Tag Archives: Kansas

Kansas man gets 30-year sentence for foiled bomb plot targeting U.S. military base

U.S. Army Soldiers, assigned to 1st Armored Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, fire a TOW missile from a Bradley Fighting Vehicle during training at Fort Riley, Kansas, May 18, 2016. U.S. Army photo by Capt. Jonathan Camire

(Reuters) – A Kansas man was sentenced on Monday to 30 years in federal prison for plotting a failed suicide bombing at a U.S. military base on behalf of Islamic State, federal prosecutors said.

John Booker Jr., 22, of Topeka, pleaded guilty in February to plotting the April 2015 attack on Army personnel at Fort Riley, Kansas, and aiding the Islamic State fight against the United States, the Justice Department said in a statement.

Booker was sentenced in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kansas, on one count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of attempted destruction of government property by fire or explosion.

Booker was arrested as part of a sting operation in which he went to Fort Riley with two undercover Federal Bureau of Investigation agents to detonate what he did not know was an inert bomb.

Booker had planned to build a vehicle bomb holding 1,000 pounds (455 kg) of ammonium nitrate and trigger it himself, dying in the process, the Justice Department statement said.

Prosecutors said they had tracked Booker since he posted Facebook messages in March 2014 in which he said: “Getting ready to get killed in jihad is a HUGE adrenaline rush!!” He had been in unwitting contact with an undercover FBI agent since October 2014.

A friend of Booker, Alexander Blair, of Topeka, pleaded guilty to storing bomb equipment for him and was sentenced to 15 months in prison in October 2016.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Peter Cooney)

Kansas nuclear operator is victim in hacking spree: Bloomberg

FILE PHOTO: A man types on a computer keyboard in front of the displayed cyber code in this illustration picture taken on March 1, 2017. REUTERS/Kacper Pempel/Illustration/File Photo

By Jim Finkle

(Reuters) – Hackers recently breached a Kansas nuclear power operator as part of a campaign that breached at least a dozen U.S. power firms, Bloomberg News reported on Thursday, citing current and former U.S. officials who were not named.

The Wolf Creek nuclear facility in Kansas was breached in the attack, according to Bloomberg.

A representative with the Wolf Creek Nuclear Operating Corp declined to say if the plant was hacked, but said it continued to operate safely.

“There has been absolutely no operational impact to Wolf Creek. The reason that is true is because the operational computer systems are completely separate from the corporate network,” company spokeswoman Jenny Hageman said in an email to Reuters.

The report identified the first known victims of a hacking campaign targeting the power sector that was first reported by Reuters on June 30. The attacks were described in a confidential June 28 U.S government alert to industrial firms, warning them of a hacking campaign targeting the nuclear, power and critical infrastructure sectors.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Federal Bureau of Investigation said that hackers had succeeded in compromising networks of some targets, but did not name victims. The government also released a 30-page bulletin with advice on how firms could bolster security to defend against the attacks.

The alert said that hackers have been observed using tainted emails to harvest credentials to gain access to networks of their targets.

“Historically, cyber actors have strategically targeted the energy sector with various goals ranging from cyber espionage to the ability to disrupt energy systems in the event of a hostile conflict,” the report said.

Homeland Security and the FBI issued a statement to Reuters late on Thursday saying that the alert was part of an ongoing effort to advise industry of cyber threats.

“There is no indication of a threat to public safety, as any potential impact appears to be limited to administrative and business networks,” the agencies said.

A nuclear industry spokesman told Reuters on Saturday that hackers have never gained access to a nuclear plant.

The Homeland Security technical bulletin included details of code used in a hacking tool that suggest the hackers sought to use the password of a Wolf Creek employee to access the network.

Hageman declined to say if hackers had gained access to that employee’s account. The employee could not be reached for comment.

(Reporting by Jim Finkle in Toronto; Additional reporting by Dustin Volz in Washington; Editing by Bernard Orr)

U.S. wildfires ravage ranches in three states

Rancher Nancy Schwerzenbach walks with dogs through pasture burned by wildfires near Lipscomb, Texas, U.S., March 12, 2017. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

By Lucas Jackson

LIPSCOMB, Texas (Reuters) – When the Schwerzenbach family saw a wildfire racing toward their remote ranch in Lipscomb, Texas, there was no time to run.

