DETROIT (AP) — Harley-Davidson is recalling nearly 46,000 motorcycles in the U.S. because they could stay in gear due to clutches that won’t fully disengage.
The recall covers certain Electra Glide, Ultra Limited, Police Electra Glide, Street Glide, Road Glide and Road King models from the 2014 and 2015 model years.
Harley says in documents that gas bubbles can cause the clutch master cylinder to lose its ability to fully disengage the clutch, especially if the bike has been parked for a long time. This could cause a rider to lose control of the motorcycle if it’s started in gear.
The problem was found through customer complaints. Harley reported 27 crashes and four minor injuries.
Dealers will flush the clutch and rebuild the master cylinder. The recall was to start April 23.
Who’s the richest music artist from the U.K. or Ireland? Maybe you won’t be amazed to find out that, once again, it’s Paul McCartney, according toThe Sunday Times‘ latest annual Rich List.
The BBC reports that the ex-Beatles star topped the newspaper’s tally this year with a fortune of 730 million pounds, which is about $1.1 billion. The sum includes 150 million pounds — or about $225 million — from his wife, trucking heiress Nancy Shevell. Last year, McCartney and Shevell were worth 710 million pounds, which also placed them at #1 on the Rich List.
The next famous rock or pop artist on The Sunday Times‘ list is U2, who landed is third place and collectively is worth 431 million pounds, or around $650 million. In fourth place is Elton John, worth 270 million pounds, or about 405 million bucks. The Rolling Stones’ Mick Jagger and Keith Richards follow at #5 and #6, with respective fortunes worth 225 million and 210 million pounds, or about $340 million and $315 million.
Rounding out the tally’s top 10 are Ringo Starr, Sting and former Pink Floyd member Roger Waters. The Beatles drummer and the Police frontman were tied at #8 with 180 million pounds, or about $270 million, while Waters finished in 10th place with 160 million pounds, or about $240 million.
The full 2015 Rich List will be published this Sunday, April 26.
Hays Assistant City Manager Paul Briseno talks about the nearly completed 41st Street reconstruction.
By BECKY KISER Hays Post
The project to reconstruct 41st Street between the US-183 By-pass and Hall Street “should be open for use at the end of this month,” according to Hays City Assistant City Manager Paul Briseno.
“When complete, 41st will have three driving lane surfaces and a 10-foot multi-purpose path along the north side of 41st Street. An additional path north of Hall Street from 41st to 45th Street will be added by the city with help from Ellis County in the near future.”
“Total cost for the joint Kansas Department of Transportation/City of Hays project is $3.8 million dollars. The city’s share was $1.1 million with the state paying the remaining $2.7 million,” Briseno reported to Hays City Commissioners during their Thursday night meeting.
Monday, April 27, work will occur in the intersection of 41st and Hall Street.
Traffic north of the intersection and east of the intersection will be reduced to only one lane for periods of time. Construction flaggers will be present to direct traffic through the intersection.
By the end of the week, May 1, 41st Street will be fully open to all traffic.
Project cleanup and minor work along the edges of the road will continue for the next few weeks, so motorists are asked to be aware of construction workers and use caution when driving in the area.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A last-ditch effort to save a 135-year-old Queen Anne Victorian that had been used as offices for the Kansas Department of Labor has failed.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that a Facebook community called the Topeka History Geeks had planned an open house to generate interest in the building on the west edge of downtown Topeka.
But Barbara Hersh, of the Department of Labor, said Thursday that the building is “unsafe.” She says there’s a contract in place for it to be demolished at a cost of about $42,000.
The house was built in 1880 and had been known by some as “The Department of Labor White House.” Hersh says it has been unoccupied since March 2011 because of significant deficiencies. Since 2006, attempts to sell the property have failed.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A research group is warning the state’s 10-year highway program could be threatened if the Kansas Legislature continues to use State Highway Fund money for other state expenses.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports state transportation officials remain confident the projects in the highway program, called T-Works, will be completed. They acknowledge some projects meant to prevent costlier repairs in the future might be delayed.
The Kansas Center for Economic Growth said in a report released Thursday that the state is maintaining a commitment to scheduled projects that result in new bridges and roads but it is falling behind in maintaining existing roads and bridges that lead to the new projects. The nonpartisan, nonprofit group has been a frequent critic of tax cuts championed by Gov. Sam Brownback.
Name plates for the reorganized Hays City Commission are placed Thursday night by city finance director Kim Rupp.
