TOPEKA – Three people were injured in an accident just before 10 a.m. on Thursday in Shawnee County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2005 International Semi driven by Cynthia Esther Grant, 47, Wakefield, was eastbound on Interstate 70 just west of Topeka in the passing lane.
The vehicle swerved right and the driver braked heavily to avoid a non-contact vehicle that was partly in the passing lane.
The semi’s trailer jackknifed and struck a 2013 Dodge Avenger driven by Misty L. Adkins, 41, Topeka, that was stopped on the south shoulder.
Grant, Adkins and a passenger in the Dodge Brady Edward Gragg, 36, Bennington, were transported to St. Francis Medical Center.
Gragg was not wearing a seat belt according to the KHP.
JUNCTION CITY -The U.S. Marshal’s Service and Junction City Police are asking for the public’s assistance in locating and apprehending an alleged fugitive wanted by the U.S. Marshal’s Service.
The Marshal’s service believes the wanted subject, Heidi Lynn Webster, has ties to the Manhattan and Junction City area, and that the public may have information on her whereabouts.
Webster, 5’8, 205 pounds, is wanted for allegedly violating bond conditions. A warrant was issued by the Western District of Texas Feb. 6, 2015.
According to the U.S. Marshals Service Webster is on pre-trial release pending sentencing in her case. She has already pleaded guilty in this case for Conspiracy to Defraud the United States and Bribery. Webster has failed to surrender to authorities.
The Junction City Police Department is asking that no one attempt to apprehend Webster, but instead call their local police or the Junction City Police at 785-762-5912, or Crimestoppers at 785-762-TIPS, or the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force in Topeka at 785-295-2775. You may also text your tip to CRIMES and start your tip off with tipjc.
You may remain anonymous and be eligible for a reward of up to $1,000.
This magazine cover image released by Country Living shows the June 2015 issue featuring country singer Miranda Lambert. The home and lifestyle magazine says it has never featured a person on its cover in the 36 years of its existence. The issue explores how country music influences country style. (Paul Costello/Country Living via AP)
NEW YORK (AP) – Miranda Lambert graces the cover of Country Living magazine, and that’s kind of a big deal. The magazine has never put a person on its cover in its 36 years of publication. Lambert will also be the guest editor for the June edition. Lambert discusses her husband, Blake Shelton, and his love for gardening. She says he plans to plant tomatoes and strawberries and they intend to make jam.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The annual wheat quality tour is anticipating a slightly better hard red winter wheat crop in Kansas this year compared to the drought-plagued harvest of a year ago.
Its participants forecast on Thursday that Kansas farmers will harvest 288.5 million bushels of wheat this season. The group also found an average yield of 35.9 bushels per acre in the 659 fields sampled over three days.
Last year’s crop was decimated by drought and was the smallest Kansas harvest in 30 years at 246 million bushels.
Farmers had hoped they’d be able to recover with a better 2015 growing season. This year growers again battled drought stress along with stripe rust disease, winterkill and pest infestations that varied from area to area across the state.
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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The annual wheat quality tour has found a hard red winter wheat crop plagued by drought, disease and winterkill across vast stretches of Kansas.
Participants are expected to announce Thursday afternoon their forecast for the size of this year’s crop.
Its estimate comes after more than 90 participants fanned out across Kansas, trudging through hundreds of wheat fields over three days to come up with yield estimates used to calculate a final production figure.
The trade group Kansas Wheat reported that group estimated Wednesday an average yield of 34.5 bushels an acre for its second day.
Some of the most drought stricken wheat was in southwestern Kansas where expected yields ranged from 0-18 bushels per acre. That was offset by better fields in the stretch from Dodge City to Wichita.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas City, Kansas, school superintendent has testified in court that the state’s new education funding law is hurting its programs.
Superintendent Cynthia Lane was a witness Thursday in a Shawnee County District Court hearing in a lawsuit from her district and three others. The districts are asking a three-judge panel to block the new law.
The law scrapped the state’s old, per-student formula for distributing aid in favor of predictable “block grants” to districts. Lane said the law hurts districts like hers with growing numbers of students.
Lawmakers also cut $51 million from the aid districts expected to receive during the current school year.
An attorney for the state sought to show that even with those cuts, districts are better off than during the 2013-14 school year.
Photo by Andy Marso Christine Bay of Lenexa displayed a sign at the rally that included a photo of her daughter Autumn, who has a seizure disorder.
A medical marijuana advocacy group is collecting stories from Kansans who say they have been “persecuted” by the state’s child welfare agency for using cannabis.
