Topeka: Southwest Kansan dies of hantavirus

Kansas has recorded its first hantavirus death in three years, state health officials said Friday.

The victim — a southwest Kansas man — died Thursday after being hospitalized with severe symptoms earlier in the week, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said.

KDHE spokeswoman Sharon Watson said the man’s wife had contracted the virus a week earlier, but her symptoms were not as severe and she was not hospitalized.

Both had worked in dusty areas in and around a barn where there were rodents and rodent droppings.

Citing confidentiality rules, KDHE did not identify the man and woman by name, hometown or county. But Watson identified an 18-county region in southwest Kansas bordered by Pawnee County on the east, Hamilton County on the north, Comanche County on the south and Morton County on the west.

In the decade since hantavirus was first discovered in the United States, Kansas has had 18 confirmed cases, six of them resulting in death, KDHE said.

Topeka: Court again upholds conviction in dog attack

The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld for a second time the second-degree murder conviction of a former Milford woman whose three Rottweilers killed an 11-year-old boy in April 1997.

Sabine M. Davidson was sentenced in 1998 to 12 years in prison for the mauling death of Christopher Wilson. The Kansas Supreme Court upheld her conviction in 1999, saying Davidson’s failure to control her animals led to the boy’s death.

In a separate civil lawsuit challenging the conviction, Davidson said her attorney had been ineffective because he failed to raise several issues on appeal.

The Supreme Court on Friday disagreed, ruling Friday that an attorney’s failure to raise issues on appeal should not be equated with ineffective assistance. In fact, the court said, issues that are “weak or without merit” should not be raised on appeal.

Atchison: Amelia Earhart bridge among endangered sites

The Amelia Earhart Memorial Bridge in Atchison is one of the most endangered historic sites in the country, according to a nonprofit preservation group.

The National Trust for Historic Preservation placed the Earhart bridge over the Missouri River on its 2003 list of the United States’ 11 most endangered historic places. The list was released Thursday.

The designation doesn’t trigger any specific protections for the bridge named for the pioneering aviator. However, preservationists hope the listing will publicize the 65-year-old structure, perhaps saving it. The Kansas Department of Transportation has slated the bridge for demolition and replacement by 2009.

Although KDOT says the bridge is not unsafe, it has said it was too narrow for modern traffic. The Atchison Preservation Alliance has asked the transportation department to consider building a new bridge alongside the old one, keeping it open as half of the four-lane bridge.

Such a plan, however, would incur costly maintenance on an old bridge that still wouldn’t meet code, said Ron Kaufman, a KDOT spokesman.

Oklahoma City: Judge sets trial date for Terry Nichols

The state murder trial for Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols will begin March 1, a judge decided Friday.

Nichols, 48, will be tried on 162 counts of first-degree murder.

He could face the death penalty if convicted for his role in the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building that killed 168 people.

A federal jury convicted Nichols of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter in the deaths of eight federal agents in 1997 and he was sentenced to life in prison.