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CHICAGO — It's only summer, but officials in Lake and McHenry counties are already worried that they could head into winter without road salt.

Susan Hofer of the Illinois Department of Central Management Services says her department hasn't been able to find a supplier willing to bid on Lake and McHenry counties' supply needs.

She says communities in other parts of Illinois also remain without salt suppliers.

To make matters worse, she says, there is no reserve and prices have tripled since last year.

CRAWFORDSVILLE — A man who vanished with his son in 1992 after losing a custody battle surrendered to authorities, allowing the now 23-year-old son to reunite with his mother.

Mark Hicks, 49, once a resident of rural Lizton, posted a $1,000 surety bond and bonded out of the Montgomery County Jail in Crawfordsville after surrendering Thursday on a warrant for violating a custody order.

He and his son, Brandon, were staying with Hicks' father in Lizton, said Sheriff Luther Blanton.

Neither the father nor the son said anything about their whereabouts since disappearing on March 20, 1992, the day legal custody of the then 6-year-old boy was awarded to the boy's mother, Tammy Smith, following a legal battle that last three years.

Smith was reunited with her son Thursday at the sheriff's office.

"I cried all the way there," she said. "Then I composed myself, because I didn't want him to see me crying."

During their short reunion, Smith said, her son didn't go into detail about where he had been living, only that he had been with Hicks.

DES MOINES — A Dallas County farmer plans to appeal the decision of a panel that denied him permits for two large hog confinements.

Robert Manning Jr. of Granger has a month to appeal the surprise vote by the Iowa Department of Natural Resources' Environmental Protection Commission on Tuesday to block a pair of previously approved confinements.

They were planned for south of Dawson, with room for 7,440 hogs each.

Manning Jr. says he's doing it on behalf of pork producers in the state, adding that the decision offended all of them.

Commissioners say their vote will force state legislators to reconsider the approval process for animal confinements. They say it's too lenient.

WICHITA — Fort Hays State University has fired its debate coach for losing his temper at a tournament, engaging in a videotaped shouting match that included pulling down his shorts to expose his underwear.

University President Edward H. Hammond also announced Friday that the school was immediately suspending its debate program until problems are addressed at the national level. He said it was important to take a stand against the declining standards of college debate.

The argument between Fort Hays State debate coach William Shanahan and another coach after a tournament match at the Cross Examination Debate Association event at Wichita State University in March received nationwide attention after it was posted on YouTube on Aug. 2.

Shanahan told The Associated Press in a telephone interview on Friday that while his reasoning might seem convoluted, he argued with the other coach because he respected her and her opinions.

"Obviously it got out of control, but to be honest I thought I was in a safe house," Shanahan said. "I thought I was part of a community that handled its problems internally and that recognized the dangers of exposing ourselves — no pun intended — to the rest of the country. It is so difficult as a non-participant to understand what is going on in the debate round."

CALUMET — A carved moose no longer threatens the historic character of the former copper mining town of Calumet.

Acting under threatened fines of $100 a day from Calumet's Historic District Commission, Ron Rea removed the door with the moose carving from the front of his business Thursday.

The village of 780 on upper Michigan's far northern Keweenaw Peninsula once was the heart of a booming copper mining industry. The downtown is part of Keweenaw National Historical Park.

Rea installed the door in mid-July at The Office Shop. The commission then told him the door violated historic design standards.

He told The Daily Mining Gazette of Houghton he's displaying the moose in the window instead.

ST. LOUIS — Two St. Louis-area doctors and a nurse were indicted on multiple charges of conspiracy to commit health-care fraud.

They are accused of working together to defraud Medicare and Medicaid.

Dr. James Ellegood and his wife, nurse Wynsleen Ellegood, of De Soto, and Dr. Rajitha Goli of St. Louis also were charged Friday with making false statements to Medicare and Medicaid and money laundering. Three businesses were also indicted.

Goli is accused of providing services even though her license to practice medicine in Missouri was revoked in 2002 for health-care fraud.

