We have a brand new updated website! Click here to check it out!

TMP-Marian girls’ soccer advances to state quarterfinals

NCKTechculinary
The TMP-Marian girls’ soccer team will continue their best season in school history after defeating Rose Hill 2-1 on penalty kicks Thursday at the Bickle-Schmidt Sports Complex. The wins improves to Monarchs to 7-2-2 and advances them to the 4-1A state quarterfinals for the first time in program history.

Courtesy TMP-Marian
Courtesy TMP-Marian

Annika Applequist scored the Monarchs lone goal in regulation giving TMP a 1-0 lead at the half. The Rockets tied the match less than three minutes into the second half.

The two teams then went scoreless through four overtime periods and were tied 3-3 after the first round of penalty kicks. The Monarchs finally win it on the second round of penalty kicks with senior Emily Glover scoring the game winner.

TMP will now face either Winfield, Trinity Academy or Topeka Hayden in the state quarterfinals Tuesday. Winfield (16-1) defeated Buhler 4-1 to win the South Central Regional 1. Trinity Academy (13-3-1) knocked off McPherson 7-0 to take the SC Regional 2 and Topeka Hayden (12-6) was a 2-0 winner over Andover Central to win the SC Regional 4.

The winners of Tuesday’s matches advance to the state semifinals May 30 and 31 in Kansas City.

Related story: HHS girls soccer falls short.

HHS girls’ soccer falls short in overtime in regional finals

NCKTechculinary
The magical run for the Hays High girls’ soccer team came to an end Thursday, as the Indians fall 2-1 in overtime to Goddard-Eisenhower in the South Central Regional 3 finals.

The Tigers broke the 1-1 tie with a goal less than a minute into the overtime period.

Eisenhower struck first with a goal 12 minutes into the match. Talyn Kleweno tied the contest 1-1 a little over three minutes later and it would stay that way throughout the rest of regulation.

The Indians end their season, which included seven straight wins and nine straight matches without a loss, at 13-4-1.

Group asks regents to reverse social media policy

Screen Shot 2014-05-23 at 5.34.35 AMLAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A national association of journalism educators wants the Kansas Board of Regents to reverse the social media policy it finalized earlier this month.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports a recent statement from the president of the Association for Education in Journalism and Mass Communication says the policy “restricts academic freedom” and interferes with the education of those seeking journalism careers.

The regents adopted the policy in December in response to a University of Kansas journalism instructor’s tweet harshly criticizing the National Rifle Association after a mass shooting at the Washington Navy Yard.

The policy allows university leaders to suspend and fire employees for social media posts that conflict with the best interest of the school.

A spokeswoman for the regents declined a newspaper request to interview members of the board.

Appeals court deals setback for former Kan. doctor

Schneider
Schneider

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal appeals court has dealt another setback to a former Kansas doctor convicted in a moneymaking conspiracy linked to 68 overdose deaths.

The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday denied a request by Stephen Schneider for appointment of an attorney and a free transcript to fight his conviction on the basis of ineffective counsel.

Schneider contends in a court filing that his defense team was plagued by many shortcomings and was not well prepared for his trial.

The doctor and his wife, Linda, ran a pain clinic in Haysville.

The Schneiders were convicted in 2010 of conspiracy, unlawfully prescribing drugs, health care fraud and money laundering. Stephen Schneider was sentenced to 30 years, and his wife to 33 years.

Harding leaving KAMU for WYCO Foundation

Cathy Harding, executive director of the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved.-photo KHI News
Cathy Harding, executive director of the Kansas Association for the Medically Underserved.-photo KHI News

By KHI News Service

 — Cathy Harding, the executive director of the Kansas Assoociation for the Medically Underserved, will leave that post to become the new chief executive of the Wyandotte Health Foundation.

The announcement was made Thursday by KAMU officials. KAMU represents the state’s safety net clinics, which focus on serving the working poor who lack health insurance or are underinsured.

Harding will move to the new position starting in July. She will replace Bill Eppenheimer, who is retiring after nearly 17 years in the foundation’s CEO position.

Harding said she was drawn to the Wyandotte Health Foundation job because Mayor Mark Holland and other public officials are committed to improving the county’s health status, which annually ranks among the lowest in the state.

“When the mayor of a large metropolitan area, like Wyandotte County is, says that the top priorities for him are public works, public safety and public health, with health being one of the three priorities, that’s really amazing,” Harding said. “It just says a lot about the leadership there.”

Harding said she wants the foundation to be a long-term partner in the effort to improve the health of Wyandotte County residents.

“It’s a perfect time for the foundation to really be involved,” she said. “The county is really at a point moving forward where there could be some significant changes and I’ll be excited to be a part of that.

“To have been selected as the CEO of the Wyandotte Health Foundation is a great honor, as well as a great responsibility that I do not take lightly,” Harding said. “I’m excited about working with the board, stakeholders and citizens of this community to make an impact on the health of the county.”

The Wyandotte Health Foundation was launched in 1997 with proceeds from the sale of Bethany Medical Center to Columbia HCA. It ranks 18th on the Kansas City Business Journal’s list of top area charitable trusts and foundations. It awards more than $2 million a year in grants.