Lisa Sublett, the founder of Bleeding Kansas, said the effort began after Shona Banda, a Garden City woman who says she uses cannabis oil to treat her Crohn’s disease, lost custody of her son after the boy spoke up at a school anti-drug presentation. Banda, the author of a self-published book on her cannabis treatment regimen, is well-known in the medical marijuana community.
Coverage of her custody fight has spurred others to come forward with stories about the Kansas Department for Children and Families cracking down on cannabis users with children, Sublett said.
“Since the Kansas City Star article ran, I have had families come out of the woodwork,” Sublett said. “We all have. There’s a place now for people to reach out and tell their stories about persecution by DCF, and those stories are being collected.”
Sublett said she believes some DCF officials have a “personal agenda” against cannabis.
Theresa Freed, the agency’s director of communications, said via email that the department is focused on its mission to “protect children, promote healthy families and encourage personal responsibility.”
“Our social workers are trained to assess the safety of a home and make an appropriate recommendation to the court,” Freed said. “Marijuana is an illegal substance in the state of Kansas. It can have both direct and indirect negative consequences on families. Our personal agenda is to keep children safe.”
Almost half the states have legalized some form of medical marijuana. Missouri is one of them, but has one of the nation’s most restrictive medical marijuana allowances.
All forms of marijuana are illegal in Kansas and possession of any amount is a felony upon second offense. Opponents of legalizing the substance for medical use have said such a change would make it nearly impossible to regulate its recreational use.
Sublett and medical marijuana advocates from Kansas and Missouri rallied Saturday near the Plaza and the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo.
There is sparse scientific evidence to back up the claims some at the rally made about the wide-ranging health benefits of cannabis.
But marijuana’s status as a Schedule 1 drug at the federal level has hampered clinical studies that might provide that evidence. Research that has emerged since California became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996 has shown the plant can be beneficial for treating some ailments, including seizure disorders. A limited study in 2011 showed promise in treating Crohn’s and recommended further placebo-controlled data collection.
A pharmaceutical drug based on cannabis, the appetite-stimulant Marinol, has been vetted and approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, and others are in the FDA pipeline.
In Kansas there have been hearings on legalization of various forms of medical marijuana this session, but Sublett and others at Saturday’s rally expressed frustration that the legislative process has not moved more quickly.
Photo by Andy Marso -Lisa Sublett, founder of a medical marijuana advocacy group known as Bleeding Kansas, participated in a rally Saturday in Kansas City, Mo.
Sublett said the Kansas Legislature is filled with “tin men with no hearts and cowardly lions.”
“It’s like a seventh-grade school dance where everybody’s standing on the walls and nobody moves,” she said. “Behind doors we always hear, ‘I really support what you’re doing, I really support it, I just can’t (push it).’ Everybody stands there and waits for somebody else to make the first move.”
This year a bill that would legalize strictly low-THC cannabis oil only for the purpose of treating persistent seizure disorders became the first medical marijuana bill to be approved by a Kansas legislative committee. Missouri legislators approved a similar law in 2014.
Christine Bay, a Lenexa woman at the rally whose young daughter has a seizure disorder, said she favors the broader legalization contained in an alternate bill that has not advanced out of committee.
Bay said it’s difficult to wean epileptic children off pharmaceutical products and onto the oil without being able to change the THC levels.
“It also leaves out our cancer patients, our veterans with PTSD, our fibromyalgia patients,” Bay said of the oil-only bill. “And I don’t think anybody should be left out of healing.”
Banda became an online resource for other medical marijuana users after posting videos of her low-dollar method for making a type of cannabis oil.
Law enforcement did not get involved until after her son’s school contacted DCF. After making a home visit, DCF officials alerted Garden City police to the presence of marijuana in Banda’s home.
Police said they found 1.25 pounds of the plant, as well as oil and Banda’s homemade “laboratory” for producing oil, all within reach of her son.
Sublett said Banda’s son was “well-educated” about the controlled substance in his home.
The child is in foster care and Finney County prosecutors are trying to determine whether to charge Banda criminally.
Sublett predicted an outpouring of support for Banda from the “international cannabis community” if they do.
A fund set up on a crowdsourcing website three weeks ago requested $15,000 for her legal bills. As of Monday morning, it had raised almost $42,000 from almost 1,500 donors.
Sublett said she wants no charges filed and Banda to get her son back, rather than a high-profile criminal trial.
Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
The Ellis County burn ban enacted in March has been lifted, according to Ellis County Rural Fire Chief Darin Myers.