“We had a minute or two and then it was over us,” said 56-year-old Nancy Schwerzenbach.

The fire, moving up to 70 miles per hour (112 kph), was one of several across more than 2 million acres (810,000 hectares) that hit the Texas Panhandle, Oklahoma and Kansas last week, causing millions of dollars of damage and killing thousands of livestock.

Burning through nearly all 1,000 acres of the Schwerzenbach ranch, the fire killed some 40 cattle. A mile away, a young man in the rural community was killed.

“The fire was about two miles away before we knew what happened to us,” she said.

Numerous smaller fires burned in Colorado, Nebraska and the Florida Everglades, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

In Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas ranchers are returning home to survey the damage from the fires, fueled by tinder-dry vegetation and high winds. Local farmers from the Great Plains have helped those who have been affected by the wildfires by donating hay and fencing material.

In Oklahoma, the fires scorched a Smithfield Foods Inc. hog farm in Laverne, killing some 4,300 sows.

“When we drive down the road and look out on the pasture lands, there’s no grass. There’s dead deer, dead cows, dead wildlife, miles of fence gone away. It looks like a complete desert,” said Ashland Veterinary Center co-owner Dr. Randall Spare, who is helping in relief efforts in Clark County, Kansas.

Oklahoma Department of Agriculture State Veterinarian Rod Hall said bulldozers were being used to bury dead animals.

“They’re digging large pits and burying the animals in there,” he said.

In Texas, state government agencies estimate about 1,500 cattle were lost, according to Steve Amosson, an economist at Texas A&M AgriLife Extension.

“When we value the deaths of cattle at market value, including disposal costs, we’re talking about $2.1 million at this point, and I expect that to go up,” he said. “We’re still dealing with chaos, they’re still trying to find cattle.”

Amosson estimates it could cost $6 million to recover 480,000 acres burned in Texas fires along with $4.3 million to replace and repair fences in the northern Texas Panhandle either destroyed by the fire or by cattle trampling them to escape the blaze.

Texas is the top U.S. cattle producing state with some 12.3 million head and Kansas is third at 6.4 million.

For Troy Bryant, 34, a rancher in Laverne, Oklahoma, the impact from the fires has been devastating. He lost livestock

worth about $35,000 and fencing worth about $40,000.

“We saw 4,000 acres burned here. Some places further west of here lost much more,” he said.

Click on http://reut.rs/2lXlAZK to see a photo related essay

(Reporting by Lucas Jackson in Lipscomb, Texas; Additional reporting by Renita D. Young and Theopolis Waters in Chicago; Writing and additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Melissa Fares and Diane Craft in New York)

Wildfire threat remains after killing six, destroying numerous structures

(Reuters) – The threat of wildfires is expected to remain high on Wednesday in the U.S. Plains, where prairie fires have claimed six lives, prompted thousands of evacuations and destroyed numerous structures.

Fire weather advisories remained in effect in parts of Colorado, Kansas, Oklahoma and Texas where firefighters continued to battle wildfires stoked by high winds and tinder-dry vegetation over the last several days.

Low humidity along with 15 to 25 mph (25 to 40 kph) winds and ongoing drought conditions will continue to create elevated fire dangers throughout the region, the National Weather Service said in its advisories that also included Missouri and Nebraska.

Cooler temperatures, diminishing winds and a chance of rain were in the forecast for parts of the region over the weekend, but the weather service warned that the threat of wildfires remained in effect.

“Winds will be considerably lighter through the middle to latter part of the week. This will result in less threatening fire weather conditions. However, a limited to elevated risk will continue, given the dry conditions,” the service said.

The fires killed four people, including three ranch hands racing to herd livestock to safety, in the Texas Panhandle. One motorist died in Kansas on Monday from smoke inhalation, authorities said.

