6News broadcast time bumped up for baseball

Sunflower Broadband’s 6News will air 30 minutes early today because of the telecast of the Kansas City Royals-Cleveland Indians game. Coverage of the game begins at 6 p.m. The newscast will begin at 5:30 p.m. instead of the regularly scheduled 6 p.m.

Police

Officials search for possible gun at LHS

Lawrence High School officials searched the building Thursday morning after getting a tip that a student may have brought a gun to school.

It turned out the person thought to have a gun was still on the school’s rolls but hadn’t been attending school for six to eight weeks, LHS principal Steve Nilhas said.

School officials talked to acquaintances of the student and searched their cars. They also searched a locker, Nilhas said, but they didn’t find a gun.

“Bottom line is we made sure the school was safe for the students,” he said.

Nilhas did not further identify the student, except to say he wouldn’t be allowed on school grounds. The case was turned over to Lawrence Police for further investigation.

Nilhas said the incident was not related to senior-week festivities.

State

Library chief appointed to Information Network

Gov. Kathleen Sebelius announced Thursday that Bruce Flanders, director of the Lawrence Public Library since 1995, had been appointed to a three-year term on the board of the Information Network of Kansas.

The Information Network of Kansas was formed by the Kansas Legislature in 1990 to provide electronic access to state information. Currently, the network maintains accesskansas.org, the state’s official Web site. The organization is governed by a 10-member board to which Flanders has been appointed.

The governor said in a written statement that she expected Flanders to bring a combination of new perspectives and experience with technology and public information to the board.

Steriod scandals

Doping to be discussed at Dole Institute

Drugs in sports will be the topic of a panel discussion Tuesday at the Dole Institute of Politics.

The discussion, at 7:30 p.m., is free and open to the public. Panelists will include Bill James, a baseball statistician for the Boston Red Sox; John Hadl, a former NFL quarterback and associate athletic director at Kansas University; and Bill Althaus, sports writer for the Blue Springs Examiner.

“Unfortunately, doping scandals seem to be popping up in almost any imaginable sport, from cycling to track to football,” said Jonathan Earle, associate director of the institute. “And the recent news about steroids in Major League Baseball — the national pastime — made it a significant political issue. This panel should be a great way to air out these issues in our community, one of the most sophisticated sports towns in the nation.”

Land transfer paves way for U.S. 69 road work

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on Thursday put its stamp of approval on a proposal to transfer 40.51 acres of the Marais des Cygnes State Park to the Kansas Department of Transportation and grant a temporary easement on other park land to enable road improvement to U.S. Highway 69. The highway runs through part of the wildlife area.

After examining the proposal for the land transfer at the park, which is just north of Pleasanton, the service delivered a “finding of no significant impact.” Copies of the finding can be obtained by writing the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.

In exchange for being granted the 40.51 acres of land and the easement, the proposal calls for the Kansas Department of Transportation to transfer 92.7 acres of land from an adjacent parcel to Kansas Wildlife and Parks, which would be added to the Marais des Cygnes wildlife area.