MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Major recalls from two well-known ice cream companies due to the discovery of listeria bacteria raise questions about how the pathogen could have contaminated multiple ice cream manufacturing plants — and whether the discoveries are related.

Blue Bell Creameries of Texas and Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams of Ohio both took products off shelves this week after listeria was discovered in their products. Blue Bell ice cream is linked to 10 illnesses in four states, including three deaths in Kansas. There are no known illnesses linked to the Jeni’s recall.

The recalls are unusual: Listeria is rarely found in ice cream because it can’t grow at freezing temperatures. A spokesman for the Food and Drug Administration says it has no evidence, for now, that the two recalls are connected.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Industry leaders are warning winter wheat growers about a growing threat to their crop from stripe rust moving across Kansas.

The industry group Kansas Wheat said Friday a heavy infestation of the disease has been reported in southeast Kansas near Altamont and more moderate cases have also surfaced in Labette around Labette County.

Kansas State Research and Extension also reports stripe and leaf rust may be active in Barber, Ottawa, Allen, Bourbon and Anderson counties.

The disease has the potential to cause losses of 40 percent or more to a wheat crop when it occurs prior to heading on some varieties.

OTTAWA- A Kansas woman was injured in an accident just before 5 p.m. on Friday in Franklin County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1999 Ford F150 driven by Cord H. Hermreck, 16, Princeton, was southbound on U.S. 59 making an eastbound turn into a parking lot.

The vehicle failed to yield and pulled out in front of a 2011 Chevy Cruze.

The Chevy driven by Kara A. Pitts, 50, Ottawa, hit the front passenger’s side quarter panel of the Ford.

Pitts was transported to Ransom Memorial Hospital. Hermreck and a passenger in the Ford were not injured.

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

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security, and Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) have introduced legislation to address critical cyber security vulnerabilities by helping to create a network of trusted partnerships across the public and private sectors aimed at detecting, preventing and mitigating cyber threats through information sharing.

The Cyber Information Sharing Tax Credit Act would incentivize businesses of all sizes to join sector-specific information sharing organizations, known as Information Sharing and Analysis Centers (ISACs), by providing refundable tax credits for all costs association with joining ISACs. As more industries and businesses participate, these networks will help businesses understand and improve their cyber posture and ensure the timely dissemination of information on increasingly sophisticated cyber threats.

“Consumers, businesses, and our nation’s critical infrastructure face constant and evolving threats from cyber criminals who seeks to do us harm. When it comes to detecting and preempting these threats and protecting American consumers from cybercrimes, information sharing within trusted industry networks has proven to be a valuable tool across numerous sectors of our economy,” Sen. Moran said. “The Cyber Information Sharing Tax Credit Act will make participation in vital ISACs more accessible for all companies, especially those who may not fully understand their risk of cyber-attack or who would not otherwise have the resources to participate in an information sharing organization.”

“Hackers have put consumers and businesses in their crosshairs, and have shown they can easily access confidential information we trust can and should remain private. It’s time to improve our security and establish standards that better protect consumers in New York and across the country,” Sen. Gillibrand said. “This legislation is an important first step toward a national solution and opportunity to address our vulnerabilities, strengthening defenses against emerging data breaches, taking necessary safeguards to help victims and prosecuting perpetrators of these attacks.”

The Cyber Information Sharing Tax Credit Act was originally authored in 2014 in response to the current threats to our national security outlined in a report titled “Reflections on the Tenth Anniversary of The 9/11 Commission Report.” The authors – members of the 9/11 Commission – identified domestic cyber readiness as one of the five most pressing national security issues facing the country. The report highlights that senior leaders were “uniformly alarmed by the cyber threat to the country,” comparing currently policies to “September 10th levels.” The report also states, “One lesson of the 9/11 story is that, as a nation, Americans did not awaken to the gravity of the terrorist threat until it was too late. History may be repeating itself in the cyber realm.”

The Cyber Information Sharing Tax Credit Act would incentivize information sharing about security vulnerabilities, and would also facilitate the dissemination of sector-specific cyber protection. The Moran-Gillibrand bill would encourage this through a refundable tax credit for any business that joins an ISAC. The refundable tax credit would cover personnel participation costs, product and service costs directly related to sharing information with the ISAC, as well as other costs reasonably associated with participation.

Membership in an ISAC will give a small business access to real-time alerts about ongoing cyber threats to their systems, or newly discovered vulnerabilities in their networks that hackers might exploit, along with technical advice on how to protect against these attacks and eliminate their vulnerabilities.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — An affidavit in a securities fraud case alleges the developers violated Kansas securities law in raising money to buy more than a dozen downtown Wichita buildings.

The Wichita Eagle reported reported Friday that the document alleges developers Michael Elzufon and David Lundberg sold unregistered securities. It also alleges they failed to supply required information to investors and frequently didn’t use investors’ money as agreed.

The Kansas Securities Commission alleges investors, many of whom lived in California, lost $3.5 million. Its affidavit lists 61 counts of fraud.

Elzufon’s defense attorney, Kurt Kerns, says if the developers had succeeded in what they tried to do, nobody would be complaining. Lundberg blamed the credit crunch and recession.

The newspaper obtained the affidavit, filed in February, through an open records request.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka man imprisoned for his estranged wife’s killing has been ordered to pay more than $43,000 to his former mother-in-law.

The Topeka Capital-Journal  reports that the Kansas Supreme Court upheld the restitution in a ruling Friday in the case of Manuel Alcala. He pleaded guilty in 2013 to premeditated first-degree murder in the 2012 killing of 34-year-old Ashley Alcala. He’s serving a sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years.

