By Stephen Koranda, Amy Jeffries

It’s time to start voting, Kansas.

From the top of the primary ballot to the bottom, there are important decisions to make by Aug. 2.

At the very top: U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, 3rd District Rep. Kevin Yoder and 1st District Rep. Tim Huelskamp are all facing primary opponents. Campaigning in the 1st District has been particularly contentious — of the mud-slinging variety — and with no Democrat in the ring, the primary will be terminal.

At the very bottom: You get to pick from or write-in candidates for precinct committeeman and committeewoman. There are a lot of vacancies in these offices that make up the party grassroots.

The primaries that could matter most are the contests in 18 state Senate districts and 47 state House districts. In many districts, the climate is not friendly for candidates tied to Gov. Sam Brownback.

Fifteen state House races will be decided Aug. 2, with the victor facing no opposition in the general election. That, plus all the open seats and challenges to incumbents, means the makeup of the Legislature could be quite different as soon as the primaries are over.

Not registered? You are too late. The deadline for the Aug. 2 primaries was Tuesday, July 12.

If you’ve already got your registration figured out, you can request an advance ballot for the primaries through your county election office up until July 29.

They’re due back by 7 p.m. Aug. 2 when polls close. Counties have flexibility on in-person early voting, so dates vary by location, but it begins as soon as July 13. Contact your county election office to find out when you can vote in-person.

Bring your photo ID. Remember, in Kansas, you can’t cast your vote in person or request a mail-in ballot without it. —

Stephen Koranda is the Statehouse bureau chief for Kansas Public Radio. Amy Jeffries is the Kansas elections editor at KCUR.

SCOTTSDALE, Arizona (AP) — The Western district of the Methodist church has elected an openly gay bishop despite the denomination’s ban on same-sex relationships.

The Rev. Karen Oliveto was elected late Friday night at a meeting in Scottsdale, Arizona, of the church’s Western Jurisdiction. Oliveto is pastor of Glide Memorial United Methodist Church in San Francisco. She is the first openly gay bishop in the 12.7 million-member denomination.

The United Methodist Church is deeply divided over LGBT rights. Church law says same-gender relationships are “incompatible with Christian teaching.” But several regional districts are openly defying the prohibition by appointing gay clergy and allowing same-sex weddings in churches. Some instances have led to trials under the church legal system.

Oliveto’s election could draw complaints that will prompt a review under church law.

BUTLER COUNTY – For the second time in as many days, officials in Butler County responded to report of an aircraft accident.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported just before 2 p..m. on Saturday, a 2013 Zenith fixed-wing aircraft piloted by Samuel S. McNair, 52, Wichita, was attempting to land on a grass runway at 1651 SE Main Street in the unincorporated Butler County community of Beaumont.

The plane encountered strong crosswind and made a hard landing.

The front landing gear collapsed and the aircraft flipped.

McNair and a passenger Gary L. Frost, 56, Wichita, were not transported to treatment.

The accident remains under investigation.

On Friday night a 61-year-old man died when his Gyrocopter crashed near Whitewater.

 

KANSAS CITY –  The Nigerian owner of a day care center in Kansas City, was arrested this week as part of a nationwide sweep that targeted childcare center fraud schemes, according to Tammy Dickinson, United States Attorney.

The arrest was part of a national law enforcement operation that included arrests and search warrants executed in seven states. The operation was the result of separate, but related, federal investigations into Nigerian and Somalian childcare center fraud that resulted in a loss of more than $1 million to the government.

Hauwa Al-Hassan, 47, of Raymore, Mo., was charged with the theft of government property in an indictment returned under seal by a federal grand jury in Kansas City on June 29, 2016. That indictment was unsealed and made public following Al-Hassan’s arrest and initial court appearance.

Al-Hassan, a Nigerian immigrant, is the owner and CEO of Guidance Child Care Center, LLC, a child day care center at 8101 E. Bannister Rd., Kansas City.

Al-Hassan is also the vice president of Guidance Academy of Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

The federal indictment alleges that, from June 2011 to June 2016, Al-Hassan engaged in a pattern of fraudulent billing in order to receive funding to which she was not entitled under the federal Child Care and Development Fund grant program. Al-Hassan allegedly filed claims that reported more hours and children than actually attended her daycare center.

The Child Care and Development Fund provides daycare subsidies for low-income families where the parents are employed or engaged in job training. Providers, such as Guidance, contract with the Children’s Division of the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services and submit claims electronically.

Based on a review of childcare claims between 2011 and 2016, the indictment says, at least $100,000 has been fraudulently billed by Guidance in connection with this scheme.

The indictment also alleges that Al-Hassan is involved in a fraud scheme with international implications. Al-Hassan allegedly has traveled to Nigeria to teach others who plan to return to the United States how to run similar daycare fraud schemes.

Once a fraud scheme is successfully executed in the United States, the indictment says, the money is either wired by traditional means, or hawala (an Islamic informal system used to transfer currency from one individual to another individual who lives overseas), or hand carried from the United States back to the country where the immigrant was born. For example, the indictment says that on Dec. 20, 2015, $23,000 in cash was hand-carried out of the United States to Nigeria by an unnamed individual on a visa using Al-Hassan’s residential address, which is also the Guidance Childcare Center’s main office address.

According to the indictment, Al-Hassan signed a contract with the Missouri Department of Social Services on May 3, 2010, to operate Guidance Child Care Center as a licensed childcare center providing childcare services to low-income families. Since 2013, Guidance has been audited by the state on four occasions. Each audit, the indictment says, found many hours fraudulently billed for childcare services.

Auditors found, for example, that Guidance Child Care and another provider allegedly billed the state for the childcare of the same child, at overlapping times. Auditors also found a large discrepancy between the timesheets (attendance records initialed by the parents) submitted and the billings made to the state. Other billing discrepancies, such as billing the state for children who were not receiving childcare services, allegedly also occurred. On May 1, 2015, the Department of Social Services mailed Guidance Child Care Center a letter of non-compliance.

Investigators installed two pole cameras near Guidance from Feb. 11 to March 20, 2016. One camera focused on the front doors of Guidance; the second camera showed the parking lot and rear doors. All doors in and out were covered by a pole camera. Timesheets submitted with the billing were compared with children seen on the pole cameras being dropped off and picked up from Guidance during that time. There were significant discrepancies between the timesheets submitted and the pole camera footage.

The indictment also contains a forfeiture allegation, which would require Al-Hassan to forfeit to the government any property obtained from the proceeds of the alleged fraud scheme, including approximately $100,000 received in connection with the scheme.

Dickinson cautioned that the charge contained in this indictment is simply an accusation, and not evidence of guilt. Evidence supporting the charge must be presented to a federal trial jury, whose duty is to determine guilt or innocence.