JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (AP) — Police say a body found in rural Geary County matches the description of a missing Junction City woman.
Junction City police say in a news release Thursday that the body matches the description of 24-year-old Amanda Clemons, although a positive identification has not been confirmed.
Authorities went to the scene late Wednesday after serving a search warrant at Fort Riley and interviewing people throughout the day.
A 22-year-old Colorado woman and a 23-year-old man living at Fort Riley were arrested. Formal charges have not been filed.
Clemons was last seen on Feb. 7. Witnesses said they saw her being placed into a car at the Budget Host Hotel in Junction City.
TOPEKA (AP) — The Kansas House has approved the 2015 budget for the Department of Corrections, authorizing more than $390 million for state prisons and programs.
The bill passed 79-41 on Thursday, sending the measure to the Senate and restoring the funding that was vetoed last year by Gov. Sam Brownback.
The spending covers the fiscal year beginning July 1 and includes funding for additional corrections officers and increased health care costs.
Lawmakers amended the bill Wednesday to place restrictions on where the Department of Corrections could locate parole offices.
The restrictions were prompted by the agency’s plan to open a parole office next door to a daycare center in Kansas City, Kan. Parents and city officials have protested, saying they don’t want convicted sex offenders visiting an office so close to children.
LAWRENCE — It’s nothing new for journalism students to take an internship while completing their degree. The University of Kansas’ William Allen White School of Journalism & Mass Communications has put a unique twist on the tried-and-true program, putting students in the Statehouse to report on the legislative session while providing content to newspapers across the state.
Scott Reinardy
The Statehouse Reporting class has sent journalism majors to Topeka to cover state government for three years. This year, however, the class has launched a wire service that provides news to more than a dozen newspapers across the state. The students report on new bills, committee hearings and the major legislative issues of the day, but they also specifically tailor their coverage to meet requests from newspaper editors across Kansas.
The class aims to give students real-world experience while giving back to the state.
“The long-term goal has always been to start a wire service that can feed content to newspapers throughout the state,” said Scott Reinardy, associate professor of journalism and instructor for the class. “We’re a state institution. We need to deliver services to the state, and we see this as one way to do that.”
The benefits for the students are myriad. In addition to seeing a legislative body in action, they learn how to put together timely news on deadline, obtain bylines in several newspapers and build a relationship with both editors and lawmakers. Reinardy said he hopes the program is of value to newspapers as well. In an age when newspaper budgets have tightened, many can’t afford to send a reporter to cover the Kansas Legislature or pay freelancers to cover specific issues of interest to their coverage area.
Several northwest Kansas college students recently were honored by their institutions for academic achievement.
Wichita State University’s Dean’s Honor Roll for fall 2013 (at least a 3.5 grade-point average) included:
Almena: Jessica A. Holmes Colby: Jared J. Bixenman and Emilea J. Finley Downs: Kylie R. Moore Ellis: Jessica D. Lopez Goodland: Nicole D. Hendrich Hays: Ellynora C. Beery, Joseph D. Hertel, Andrea L. Holzmeister, Burton I. Lindenmuth and Julie A. Schmeidler Norton: Spencer A. Shirk and Teal R. Stewart Osborne: Jamie L. Pruter Plainville: Brady T. Johnson and Brianna R. Moos Smith Center: Hilary K. Mannel
• • •
More than 850 students completed their degrees at Wichita State University in fall 2013, including the following northwest Kansas students:
Colby: Melissa J. Gerber Ellis: Megan R. Gruver Hays: Philip A. Bollig, Joseph D. Hertel and Kethlyn A. Staab Lucas: Scott A. Wilson
• • •
Sam Houston State University in Huntsville, Texas, announced Taryn Kippes, Hays, was among its December 2013 graduates.
MENLO PARK, Calif. (AP) — You don’t just have to be male or female on Facebook anymore.
The social media giant is adding a customizable option with about 50 different terms people can use to identify their gender as well as three preferred pronoun choices: him, her or them.
