The Central and Western Kansas Chapter of the American Red Cross announced this week the appointment of Brandon Taylor to its board of directors.
“I am excited to join the Red Cross board. I find the most joy assisting others in Kansas and around the world and the Red Cross humanitarian mission will allow me to do just that, said Brandon Taylor, an Admissions Counselor at Fort Hays State University. “My family has never forgotten the kind individuals who were there to help us in our time of need and now it is time to pay that kindness forward.”
Brandon was born in Western Nebraska but raised in Kansas and graduated from Kiowa County High School in Greensburg. His family’s home was destroyed by the tornado that struck Greensburg in 2007. He witnessed firsthand American Red Cross disaster response and recovery operations in his community. For over a hundred years, Red Cross volunteers across Kansas have answered the call to help those affected by disasters large and small. From single-family house fires to severe weather like tornadoes, flooding, ice storms and wildfires, the Red Cross provides for the immediate needs of families like Brandon’s, who may have lost everything.
Serving others is not new to Brandon. He earned a Bachelor of Business Administration in Management, a Master of Business Administration, and a leadership and grant-writing certificate from Fort Hays State University. While a student, Brandon interned for Senator Jerry Moran in Washington, DC and was the lead organizer that brought TEDxFHSU to campus, the university’s first TED conference that focused on worldwide issues. He also had the opportunity to work with numerous service organizations around the country including Habitat for Humanity in Santa Fe, New Mexico; United Saints of New Orleans in Louisiana and the Global Leadership Project in Costa Rica.
Central and Western Kansas Executive Director, Becky LaPolice is excited to welcome Brandon to the board team. “With a 60-county chapter territory, I am thrilled to have a board member from Hays,” said LaPolice. “Today’s technology allows us to connect with our communities across Central and Western Kansas to deliver Red Cross services more efficiently. Brandon will be joining a board with representatives from Garden City, Clay Center and Salina. Our goal is to recruit dedicated board members from other areas of Central and Western Kansas.” For more information on the American Red Cross mission or how to get involved, go to www.redcross.org or email [email protected].
WICHITA — When iconic Dodge City faced a lawsuit before the midterm elections for moving its sole polling place outside city limits, its top elections official turned to a hired legal gun to battle charges of voter suppression.
Ford County Clerk Debbie Cox hired Bradley Schlozman, who is little-known outside the legal community but is well-known for defending states and towns accused of trying to restrict voting.
Schlozman was a top lawyer in the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division in the George W. Bush administration. He has been involved in some of the thorniest voting issues of the last two decades.
At the Justice Department, Schlozman in 2005 backed Georgia, among the first to enact voter ID. He overruled the career attorneys who had argued it would reduce minority voting.
Les Miles is 65, but he’s not prepared to dig into his retirement savings nor the $1.5 million buyout settlement he agreed to last week with LSU football.
Far less than what LSU had agreed to pay Miles through 2023, the buyout paved the way for him to accept a new challenge: turn around the moribund football program at the University of Kansas.
“The further I got away from it, the more I desired it,” Miles said Sunday at a news conference.
But he’ll have his work cut out for him. The Jayhawks are 3-8 overall this year and dead last in the Big 12 Conference. During the Nov. 3 home game against Iowa State, there were more Cyclones fans than Jayhawks fans in Memorial Stadium.
“You know what? I hope our fans saw that image,” new KU athletic director Jeff Long said the day after, when he fired Beaty. “I hope you show that image because they’re going to be part of this solution.”
Beaty will still call the shots during Friday’s regular-season finale. After that, it’s all in the hands of the man who went 114-34 at LSU, coached them to a national championship and two SEC titles and was the Associated Press Coach of the Year in 2011. Miles was fired in 2016 after a couple of disappointing seasons.
New Kansas football coach Les Miles speaks after his introduction Sunday. Credit Greg Echlin / KCUR 89.3
The last time KU football was relevant was 2007 — the same year Miles led LSU to a national title. KU at one point was ranked No. 2 in the nation and beat Virginia Tech in the Orange Bowl behind coach Mark Mangino. Miles said he paid attention to that team, and starting quarterback Todd Reesing.
