Legislature

Leaders announced for House committees

Topeka — House Speaker Doug Mays, R-Topeka, shuffled several committee leadership positions in preparation for the 2005 legislation session that starts Jan. 10.

State Rep. Tom Sloan, a Lawrence Republican, maintains chairmanship of the House Higher Education Committee.

In the area, state Rep. Kenny Wilk, R-Lansing, will move from chairman of Economic Development to the Tax Committee.

The leaders of most other major committees remained the same.

“Our committees will have balanced and experienced leadership,” Mays said.

Telephone service

Cut cable affects Sprint customers

Sprint customers in the Baldwin area lost their telephone connection late Wednesday morning when a cable was cut.

Tory Billard, a spokeswoman for the phone company, said 150 customers were left unable to make or receive phone calls — including emergency calls.

Billard said late Wednesday afternoon that she didn’t know when the services would be up and running for customers.

“But a crew is working on the problem,” she said.

Investigation

No one injured in train derailment in Ottawa

Ottawa — No one was injured early Wednesday when a Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway train derailed at the northeast edge of Ottawa.

The cause of the derailment is under investigation, BNSF spokesman Steve Forsberg said, and crews expected to have the double track area near the Davis Road crossing open by this morning.

The 27-car train and its two engines were traveling at 55 mph when the derailment occurred about 3:30 a.m. Wednesday. The engines and seven front cars derailed, Forsberg said, but the engines remained upright. The two crew members aboard were not hurt.

The train, which was headed from Oakland, Calif., to Chicago, was transporting a variety of freight in modular containers, but none of it was considered hazardous, Forsberg said.

Kansas University sets final exams

Kansas University has announced the following final examinations:

• Laurie A. Grow, sociology, “The Impact of the 1996 Welfare, Medicaid and Immigration Reform Legislation on Access to Health Care for Low-Income Latino Women,” 1 p.m. today, 706 Fraser Hall.
• Synthia Chang, medicinal chemistry, “Oxygenase Activity of Bacterial Glutamate Decarboxylase,” 10:30 a.m. Friday, 2049 Malott Hall.
• Sara Collas, sociology, “Living in Workerville at Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival: An Ethnography of a Lesbian Space,” 3 p.m. Friday, 706 Fraser Hall.
• Brenda Krebs, Spanish and Portuguese, “The Early Modern Stage as Editorial Page: The Theatre as a Mass Communication Medium in Seventeenth-Century Spain and England,” 1:30 p.m. Monday, 3040 Wescoe Hall.