A woman in Oklahoma suffered a heart attack while trying to move cattle from harm’s way and died, NBC News reported. Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin declared an emergency in 22 counties hit by wildfires.

The Perryton fire blackened more than 300,000 acres (121,000 hectares) and destroyed two homes in the Texas Panhandle and was 50 percent contained, authorities said.

Wildfires in northwestern Oklahoma prompted evacuations of multiple towns, according to state officials, who said more than 10,000 acres (4,000 hectares) have burned.

At least 10,000 residents in central Kansas were asked to evacuate their homes due to a wildfire in Reno County, where about 230 responders were on the scene, the county’s emergency management agency said.

More than 650,000 acres (263,000 hectares) also have burned in Kansas, according to the state’s emergency management agency.

Firefighters battling a 30,000-acre (12,000-hectare) grassland fire in northeastern Colorado extended containment lines to 80 percent of the blaze’s perimeter on Tuesday. Five homes were lost in the flames, a spokeswoman for Phillips County official said.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee; Editing by Toby Chopra)

Storms, tornadoes rake Midwest as high winds fuel prairie fires

By Timothy Mclaughlin

CHICAGO (Reuters) – A line of thunderstorms packing hail and isolated tornadoes rumbled across the Midwest from Oklahoma to Minnesota on Monday as wind-fueled prairie fires forced thousands of people from their homes in Colorado and Kansas.

Police and National Weather Service meteorologists reported some power outages but no initial major damage from the storms carrying winds of 60 miles per hour (96 kph) and hail 2 inches (5 cm) in diameter as they rolled east.

A tornado touched down in Smithville, Missouri, a Kansas City suburb, damaging 10 to 12 homes and displacing a few families but causing no major injuries, Police Chief Jason Lockridge said.

“Rain was minimal, it was just high winds and what was described as a funnel cloud,” he said in a telephone interview.

Areas of eastern Missouri and Iowa and western Illinois were under a tornado watch until early on Tuesday morning, the National Weather Service said.

The storms were largely to the east of an area stretching from the Texas Panhandle into Colorado, Nebraska and western Missouri that was under a “red flag” weather service warning for fires because of high winds, warm temperatures and dry conditions.

Twenty counties in central Kansas reported brush fires on Monday, some more than one, fueled by winds gusting to up 60 mph, said Katie Horner, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Adjutant General’s Department.

Ten towns were forced to evacuate residents because of the fire threat, including 10,000 to 12,000 from the city of Hutchinson, she said.

Helicopters from the Kansas National Guard were being used to dump water on the fires, she said. “It’s just a massive undertaking,” Horner said.

A prairie fire in northeast Colorado had burned about 25,000 acres (10,100 hectares), and officials said about 1,000 people in small farming towns were under evacuation or pre-evacuation orders.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago, Keith Coffman in Denver and Ian Simpson in Washinton; Editing by James Dalgleish and Paul Tait)

Kansas Supreme Court finds state underfunds schools

(Reuters) – The Kansas Supreme Court ruled on Thursday that the state’s system of funding primary and secondary public schools falls short of an adequacy requirement in the state constitution.

The high court said it was delaying enforcement of its unanimous ruling until the end of June to give the legislature time to respond.

It warned that if the state fails to come up with a funding system that complies with the constitution by the June 30 deadline, the court will move to void the current method of school finance.

Kansas spends more than $4 billion a year on schools, with most of the money coming from the state general fund. The supreme court’s ruling could add another $800 million, according to Alan Rupe, an attorney for the four school districts that filed the lawsuit.

The ruling comes at a bad time for the Kansas budget. Tax cuts enacted in 2012 have gouged a hole in the budget as revenue failed to meet monthly estimates, although February marked a fourth straight month that collections met or exceeded projections.

A move in the state legislature to boost revenue by raising tax rates and eliminating a business exemption failed last week when the Senate was unable to override Governor Sam Brownback’s veto.

Rupe said the state’s fiscal woes should not interfere with the requirement to fund education properly.

“I don’t know that the constitution provides constitutional rights only when we can afford to do it,” he said.