“The 12-1 Mangino team, what they did with that quarterback, I thought was really special,” he said Sunday. “I recognized it. I recognized that when it was happening.”
Since then, KU has been looking to revive its football program, both in staffing and upgrading indoor facilities and the stadium, which was built in 1920. Rebooting the product on the field starts, according to Miles, with recruiting and keeping the best players close.
“We’re going to work a 500-mile radius,” he said during the introductory. We’re going to get to those and we’re going to win in that group and then we’re going to pick some cities in Texas that we hit.”
That would prevent players like ISU linebacker Marcel Spears, an Olathe North grad, from going out of state. Spears said Kansas was interested in him, but ISU won out.
Marcel Spears says he was recruited by Kansas football when he was at Olathe North, but chose to go to Iowa State instead. Credit Iowa State University Athletic Department
“My grandma, she really doesn’t have a lot to say, but when she came here on a visit with us, she said she likes Iowa State and that carried a lot with me,” he said.
CBS Sports.com senior writer Dennis Dodd covered Miles in the SEC, and believes the coach will go the extra, well, mile to attract top talent.
“(If) they see a guy they can get, they’ll go all over the country because Jeff Long, the AD, has promised to put money into the program to do just that,” Dodd said.
With more coaching positions popping up around the country, Miles’ options were apparently increasing, though Dodd mentioned that Miles “hadn’t had any nibbles these last two years.” Long was adamant about avoiding a candidate who would use the Jayhawks’ opening as leverage.
“When you’re out and you want back in, you can feel the passion in the conversation,” Long said of his conversations with Miles. “You can feel the want-to and we certainly did that as we talked about this opportunity.”
But there’s no guarantee that a big-name coach will do the trick.
Look at Oklahoma in 1995: The Sooners hired Howard Schnellenberger, who coached the Miami Hurricanes to a national championship in 1983 but only had one season at OU.
And there’s even the Jayhawks themselves. Remember Charlie Weis, the former Notre Dame coach whom ex-KU athletic director Sheahon Zenger hired when he “set out to find the best”? Both of them are long gone, and the Jayhawks haven’t had a winning season since 2008.
Greg Echlin is a freelance sports reporter for KCUR 89.3.
Abdoulie Fatajo at Hy-5 Traders in 2015. Allison Long / Courtesy of The Kansas City Star
By ANNE KNIGGENDORF Kansas News Service
Abdoulie Fatajo, a Shawnee, Kansas, philanthropist and community leader from Gambia, was arrested and detained by Immigrations and Customs Enforcement (ICE) on November 9. He’s being held at the Morgan County Detention Center in Versailles, Missouri.
He’s had limited access to a phone and has relied on a friend to spread the word of his arrest, though his family is being careful about who hears.
“They don’t want my mom to know about it right now because it would just traumatize her. It’s like a humiliation,” Fatajo told KCUR in a phone call from the jail.
Fatajo’s Shawnee-based business, Hy-5 Traders, began as a small bicycle repair and consignment clothing business in 2012. He repaired bicycles at low cost, and donated bikes to children whose parents couldn’t afford one.
Shortly after an article about him appeared in the Kansas City Star in 2015, Hy-5 Traders blossomed into a multi-warehouse shipping operation. Fatajo now has dozens of American employees and ships not only bicycles, but cars, clothing, food, and household goods to the people of Gambia.
Fatajo arrived on a student visa in November 1999. He said he was enrolled at Penn Valley and then Johnson County Community College until 2003, when he said he began working full time to care for his infant son, who was born in the United States.
That same year, he was involved in an altercation with a man who forced his way into Fatajo’s apartment. Fatajo was arrested but quickly released, and was not charged in the incident.
Abdoulie Fatajo, as shown on his Facebook page, in 2016. Credit Abdoulie Fatajo / Facebook
Shawn Neudauer, ICE spokesman for Kansas/Missouri, said that even though charges were dropped in that altercation, Fatajo did not operate entirely within the law, garnering a few other misdemeanors that immigration officials continue to take into account.