Harding is a Kansas native who previously led Ozark Tri-County Helath Consortium and served as executive director of the Flint Hills Community Health Center in Emporia before working for KAMU, where she started in 2007.

3 Kansas lakes flagged for algae levels

kdheTOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas health officials are warning people to stay out of one lake and avoid direct contact with the water in two others because of high levels of toxic blue-green algae.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment on Thursday issued a toxic algae warning for Memorial Park Lake in Barton County. The agency says humans, pets and livestock should not enter the lake or drink water from it.

Fish caught from the lake should be cleaned and rinsed with clean water, and only the fillet should be eaten.

The agency also posted toxic algae advisories for Lake Warnock in Atchison County, and Logan City Lake in Phillips County. Boating and fishing are allowed, but direct contact with the water is discouraged for people and animals.

 

FHSU’s Woodburn ties 100 meter record; finishes 14th in prelims

NCKTechculinary
FHSU Sports Information

Fort Hays State junior sprinter Samantha finished 14th in the prelims of the 100 meter dash at the NCAA Division II Outdoor Track and Field Championships on Thursday (May 22) in Allendale, Mich. She tied her school record mark of 11.71 seconds.

Woodburn will not advance to the finals on Saturday, but she gets another shot at making a final on Friday when she competes in the prelims of the 200 meter dash. She was just .09 seconds from making the final in the 100 meters.

‘Freedom of speech for me — but not for those I oppose’

Campus collisions over commencement speakers. Over-the-top public reaction to celebrity shockers. And genuine fear of physical reprisals over controversial issues.

Gene Policinski is senior vice president of the First Amendment Center
Gene Policinski is senior vice president of the First Amendment Center

Clearly, we’re a nation vigorously exercising our lungs as well as our rights.

Vigorous give-and-take in the “marketplace of ideas” is part and parcel of the First Amendment. The amendment’s 45 words protect our right to speak out, but certainly don’t mandate politeness in public comment or shelter those in that marketplace from less than full-throttle debate in the hope of changing minds or winning elections.

The U.S. Supreme Court over the years has reaffirmed our right to speak out even when it brings pain to others — at military funerals or by allowing Nazi-wannabes march through a predominately Jewish neighborhood near Chicago.

But we can go from “rights to wrong” — by preventing speakers from being heard simply because we oppose their views. By threatening harm rather than challenging ideas. And by trying to extinguish voices in place of speaking out ourselves.

William Bowen, former president of Princeton University, used his commencement speech at Haverford College just days ago to criticize a small group of students and professors who campaigned against the original speaker, Robert Birgeneau, former chancellor of the University of California, Berkeley. The critics attacked Birgeneau for his 2011 decisions in an incident involving police and student demonstrators.

Vocal protests and the threat of more led former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to cancel her commencement speech at Rutgers University. International Monetary Fund Director Christine Lagarde withdrew as speaker at Smith College’s graduation ceremonies. Brandeis University pulled back an invitation — along with the offer of honorary degree — after opposition arose to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Muslim women’s advocate who has made comments critical of Islam.

If nowhere else in our society, universities should be places where differences of opinion and opposing views are aired and discussed, not shunned or victim to political correctness and closed minds. But lest we think this rampant aversion to being offended by those whose views we oppose is limited to academia, let’s take a broader view.

Mozilla co-founder CEO Brendan Eich resigned some weeks ago after an orchestrated campaign by some staff and businesses to damage the company’s business. Criticism erupted earlier this year over a $1,000 personal donation Eich made in 2008 to an California petition effort opposing gay marriage.

One column writer, in the online publication The Daily Beast, advanced the theory that Eich invited such retaliation because he didn’t just express his views, but rather urged using the “power of the state” in support of them. I believe Madison and Jefferson and others called that the democratic process — advocating policies and laws based on one’s views, in a freely conducted political campaign in which all arguments may be heard.

The Dixie Chicks’ country music career hit a slump in 2003 after singer Natalie Maines slammed then-President George W. Bush during a concert in Great Britain. Critics stopped buying “Chicks” records and concert tickets — but others made death threats.

As Maines later asked in song: “How in the world/ can the words that I said/ Send somebody so over the edge/ That they’d write me a letter/ Saying that I better shut up and sing/ Or my life will be over.”

Threats of over-the-top retaliation have led to legal attempts — unsuccessful thus far — in California and Washington state to hide the names of those who signed petitions in support of referendums opposing laws legalizing gay marriage — advancing the theory that public debate will be diminished if one side fears violence or intimidation simply for participating.

In court filings, those advocates presented multiple accounts of vandalism, threats of being “gunned down,” ongoing public harassment at home or work, and even of people being fired from jobs though no political activity had taken place at work. In other words, mob over mind.

There’s no ready answer — or bright “don’t cross” line — in determining when sharp and pointed debate turns into what’s colloquially called a “heckler’s veto,” hushing a speaker by shouting them down.

But there is value in allowing an opponent’s views to be fully heard — if only to be better prepared to counter those ideas, and to ensure the right to be fully heard oneself.

