GEARY COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating three suspects after a traffic stop in Geary County.

Just after 11a.m. Monday, deputies conducted a traffic stop on a Dodge Ram 1500 pickup truck at the eastbound Interstate 70  rest area just west of Moritz Road for allegedly following too closely and an unsafe lane change, according to a media release.

Deputies returned to their vehicle before re-establishing contact with the driver and asking him to step out of the pickup. The driver, who was later identified as a 17-year old teenager from Kentucky, fled in the Dodge Ram and led deputies on the three-county pursuit which ended with the arrest of the driver and two passengers.

Deputies arrested the driver, whose name has not been released, on suspicion of Felony Flee and Elude, Interference with Law Enforcement, Possession of Marijuana with the Intent to Distribute, Possession of Felony Drug Paraphernalia, Following too Closely and Unsafe Lane Change.

The passengers including Antonio Deshawn Eddins 30, and Sharon Alphuis, 18, both of Louisville, Kentucky were arrested on suspicion of Aggravated Child Endangerment, Interference with Law Enforcement, Possession of Marijuana with the Intent to Distribute and Possession of Felony Drug Paraphernalia.

There were no injuries.

 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Gov. Laura Kelly has declared an end to an emergency at the state’s most-crowded prison that had officers there scheduled for 12-hours shifts.

The Department of Corrections said Monday that it expects the El Dorado Correctional Facility to return to a regular schedule of five, eight-hour days a week for officers in early October.

Kelly declared the emergency in February to allow the prison about 30 miles east of Wichita to schedule officers for four, 12-hour shifts a week. The prison houses more than 1,950 inmates.

The department said the number of vacancies among uniformed officers dropped to 50 in late July from 75 in mid-June. It attributed the decline to increased funding for higher wages that boosted starting pay to $18.26 an hour from $15.75.

RENO COUNTY — A Kansas man was sent to prison for threatening to kill his ex-wife and daughter and trying to burn down the couple’s house before it could be sold in a divorce settlement.

Kerry Getz, 65, Hutchinson, was sentenced Friday to 3½ years in prison, followed by five years of probation. He also was ordered to have no contact with his wife and daughter.

Getz was arrested in July 2017, for arson and interference with law enforcement. Authorities said he set his home on fire and blocked the driveway so firefighters couldn’t reach the property. At other times he threatened to kill his ex-wife and daughter.

In July 2016, Getz was sentenced to probation for an attack on a utility company sub-contractor who was at the Getz home replacing electrical meters.

Getz spent several months at Larned State Hospital but eventually was returned to Reno County, where was he was found guilty of arson and criminal threat.

The AP contributed to this report.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ child welfare agency has drafted guidelines urging foster parents to allow LGBTQ kids in their care to “express themselves as they see themselves,” riling conservatives a little more than a year after the state granted legal protections to faith-based adoption agencies that do not place children in LGBTQ homes.

The Department for Children and Families issued draft “guidance”for “prudent parenting” in mid-July, six months after Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly took office. It said foster homes should recognize LGBTQ children “by their preferred identity if it differs from their sex assigned at birth.”

Conservatives read the document as a policy directive for reshaping foster families’ lives and an attempt to skirt a 2018 lawthat Kelly doesn’t like for protecting faith-based adoption agencies. It’s a sharp break in tone with that law, which prevents the state from barring agencies from providing services if they refuse to place children in homes violating their religious beliefs.

The department’s move drives home the difference Kelly’s election last year made on hot-button social issues. Her administration followed eight years of conservative Republican control in a state that still has a GOP-dominated Legislature and a Republican Party with a platform declaring, “We believe God created two genders, male and female.”

“It’s going to continue pushing this envelope,” said Kansas House Majority Leader Dan Hawkins, a conservative Wichita Republican, who worried in a recent newsletter about the department pursuing a “social experiment.”

The department presented the first draft of its guidelines during a quarterly meeting with private agencies that place abused and neglected children in foster and adoptive homes.

State officials said a final version could be ready later this month and won’t be formal policy or regulations, just principles for placement agencies and foster families. As such, they wouldn’t be subject to outside review — though Hawkins and other conservatives are considering legislative hearings.

Department officials said their first draft was a response to questions that private agencies passed along from foster parents who want to support LGBTQ youth. They said they’re picking up on best practices from other states and national groups.

“The fact of wanting children we’re caring for to feel safe and welcome in their foster homes just shouldn’t be a controversial issue to anybody,” Laura Howard, the department’s top administrator, said in a recent interview.

But Kelly’s views on LGBTQ rights already had conservatives on edge. Kansas said in June that it would allow transgender people to change their birth certificates to reflect their gender identities. Under Republican Gov. Sam Brownback, the state had some of the nation’s toughest rules for making such changes.

Kelly also said before taking office that she would try to avoid enforcing last year’s adoption law if she could. Conservatives link that stance and the department’s new guidance, though its officials say there is none.

“It looks like an end-run around the adoption-protection act,” said Chuck Weber, director of the Kansas Catholic Conference.

The department’s guidance says foster children have the right to wear clothing and hairstyles “that suit their gender identity” and that refusing to use their preferred pronouns “can endanger their physical and emotional well-being.”

Within days, the conservative Family Policy Alliance of Kansas criticized the guidance publicly as imposing an “invasive sexual agenda.” The first draft of the guidance included a “Q&A” discussion about transgender foster youth sharing rooms with other children and having sleepovers.

State Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook, a conservative Kansas City-area Republican, said the guidelines endanger safety. For example, she said, the first draft tells foster parents that if space in their home is limited, a “biological boy” teenager can share a bedroom with a teenage girl.

Pilcher-Cook said both the foster parents and a child’s birth parents — who still might have parental rights — might object to the guidelines.

“It’s a problem when government takes such a heavy hand to coerce people to live out beliefs that they don’t embrace,” Pilcher-Cook said.

A later draft of the department’s guidance on its official letterhead dropped the Q&A section because, Howard said, “it’s really difficult to sort of script any particular situation.” Both drafts said case workers should ensure all children in a foster home are comfortable with the living arrangements.

The guidelines’ defenders said the state and placement agencies don’t require foster parents to take particular children and that the agencies work through issues before a placement. If issues arise after a placement, the agencies would attempt to work through them with families individually, rather than apply the guidelines as rules, they said.

And, they said, the goal always is to find foster homes that best fit children already traumatized by abuse or neglect.

“What it really boils down to is, we’re not going to be putting these kids in a hostile environment,” said Tom Witt, executive director of the LGBTQ-rights group Equality Kansas.

___

HUTCHINSON — A former South Hutchinson priest was granted probation for stealing from a local church.

Reno County District Judge Trish Rose sentenced 51-year-old Juan Garza-Gonzalez to five months in prison, but granted a one-year probation for felony theft.

Reno County Sheriff’s Office detectives determined nearly $14,000 was missing from the church.

He had been the priest at Our Lady of Guadalupe in South Hutchinson since June of 2018, but was removed after the investigation began earlier this year.

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. (AP) — Military authorities have released the name of a sailor who was fatally shot by security personnel at a Navy base in Virginia after a traffic stop.

Navy officials on Monday identified the sailor as 25-year-old Juan Gerardo Medina-Reynaga.

Medina-Reynaga was a native of Kansas assigned to USS George H.W. Bush.

Investigators say security personnel stopped a 2016 Dodge Charger that was being driven erratically on the Virginia Beach military base Friday night.

Officials say Medina-Reynaga sped away from the traffic stop, hitting a gas pump while trying to avoid an automatic barrier.

Medina-Reynaga then led security officers on a foot chase that ended in a struggle. Officials say he was shot after assaulting security personnel and trying to take a weapon from a security officer.

TOPEKA – Back to school means back to homework and the State Library of Kansas is ready to help. New five-year contracts for online resources went into effect on August 1, 2019. The State Library is pleased to provide access to more than 60 online databases to all Kansans at no charge. All Kansans can access these resources online at https://kslib.info or via their local library’s website.

“We’re excited to maintain subscriptions to resources that our patrons and Kansas libraries have come to expect, while also adding several new topic areas and key collections,” said State Librarian Eric Norris. “Kansas students now have a wider variety of resources to help them with their research needs.”

These new resources provide Kansas residents and students with reliable, high-quality content that supports education, lifelong learning, and personal enrichment.

Resources now available:

Issues & Controversies helps student researchers understand today’s crucial issues by exploring hundreds of hot topics. The in-depth articles present both sides of each issue clearly and without bias, supported by primary sources, statistics, audio content, and breaking news.

The Mailbox® School and District Edition is a teacher-created, editor-reviewed resource that offers unlimited access to worksheets, crafts, forms, songs, games, graphic organizers, and more for prekindergarten to sixth grade.

World News Digest has been a go-to resource for context and background on key issues of both historical events and breaking news. Highlights include an editorial newsfeed featuring current U.S. and international newspaper editorials and a collection of historical video footage.

The World Almanac is a classic reference tool. With age-specific resources, users can choose the right resources for their needs. The Kids edition provides resources for homework, reports, and projects as well as support material for teachers. The Kids Elementary edition is aimed at intermediate-level students.

Bloom’s Literature offers complete, yet curated, coverage of the most-studied authors and works—with a wide range of reference essays and scholarly criticism, full-length videos of classic plays, the full contents of classic works of literature, suggested essay topics, and more.

Ferguson’s Career Guidance Center’s unprecedented depth of coverage is organized into three main sections—Industries and Careers, Plan Your Education, and Launch Your Career—with industry and professions articles, school planning resources, and other valuable material.

Read It! is designed for middle and high school students and adults who have a basic foundation in English grammar and reading, but need adapted reading material for a variety of subjects. It offers resources to build background knowledge, conduct research, and improve study skills.

Health Reference Center includes comprehensive, in-depth coverage of body systems, current health issues, major diseases and conditions, treatments, and procedures, as well as health and nutrition information.

US Newsstream provides more than 1,000 national and regional news sources from the U.S. and includes popular titles such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times, Newsday, and Chicago Tribune.

Fold3 is a resource for genealogists, historians, veterans, and their families. It provides access to US military records, including stories, photos, and personal documents of those who served. Content begins with the Revolutionary War and continues to the present.

To access all databases provided by the State Library of Kansas, visit https://kslib.info/databases.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A new report says dozens of complaints about Kansas Medicaid fraud went to a government email account that no one checked.

The state attorney general released findings on Monday that show more than 200 emails were left unread.

The attorney general’s office found 42 of the unread emails contained at least partially substantiated claims of waste, fraud or abuse that weren’t checked out.

The newspaper reports that the issue comes after state lawmakers in 2017 voted to move a long-vacant Medicaid watchdog position from the state health department to the attorney general’s office.

From August 2017 to January 2019, emails went to a defunct account that no one monitored.