The governor’s office will make a comment once the ruling is fully reviewed, according to a Brownback spokeswoman.

S&P Global Ratings cited the state’s structural budget pressures and reliance on one-time revenue measures when it revised the outlook on the state’s AA-minus credit rating to negative from stable last month.

(Reporting by Karen Pierog and Tracy Rucinski in Chicago; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama and Matthew Lewis)

Oklahoma faces continued risk of quakes linked to drilling: USGS

An oil pumpjack is seen in Velma, Oklahoma U.S. April 7, 2016. REUTERS/Luc Cohen

By Valerie Volcovici

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Parts of Oklahoma and Kansas are likely to experience damaging earthquakes as a result of oil and gas industry activity in 2017, the U.S. Geological Survey said on Wednesday in its second annual forecast of natural and human-caused seismic risk.

The forecast comes amid a years-long string of temblors in Oklahoma that has coincided with a drilling boom in the state, and which scientists have attributed to wastewater disposal wells used by the oil and gas industry.

“The good news is that the overall seismic hazard for this year is lower than in the 2016 forecast, but despite this decrease, there is still a significant likelihood for damaging ground shaking in the (Central and Eastern United States) in the year ahead,” said Mark Petersen, chief of the USGS National Seismic Hazard Mapping Project.

The seismic risk maps are used by emergency management officials as well as the country’s major engineering and design associations to guide how strong to construct new buildings.

The USGS last year identified risks from human-caused earthquakes for the first time and has said that overall earthquake activity is hundreds of times higher than rates seen in around 2008, when the oil and gas drilling boom began.

The USGS said the 2017 forecast decreased compared to last year in part because wastewater injection used for oil and gas production likely decreased due to lower energy prices.

Oklahoma last year experienced a 5.8-magnitude earthquake, the largest ever recorded in the state, as well as the highest number of large earthquakes compared to any prior year.

Approximately 3.5 million people live and work in areas surveyed in the seismic risk map. The majority of this population is in Oklahoma and southern Kansas.

“Millions still face a significant chance of experiencing damaging earthquakes, and this could increase or decrease with industry practices, which are difficult to anticipate,” Petersen said.

The disposal of saltwater – a natural byproduct of oil and gas drilling – into wells has been tied to earthquakes. Oklahoma regulators have already ordered many disposal wells to curb operations.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; editing by Richard Valdmanis, G Crosse)

Kansas man curt as he faces charges over Indian engineer’s murder

Adam Purinton, 51, accused of killing Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, and wounding Alok Madasani, 32, as well as an American who tried to intervene, appears via video conference from jail during his initial court appearance in Olathe, Kansas, U.S.,

By Karen Dillon

OLATHE, Kan (Reuters) – A white U.S. Navy veteran charged with murdering an Indian software engineer at a Kansas bar gazed at a camera from jail and gave curt answers to a judge by video during his initial court appearance on Monday over the shooting, which federal authorities are probing as a possible hate crime.

Adam Purinton, 51, is accused of killing Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, and wounding Alok Madasani, also 32, as well as an American who tried to intervene during Wednesday evening’s incident at Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, a Kansas City suburb.

At least one bystander told the Kansas City Star he shouted “get out of my country” before shooting. The incident led news bulletins in India, where some suggested on social media that a climate of intolerance in the United States had been fueled by President Donald Trump’s rhetoric on immigration.

Purinton, appearing via video conference from jail, asked the court to appoint him an attorney and waived the reading of the formal charges against him of one count of premeditated first-degree murder and two counts of attempted murder during the five-minute hearing in the Johnson County District Court in downtown Olathe.

Purinton, who could only be seen from the chest up on the court’s television screen, is being held on $2 million bond in the adjacent Johnson County Jail. In clear language, he replied to a handful of questions from the judge, mostly with curt answers.

Michael McCulloch, who was named by the court to be Purinton’s attorney, declined to comment after the hearing.

Purinton wore an Army green, sleeveless suicide-prevention smock and stared straight at the camera the whole time. His reddish-brown hair was short on the side and spiked on top. He had sideburns to his jawbone and the shadow of a beard.