Myers said he will be meeting with Ellis County Commissioners on Monday evening to discuss the possibility of changing language regarding the current burn ban policy.
“We are going to update (the policy) with some different language on being able to relax the burn ban after significant amounts of rainfall and just add education on what not to burn, when to burn and who to contact when (county residents) are burning so it is all in one document to educate the public better,” Myers said.
Myers said county residents still need to contact the Ellis County Dispatch at (785) 625-1011 before burning any items such as trash and twigs.
Monday’s meeting is at 5 p.m. at the Ellis County Administrative Center, 718 Main.
While the Hays area has a chance for more storms the next two days, Saturday has the chance to be severe.
“Keep an eye to the sky Saturday,” said National Weather Service meteorologist Fritz Kruse. “Saturday looks like the strongest day.”
Depending upon where an impending warm front sets up, Hays could see severe weather as Saturday afternoon turns into evening. The threat for tornadoes is “moderate,” according to the Storm Prediction Center.
“We only get a mod risk a couple of times a year. High risk is the highest,” Kruse said. “It could be a high risk day wherever that warm front sets up.
“That’s going to be the big question — where it’s going to be during peak heating before the sun sets,” he added.
The storm is expected to track northwest to southeast, and the threat of tornadoes, large hail and damaging wind is expected to continue into late Saturday.
After the storm passes, Kruse said forecasts call for “several days of nothing,” although the temperature will take a noticeable dip.
Highs are expected to be in the 60s Sunday through Tuesday, with the mercury dipping into the high 30s overnight Monday.
“It will gradually warm up through the week,” Kruse said.
Veto overrides have been a rarity in the Kansas Legislature lately, but Governor Brownback just got handed a big one.
Now law, Kansas HB 117 will require Uber and other ride-sharing services to abide by state regulations: all drivers submit to a background check from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation and carry both comprehensive and collision insurance.
Michael A. Smith is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Emporia State University.
The bill will add a few hundred dollars per year to each Uber driver’s cost of doing business— that is, if the company ever reenters the Kansas market, from which they just withdrew in protest. Kansas Senate President Susan Wagle called Uber’s threats “pure political theater,” while Brownback retorted, “over-regulation of businesses discourages investment and harms the open and free marketplace.”
This issue is creating weird political coalitions. Support for Uber unites “uber”-conservative Brownback and 2008 Obama campaign director David Plouffe, who is Uber’s lead political consultant. Opponents include the conservative majority in the Kansas Legislature and their socially-liberal critic, Kansas City, MO mayor Sly James.
In KCMO, James denounced Uber’s aggressive politicking, then led a unanimous city council decision that ride-sharing drivers are taxi drivers, who must abide by city background checks. Compromise followed quickly: Uber will conduct its own checks, but supply the data to the city. As a result, Uber is staying in KCMO— for now. Uber comes to the battle well-equipped, with high-profile lobbyist Plouffe joining former Brownback campaign manager Mark Dugan, advocating for the company from here to London, England, plus France, Germany, and elsewhere.
This issue cuts across the conservative coalition, separating those who are drawn to conservatism for its emphasis on tradition, law enforcement, and authority, from those who are pulled into the movement by libertarian, or free market views. It is not hard to see why policymakers from the liberal James to the conservative Wagle are threatened by such policies, which replace their own authority with that of the free market: ruthless as it is. Uber has been called “Ayn Rand’s favorite car service” by the liberal gossip website Gawker, referencing a famously-outspoken anti-government philosopher. For example, Uber charges up to four times their usual rates during times of natural or human disaster, such as the recent terrorist attacks in Sydney, Australia, and Uber’s own spokespeople defend the practice, arguing that “surge pricing” provides incentives to drivers who face the increased dangers involved in carrying passengers during high-risk situations. Rand would approve: the market knows best.
Liberals are also divided by this. Young “Millenials” are known for their open-minded views about everything from marriage to consumer products. Uber seeks to capitalize on this by portraying their smartphone-based service as cool: ultra-hip Austin, TX welcomes their services while stodgy San Antonio rejects them, for example. Yet traditional liberalism stands for more than being young. Granted, in many cities taxi companies have abused their monopoly status. Still, older liberals have to wonder: has our society become too Uber-hip to support the antiquated idea that a unionized cabdriver should be able to raise a family, send the kids to college, and retire comfortably on his or her fares, even if it means higher costs for consumers? Today’s debate tells the tale.
Michael A. Smith is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Emporia State University.
