SEDGWICK COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a shooting and are asking for help to locate a suspect.

Just after 8p.m. Wednesday, police responded to a shooting near 21^st Street North and Interstate 135 in Wichita, according to officer Paul Cruz.

Police located the victims at the 29^th Street and Hydraulic exit ramp. Investigators learned that there was a verbal disturbance between an 18-year-old girl and a known suspect.

During the argument the teen walked to a nearby gas station and waited for friends to pick her up.  At the gas station, another verbal dispute the teen and the suspect continued to argue.

When her friends arrived, they left northbound on Interstate 135 to the Hydraulic and 29^th Street north exit, according to Cruz.

At that point, the suspect driving a Silver Chevy HHR approached and began shooting.

A 26-year-old female driver was wounded in the arms and legs, according to Cruz. A bullet also grazed a 21-year-old male passenger’s leg.  They were transported to treatment.  The 18-year-old was not injured. The suspect was not located.

Anyone with information on the suspect or the location of the Chevy HHR is asked to contact Wichita Police.

By STEPHEN KORANDA

Changes in federal tax law could actually cost some Kansans more in state taxes.

Kansas lawmakers might turn down that revenue windfall and add an election year tax cut instead. A bill they’re backing would cost roughly the same amount as a court-triggered boost to school spending.

The cut to federal taxes has become a signature achievement of the Trump administration and a talking point for national Republicans.

But because of the way federal income tax returns translate to state filings, it means some people in Kansas can’t itemize — and save on their taxes — as they might have before last year’s federal overhaul.

The Kansas Senate has already passed a bill aimed at returning that money to taxpayers — just a year after lawmakers raised taxes to salvage a cratering state budget.

Some of the proposals in the bill are directly related to the federal law. For example, one portion would let Kansans itemize tax deductions whether or not they itemize on their federal taxes.

Another provision would amend Kansas law relating to the repatriation of foreign earnings, another issue addressed in the federal tax bill.

Republican Sen. Caryn Tyson, chair of the Senate tax committee, said lawmakers should not view this as a chance to capture more state tax revenue.

“We’ve got to quit growing government,” Tyson said during a floor debate earlier this month. “This is not our money. This is Kansas taxpayer money. Let’s get it back to them.”

The legislation passed the Senate before lawmakers left for their spring break. It’s now in the hands of House members.

The chairman of the House’s tax committee, Republican Steven Johnson, said House leaders agree with the goal of returning the windfall to Kansas taxpayers. But he said the bill goes beyond that.

“Both chambers want to make sure that windfall stays in the pockets of those taxpayers,” Johnson said. “The challenge is there are so many things in play that, as a package, I don’t believe it is affordable.”

Other portions of the Senate bill delve into additional parts of state tax policy. The standard deduction would rise from $3,000 to $3,750 for individuals. Married taxpayers filing jointly would see their standard deduction go from $7,500 to $9,375.

The proposals would also accelerate the restoration of some tax deductions, including the mortgage interest and property tax deduction. Several deductions eliminated or cut back in the past are phasing back in over several years. The bill would end the phase-in and fully restore those deductions.

Johnson said he expects House lawmakers will consider the bill, but the portions of the legislation outside the scope of the windfall are less likely to advance.

So far, the Legislature has no official estimate on how much the Senate bill would dent state revenue. Heidi Holliday, with the Kansas Center for Economic Growth, said it would mean at least $494 million less for the state over five years. That’s close to the funding increase approved for local school districts.

She calls it premature to make state tax changes, because estimates of the impact of the federal tax cut are not written in stone.

“We don’t even know how much Kansas is going to get as a result of any federal tax law changes,” Holliday said.

The new discussion on tax policy comes less than a year after lawmakers rolled back many of the state’s 2012 tax cuts by overriding a veto from then-Gov. Sam Brownback.

Holliday said the state should be investing in areas of government that faced lean budget years because of the tax cuts. Instead of going down that road again, Holliday said Kansas should invest in services such as infrastructure, higher education and the state’s pension plan.

“It’s really risky for lawmakers to be trying to pass a bill like this right now,” Holliday said.

The most immediate cost is the state’s public school funding boost, which comes in response to a court ruling that said school funding isn’t living up to a requirement in the Kansas Constitution.

Democratic Rep. Jarrod Ousley said pursuing the tax cut plan will make it harder to fund services like schools.

“We need to meet our constitutional obligations first,” Ousley said. “We’ve got a generation of kids depending upon it.”

State budget officials raised the fiscal outlook last week. That prompted Republican Senate President Susan Wagle to renew her push for the bill.

However, Wagle didn’t argue for advancing all parts of the bill. She said in a statement that lawmakers should approve the changes to tax itemizing.

“I will urge my colleagues to pass legislation to allow Kansans who currently itemize under state tax law to continue to do so in the future,” Wagle said.

She said after doing that, lawmakers should look at paying back money borrowed from sources such as the state’s pension system, KPERS.