Neudauer also questioned whether Fatajo ever enrolled in school after he arrived on his student visa, saying government records do not show that he was enrolled at Penn Valley. Neudauer said that it’s not unheard of for immigrants to pay for classes with cash and to enroll under alternate names.
Seeing that he was not in school, immigration agents told him he would be deported as soon as travel documents arrived from Gambia.
Immigration attorney Michael Sharma-Crawford said this situation isn’t unusual, and that sometimes an immigrant’s country of origin withholds travel documents for years.
“The new administration came in and started threatening to withhold funding, and suddenly travel documents became available,” Sharma-Crawford said.
The documents can take the form of a passport or a statement on official government letterhead with a photo of the immigrant attached that will allow him to pass through customs.
For 15 years, Fatajo regularly checked in with immigration officials, fearful of those documents.
“They put me under orders of supervision. You go there and they check that you didn’t commit any crimes or you didn’t do anything, and they will let you go, and they will renew your work card, that’s what I have been doing,” Fatajo said.
But Neudauer said that in 2005, the Board of Immigration denied Fatajo’s appeal to continue living in the United States, and that Fatajo did nothing more to legally extend his stay here.
Two weeks ago when Fatajo checked in at immigration, the official he spoke with announced that the travel documents the government had been waiting on since 2003 had arrived.
Fatajo said he hasn’t seen the documents and has no idea how long he’ll be held. Meanwhile, he’s concerned about his family and employees.
“Bicycles are the main transportation for people in Gambia. Ninety percent rely on bicycles,” he said.
Bicycles and bike repairs in Gambia are extremely expensive. Because a new bike in Gambia costs a year’s wages, Fatajo saw an opportunity to make a big difference. His sister and cousin opened a shop similar to Hy-5 Traders in Banjul, Gambia’s capitol, and he sent them a shipping container of bikes and other things he collected from garage sales or thrift stores every few months.
Gambians all over the United States contact him to send items to their families back home, and he ended up sending a 40-foot long container every week.
“Today, the whole family is employed because of me over there. Because of these shipments that I’m shipping to them, both my brothers’ kids, my nephews and me, my sister’s kids, even my cousins, all of them are working because of this business I’m doing here. So that’s why this is so painful,” he said.
“Even my employees, most of them, their entire lives depend on this business. And back home, the entire family, their survival is based on this business,” he added. “I am their only shipper that ships their stuff to Gambia. I am the only one.”
On Tuesday morning, Fatajo began working with Overland Park immigration attorney J. Bradley Pace, who told KCUR he is considering filing a stay on humanitarian grounds. He said Fatajo is a special case because of all the charitable work he does.
Sharma-Crawford said he sees these cases often.
“You have somebody who’s been involved in the community and is doing all these things, and been out in the open and cooperating with immigration for the past 10 years,” he said, “and then suddenly they’re just taken into custody.”
He said that while that’s jarring, he understands that ICE operates with the element of surprise to keep immigrants from hiding. And for someone like Fatajo, who is not interested in hiding, this treatment has been most jarring of all.
“These past nine years I was doing so well,” Fatajo said. “I told them, ‘What can I do just to be out of this situation?’ Because every year when you go there, the feeling that you get, it’s like I don’t know what kind of crime did I do to be in that situation? Just not going to school.”
Syed Jamal’s case, meanwhile, drew attention from U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver of Missouri and Jamal’s Congresswoman, Rep. Lynn Jenkins, who sponsored a private bill that would have granted him permanent residence. A federal district court judge granted Jamal’s habeas petition, which allowed him to go free while his case continues. His immigration court date is November 27.
Fatajo is in Kevin Yoder’s district, but Yoder has not responded to KCUR’s attempt to reach him.
Pope Francis / Shutterstock.comBy NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press
VATICAN CITY — Pope Francis named the Vatican’s top sex abuse investigator and a close U.S. ally to an organizing committee for a February abuse prevention summit whose stakes have grown after the Holy See blocked U.S. bishops from taking action to address the scandal.