Long-deferred national conversations over race, gay rights, religious diversity and more have been prompted remarks and proposals that have been uncomfortable to hear, at times even repugnant to many. Time and again, the key to countering such views — and advancing our nation — has been more speech, not less.

Freedom of speech means all can set up and “hawk their wares” in the marketplace of ideas. It does not empower someone to, figuratively or literally, burn down the opposition’s display.

Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Washington-based Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. [email protected]

Huelskamp: Why I voted no on the Freedom Act

HuelskampWASHINGTON–Today I cast a ‘No’ vote on the very-much-amended USA FREEDOM Act. As an original co-sponsor, our promises for the USA FREEDOM Act were to provide real oversight and scale back the federal government’s massive spying programs.

Unfortunately, the bill presented on the House floor today does not address many of privacy and constitutional concerns expressed by Kansans over the warrantless bulk collection of Americans’ personal information. The Fourth Amendment is a constitutional guarantee to be safeguarded and protected, not ‘worked around’ to justify an unprecedented and secret collection daily of more than a billion personal records of American citizens.

This is not a Republican or Democrat issue, not a red or blue state issue, this is about defending Liberty.  It is my duty to defend our constitutional rights – and this amended bill falls short of meeting this sacred obligation.

 

Police: Family wasn’t living in storage unit UPDATE

Police - Wichita

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Police in Wichita say a report of a woman and her grandchildren living in a commercial storage unit was incorrect.

KAKE-TV reports that after talking to the children’s father, police said Thursday the grandmother had taken them to the unit while she was doing some work there.

The incident began Wednesday morning when a driver reported seeing an unattended child outside the unit at Security Self-Storage in south Wichita.

Police went to the business and found the 38-year-old grandmother and three children, ages 1, 3 and 4. Based on the grandmother’s statements, officers initially believed the group had been living in a storage unit and took the children into protective custody.

The children were returned to their father Thursday, and no charges will be filed.

———————————

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita police say a 38-year-old woman and her three young grandchildren apparently were living in a storage unit.

Lt. Dan East says police were called Wednesday morning by someone who reported seeing an unattended child outside the unit at Security Self-Storage in south Wichita. When officers arrived, they found the woman and children — a 4-year-old boy, a 3-year-old girl and a 1-year-old boy — living in the unit.

The children were taking into protective custody.

The woman was arrested on outstanding warrants but not on suspicion of child abuse.

The Exploited and Missing Child Unit is investigating the case.

 

Dump truck driver hospitalized following rollover accident

KHPEMPORIA—A dump truck driver was injured in a Thursday afternoon rollover crash in Lyon County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2012 dump truck driven by Mark Buell, 56, Cottonwood Falls, was southbound on I-35 two miles east of Emporia when it left the roadway into the center median, rolled and came to rest partially in the northbound lane.

A 2011 Toyota passenger car driven by Rex L. Howard, 69, Olathe, was struck by debris from the dump truck while it was rolling.

Buell was transported to Newman Regional Medical Center.

Howard and two passengers in the Toyota were not injured.

The KHP reported that all were properly restrained at the time of the accident.

Sen. Roberts Introduces Bill to Improve Rural Health Care

Pat RobertsWASHINGTON, DC B U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), co-Chairman of the Senate Rural Health Care Caucus, today said his legislation to improve rural health care will strengthen the rural health delivery system and provide relief to hospitals and other providers serving rural Americans.

Senator Roberts, and Senators Al Franken (D-MN), John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) and Health Education Labor and Pensions Committee Chairman Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) have introduced S. 2359, the Craig Thomas Rural Hospital and Provider Equity Act (R-HoPE) to honor the service of the late Sen. Craig Thomas (R-Wyo.). You can read a summary of the bill here and download a copy of the bill here.

“The R-HoPE Act recognizes that rural health care providers have very different needs than their urban counterparts and that health care is not one-size-fits-all,” said Roberts, co-chair of the Senate Rural Health Caucus. “I am glad we were able to include provisions to get rid of Medicare’s ‘condition of payment’ known as the burdensome 96-hour rule, which is particularly troubling for critical access hospitals and in turn, their patients.”

The bill makes changes to Medicare regulations for rural hospitals and providers, recognizing the difficulty in achieving the same economies of scale as large urban facilities. It also equalizes Medicare=s disproportionate share hospital payments to bring rural hospitals in line with urban facilities and provides additional assistance for small, rural hospitals that have a low-volume of patients. Often, these hospitals have trouble making ends meet under the Medicare payment system.

The provision to end Medicare’s 96 hour rule requiring a physician in a Critical Access Hospital to certify upon admission that each patient will be discharged or transferred in less than 96 hours is similar to a standalone piece of legislation Sen. Roberts has championed, the Critical Access Hospital Relief Act of 2014.

Sen. Roberts is honored to follow Sen. Thomas as Co-Chairman of the Senate Rural Health Caucus. Roberts is a member of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee and is a member of the Senate Committee on Finance which has jurisdiction on Medicare.

Copyright Eagle Radio | FCC Public Files | EEO Public File