Newly-elected Hays mayor Eber Phelps welcomed the newest city commissioners to the governing body Thursday night. Phelps was first elected to the Hays City Commission in 1990 and then went on to serve in the Kansas House of Representatives for 15 years.
Lance Jones and James Meier are serving their first-ever terms in a public office.
Local city, county and school board elections were held April 2 in Kansas. Phelps told the new commissioners “that’s the best way to do it.”
“I know there’s talk (by the Kansas legislature) of moving local city elections to the fall, but believe me, the way we do it now is great. (April) is when we start embarking on the budget process in Hays and this is when you can really learn about the community. It’s a really interesting process to go through,” Phelps said.
Phelps was quick to praise city staff involved in the budget process.
“In comparison from 25 years ago until now, it’s amazing the preparation that goes into each of our meetings. The budget process to me is interesting, and I guess you could say, a lot less painful,” he added.
Commissoners Jones and Meier will soon begin tours of city departments to familiarize themselves with the city’s operations.
FHSU Sports Information
The conference doubleheader between Fort Hays State and Nebraska-Kearney, scheduled for Friday night has been moved to Saturday (Apr. 25) at 2 pm, due to forecasted weather in the Hays area.
The doubleheader will still feature both Pack the Stadium and Senior Day events at Tiger Stadium as the Tigers play the rival Lopers in games that will determine each team’s conference tournament fate.
The Pack the Stadium promotion will be a cookout with hamburgers for $3, hot dogs for $2, and bags of chips for $0.50 while supplies last! Admission to the games is FREE. The Tiger softball team will be recognizing three seniors playing their last time at Tiger Stadium between games.
An MIAA Tournament bid will be on the line in the doubleheader. Fort Hays State (12-12 MIAA) enters with a one-game lead in the conference standings on Nebraska-Kearney (11-13), so the Tigers need a split or sweep in hopes of locking down a tournament spot. A sweep of the Lopers would for sure lock up a spot in the tournament. FHSU is currently eighth in the standings and eight teams make the conference tournament. Northeastern State at 9-13 in conference play is still mathematically alive for the eighth spot with doubleheaders against Pittsburg State and Missouri Southern this weekend, but one loss would drop them out of the tournament picture.
Fort Hays State is coming off a split in a non-conference doubleheader at Northwestern Oklahoma State on Tuesday. The Tigers held on for a 6-5 win in the second game. FHSU is 24-23 overall on the season. UNK enters on a five-game win streak and has an overall record of 17-26.
A 31 year-old Salina man has been arrested in connection with a stabbing that occurred at a Hays nightclub last weekend.
According to a press release from the Hays Police Department, Trevar Lamont Johnson, 31, Salina, was arrested on Thursday on suspicion of attempted murder in the second degree, possession of methamphetamine with intent to distribute within 1,000 feet of a school, possession of drug paraphernalia, and criminal possession of a weapon by a felon.
On Saturday, April 19, at 12:57 a.m., the Hays Police Department was dispatched to the alley behind The HOME Party Club, 229 W. 10th, for a report of a stabbing.
When officers arrived, they found a 20-year-old man had been stabbed in the chest.
Officers determined the incident occurred during a brief altercation inside the nightclub.
The victim was transported to the hospital for treatment.
Johnson is currently being held in the Ellis County jail.
SALINA, Kan. (AP) — Students graduating from Kansas Wesleyan’s nursing program next month will have degrees with national accreditation.
School officials were notified Wednesday that the Accreditation Commission for Education in Nursing agreed to allow the accreditation for seniors, even though the college voluntarily withdrew from the organization in March.
The Salina Journal reports the decision is important for graduating students seeking jobs or acceptance to master’s programs.
The university is in the process of seeking accreditation from the Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, which can take two years. It’s unclear how that will affect junior students in the school’s nursing program.
Gene Policinski is senior vice president of the First Amendment Center
“Seeing is believing,” or so the saying goes.
We certainly can “see” more than ever in this era of 24/7 news, omnipresent street surveillance, police “body cams” and cell phone video — and that fits nicely into the First Amendment’s role in providing for both press and citizen “watchdogs on government.”
Technology now makes us all possible “witnesses” to close-up and often shocking video images of inebriated and staggering motorists stopped by police, dramatic high-speed pursuits through traffic, cringe-inducing accident clips, and officers in confrontations marked by injury or deadly force.
In earlier times, it was rare for most of us to experience any of that except through news media interviews, eyewitness accounts or through news reports taken from carefully worded official documents or courtroom testimony — most with far less drama and emotion.
Legal battles swirl from time to time around the extent to which citizens or journalists can photograph or take video of uniformed or undercover police in public confrontations or violent episodes. Court decisions generally favor the public — but sometimes that means a long wait or an expensive legal battle during which news value evaporates.
