KMUW

WICHITA, Kansas — On Aug. 16, the second day of the school year, students in the Burrton district felt the shake of a 4.2 magnitude earthquake. They knew exactly what to do: hide under their desks until it stopped.

Call it a ban on plastic bag bans.

A new bill introduced this week in the Kansas House Commerce Committee would pre-emptively prevent state municipalities from enacting their own bans or taxes on plastic items, including shopping bags.

The push comes days after the Wichita City Council appointed a Single-Use Plastic Bag Task Force to look into the issue and possibly craft an ordinance regulating plastic bags in the city.

Spirit AeroSystems said Thursday it has reached an agreement with Boeing to resume production of the 737 Max, but at reduced levels.

Officials with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) say a Douglas County resident is under investigation for potential exposure to the 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV).

Specimens were sent to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) for testing and officials expect to receive results later this week.

WICHITA, Kansas — Trees improve air quality. They keep people and homes cool with shade. They block the breezes that rake across the Kansas plains.

New research suggests the trees planted by people who filled up Kansas over the last century-plus also made the region more susceptible to hard-to-fight fires.

The Kansas Division of Vehicles added two new options to reduce wait times and long lines at driver’s license offices across the state.

The agency launched a scheduling platform so people can make appointments instead of showing up at a DMV office and waiting in line.

Division of Vehicles director David Harper says the service is available in Wichita, Andover, Derby, Topeka, Kansas City (Kansas), Lawrence, Manhattan, Mission, Olathe and Overland Park.

Wichita is the latest — and largest — public school district in Kansas to announce plans to sue the popular vaping company Juul Labs.

Republican members of the Kansas Congressional delegation issued statements Friday supporting President Donald Trump’s decision to authorize a drone strike that killed Iranian Gen. Qassem Soleimani.

Fellow Wichitans, I’m embarrassed and you should be as well.

We have allowed our city and county government to literally build a prison around the Kansas African American Museum at 601 N. Water. And there is new construction that brings the county jail even closer yet.

WICHITA, Kansas — As global carbon dioxide emissions break records, Kansas is headed in the opposite direction — reducing emissions for 10 straight years.

Kansas’ decline is largely due to the rapid adoption of wind energy and a slow move away from coal powered electricity. That is to say: Kansas produces less carbon dioxide, or CO2, the powerful greenhouse gas that’s released into the atmosphere when we burn fossil fuels and is a major driver of climate change.

Spirit AeroSystems said Friday it will suspend production of the 737 Max beginning Jan. 1.

The company says Boeing ordered Spirit to halt all 737 deliveries. The 737 Max was grounded in March following two fatal crashes overseas.

Spirit did not say how the production suspension would affect its workforce of more than 13,000 people. The company is Wichita's largest private employer.

Spirit makes more than 70 percent of the 737 at its south Wichita plant.

The vote by the Kansas delegation in the U.S. House of Representatives on whether to impeach President Donald Trump split along party lines.

When he was a high school senior in Salina, Lawton Nuss said he had no idea what he wanted to do with his future.

"My government teacher, who had also been the assistant debate coach that year, said he thought that I might be good at the law because it called for reading a lot of material and analyzing it and then writing it, and then also conveying it and orally making arguments," Nuss recalled.

"And I thought, 'Well, gee, I had never thought about that.'"

WICHITA, Kansas — An environmental watchdog group says most states aren’t stepping up to fill the gap left by budget and staff cuts at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which could put Kansans at greater risk of exposure to harmful pollutants.

Six players signed contracts, wore Jayhawk T-shirts and put on blue KU ballcaps.

But they won’t be running onto a basketball court or football field anytime soon. They are the University of Kansas’ first varsity esports team.

Two naturalization ceremonies held today at Century II welcomed and recognized 175 new U.S. citizens who will be living in Kansas.

The new citizens came to the United States from more than 30 different countries.

Every college in Kansas is more expensive today than it was a decade ago.

Tuition and fees haven’t gone up every year — this year, the Kansas Board of Regents convinced most of the state’s universities to hold tuition flat — but that doesn’t change how expensive college has become.

The number of black farmers in the U.S. is shrinking — down to less than 2% of total farmers — and many are losing their land.

Members of the Kansas Black Farmers Association are working with the state in hopes of reversing that trend.

A historic steam locomotive is headed to Kansas as part of a tour to celebrate the 150th anniversary of the Union Pacific transcontinental railroad system.

Kansas representatives in the U.S. House voted along party lines on a resolution Thursday that will allow the impeachment investigation of President Donald Trump to continue.

Republicans Roger Marshall, Steven Watkins and Ron Estes voted against the resolution.

Sharice Davids, a Democrat, voted in favor of the impeachment inquiry.

Thursday’s vote approved the procedures the House will follow as weeks of closed-door interviews with witnesses evolve into public committee hearings and — almost certainly — votes on whether the House should recommend Trump's removal.

U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and presidential adviser Ivanka Trump took part in a roundtable discussion Thursday at WSU Tech about the importance of acquiring more skilled workers for the aviation industry.

Trump is co-chair of the American Workforce Policy Advisory Board, a panel that includes Sheree Utash, president of  WSU Tech. Utash said the board advises the federal goverment on how to improve the education, training and retraining for American workers.

Agencies across Kansas are warning drivers to take additional caution as deer mating season begins, bringing higher levels of deer activity.

Sedgwick County had the highest reported cases of vehicle-deer collisions in the state last year with 418 cases. Butler County followed with 384 collisions.

Shawn Steward from the AAA of Kansas says the average cost per claim from car damage due to animal collisions is nearly $4,300.

A jury on Tuesday ruled against an anti-abortion activist in his lawsuit against a prominent Wichita abortion rights advocate.

The Trump administration will add onto future ethanol requirements to make up for its waivers that allowed small oil refineries to mix less of the biofuel with gasoline. But the extra gallons may not ultimately make up for all the industry has lost.

The Catholic Diocese of Dodge City on Wednesday released a list of 12 clerics or seminarians with substantiated allegations of abuse against minors.

The diocese said five of the priests were assigned to the Dodge City diocese, while five others worked at some point in the diocese but allegations against them were made in other dioceses. Two others were seminarians.

LINDSBORG, Kansas — The city-owned utility here wants to sell more electricity to the 3,500 people in town.

So it bought a $40,000 Tesla Model 3 sedan. It wants to show that getting around in an electric car can make sense.

A jury is hearing arguments this week in a years-long case involving a prominent Wichita abortion rights advocate and an anti-abortion protester.

Mark Holick is suing Julie Burkhart, head of the abortion rights group Trust Women, in federal court over what he alleges was a damaging and unlawful restraining order against him.

Reginald Robinson is the new president and CEO of the Kansas Health Foundation.

The Health Foundation, based in Wichita, is a philanthropic organization geared toward helping Kansans live healthier lives.

Robinson is currently the vice chancellor for Public Affairs at the University of Kansas. He has an extensive background, including former president and CEO of the Kansas Board of Regents. Robinson also has served in several senior positions within the U.S. Department of Justice.

A Fort Riley soldier was charged in federal court today with sharing bomb-making information over social media.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says Jarrett Smith is charged with one count of distributing information related to explosives and weapons of mass destruction. It carries a sentence of up to 20 years.

The FBI says that Smith, during a chat on Facebook, offered to teach others how to make explosive devices activated by a cell phone “in the style of the Afghans.” He also talked about blowing up far-left radicals, cell towers or a local news station.