His next hearing is set for March 9.

White House spokesman Sean Spicer on Monday called reports about the shooting and more acts of vandalism at Jewish cemeteries “disturbing.” On Friday, he said any loss of life in the shooting was tragic, but it was absurd to link the killing to Trump’s “America First” stance.

The Indian Embassy in Washington has expressed India’s deep concern over the incident to the U.S. government and requested a “thorough and speedy investigation.”

Purinton was arrested hours after the shooting at an Applebee’s restaurant in Clinton, Missouri, about 80 miles (130 km) south of Olathe.

According to a recording of a 911 call made by a female bartender at the Applebee’s, Purinton said he needed to hide because he had killed two Iranian men, local NBC affiliate KSHB-TV reported.

“He wouldn’t tell me what he did. I kept asking him and he said he would tell me if I agreed to let him stay with me. I finally got him to tell me,” the bartender tells a dispatcher, according to the tape obtained by KSHB-TV. “He said he shot and killed two Iranian people in Olathe.”

Both the gunman’s Indian victims worked as engineers with navigation device maker Garmin Ltd.

(Additional reporting and writing by Gina Cherelus in New York and Tim Ahmann in Washington; Editing by Daniel Wallis, Andrew Hay and David Gregorio)

Kansas man charged in shooting of two Indians in possible hate crime

A still image taken from a video shows relatives of Srinivas Kuchibhotla, who was shot dead in a possible hate crime in Kansas state of the U.S., siting in their home in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, February 24, 2017. ANI/via Reuters TV

By Brendan O’Brien and Aditya Kalra

MILWAUKEE/NEW DELHI (Reuters) – A Kansas man was charged on Thursday with shooting to death an Indian man and wounding a second Indian man and an American in a bar, and federal authorities are investigating the incident as a possible hate crime.

The killing led news bulletins in India and drew strong reactions on social media, where people voiced concern that U.S. President Donald Trump’s “America First” position on immigration and jobs has fueled a climate of intolerance.

Adam Purinton, 51, was charged in Johnson County, Kansas, with one count of premeditated first degree murder and two counts of attempted premeditated first degree murder, Johnson County District Attorney Stephen Howe told a news conference.

Purinton is accused of shooting and killing Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, and wounding Alok Madasani, also 32, in the Austins Bar and Grill in Olathe, Kansas, on Wednesday evening, according to a statement from the Olathe Police Department.

At least one bystander told the Kansas City Star the man shouted “get out of my country” before shooting the Indian men. He is also accused of wounding American Ian Grillot, 24, who was shot when he tried to intervene.

“People call me a hero … I was just doing what anyone should have done for any other human being,” Grillot said in a video interview released by the hospital where he was undergoing treatment for gunshot wounds to the hand and chest.

At Kuchibhotla’s family home near Hyderabad, a tech hub where U.S. companies Microsoft, Google and Facebook have operations, family members backed government calls to ensure the safety of Indians living in the United States.

“The government should voice out this strongly because our brothers, sisters and our relatives are there,” his brother Venu Madhav told Reuters Television.

District attorney Howe would not elaborate on the details of the incident or the motive for the shooting.

“We want to be able to be sure about our facts versus speculation. So we are not prepared at this point to talk about the particular facts of the case because this is still very fresh,” Howe said.

Trump’s election was welcomed at first by many in India who interpreted his calls to restrict immigration by Muslims as signaling support toward Hindu-majority India, which has been at odds for decades with Pakistan, its mainly Muslim neighbor.

But the Trump administration may also have skilled Indian workers like Kuchibhotla in mind as it considers curbing the H-1B visa program, worrying both India’s $150 billion IT services industry and Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government.

“Don’t be shocked! Be angry! Trump is spreading hate. This is a hate crime! RIP #SrinivasKuchibhotla,” Siddharth, a well-known South Indian actor who uses one name, tweeted to his 2.6 million followers in remarks echoed across social media.