Abuse survivors and women working at the Vatican will also contribute to the preparatory committee. Notably absent from the lineup announced Friday was Boston Cardinal Sean O’Malley, who heads the pope’s sex abuse advisory commission, though one of his members, the Rev. Hans Zollner, is the point-person for the group.
In addition to Zollner, the committee includes Maltese Archbishop Charles Scicluna, for a decade the Vatican’s sex crimes prosecutor, Francis appointee Chicago Cardinal Blase Cupich and Indian Cardinal Oswald Gracias, a member of Francis’ key cardinal adviser group.
Francis summoned leaders of the world’s bishops’ conferences to the Vatican Feb. 21-24 after the abuse scandal erupted in his native South America and again in the U.S. and he botched the case of a Chilean bishop implicated in cover-up.
The stakes of the meeting grew exponentially after the Vatican told U.S. bishops earlier this month not to vote on proposed new measures to investigate sexual misconduct or cover-up within their ranks.
The Vatican still hasn’t explained why it blocked the vote on a U.S. code of conduct for bishops and a lay-led board to investigate them, though the proposals were only given to the Vatican at the last minute and were said to contain legal problems. The head of the U.S. bishops conference, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, said the Holy See wanted to delay any vote until after the February global summit.
However, it is unlikely that such a diverse group of churchmen, some representing national churches that continue to deny or downplay the scandal, will over the course of four days come up with any universal proposals that come close to the accountability norms that U.S. bishops were seeking.
Cupich has said he was disappointed by the Vatican’s decision, but at the time of the U.S. bishops’ meeting, he proposed they go ahead and debate the measures and even came up with a revised proposal himself.
His inclusion as a member of the Vatican organizing committee is significant, since he is not himself the head of a bishops’ conference — as are Scicluna and Gracias — and would otherwise have no reason to attend the February summit. That Francis chose him over DiNardo is perhaps understood by the obvious tensions between DiNardo and the Vatican over the rejected U.S. accountability proposals and DiNardo’s public call this summer for a Vatican investigation into the U.S. scandal, which Rome refused.
Cupich, on the other hand, is far more of a defender of the embattled pope, whose popularity in the U.S. has tumbled over his uneven handling of the abuse crisis.
“Pope Francis is calling for radical reform in the life of the church, for he understands that this crisis is about the abuse of power and a culture of protection and privilege, which have created a climate of secrecy, without accountability for misdeeds,” Cupich wrote in a blog post Thursday. “All of that has to end.”
Zollner, who heads a safeguarding institute of study at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, acknowledged that the expectations were high going into the meeting.
“And it’s understandable that they are high, given the gravity of the scandal that has shocked and hurt so many people, believers and not, in so many countries,” he told Vatican Media.
Vatican spokesman Greg Burke said Francis’ decision to host the meeting showed he considered protection of minors a “fundamental priority for the church.”
Kansas City, Kansas, has installed a 3D sidewalk in the Piper neighborhood. DAVE RENO / UNIFIED GOVERNMENT OF WYANDOTTE COUNTY & KANSAS CITY, KANSAS
By ANDREA TUDHOPE Kansas News Service
There’s a new crosswalk in northwest Kansas City, Kansas. If you’re in the area, you’ll likely slow down to take a look. And that’s the point.
The neighborhood association of Northridge at Piper Estates told the city they wanted to find a new way to make sure cars don’t speed. So, City Traffic Engineer Lideana Laboy did some research, and came across 3D crosswalks in Iceland.
Laboy pitched it to the neighborhood a few months ago and they were in favor, so the city’s Public Works team got to work.
The metro’s first 3D crosswalk was finished late last week. Laboy said that if the test run works, she’d like to put more of them up across the city, specifically in residential neighborhoods.
“This is a creative way to attract pedestrians to the area where they should cross rather than cross anywhere else. And from the driver perspective, we want to monitor how that influences their behavior,” she said.
Laboy’s team plans to monitor the crosswalk over the next few months.
