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

Wednesday, November 4, 2009

Anthony earns conference's player of week honor

DENVER (AP) -- The NBA has named Denver Nuggets forward Carmelo Anthony the Western Conference player of the week.

Anthony has the Nuggets out to their first 3-0 start since the 1985-86 season. He is averaging a league-leading 37.7 points a game.

He scored 30 points against Utah in the season opener, then followed that up the next night with a 41-point effort at Portland. He also had 42 against Memphis.

This is the ninth time Anthony has been named player of the week, and his first honor since the 2007-08 season. The last Nuggets player to earn the distinction was Chauncey Billups just about a year ago on Nov. 17, 2008.

------ 3 million acres taken out of conservation program

TRIBUNE, Kan. (AP) -- Surveying undulating grasslands that disappear into the western Kansas horizon, retired farmer Joe Govert pointed out parcel after parcel no longer enrolled in a federal program that pays property owners not to farm environmentally sensitive land.

The arid, wind-swept ground stripped of topsoil by Dust Bowl storms has laid undisturbed beneath a protective cover of native grasses that took two decades to re-establish under the Conservation Reserve Program. But millions of those acres are being plowed again after the 2008 Farm Bill capped the program at 32 million acres.

More than 3.4 million acres nationwide were taken out of the program in September when the owners' contracts expired. Most of them were in Texas, Colorado and Kansas, but hundreds of thousands of acres also came out in Montana and the Dakotas.

The environmental and economic repercussions could extend beyond the nation's Heartland with a greater risk of new dust storms, soil erosion and water pollution. Farmers also worry more grain will mean even lower commodity crop prices.

CRP pays landowners not to farm easily eroded land, while splitting with them the cost of establishing vegetative cover. The goal is to reduce soil erosion and sedimentation in streams and lakes, improve water quality and establish wildlife habitat.

The program has created millions of acres of habitat for quail, pheasant, prairie chickens and other wildlife and established filter strips and forested buffers to protect streams, lakes and rivers from sedimentation and agricultural runoff.

------ Kan., Wash. back Boeing for tanker contract

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- With hundreds of new jobs at stake, Kansas officials are keeping an eye on the competition for an Air Force contract to build a new refueling plane.

Chicago-based Boeing Co., which has a plant in Wichita, is competing with Los Angeles-based Northrop Grumman Corp. and Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co. for the $35 billion contract to build new air refuelers and replace the Air Force's aging fleet of 179 tankers.

Northrop and Airbus are offering a tanker based on the Airbus A330. Boeing may offer tankers based on its 767 or 777 jets or both.

Kansas Gov. Mark Parkinson met this summer with the secretary of the Air Force to discuss military issues in the state, including the tanker project. Parkinson said Monday he and former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius' administration have been strong supporters of Boeing's bid.

"I will continue to work with Boeing and our Congressional delegation as they focus on ways to bring this important project to Kansas," Parkinson said.

If Boeing received the contract, its Wichita plant likely would add jobs to finish construction of the aircraft, which would replace the Eisenhower-era planes currently flown by the Air Force and Air National Guard from Kansas bases.

------ Missouri again picked for seventh in Big 12

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri is coming off a postseason run that ended one game shy of the Final Four and lost its top two scorers. Expectations are down, right?

Well, not so much.

Coach Mike Anderson is counting on his relentless pressing defense and developing young talent to produce another unexpected big season despite the departures of DeMarre Carroll and Leo Lyons. Top 3-point threat Matt Lawrence also must be replaced, and together those three combined for more than half of the 81.5-point scoring average.

"It's a different team," Anderson said. "There's no question about it."

Anderson enters his fourth season at Missouri with nine first- or second-year players. Hence, preseason predictions by Big 12 coaches for a seventh-place finish.

Jokingly, Anderson said Missouri lost so much that a last-place finish might have been predicted.

------ Judge to reschedule ex-Westar CEO trial

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Four years after two former utility company executives were last tried, federal prosecutors are trying to get their case back on track.

They've asked U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson to set a third trial for David Wittig, former chief executive of Topeka-based Westar Energy Inc., and his chief lieutenant, Douglas Lake between Dec. 8 and March 29. Robinson will hold a hearing Monday to consider the request.

Wittig and Lake, who were forced out of the Westar in late 2002, are charged with conspiracy and circumvention of internal controls.

Those are the remaining charges in a case that once included wire fraud and money laundering. Prosecutors claim the two used a variety of schemes to boost their compensation at Westar and then attempted to hide their actions from company officials and regulators.

The men have denied wrongdoing and said the utility's board of directors knew what they were doing.

An attorney for Lake declined to comment Tuesday on the third trial while an attorneys for Wittig didn't immediately return a phone call for comment.

------ Rams sign CB Danny Gorrer

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- The St. Louis Rams have signed cornerback Danny Gorrer and waived wide receiver Tim Carter.

The Rams announced the moves Tuesday.

Gorrer is a rookie who was on the practice squad for the New Orleans Saints, who signed him as an undrafted free agent on May 4. He was a two-year starter at Texas A&M where he had 141 tackles, two sacks, one interception, 13 passes defended and two forced fumbles.

In two games for St. Louis, Carter had one catch for six yards.

------ Man charged with 1st degree murder in Lyons death

LYONS, Kan. (AP) -- A Lyons woman who was found dead in her home had taken out a protection order last week against the man suspected in her death.