But new issues involving freedom of information, privacy, media ethics and fair trial concerns are popping up as quickly as the latest video clip challenging police actions. And while there’s no obligation under the First Amendment on what we can say or write once we “see,” the flood of video imagery creates some questions for us and our fellow citizens as well.
The Associated Press reports that legislators in at least 15 states are considering ways to exempt from opens record laws the video recordings of police encounters with citizens, or to limit what can be made public. Officials say the proposed laws are needed to protect the privacy of people being videotaped and to ensure fair trials — while others fear such moves are just attempts to place the brakes on a new and effective way to hold police accountable.
The impact of citizen video may never have been more immediate or effective than one showing Charleston, S.C., police officer Michael Slager shooting an unarmed African American man who appeared to be moving away from Slager. The officer was charged with murdering Walter Scott after a video of the April incident, taken by a passerby on his cell phone, disputed a written police report about the shooting, which followed a traffic stop and a struggle in a park.
As a nation, we had the opportunity to see portions of that video, repeatedly, on all major networks. The New York Times posted on its website about two weeks ago what appears to be a longer, 4:09 version that the newspaper said was provided by an attorney for Scott’s family.
The graphic nature of the shooting, the effect of repeated national showings and even the placement of the video higher or lower in the news story’s text and nature of the information that accompanied the clip, all raised concerns among legal and First Amendment experts.
Clearly, posting a video is not just a simple matter of presenting a bit of news for us to “see.”
The Scott clip was just one of an amazing range of videos since last summer that have sparked protests and public outrage. In just the last few days, we’ve seen a deputy U.S. Marshal appear to seize and shatter a phone being used by a woman taping police action; an Air Force veteran, videotaped by her daughter, attempting to wrest control of an American flag from demonstrators in Georgia and then scuffling with police; and multiple video clips from a Baltimore incident in which a man appears to have been fatally injured just before or as he was being transported in a police van.
So far, the most controversial videos seem to raise issues around the morality and legality of the incidents involved rather than simply accuracy of what the videos show. But inevitably, those issues will — and should — come up, as in the flag protest where some say publicity more than patriotism motivated the videotaping and the veteran, who has posed nude in Playboy and for an animal rights poster draped in a U.S. flag.
We should expect from both news media and from citizens who post directly to the Web the kinds of context and explanation around dramatic videos that we’ve come to demand from journalists and others who publish polls, provide politicians with a public platform, and present detailed investigative reports.
We need to know the motives and mission of those who take and those who post the videos. And at times, we should seek the kind of intensive scrutiny and skepticism about particularly impactful videos that might — at the furthest extent — would approach the level of dissection and examination of a written article by an expert team that led Rolling Stone magazine to retract a highly-controversial report about a gang rape at a university.
Questions are being raised about a supposed ISIS video purporting to show mass executions in Libya, and many Western news organizations regularly refuse to show videos that have more to do with recruiting new terrorists than documenting atrocities.
Granted, there’s no requirement in the First Amendment’s protection for free speech or a free press that what we see online or in the news, will be fair or accurate or even complete. But there’s also no First Amendment prohibition against holding to those standards.
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. He can be reached at [email protected].
Photo by Ashley Booker Shawn Sullivan, Brownback’s budget director, said the governor still plans to seek alcohol and tobacco taxes as part of a revenue plan to fill the budget hole.
By Ashley Booker
Gov. Sam Brownback on Thursday submitted a budget amendment that would reduce state general fund expenditures, including some to health programs, by $72 million to help balance budgets in the two coming fiscal years.
Revenue estimates for the next fiscal year were revised downward Monday, increasing a gap between tax revenue and proposed expenses. The $400 million state general fund revenue shortfall for the next fiscal year, even after one-time transfers from other funds, was announced ahead of Thursday’s House Appropriations Committee meeting.
Lawmakers expressed concern. “It seems almost incomprehensible that we ended up as far behind this year as we are,” said Rep. Don Hill, a Republican from Emporia.
When the full Legislature returns April 29 to the Capitol, legislators will be tasked with approving tax increases and spending reductions to balance the 2016 and 2017 fiscal year budgets.
Brownback’s proposed tax adjustments include slowing income tax cuts and increasing state liquor and cigarette taxes, which are projected to bring in $210 million of revenue.
Shawn Sullivan, Brownback’s budget director, said the governor still plans to seek alcohol and tobacco taxes as part of a revenue plan to fill the budget hole, though legislators have not warmed to the idea.
