Skater dies in Kansas during cross-country journey
A 24-year-old Norwegian long-distance inline skater attempting to make a cross-country journey died after a vehicle hit him near Salina.
Joachim Lanham was a prolific skater who had already traveled throughout Europe and Australia.
He shared social media updates while he was skating in Kansas.
“Feels so small, but we must not forget the world is beautiful sometimes!” he said on a recent Instagram post.
He was attempting to make it from New York to Los Angeles.
He was hit by a vehicle northeast of Salina.
An 82-year-old woman told police that she thought she had hit something, but did not see anything. No charges have been filed.
Lanham was put into a medically induced coma for six days. He died on September 11 in a Wichita hospital.
Poll has Hamilton leading Marshall, but Holscher behind Masterson
A recent Kansas poll has Democrats with a strong showing in the race for U.S. Senate, but lagging in the campaign for governor.
The Emerson College poll has Adam Hamilton leading Republican incumbent Roger Marshall by about two percentage points. But in the race for governor, Democrat Cindy Holscher is trailing Republican Ty Masterson by seven points.
The difference is largely in independent voters. The trend is that they're voting for Hamilton, but not Holscher.
Alexandra Middlewood, a political science professor at Wichita State University, said Kansans tend to vote for candidates who position themselves as moderate.
“I just think that Hamilton is doing a better job of doing that, and also of getting ahead of the messaging about himself,” she said.
Middlewood said pro-Masterson groups have spent more on TV ads.
Holscher said she is a middle-of-the-road candidate.
Transgender group tests bathroom law at State Fair
The last weekend of the Kansas State Fair presented an opportunity for a group of transgender men to test the state’s new bathroom law.
Four transgender men — members of the Kansas Compliance Crew — visited seven women’s restrooms at the State Fair on Sunday.
The group’s members were assigned female at birth.
Under the new bathroom law, they are required to use the restroom of the gender they were assigned at birth. And so they did.
The group said most encounters at the fair were uneventful, but they were directed to use the men’s room by some fairgoers.
“Nobody asked us for our IDs. Nobody asked us to confirm," said Ray Vieux, a member of the Crew. "They just took our word that we're trans men.”
Vieux said they could have easily been cisgender men entering the women’s restroom, which would have been against the law.
Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach’s office did not respond to a request for comment about the protest.
EPA's new tech could provide clean drinking water during disasters
The Environmental Protection Agency is deploying new technology designed to provide clean drinking water during disasters. The mobile water-treatment system can reduce the need for bottled water in emergencies.
The EPA’s Water-on-Wheels, or WOW Cart, can treat up to 10,000 gallons of water a day from a local source and fits in the back of a pickup truck.
The WOW Cart uses filtration and chlorine generated through electrolysis to disinfect water.
The EPA’s Jim Macy said the technology could provide drinking water after water-main breaks, severe weather, floods or power outages.
“The beauty of this is it doesn't leave any waste material behind," he said.
Macy said the system costs about $60,000 and could replace bottled water during emergency responses.
Flock camera cut down in west Wichita
Wichita Police are investigating after a Flock surveillance camera was damaged recently in west Wichita.
Police spokesman Andrew Ford said the damage happened near Zoo Boulevard and Central, where a camera appeared to be sawed off of its pole.
Wichita is part of a national reckoning on Flock cameras, which are automated license plate readers that police use to help find suspects.
A 31-year-old Derby man is facing two felony charges for allegedly damaging several Flock cameras.
And a Wichita man recently filed a lawsuit against the city, claiming its network of Flock cameras is unconstitutional.
KCC to hold hearings on electric transmission line
The Kansas Corporation Commission will hold public hearings next week on a proposed electric transmission line that would run through eight Kansas counties.
Sunflower and ITC have applied to run a 180-mile line starting near Garden City and ending near the Kansas-Colorado border.
The first hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. Monday at the Pauline Joyce Fine Arts Building at Garden City Community College.
Before the hearing, from 3 to 6 p.m., representatives will answer questions and discuss maps of the proposed route.
A second hearing will take place at 6 p.m. Tuesday at Colby Community College.
Cooler weather moving into Kansas
Fall weather is finally moving into Kansas, just in time for the first official day of fall Tuesday.
Meteorologists say showers and storms were moving across southwest and parts of south-central Kansas on Monday. Temperatures felt cooler than they did over the weekend, with high temperatures in the 70s across the state.
Today's forecast calls for more highs in the 70s, with a mix of sun and clouds and light winds.
Later this week could bring several rounds of showers and storms, with most rainfall across northern and western Kansas.
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