Facebook said the changes being rolled out Thursday for the company’s 159 million U.S. users are aimed at giving people more choices in how they describe themselves, such as androgynous, bi-gender, intersex, gender fluid or transsexual.
Facebook, which has 1.15 billion active monthly users around the world, also allows them to keep their gender identity private.
TOPEKA (AP) — A Kansas House committee is weighing a resolution urging Congress to resist following President Barack Obama’s plan for addressing climate change
Members of the House Energy and Environment Committee took nearly two hours of testimony Thursday about the measure. It declares that the federal goals for addressing climate change are based on false assumptions about the role of carbon dioxide and human activity. Supporters point to data suggesting warming is occurring naturally and human influence is overstated.
Environmentalists argue that the resolution is based on bad science and ignores data that emissions and humans are altering sea levels and weather patterns.
The resolution cites Obama’s 2013 plan that calls for a reduction in greenhouse gas emissions and encourages development of renewable forms of energy.
WICHITA — State officials say they’re close to launching a website for helping Kansans figure out which nursing home offers the highest quality care in their communities.
Shawn Sullivan, secretary of the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services
“It should be up sometime in April,” said Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services Secretary Shawn Sullivan, at a meeting of the House Committee on Children and Seniors earlier this week. “The idea is for this to become a resource for people to use when they’re having to choose a nursing facility for themselves or for a loved one. It shouldn’t be the only factor in the decision-making process, but it’s a resource that we feel should be made available.”
The new program, called Kansas Nursing Home Report Card, will assign each of the state’s 330 nursing homes a series of one-to-five ratings based on licensure inspections, quality indicators, staffing data, and resident satisfaction surveys.
The KDADS report card, Sullivan said, would be similar to but better than the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid’s Five-Star Quality Rating System, which has been in place since 2008.
KDADS, he said, has contracted with a national company, My InnerView, to conduct in-person interviews with roughly 7,000 of the state’s 18,000 nursing home residents.
Sullivan said that survey should be completed this week. The survey questions, he said, were designed to measure residents “overall satisfaction” and whether they would recommend their facility to others.
The report card’s quality indicators, he said, would be “risk adjusted” so that facilities that care for “higher acuity” residents are not penalized for admitting especially frail residents.
Quality indicators include the prevalence of pressure sores, use of restraints, undue weight loss, and reliance on catheters.
The federal rating system’s data, Sullivan said, are not risk adjusted and do not measure resident satisfaction.
The KDADS report card, he said, would allow users to find out which issues were of the most concern to residents in a particular nursing home.
Most of the website has been developed in-house by KDADS staff. The department’s contract with My Innerview is for $295,000 for two years, agency officials said.
Rep. Melissa Rooker, a Fairway Republican, said the initiative seemed like a good idea.
“Anytime a family is put in a position of having to contemplate putting a loved one in a nursing, it’s a highly emotional issue,” she said. “So anything we can do to help families not make those decisions blindly is a step in the right direction.
“I fully understand how confusing and frightening and unnerving it is for families to have to make these decisions,” Rooker said. “It’s a constant challenge.”
Debra Zehr, chief executive of LeadingAge Kansas, which represents non-profit nursing homes, agreed with Sullivan’s critique of the federal rating system.
“It has a lot of problems,” she said. “I’m confident that the one KDADS is putting together will be better.”
Zehr said her members “conceptually” support the report card but would encourage family members not to limit their decisions to information pulled from inspection reports.
“I tell people to visit the facility, drop by unannounced, talk to staff – don’t just take the tour,” Zehr said. “Go there afterhours or on a weekend. Talk to other residents’ family members. Call the (Kansas Long-term Care) Ombudsman’s Office, ask them what they’ve heard.”
Mitzi McFatrich, executive director of Kansas Advocates for Better Care, said she hoped KDADS would expand the report card to include the state’s assisted living and residential health care facilities.
Currently, she said, “there really is no national or state government data on these facilities that the public can access.”
