SALINE COUNTY- One person was injured in an accident just before 6p.m. on Tuesday in Saline County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2014 Hyundai SUV driven by Anna M. Duke, 69, Cisne, IL., was on the Interstate 70 east bound ramp one mile west of Interstate 135.

The vehicle failed to yield and struck a 2000 Dodge Neon driven by, Grace M. Bowers, 15, Culver, which was southbound on Halstead Road.

A passenger in the Hyundai Raymond Duke, 68, Cisne, IL., was transported to Salina Regional Medical Center.

Anna Duke and Bowers were not injured.

All were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The Lawrence school district is preparing to roll out its first class that uses only open-source learning material written by experts, vetted by their peers and posted for free downloading.

To get ready, several administrators and teachers participated in a conference last week in California. The Lawrence Journal-World reports that the conference was part of a U.S. Department of Education campaign, #GoOpen, to encourage states, school districts and educators to use openly licensed educational materials.

In October, it was announced that the Lawrence school district was one of 10 districts nationwide to take up the #GoOpen challenge to replace at least one textbook with openly licensed educational resources within the year.

District administrators have selected seventh-grade English language arts as the subject area for the #GoOpen initiative.

MELISSA HELLMANN, Associated Press

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas Senate bill would allow cities and nonprofit organizations to gain temporary ownership of abandoned houses to rehabilitate them.

The measure would change the definition of abandoned property to include blighted real estate that has been unoccupied for a year.

Critics worry the measure would unfairly target disadvantaged people who can’t afford to maintain their homes.

Under the bill, a local government or nonprofit organization could seek temporary possession of the property in district court to use it for housing.

The Senate voted 32-8 in favor of the bill last week, sending it to the House for further consideration.

Current law allows only organizations, and not local government, to request temporary ownership of homes that have been vacant for 90 days and are two years delinquent in taxes.

SHAWNEE COUNTY – A soldier based at Fort Riley died in an accident just after 2a.m. on Sunday in Shawnee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2003 Kia Sorento driven by Fernando Osornio, 29, Kansas City, was eastbound in the westbound lanes of Interstate 70 at Wannamaker.

The Kia struck a 2007 Honda Civic driven by Corey R. Jackson, 27, Newark, OH., head-on.

A passenger in the Honda Pfc. Coral Lynn Clark, 24, based at Fort Riley, and originally from Fort Worth, TX, was transported to Stormont Vail where she died.

Osornio and Jackson were also transported to Stormont Vail.
All were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

Clark was a chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear specialist assigned to the First Infantry Division Sustainment Brigade and arrived at Fort Riley in September 2024.

“She was a model Soldier and an inspiration to her peers and superiors alike through her work ethic and her singing, “ said Lt. Col. Clint E. Tracy, the brigade’s rear provisional commander.

Clark joined the Army in March 2014. She had not deployed. Her awards and decorations include the Army Achievement Medal, the National Defense Service Medal and the Army Service Ribbon.

The accident remains under investigation.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is reporting that it collected $54 million less in taxes than anticipated in February, and the shortfall creates new budget complications.

The report Tuesday from the state Department of Revenue came only two weeks after the Republican-dominated Legislature passed a bill to eliminate a projected budget deficit of nearly $200 million for the fiscal year beginning July 1.

But the state now must act again to avoid a deficit on June 30, before the new fiscal year begins.

The department said the state collected $303 million in taxes last month instead of the $357 million projected in a November fiscal forecast. The shortfall is 15 percent.

Since the current fiscal year began in July, the state has collected $3.68 billion in taxes. That’s $80 million less than anticipated.

By BRYAN THOMPSON

A new poll from NPR, Harvard University and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation explores Americans’ experiences with the health care system in the two years since the Affordable Care Act was fully implemented. Kansas was one of seven states singled out for closer scrutiny.

And while much of what Sunflower State residents said followed national trends, there were some notable exceptions. Of all the states surveyed, Kansas is where the Affordable Care Act is the least popular.

Robert Blendon of Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health was primarily in charge of conducting the poll.

He said of Kansans surveyed, 26 percent thought things improved as a result of the ACA and 13 percent thought their own lives were helped. “But in terms of the overall figures, people were much more negative about the impact on Kansas as a whole and about individuals,” Blendon said.

More than a third of Kansans surveyed — 39 percent — thought the health care law has been detrimental to the state. That compares with 27 percent nationwide. Blendon sees two main factors behind these numbers for Kansans.

There is “a real concern, greater than the other states, about the cost of health care for them and the state,” he said. “And the other is this sense of concern that many Republicans have that the law wasn’t the right thing to do. The two together is why I think Kansas stands out as being more critical of the ACA than other states.”

The Kansans with the most negative views about the health care law tend to be older than 65, live in rural areas and identify as Republican. They also say their health care costs are unreasonable and they have experienced serious financial problems as a result. The extent of their worry about costs surprised Blendon.

“Kansans are much more concerned about rising health care costs than people in other states,” he said. “They think they’re going up. They’re more concerned about the future.”

The finding that a lot of Kansans are not happy with the Affordable Care Act comes as no surprise to Mike Walker, assistant director of the Docking Institute of Public Affairs at Fort Hays State University. The institute has been doing its own polling of Kansans for seven years.

“We did see in our own data that Kansans were not favorable toward ACA overall,” he said. “There was a large portion that were favorable, but the majority of folks were not.” Walker said Kansans almost always vote Republican. What’s more, he said,

President Barack Obama is not popular in Kansas, and that carries over to his signature health care law, informally referred to as Obamacare. “A lot of Kansans just seem to dislike Obama, more specifically,” he said. “So I think those two things sort of lay a foundation for just opposing something that a Democratic president might come up with, and especially Obama.”

Walker said while it’s clear that Kansans are concerned about health care costs, it’s not clear whether those cost increases are real and actually caused by Obamacare.

“My experience tells me that people that have experienced their cost going up, or perceive that their costs are going up, are more likely to be vocal about the issue and complain about the ACA,” he said.

“Folks that aren’t impacted by it aren’t going to say anything about it.” If costs are increasing significantly, Walker said, it might be because people have more comprehensive coverage now thanks to the ACA — something they may not appreciate until they get sick or injured.

Walker said the health reform law is complicated, and it’s understandable that people might be confused about it, especially with persistent attacks on Obamacare from the state’s political leaders.

“But I kind of think that people don’t want to understand these issues, because it runs like a brick wall against their support for the Republican Party and their opposition to Obama in general,” he said. Walker said the real test will be to see how Kansans’ attitudes toward the ACA evolve over time as they have more experience with the health reform law and the health care system.

Bryan Thompson is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.