Steve Saffell keeps a Taser tucked by his seat in the cockpit and a handgun holstered underneath his right arm. As pilot of the Sedgwick County sheriff's airplane, Saffell's passengers are usually wearing handcuffs and leg irons.

Neither he nor Nathan Bevis, the county's other deputy pilot, has ever had to pull a weapon at 25,000 feet while returning people wanted on felony warrants to Wichita.

Even in a time of economic crunches and county budget cutbacks, the Sheriff's Office says flying saves taxpayers money — about $3 million since 1986, according to cost analysis reports.

LAWRENCE — University of Kansas researchers are working to turn microbes from treated sewage into a commercially viable biofuel, that one day could be used to power the nation's cars, trucks, airplanes and other modes of transportation.

But for now, the future grows in four farm tanks at Lawrence's wastewater treatment plant, and inside another four at a research station northeast of the Lawrence Municipal Airport.

The project is unmistakably green, a shade that can be produced only by millions of cells of algae fattened with treated waste from the city's sewer system, then harvested after absorbing organic pollutants and yielding oil for transformation into clean-burning biodiesel.

The phone rang at 11:33 a.m. Thursday.

"This is your favorite grandson," the caller said.

"Chris?" the Wichita man asked.

Those who want to see former ambassador and presidential candidate Alan Keyes — in Kansas to campaign for congressional candidate Jim Anderson — will have plenty of opportunity.

The campaign is bringing in Keyes to try to drum up support for Anderson, a small-business owner who is running in a five-candidate Republican primary for the 4th Congressional District seat being vacated by Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Goddard.

The other candidates are businessmen Mike Pompeo and Wink Hartman; and state Sens. Dick Kelsey and Jean Schodorf.

There are legendary tales of criminal masterminds — and then there's the guy who tried to steal copper pipe from a rental house near downtown.

A 39-year-old maintenance man was working on a rental property in the 600 block of North St. Francis shortly after 10:30 a.m. Thursday when he noticed the door to a garage studio apartment was open across the street — and it shouldn't have been.

When he went to investigate, he found a man removing copper pipe from beneath the kitchen sink. The intruder claimed he was removing the pipe under the instruction of the owner, the maintenance man told property manager Kris Sims via cell phone.