Drumss Site

A certain adrenaline rush comes with busting a meth lab, even if the gun in your hand is loaded with paintball bullets. The bad guys may be cardboard cutouts and the lab a Quonset hut at a Drug Enforcement Administration training facility, rather than some backwoods shack or ramshackle trailer. But the Kevlar vest can withstand bullets fired from most handguns. The helmet is real. The gas mask makes a Darth Vader-like metallic click with each breath.

In the last three months of 2006, construction company owner Ron Cornejo and several of his family members donated $500 each to three Wichita City Council members who are running for re-election.

She rises at 8 a.m., fixes a small breakfast and injects the first of her daily insulin shots. She takes a phone call from a friend who is struggling after the loss of a husband. Then, just before 10 a.m., she gets into her dark blue 1998 Buick Regal for the big trip. This is the one day this month she will shop for groceries. She will spend no more than $100 -- her monthly budget for food.

Voters looking for leadership from outside of the big black building downtown have plenty of choices in this year`s mayoral primary.

A Coffey County legislator wants to impose a 3 percent payroll tax on noncitizens to pay for bilingual and other educational expenses.

One of the fastest-growing populations in Sedgwick County has nothing to do with people. The county best known for having the state`s largest city is also known for hosting the state`s largest number of species of birds.

If the Wichita school board on Feb. 26 approves a proposal to ban smoking on all district property -- even inside cars in its parking lots -- smokers will have to go without or leave school grounds starting July 1.

Pam McCutcheon does two things at work: 1. She runs the Clutter Cutter, a private business. 2. She gives away stuff and time. Officials at the Wichita Children`s Home say that because McCutcheon donated stuff and time, Brittany Shipman and nearly two dozen other young people who`ve had bad luck in life are living happier (and less cluttered) in the small rooms they call home.

Now this is more like it. After weeks of harsh cold, Wichita basked in spring-like temperatures Monday. And after today cools a bit, the rest of the week will warm up nicely.

A bill to make the names of all school bus drivers public ran into a roadblock in a House committee Monday. The measure at issue, House Bill 2309, spun off from a pair of high-profile incidents involving misconduct by drivers who work for Durham School Services under contract with the Wichita school district.

Connie Palacioz beamed as the B-29 Superfortress named Doc, gleaming in the sunlight, rolled toward its new home at the Kansas Aviation Museum on Tuesday. One more milestone in Doc`s history. `#34;It`s wonderful,`#34; said Palacioz, 82, a riveter at Boeing during World War II and one of the volunteers helping to restore the plane to airworthiness.