The restitution will be used to help Karen Bacon pay for funeral expenses and legal fees incurred while adopting her grandchildren. The court said the expenses were the result of Alcala’s criminal conduct.

The court also agreed with a Shawnee County judge that Alcala failed to prove he was unable to make payments.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt says a legislative proposal to legalize fantasy sports leagues doesn’t violate the state constitution’s ban on private lotteries.
Schmidt issued a legal opinion Friday at the request of a Kansas House member who opposes gambling.

In defining fantasy sports, the proposal says they’re contests determined by the skill of the participants. Schmidt said one key element of a lottery is that chance determines the outcome.

The Kansas Constitution bans lotteries other than the one operated by the state.
The state Racing and Gaming Commission announced last year that it views private fantasy sports leagues as illegal lotteries, but it has not pushed for enforcement.

Fantasy sports players compete by creating digital teams from a pool of real athletes and tracking their performances.

By Phil Galewitz, KAISER HEALTH NEWS

Add Kansas and Tennessee to the list of states that have been warned by the Obama administration that failing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act could jeopardize special funding to pay hospitals and doctors for treating the poor.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services confirmed Tuesday that it gave officials in those states the same message that had been delivered to Texas and Florida about the risk to funding for so-called “uncompensated care pools” — Medicaid money that helps pay the cost of care for the uninsured.

CMS officials said they reached out to all nine states that get such funds, including those that expanded Medicaid, about how the agency will decide future requests. The issue was first raised in a letter to Florida officials last week from Vikki Wachino, acting director of the Center For Medicaid and CHIP Services, which drew the ire of Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

Scott said the federal government should not link the $1.3 billion in uncompensated care funding with the state’s decision not to expand Medicaid. He has threatened a lawsuit against the Obama administration if it cuts off the funding, which is set to expire June 30.

The Texas funding is scheduled to end in September 2016. Officials there have also expressed indignation at what they perceive to be coercive pressure and talked about joining Scott’s lawsuit. Kansas Medicaid officials said they received about $45 million this year in federal funding for their state uncompensated care program, which began in 2013 and is slated to continue through 2017.

Tennessee officials could not immediately break out how much the state gets each year. In the April 14 letter, Wachino said that expanding Medicaid coverage is a better way to help residents get access to health care than an “overreliance on supplemental payments” to providers through a program called the Low Income Pool, or LIP. “Medicaid expansion would reduce uncompensated care in the state, and therefore have an impact on the [Low-Income Pool], which is why the state’s expansion status is an important consideration in our approach regarding extending the LIP beyond June,” she wrote.

CMS spokesman Aaron Albright said Tuesday the Obama administration wants to apply similar principles to all the states that receive such funding, whether or not they expanded the health insurance program for the poor. Medicaid expansion states that receive the special funding are California, Massachusetts, Arizona, Hawaii and New Mexico. “We’ve been in contact with those states that have uncompensated care pools and reiterated that we look forward to an ongoing dialogue to develop a solution that works for patients, hospitals and the taxpayer,” he said.

“We told states that our letter to Florida articulates key principles CMS will use in considering proposals regarding uncompensated care pool programs in their states, but that discussions with each state will also take into account state-specific circumstances.” Each state has negotiated its own program with the federal government to pay providers for treating the uninsured. But the programs differ in scope, funding and length of time remaining. Judy Solomon of the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities said the special federal funding that some states negotiated for uncompensated care was never supposed to last indefinitely. The need for the funding changed dramatically as millions of people gained health coverage under the health law, she said.

“These demonstration programs are at the discretion of the Secretary of HHS and there is no entitlement to any state or providers to continue these funding arrangements when they expire,” Solomon said, adding, “The need for uncompensated care funding is changing dramatically.”

Arizona Medicaid spokeswoman Monica Higuera Coury said her state, which did expand Medicaid, was also told that the special funding would begin to be phased out this year. Arizona receives a maximum $137 million a year to offset uncompensated care costs at Phoenix Children’s Hospital. “We are looking forward to working with …CMS to put a transition plan together that moves us away from total reliance on the [funding] while still protecting this very important safety net for our children,” she said. Some experts were surprised the Obama administration linked Medicaid expansion to the special funding because of the potential legal issues.

“No one would be shocked to hear that states don’t need the money because uncompensated care has dropped … but saying you are taking away this money because you are not expanding is trickier,” said Charlene Frizzera, a senior advisor at consulting firm Leavitt Partners.

“People are shocked that CMS has done that.” But Joan Alker, executive director of Georgetown University’s Center For Children and Families, said the administration was simply acting as a steward of taxpayer money. “I wouldn’t call it hardball, but rather responsible policy and fiscal oversight to ensure that federal tax dollars are spent in the most effective way,” she said. “When coverage is available to reduce the number of uninsured people … and states refuse those funds, why should the federal government provide them with unauthorized funding to put a Band-Aid on it?”

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A rural Leavenworth man has been sentenced to seven years and three months in prison for the shooting death of another man in 2013.

The Kansas City Star reports that 49-year-old Jeffery Allen Sifford, of Leavenworth, was sentenced Friday for voluntary manslaughter in the death of 58-year-old Richard Eugene Luse. Sifford also was sentenced on charges of possessing marijuana and drug paraphernalia

A witness saw Luse and Sifford struggling over a gun inside a trailer. Sifford’s attorney said that at the time of the shooting, Sifford believed Luse was going to hurt him.