The indictment says the Ellegoods submitted more than 300 false claims, some of them from times Ellegood was in Mexico or the Bahamas.

OMAHA — Police say they made a surprising discovery while inspecting a west Omaha house in foreclosure — more than 400 marijuana plants and sophisticated growing equipment.

Officers found marijuana plants covering the entire home earlier this week, from fresh seedlings to fully-grown plants. Police say 421 plants in all were seized, along with grow lights, fans, water filtration systems and other items.

To make matters easier for authorities, officers were loading the illegal wares onto trucks when two of the home's residents pulled up.

Police arrested the two 23-year-old men on suspicion of manufacturing marijuana.

COLUMBUS — Parents who fail to make child-support payments should be sent to halfway houses instead of prison, the state prisons director said.

Terry Collins, director of the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction, said he supports a bill that would keep such parents out of prison because it gives them a chance to get a job and make their support payments.

"It becomes a win-win situation for the children and family members of these offenders when they are able to maintain employment and provide monetary support to the family," Collins said.

State Rep. Ted Celeste, a suburban Columbus Democrat, proposed the bill Thursday. If it is passed, judges would be urged to send non-support offenders to halfway houses for counseling.

The bill would take a pilot program that started last year in seven counties and spread it statewide.

Celeste said sending non-support offenders to halfway houses would cost a lot less than paying to house them in prison. It could also help ease prison crowding.

BISMARCK — Dry weather in prime duck territory might be more of a factor than high gas prices in determining whether North Dakota sees fewer out-of-state waterfowl hunters this fall, a state wildlife official says.

Most of the Missouri Coteau region has been dry, said Randy Kreil, the state Game and Fish Department's wildlife division chief.

"There is a lack of huntable water in much of the state," he said.

The prairie pothole region, a network of wetlands, stretches from central Iowa to northwest Alberta in Canada. In North Dakota, it stretches diagonally through the central part of the state. The most recent weekly report from the Agriculture Department shows much of that region is short on topsoil moisture, indicating how dry it has been.

The region is known for its ducks and geese, and to a lesser extent for other waterfowl such as tundra swan. The Game and Fish Department recently said that out of the 2,200 North Dakota swan licenses made available this year, more than 800 remain after the license lottery.

PIERRE — The South Dakota Board of Regents has approved a budget request that seeks $19.8 million in additional state spending to cover inflation in basic operating expenses and boost the use of technology and research at the public universities.

Part of the budget request supports a plan that would require all students within a few years to use laptop computers with wireless connections to the Internet.

The system of six state-run universities and two special schools is getting $185 million in state funds this budget year, so the requested $19.8 million increase would be nearly 11 percent for the budget year beginning next July.

College officials also want to use about $11 million in one-time funds, which would be obtained from an accounting move, to help move toward the wireless computing system that would be integrated into all courses.

SUPERIOR — A Superior man faces charges after trying to protect his son from arrest by nailing him into a cabinet.

Police went to the home of Jeffrey Scott Rantala Sr. with warrants to arrest his son, Jeffrey Scott Rantala Jr.

The father initially refused to let the officers search his house but agreed after a police supervisor told him officers would leave him alone if his son was not there. While waiting outside, an officer heard "a lot of banging going on inside the residence."

As police searched the house, the 25-year-old son kicked his way through a wall to escape a cabinet that was nailed shut.

One officer arrested the son. The other arrested the father, who was charged Monday with obstructing an officer and bail jumping.

EDMONTON, Alberta — More than 13,000 Alberta health-care workers have ratified a new collective agreement.

The auxiliary nursing care members include licensed practical nurses and nursing attendants, among others.

AUPE President Doug Knight says the agreement recognizes "significant challenges" facing health-care employers in the current health-care labor market.

The four-year agreement gives all members a general pay increase of 5 percent in the first and second years, and at least 4.5 percent in the third and fourth years.

More than 90 percent of the members will also will also receive a "market adjustment" of at least 10 percent in the first year of the agreement.