WASHINGTON D.C.- This Thanksgiving Congressman Marshall traveled overseas to visit with our troops. On his trip he met with Kansas soldiers and served them Thanksgiving dinner.
“Our troops are doing an outstanding job. I was so honored to spend Thanksgiving with our men and women in uniform,” Rep. Marshall said. “I got to meet individually with these soldiers and learn about their journey to the military. I cannot thank them enough for the sacrifices they consistently make for our great nation.”
In Kuwait, Rep. Marshall met with over 700 Kansas Guardsman from the 2-137 Combined Arms Battalion and Battery C, 161st Field Artillery. The Guardsmen were deployed in April as part of Operation Enduring Freedom, Spartan Shield (OEF-SS).
“They are spending the holidays far from their families, it was a privilege for me to be able to serve them a Thanksgiving meal and sit down with them to discuss their mission and their time abroad,” Rep. Marshall said. “Some of these soldiers were newly married or had young children back at home, but they explained to me how grateful they are to serve our country and for all the continued support they get back at home.”
On his trip, Rep. Marshall was briefed by military leaders on the current posture, readiness, and security concerns of our U.S. forces.
“We have the strongest military in the world, I saw that first hand this week. The holidays are especially hard to be away from home, and I enjoyed hearing each soldier tell me about their families’ Thanksgiving traditions. I learned a lot from these brave men and women in the past few days, and their love for our country will inspire me for days to come.”
The soldiers on this mission are expected to return to the states in March of 2019.
Today
Mostly sunny, with a high near 61. West southwest wind 8 to 13 mph becoming east southeast in the afternoon.
Tonight
Rain likely before 4am, then rain and snow likely between 4am and 5am, then snow likely after 5am. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 29. Very windy, with a south southeast wind 5 to 10 mph becoming north 21 to 31 mph. Winds could gust as high as 44 mph. Chance of precipitation is 70%. New snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible.
Sunday
Snow likely, mainly before 10am. Cloudy through mid morning, then gradual clearing, with a high near 34. Very windy, with a north northwest wind 27 to 32 mph decreasing to 15 to 20 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New snow accumulation of around an inch possible.
Sunday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 21. North northwest wind 5 to 11 mph becoming west after midnight.
Monday
Sunny, with a high near 46. West wind around 8 mph.
Monday Night
Mostly clear, with a low around 21.
Tuesday
Sunny, with a high near 45.
Tuesday Night
Partly cloudy, with a low around 25.
From left: Logan Shaw, Cassandra Waldschmidt, August Sinclair, Cameryn Kinderknecht, Lane Fischer, Rylee Werth, Clara Crawford, Cheyenne Born and Dylan Brown.
ELLIS — On Monday, Ellis High School inducted three juniors and six seniors into the local chapter of the National Honor Society.
Requirements to get into NHS are a 3.5 GPA, leadership in seven organizations within the school or community, accumulation of 40 hours of community service, and a positive character evaluation by teachers.
The following students were inducted into the National Honor Society:
Logan Shaw, son of Doug & Jill Shaw
Cassandra Waldschmidt, daughter of Pete & Sandy Waldschmidt
August Sinclair, daughter of Mark Sinclair and Katie Armstrong
Cameryn Kinderknecht, daughter of Tim & Rhonda Kinderknecht
Lane Fischer, son of Brian & Melanie Fischer.
Rylee Werth, daughter of Rodney & Cristi Werth
Clara Crawford, daughter of Kim Andries and the late George Crawford III
Cheyenne Born, daughter of Brock & Coleen Born
Dylan Brown, son of Heidi Schmidt
From Nov. 5: Mexico City installed a shelter for the migrant caravan of Central Americans heading to the United States. Shutterstock.com
TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — The mayor of Tijuana has declared a humanitarian crisis in his border city and said Friday that he has asked the United Nations for aid to deal with the approximately 5,000 Central American migrants who have arrived.
Mayor Juan Manuel Gastelum said that the Mexican federal government has provided little assistance and he is not going to commit the city’s public resources to dealing with the situation. He said 4,976 migrants had come to the city.
