MOSCOW (AP) — With its brutality, technological accomplishments and rigid ideology, the Soviet Union loomed over the world like an immortal colossus. It led humankind into outer space, exploded the most powerful nuclear weapon ever,…

TOPEKA — Demolition work on the Docking state office building next to the Kansas Capitol could begin in January to prepare the site for construction of a three-story multipurpose building atop the original foundation. Gov.…

When he was just a tot, Iola High School principal Scott Carson and his brothers would tromp outside their family’s farmhouse near Parsons on a very important Christmas Eve mission — to scatter food for…

“Heat and Ice,” the second book of Clyde Toland’s “Becoming Frederick Funston Trilogy,” has been released. Signed copies of the book — officially titled “Heat and Ice: Frederick Funston’s Exploration of Death Valley, Alaska, and…

Teachers and staff walked into Iola Elementary School on Wednesday morning to find the new building transformed in a tribute to history. One stretch of the long, main hallway near the office had been filled…

Former Jefferson Elementary School teacher Linda Brocker remembers when she switched from third grade to first. She was dismayed to realize the younger children “didn’t know anything.”  But by the end of the school year,…

HAYS — Even for a perennially dry region like western Kansas, this year sticks out. Barely any rain. Temperatures that bake the soil into a cracked, parched mess. And forecasts that don’t offer much hope…

Steve French was bracing for the worst, but was pleasantly surprised the more he worked. French, who works as a licensed contractor when not busy as Iola’s mayor, was in charge of removing the tin…

HUMBOLDT — Todd Cranson grew up in New Orleans, went to college in Illinois and now works as a music professor at the University of South Dakota. But his ties to Humboldt — where he’d…

It takes a little more than a massive windstorm to keep people away from a Friday night seafood buffet. Gena Clounch was working as a waitress at The Greenery restaurant on Aug. 1, 1986, when…