From the Lawrence Daily Journal-World for Mar. 18, 1971:

• Three Lawrence houses had been damaged when a burning cigarette, tossed from the cab of a pickup truck, had ignited boxes in the truck’s bed. Gusty winds had blown the burning boxes onto the lawns of Mrs. Betty Sickles, 1110 Iowa, L. G. Wright, 1112 Iowa, and Glenn Trapp, 1120 Iowa. The small grass fires had spread rapidly to shrubs and evergreens, eventually catching the Sickles house on fire and scorching paint and siding on the other two homes.
• Dillons markets of Kansas, with branches in Lawrence, were introducing the “returnable plastic gallon jug” for milk sales. The plastic jug, which was eight times lighter than the glass bottles, was designed to help alleviate the waste disposal problem while also eliminating the risk of breakage that often occurred with returnable glass jugs.