“We don’t have sufficient and necessary infrastructure to adequately attend to these people, to give them a decent space,” he said on Grupo Formula radio.
On Thursday, his government issued a statement saying that it was requesting help from the U.N.’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs.
“I am not going to spend the money of Tijuana (citizens),” Gasteulum said in the statement.
For the most part, the migrant caravan that left Honduras in mid-October was well received by the towns it passed through along the way to the border. Even cities with few resources made sure the migrants had food and a place to rest.
But in those places, the caravan stayed at most two nights — with the exception of Mexico City. In Tijuana, many of the migrants who are fleeing violence and poverty want to request asylum in the United States and face the prospect of spending months in the border city before they have the opportunity to speak with a U.S. official.
Gastelum said Friday that the Mexican government has talked about sending 20 tons of resources to Tijuana to help but that three-fourths consisted of materials to reinforce the border and only 5 tons were materials to actually help the migrants.
Most of the migrants are staying at a makeshift shelter at a sports stadium in the city. They are receiving support from local churches and private citizens who have been providing food, as well as various agencies of the Baja California state government, which says it identified 7,000 job openings for those who qualify.
Gastelum also criticized the federal government for not taking more seriously U.S. President Donald Trump’s threat Thursday to shut down the entire border if things get out of control in Tijuana.
“That’s serious,” he said.
Referring to a protest by a small group of migrants who marched to a border crossing Thursday, Gastelum said such demonstrations are not going to help.
“Thousands of people from Tijuana work in the United States, they arrive late to their jobs,” he said. “From the United States the tourism isn’t coming here. The people aren’t coming to the medical sector. The situation is becoming uncomfortable.”
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A conservative writer and associate of Trump confidant Roger Stone said Friday that he is in plea talks with special counsel Robert Mueller’s team.
Jerome Corsi told The Associated Press he has been negotiating a potential plea but declined to comment further. He said on a YouTube show last week that he expected to be charged with lying to federal investigators, though he said at the time that he was innocent of wrongdoing.
Mueller’s team questioned Corsi as part of an investigation into Stone’s connections with WikiLeaks. American intelligence agencies have assessed that Russia was the source of hacked material released by WikiLeaks during the 2016 election that damaged Hillary Clinton’s campaign. Mueller’s office is trying to determine whether Stone and other associates of President Donald Trump had advance knowledge of WikiLeaks’ plans.
The Washington Post first reported on Corsi’s plea negotiations.
Corsi, the former Washington bureau chief of the conspiracy theory outlet InfoWars, cooperated with the probe for about two months, turning over two computers and a cell phone and providing the FBI access to his email accounts and tweets.
But he said talks with investigators recently had “blown up.”
“I fully anticipate that in the next few days, I will be indicted by Mueller,” he said last week, as he made a pitch for donations to his legal defense fund.
Stone, who also has said he is prepared to be indicted, has denied being a conduit for WikiLeaks, which published thousands of emails stolen from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta in the weeks before the election.
In a telephone interview with the AP earlier this month, Stone said: “I had no advanced notice of the source or content or the exact timing of the release of the WikiLeaks disclosures.”
He told AP in a separate statement Friday, “It is clear from his recent videos and his recent interviews that my friend Dr. Corsi has been under a tremendous amount of pressure and it is beginning to affect him profoundly. He has stated publicly that he is being asked over and over to say things he simply does not believe occurred.”
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. — A driver was seriously injured and another driver fled the scene in a two-vehicle crash at 9:20 p.m. Wednesday in Buchanan County, Mo.
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol, 60-year-old Larry K. Whittet of Shawnee was driving a Dodge pickup south on I-29 at mile marker 48.8 near St. Joseph. Another vehicle was southbound and the two vehicles collided.
Whittet’s vehicle skidded, went off the west side of the road, hit an embankment and overturned. The other vehicle skidded to a stop in the road, then left the scene, police said.
Whittet was transported to Mosaic Life Care for treatment of serious injuries.
According to the crash report, he was wearing a seatbelt.
Today
