stabbed to death on Sunday.

Mosqueda's brother, 31-year-old Antonio Mosqueda Jr. of Great Bend, pleaded guilty in September to second-degree murder in Barton County in the August 2008 shooting death of 30-year-old Jose L. Villanueva Jr. He is scheduled to be sentenced Thursday.

Antonio Mosqueda was accused of killing Villanueva on Aug. 12, 2008, after a night of drinking with friends. Investigators have not been able to determine a motive for the slaying.

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Information from: The Hutchinson News, http://www.hutchnews.com