“We are having conversations with legislators on the tax revenue plan as a whole, and those will continue over the next week or two, particularly when they get back,” Sullivan said.
He said conversations about the alcohol and tobacco tax increases haven’t been high in number because legislator didn’t have updated revenue numbers until recently. With a final revenue target now in mind, these conversations most likely will increase.
In total, there were 11 budget amendments introduced Thursday, including a reduction in Medicaid spending and increased funds for repairs at Osawatomie State Hospital.
Nearly $33 million would come from reducing expenditures for the state’s Medicaid program, known as KanCare, which since 2013 has been administered by three private insurance companies that have contracts with the state. When researchers estimated what it would cost to pay the companies in the coming fiscal year, they predicted a 3.5 percent increase in payments, but the rate has been updated to 3 percent.
Rep. Ron Ryckman Jr., a Republican from Olathe and chairman of the Appropriations Committee, said that was the good news of the day.
Sullivan said new estimates mean about $23 million less than expected will have to be transferred from the state general fund to backfill a Kansas Department of Health and Environment fund that was drained to help balance the current fiscal year budget.
He said the state could save additional money for the general fund by increasing the the rate hospitals pay into a “healthcare access” fund that brings in federal matching money from 1.83 percent of the hospitals’ 2010 inpatient revenue to 2.55 percent. Sullivan said the access fund is currently being subsidized by the general fund and the rate increase would make that no longer necessary.
Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, a Democrat from Kansas City, said she had concerns that some providers weren’t aware of the latter proposal until the last couple of days. Hospitals have said their financial picture is becoming more difficult because the state has not expanded Medicaid, and “this is kind of insult to injury on top of that,” Wolfe Moore said.
Sullivan said the hospitals were informed three to four weeks ago that the governor’s office was looking into increasing the fee. Another budget amendment involves renovations at Osawatomie State Hospital. The renovations were mandated by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after a recent survey of the facility.
During the renovation project, occupancy at the 206-bed facility will be capped at 147 patients. Osawatomie State Hospital is the larger of two state-run inpatient facilities for adults with serious and persistent mental illnesses. In fiscal year 2016, Brownback’s administration proposes to provide $3.4 million to ensure community mental health resources will be able to take care of patients who are unable to be housed at Osawatomie during the building project.
Wolfe Moore said she and Wyandotte County officials are concerned where exactly the patients will go.
Wyandotte County officials are struggling to figure out where patients will be placed, Wolfe Moore said, because “those communities, their hospital mental health centers just aren’t designed to take care of those most dangerous or most of the involuntary patients.”
“Our fear is they are going to end up in the jails, which will be very sad,” she said, adding jails don’t provide adequate treatment for the mentally ill.
Sullivan said there are a couple psychiatric hospitals that serve as an overflow for Larned State Hospital and Osawatomie, and those will help, along with additional services. Once renovations are complete, Osawatomie will return to its 206-bed capacity.
Wolfe Moore said Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services representatives will be coming to Wyandotte County to discuss where patients will be placed and how community programs will be paid. “There’s probably 50 questions that we need to ask,” she said.
Ashley Booker is an intern for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.
Donald Gale Dodrill, age 72, passed away at Via Christi Hospital St. Francis, Wichita, Kansas, April 21, 2015.
He was born on March 29, 1943 in Leadville Colorado, the son of Roy and Margaret Brumitt Dodrill.
On September 15, 1963 he married Linda L. Cheney in Utica, Kanas. She preceded him in death on April 8, 2015.
He is survived by his son, Darin Dodrill, Branson, MO; daughter, Kim (Tom) Gdovin, Branson; grandchildren, Ryan (Amber) Gdovan, Erin Gdovin, Ethan Gdovan, Gracie Dodrill; mother, Margaret, brothers, Leroy and Jim Dodrill; and sister, Adella Wenzel.
He was preceded in death by his father, Roy; and son David Dodrill.
Funeral service for Donald and Linda will be Monday, April 27, 2015, 10:00 A.M. at First Christian Church, Utica, KS.
Burial at Amazing Grace Ranch.
Memorial contributions may be given to Amazing Grace Ranch Church and David Hinton at Outreach for America.
TEDxFHSU was held today on the campus of Fort Hays State University.
Speakers include: Justin McClure, Technology; Holly Weiss, Resource Management; Steve Shields, Population; Darrell Hamlin, Security; Amanda Thompson, Information and Knowledge; and Adam Holden, Economics.
The event will be held at the Robbins Center. The afternoon session is expected to begin at approximately 1:15 p.m.