The suspect, Armando Mosqueda, 35, was scheduled to appear in Rice County court Wednesday for a hearing on the protection-from-abuse order obtained by Jeannie Jacobsen, 31, a mother of three who was found stabbed to death Sunday morning in her home.

Mosqueda was arrested Sunday in Baytown, Texas, and charged Monday with premeditated first-degree murder. He is being held without bond in Texas awaiting extradition to Kansas.

Lyons Police Chief Chris Detmer declined to provide further details on Jacobsen's death, which was the first homicide in Lyons since June 2006. The city of about 3,500 is about 90 miles northwest of Wichita.

Rice County court records indicate Jacobsen filed for a protection-from-abuse order against Mosqueda on Oct. 26 and was immediately granted a temporary order.

In seeking the protective order, Jacobsen said Mosqueda had threatened to "physically hurt (her) or a minor child on purpose," according to the court records.

------ Man sentenced after drug dog finds cash

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) -- A California man has been sentenced to almost four years in prison for drug trafficking after a drug-sniffing dog led investigators to a bundle of mailed cash that smelled of marijuana.

Lanny Welch, the U.S. attorney for Kansas, said Tuesday that 54-year-old Leon B. Livingston of San Diego was sentenced to 46 months in federal prison. He pleaded guilty to conspiracy to possess and distribute more than 100 kilograms of marijuana.

Prosecutors said a drug-sniffing dog alerted postal inspectors to a package mailed to Livingston from Mark McPherson in Olathe. The package contained $30,000 in cash.

Investigators searched Livingston's home in San Diego and found marijuana plants.

McPherson was sentenced to about eight years. Other members of the conspiracy have been sentenced or are awaiting sentencing next month.

------ Documentary touts Topeka deli

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- No doubt, CW Porubsky's Deli and Tavern is more from a time of drive-ins or single-screen movie theaters.

But when a new film about Porubsky's premieres at 7 p.m. Thursday, the images of the persistent little deli, bar and corner grocery will flicker on the screen of a west Topeka movieplex, Hollywood 14 Theater. It might just be the perfect setting for the unveiling of "Porubsky's Transcendent Deli," featuring a place that seems to live in a time all its own -- having outlasted other corner groceries and delis like it. The showing is free, although seating is limited.

Matthew Porubsky, whose grandparents, Charles and Lydia Porubsky, opened Porubsky's and whose uncle still runs the place, has worked with Gizmo Pictures to lovingly tell the story of the family-run business that has persisted through floods, fire and changing times.

Little changes at Porubsky's. And while you might find yourself sitting next to an elected official while being served by a judge, nothing about the place is fancy. Food is served on Styrofoam. The chili draws customers from fall to spring, and customers have a fascination with the Porubsky pickles, which vary from packing just a little heat to inducing tears.

"My vision from the beginning has been to tell the story in a way my grandparents would be glad about it and in a way others will approve it," Porubsky said.

The style of the film, Porubsky said, has become less documentary in style and more quick. It includes original music from The Billen Brothers.

------ Homeless overflow shelter already busy

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) -- Michael recalled spending Sunday night under a Wichita bridge. "I'm don't want to say," he said when asked which bridge. "But it was warm."

Monday, the 50-year-old was at the Warming Souls Winter Overflow Shelter, which already is filling beds faster than expected.

Organizers expected 15 or 20 people Sunday, the shelter's opening night for the year at St. Paul's United Methodist Church. There were 36.

"And the weather was not that cold last night," Sandy Swank, director of Inter-Faith Ministries, said Monday.

The man who identified himself as Michael said his friends call him George because he boasts of being a descendant of George Washington and England's King George. He showed up at the overflow shelter Monday night but said he was prepared if it didn't have room.

"I've got this sleeping bag good for 10-to-20 below, so I'm good," he said.

------ After nearly 20 years, KC zoo gets polar bear

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) -- It was a gamble -- building a polar bear exhibit before they had any of the coveted animals -- but it paid off for the Kansas City Zoo.

The zoo has learned it will receive a polar bear in time for the opening of a new exhibit next spring.

That's a relief to general curator Liz Harmon, who had remained optimistic.

"I've been working on this for many years," she said Monday. "We've been telling them (the conservation community) we're going to open a polar bear exhibit and we're going to need a bear."

There are only 81 polar bears in captivity in North America and the zoo community does not just hand them out. Kansas City hasn't had one since 1990.

Zoo director Randy Wisthoff was prepared to switch to brown bears or black bears if absolutely necessary. The public loves bears, period. But experience has shown that zoo visitors are particularly fascinated with polar bears, the largest of all bears.

------ Former Lawrence officer sentenced for selling DVDs

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) -- A former Lawrence police officer was sentenced to probation for two years for selling stolen video games on eBay last year.

Thirty-two-year-old Robert Ryan Sayler was sentenced on Monday to two years probation. He pleaded guilty in August to 14 counts of federal wire fraud.

Prosecutors say Sayler sold the video games on eBay last year while he was a member of the Lawrence Police Department. They say Sayler bought video games, removed the game discs from the packaging and returned the empty boxes for a refund. He then sold the games on eBay for $30 to $46 a piece.

Sayler was fired Dec. 23, 2008, after more than eight years on the police force.

------ 2 more Kansans die of swine flu

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) -- State health officials say two more Kansans infected with the swine flu virus have died, bringing the total number of deaths in the state to 14.

The latest two deaths were a 72-year-old man from northeast Kansas and a 53-year-old woman from the Wichita area.

The Kansas Health and Environment says both people had underlying health conditions that put them at greater risk from the flu.