A husband and wife were walking their dog along a gravel road in Sedgwick County when a truck hit the woman and the dog, killing them both.
Sgt. Jeff Ohmart, of the Sedgwick County Sheriff’s Department, says the 28-year-old driver was headed south Wednesday night when he saw man and woman walking south in the middle of the road. The driver told authorities he tried to swerve to miss them.
The Wichita Eagle reports that the 52-year-old woman and the animal were killed instantly.
The woman’s husband and the driver were unhurt. Their identities have not been released.
Ohmart says there’s no indication the driver was speeding or impaired.

A divorced Palestinian man accused of illegally moving his three young children from their Kansas home to the Gaza Strip insists they are safe.
Ahmed Abuhamda was charged in Kansas with aggravated interference with parental custody after he took his children overseas earlier this year amid a custody dispute with their American mother.
He told The Associated Press in an interview that while he believes the family is in no real danger, as a Muslim he has taught his children that everybody has to die one day.
Nine-year-old Jannah Abuhamda told AP in a phone call from Gaza that she can hear the barrage of bombings as she plays with her Barbie dolls in her father’s home.

A Douglas County judge has upheld the conviction and sentence of a Washington woman who killed two highway workers while driving south of Lawrence in 2007.

District Judge Paula Martin ruled earlier this month that Ramona Morgan’s court-appointed attorney committed some errors, but nothing bad enough to affect the jury’s decision.

Morgan had argued she received ineffective counsel and that her 26-year sentence was excessive.

Witnesses testified at Morgan’s 2008 trial that she drove around a pilot car twice in a U.S. 59 work zone on Sept. 11, 2007, and the second time struck and killed two workers.

Law enforcement officers had to puncture her pickup truck’s tires after a chase to get her to stop. Her earliest possible parole date is 2030.

NESS CITY – A former Ness City man will spend life in prison after being convicted on rape and Jessica’s Law charges in August, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said.

37-year-old Benito Cardenas Jr., was sentenced Tuesday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25-years on each of the two convictions by District Judge Bruce T. Gatterman. Gatterman ordered the sentences to run concurrently to each other.

Cardenas was convicted in August by a Ness County jury of rape and aggravated criminal sodomy under Jessica’s Law. The crimes occurred in Ness City in September 2010. Cardenas was living in Dodge City at the time of his arrest in April 2011.

The state Tuesday also filed charges against Cardenas of aggravated escape from custody and felony theft. The State alleges that Cardenas escaped from the Ness County jail following his conviction in August. He was later apprehended in Trego County.

His next court appearance is scheduled for December 11 at 11 a-m.

Passengers and crew aboard a Southwest Airlines jet had to wear oxygen masks as the plane lost cabin pressure and safely landed in Dallas.
A Southwest spokeswoman said Monday that Flight 3201 from Kansas City to Dallas landed at Love Field around 7:15 p.m. Saturday. Whitney Eichinger (EYE’-king-er) says the jet carried 124 passengers and five crewmembers. Nobody was hurt.
She says there was a pressurization issue at an altitude of about 35,000 feet so the pilot followed protocol, descended and deployed the oxygen masks. The masks were no longer needed below 10,000 feet.
Passenger David Wilding told WFAA-TV that the jet went into a sudden, steep dive and the masks were used for about 20 minutes.
Eichinger says the jet underwent maintenance Sunday and returned to service Monday.

Wichita police say a man caught two burglars at his elderly neighbor’s home and chased them away with a pitchfork.
The man saw two teenagers inside his neighbor’s residence just after 9:30 a.m. Saturday and called 911 before confronting them with a pitchfork.
Officers arrived at the scene and found that the victim’s home had been ransacked. Two suspects, ages 16 and 19, were found hiding nearby and booked into jail on burglary charges.
The victim is an 86-year-old woman who was not at home at the time.

Deer herds are a little thinner in a couple Kansas counties because of a seasonal virus that might be worse than normal because of the summer’s drought.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports dozens of dead deer have been found near lakes and ponds in Douglas and Franklin counties. A spokesman for the Kansas Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism says about 400 deer deaths from epizootic hemorrhagic disease have been reported.
Wildlife and disease coordinator Shane Hesting says the disease has affected only a small portion of a total deer population that exceeds half a million.
Hesting says this year’s death toll was higher than normal because of receding waters in lakes and ponds that exposed more mud, which is breeding ground for tiny flies that carry the disease.

A 22-year-old Kansas man has pleaded not guilty to charges that he was driving drunk during a chase and caused a fatal collision.
A trial is scheduled to begin Feb. 12 for Destry Swartz, of Coats, Kan., who made his pleas Friday in Dawson County District Court.
The Nebraska State Patrol says Swartz was speeding away from a state trooper in Lexington on Oct. 9 when Swartz ran a red light and slammed into a pickup driven by 68-year-old Ruben Maravilla-Cortes, of Lexington. Maravilla-Cortes died at the scene.
If convicted of all the counts, Swartz faces up to 30 years in prison.

Kansas State University is taking part in a program to train more students from China to become veterinarians.
Kansas State’s College of Veterinary Medicine signed a memo of understanding with Chinese officials last month. It provides for up to 10 Chinese students per academic year to take pre-veterinary courses at Kansas State while they become familiar with U.S. culture and education.
Students in the program may then apply to study veterinary medicine at Kansas State or one of five other veterinary schools around the country.
An organization called the China Scholarship Council has committed about $13 million to fund the students’ educations after their first year of courses.

The Kansas Department of Labor is preparing to release a fresh look at the state’s economy.
The agency says its report on October’s unemployment rate will be announced Monday.
The state’s jobless rate has been on the way down recently, falling to 5.9 percent in September from 6.2 percent in August and 6.7 percent in September 2011.
September’s figure marked the first time since December 2008 that Kansas unemployment was below 6 percent.