Angela de Rocha, a spokesperson for KDADS, said the agency would explore expanding the report card after it’s had time to measure the initiative’s effectiveness.
To contact the ombudsman’s office, call (877) 662-8362 (toll-free) or email [email protected].
WICHITA (AP) — Wichita police have arrested a suspect in the killing of a communications company employee earlier this week.
KAKE-TV reported police arrested the suspect Wednesday night after receiving an anonymous tip in the death of 25-year-old Daniel Flores. His body was found early Monday at Steckline Communications.
Police say when they stopped the suspect’s car the driver stabbed himself in the stomach. He is currently under police watch at a Wichita hospital.
Lt. Todd Ojile says the suspect is an ex-boyfriend of someone who works at Steckline. He says Flores didn’t know the suspect and apparently was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Ojile said that the suspect will be booked for felony murder when he’s released from the hospital. No other suspects are being sought.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Police say a frozen body discovered last week in Kansas City was an Arizona truck driver who was reported missing in October.
The body of 53-year-old Lawrence Peter Muirhead was found Sunday inside a freezer in a detached garage behind a home in Kansas City.
Police said Thursday his death is considered a homicide.
Muirhead’s family reported him missing Oct. 1 when he didn’t return home to Tucson after a trip to Pennsylvania. Relatives said their last contact with him was Sept. 28.
The truck he was driving was found abandoned Oct. 4 in Merriam.
Kansas City police haven’t said how Muirhead died.
New students at Thomas More Prep Marian Junior/Senior High School will get a leg up next week during the school’s Monarch 4 A Day program. The event is scheduled for 8:30 a.m. to noon Feb. 20.
Incoming high school students will shadow students in class, meet teachers and get to know current TMP students.
It’s a chance to let new students know “who we are and what we are,” said Angie Roth, TMP director of admissions. Roth said the event is not just for incoming freshmen, but for new high school students at any level.
Monarch 4 A Day has been around for nearly 20 years. Since the inception of a junior high program at the building, fewer local students attend the event.
“But interest has increased from outside the area,” Roth said, noting groups surrounding counties have attended in the past.
There are currently 387 combined junior and senior high school students, Roth said — 137 in junior high.
The Monarch 4 A Day program is paired with parent information night, scheduled for 7 p.m. Feb. 19 at the school, 1701 Hall.
Being able to shadow a peer offers advantages to new students.
“The goal of that is if they do decide to come to school here, they have a face of somebody they kind of know (to ask for help),” Roth said.
RSVPs are requested to Roth at (785) 625-6577, although she stressed students who have not RSVP’d are welcome to attend.
PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Pittsburgh man is facing animal cruelty charges after he allegedly used a machete to decapitate his mother’s Chihuahua.
Authorities say they were called to the home Wednesday night, and police say 30-year-old Matthew Ondo’s parents showed them the remains of the dog named Izzy along with a bloody machete.
According to a criminal complaint, Ondo at first denied killing the dog, then claimed the devil did it. Ondo’s parents have told police their son is an unemployed drug addict who has emotional problems.
Ondo is being held at the Allegheny County jail, unable to post $25,000 bond. No attorney is listed on court papers.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Johnson County couple who were the focus of a failed marijuana search is supporting proposed legislation making it easier to get police investigative reports.
The failed search for marijuana two years ago at the Leawood home of Robert and Adlynn Harte launched the Hartes on a crusade for documents to shed light on what led to the search, which produced no charges or evidence. The Hartes spent $25,000 working to get the records.
The Kansas City Star reports the Hartes appeared before lawmakers Wednesday asking them to make public police documents called probable-cause affidavits, which are used to justify arrests or searches.
The Hartes support a bill introduced by Shawnee Republican Rep. John Rubin, which would require prosecutors to convince a judge that the records should remain private.
JUNCTION CITY, Kan. (AP) — Police say a body found in rural Geary County matches the description of a missing Junction City woman.