“INCREDIBLE SHOCK”

Kavipriya Muthuramalingam, a friend and former colleague of the shooting victim, has raised more than $250,000 via a crowd-funding website to help his family with funeral and other expenses.

“This came as an incredible shock – as he is one of the most gentle, nicest human beings you would meet,” Muthuramalingam said. “He was non-confrontational, non-controversial, easy-going, always smiling.”

Kuchibhotla’s Facebook page, where he called himself “Srinu”, said he joined U.S. technology company Garmin in 2014 from Rockwell Collins.

He took a master’s in electronics from the University of Texas in El Paso from 2005-07, according to LinkedIn. He was married but had no children.

India’s Minister for External Affairs Sushma Swaraj, who has made a priority of supporting India’s diaspora in times of trouble, tweeted that she was “shocked” at the shooting and expressed her condolences to the bereaved family.

Two officials from the Indian consulate in Houston were going to Kansas to meet the injured men and police to “ascertain more details of the incident and monitor follow up action”, Indian Ministry of External Affairs spokesman Vikas Swarup said in a statement.

The U.S. embassy in New Delhi condemned the shooting.

“The United States is a nation of immigrants and welcomes people from across the world to visit, work, study, and live,” Chargé d’Affaires MaryKay Carlson said in a statement.

“U.S. authorities will investigate thoroughly and prosecute the case, though we recognize that justice is small consolation to families in grief.”

The FBI was investigating whether the incident was a hate crime.

“We are looking at whether the crime was committed via bias motivation. We are really at the preliminary stage at looking at every aspect,” said Eric Jackson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Kansas City Field Office, during the news conference.

The U.S. attorney office in Kansas and the U.S. Department of Justice will also evaluate the case as more evidence is gathered, Tom Beall, acting U.S. attorney for the District of Kansas said, according to the Kansas City Star.

The suspect fled from the bar on foot and was apprehended five hours later at an Applebee’s in Clinton, Missouri, where he reportedly told an employee that he needed a place to hide out because he had killed two Middle Eastern men, the Star reported.

Purinton, who was not armed, was arrested without incident, the newspaper reported. The Navy veteran was being held on a $2 million bond in the Henry County Jail, where he waived his right to fight extradition to Johnson County.

(Reporting by Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee and Aditya Kalra in New Delhi; Editing by Douglas Busvine, Robert Birsel, Larry King)

Cloud from chemical accident in Kansas dissipated

A fog plume believed by authorities to contain chemicals is seen after a chemical spill at a facility in Atchison, Kansas, U.S., October 21,

By Dave Kaup

ATCHISON, Kansas (Reuters) – City and county officials told residents of Atchison in northeastern Kansas it was safe to return after a chemical spill at an MGP Ingredients Inc facility on Friday caused the formation of a chemical cloud that forced evacuations.

Thirty-four people were being treated for respiratory discomfort, although the injuries appeared to be minor, Trey Cocking, Atchison city manager, told reporters. The city said in a statement on social media that the chemical cloud had lifted.

“We are in the process of issuing an all-clear,” Cocking said. “Students were evacuated from their schools this morning. They are being allowed to return at this time.”

Cocking did not identify the chemicals involved in the incident in the city of about 11,000 people located about 50 miles (80 km) northwest of Kansas City, Kansas.

First responders are seen at the scene of a chemical spill at a facility in Atchison, Kansas,

First responders are seen at the scene of a chemical spill at a facility in Atchison, Kansas, U.S., October 21, 2016. Courtesy Emma Matlock/Handout via REUTERS

A Fox station in Kansas City reported that an emergency management team’s spokesperson said the chemicals may have been sulfuric acid and chlorine.

Founded in 1941, MPG Ingredients employs 320 people, according to the company website. It makes bourbon and rye whiskeys, gins and vodkas, according to the website.

The incident occurred when two chemicals were mistakenly mixed at the MGP Ingredients facility, Cocking said.

Cocking said MGP employees were being allowed to return but it was unclear if the facility would re-open on Friday.

(Reporting by Timothy Mclaughlin in Chicago and Ben Klayman in Detroit; Editing by Bill Trott and Will Dunham)