“We owe it to future generations to pay back our current debts and obligations,” Wagle said.

Stephen Koranda is Statehouse reporter the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @kprkoranda.

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — The Latest on Bill Cosby’s sexual assault retrial (all times local):

Bill Cosby has been convicted of drugging and molesting a woman in the first big celebrity trial of the #MeToo era.

A jury outside Philadelphia convicted the “Cosby Show” star of three counts of aggravated indecent assault on Thursday. The guilty verdict came less than a year after another jury deadlocked on the charges.

Cosby was charged with violating Temple University employee Andrea Constand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. His lawyer called Constand a “con artist” who leveled false accusations against Cosby so she could sue him.

Cosby could get up to 10 years in prison on each of the counts.

Dozens of women have come forward in recent years to say he drugged and assaulted them. Five of the other accusers testified against him at the retrial.

The Associated Press does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission. Constand has done so.

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WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The new Pizza Hut Museum has opened at Wichita State University.

WSU Foundation CEO Elizabeth King said that staff from the school came together “to collaborate and create this fabulous museum that will be curated by the students.”

Brothers Dan and Frank Carney were students at the university in 1958 when they converted a beer tavern into the original Pizza Hut. The building was used for the museum, which opened Wednesday on the school’s Innovation Campus.

Dan Carney attended the opening ceremony, saying “I think they did a great job.”

The museum includes articles, memorabilia and photos of the brothers and takes visitors through the evolution of the pizza chain.

There are 7,500 Pizza Huts nationwide and another 10,000 internationally.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Medicare will require hospitals to post their standard prices online and make electronic medical records more readily available to patients, officials said Tuesday.

The program is also starting a comprehensive review of how it will pay for costly new forms of immunotherapy to battle cancer.

Seema Verma, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the new requirement for online prices reflects the Trump administration’s ongoing efforts to encourage patients to become better-educated decision makers in their own care.

“We are just beginning on price transparency,” said Verma. “We know that hospitals have this information and we’re asking them to post what they have online.”

Hospitals are required to disclose prices publicly, but the latest change would put that information online in machine-readable format that can be easily processed by computers. It may still prove to be confusing to consumers, since standard rates are like list prices and don’t reflect what insurers and government programs pay.

Patients concerned about their potential out-of-pocket costs from a hospitalization would still be advised to consult with their insurer. Most insurance plans nowadays have an annual limit on how much patients must pay in copays and deductibles — although traditional Medicare does not.

Likewise, many health care providers already make computerized records available to patients, but starting in 2021 Medicare would base part of a hospital’s payments on how good a job they do.

Using electronic medical records remains a cumbersome task, and the Trump administration has invited technology companies to design secure apps that would let patients access their records from all their providers instead of having to go to different portals.

Verma also announced Medicare is starting a comprehensive review of how it will pay for a costly new form of immunotherapy called CAR-T. It’s gene therapy that turbocharges a patient’s own immune system cells to attack cancer.

Immune system T cells are filtered from the patient’s own blood and reprogrammed to target and kill cancer cells that had managed to evade them. Hundreds of millions of copies of the revved-up cells are then returned to the patient’s blood to take on the cancer.

Though only a couple of such treatments have been approved for blood cancers, the cost can exceed $370,000 per patient.

“It’s a new area for the agency,” said Verma. “We haven’t seen drugs priced at this level and we’re having to think about our strategy.”

HUTCHINSON — A Minden, Nevada, company is coming to Kansas to build public restrooms.

The Public Restroom Company manufactures restrooms for outdoor parks and ships them to locations across the United States.

According to company president and founder Chuck Kaufman, the company will use a building along East 4th Avenue in Hutchinson. It is the former Mega Manufacturing facility at 714 Cory. Siemens currently uses the building for storage.

Kaufman hopes to employ 40-50 workers with what he calls “a good wage and very generous benefits package,” which includes all health insurance paid to the employee. Kaufman says the company has been looking for another location for some time now and chose Hutchinson because of an available workforce. The building has the necessary equipment to manufacture its product.

According to their web site, the company assembles whole restrooms and then ships them to the location. Some of its products are at the bottom of the Grand Canyon and other major parks. The modular restrooms weigh between 30 and 40 tons when finished.

The rapidly expanding company expects to have between $50 million and $75 million in annual sales in the next few years.

WICHITA, KAN. – A man was indicted Wednesday on charges of robbing a bank in Newton, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister.

Martin L. Paris, 50, Yukon, Okla., was charged with the April 9, 2018, robbery of the First Bank of Newton at 1404 S. Kansas Avenue in Newton, Kan. According to court records, Paris gave a teller a note directing her to “be calm” and “start with hundreds.” The note ended with, “Thank you and have a nice day.”

Paris was identified from bank surveillance photos and arrested the day after the robbery. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in federal prison and a fine up to $250,000. The Newton Police Department and the FBI investigated. Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Metzger is prosecuting.