DENVER (AP) — Authorities in southwestern Colorado are searching for a man who went missing after his raft overturned in the Rio Grande River.

Mineral County sheriff’s spokeswoman Stasha Rice tells The Denver Post that 33-year-old Zach Jones of Creede went missing at 12:40 p.m. Thursday. She says he was on a raft with two other people who are safe.

Thursday was the first day the river was open to boaters after having been closed due to dangerous conditions. Still, Rice says officials suggested only experienced boaters take to the water and that they use extra caution.

The river was closed to boating on Friday as the search continued.

Searchers in rafts and on the banks of the river were aided by drones.

By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ highest court ruled Friday that cities can raise the age for buying tobacco products even though state law sets it at 18, bolstering a public health movement driven in part by concerns about teenagers’ use of e-cigarettes.

The state Supreme Court’s unanimous decision allows the city of Topeka to enforce an ordinance setting the age to buy tobacco products, e-cigarettes or liquid nicotine at 21. A company operating two local businesses, Vapebar Topeka and Puffs ‘n’ Stuff, sued just before the ordinance took effect in January 2018, and a lower-court judge blocked it.

The ruling had broader implications because 19 other Kansas cities have raised the age for buying tobacco to 21, and five counties have done so in areas outside cities.

More than 470 cities and counties in 29 states have raised the age to 21, as have 17 states, according to Tobacco 21, a national group promoting the higher age as a way to reduce smoking and e-cigarette use among young people. Also, the U.S. Senate is considering bipartisan legislation to raise the age nationally to 21.

“What people understand is that their kids are getting addicted and they have to do something,” said Dr. Rob Crane, president of Tobacco 21.

In Kansas, the state constitution gives cities “home rule” power, allowing them to set policies locally on a wide variety of issues, even if the state has laws on them. The exceptions are when a state law bars cities from acting or when a local ordinance conflicts with a state law.

The local businesses argued that by setting the age for buying tobacco products at 18, the state law implied that cities cannot go higher. They also argued that the Topeka ordinance conflicted with the state law.

But, writing for the court, Justice Caleb Stegall said raising the age for buying tobacco products “merely enlarges” on the state law, without creating a conflict. Also, he wrote, nothing in the law expressly forbids cities from acting.

Tuck Duncan, the attorney for the local businesses, said the ruling still allows another challenge on other grounds, such as a claim that the city did not adequately document the public health problems used to justify its ordinance. But he said businesses ultimately could face “a patchwork quilt” of rules — and not just on selling tobacco products.

“This is a huge barn door being opened for municipal governments to modify a whole raft of laws,” Duncan said. “What’s to say that the city of Topeka can’t have its own ordinances now, licensing physicians?”

Duncan also questioned the effectiveness of the ordinance in preventing sales of tobacco products to 18-, 19- and 20-year-olds.

“They’ll just go someplace else to buy it,” he said.

Still, Craig Barnes, a Shawnee County Health Department official who serves on the Tobacco Free Kansas Coalition’s board, said he was “ecstatic” about the ruling. Barnes said almost all high school seniors turn 18 before graduating, and allowing them to buy tobacco products legally makes it more likely younger students will gain access to them.

“Our hope is to dramatically decrease the number of youth who ultimately get started using tobacco products at a younger age,” Barnes said. “That leads to that lifelong addiction.”

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Flood-damaged levees and other infrastructure along the Platte and Missouri Rivers will cost far in excess of $1 billion to repair, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The first 61 of 108 projects deemed eligible for federal funding will cost $1 billion, Corps spokesman Matt Rabe told the Omaha World-Herald. The Corps has received more than 150 project applications, and more are expected to roll in.

Nearly 850 river miles were damaged when two rounds of massive floods devastated huge swaths of the Midwest this spring. Resulting problems include complete breaches in levees, deep scour holes, erosion to the armoring of the river banks and toppling of in-stream dikes that direct the water’s flow. The Corps counted more than 100 levee breaches between Omaha and St. Louis, with only a handful repaired so far.

Officials expect the repairs to take several years.

The Corps and special disaster aid will fund the repairs, Rabe said. He noted it’s unclear if there will be enough money to cover all repair costs. Taxpayers can expect to bear some of the hefty price tag.

The Corps lowered releases from Gavins Point Dam on the Missouri River by 5,000 cubic feet per second to 70,000 cubic feet per second on Thursday. Now, there will be less water flowing downstream of the dam on the Nebraska-South Dakota border.

Contingent on the weather, the lower releases should allow the river to drop about 6 inches at most sites south of Omaha, the National Weather Service predicted. The Platte River empties into the Missouri south of Omaha.

SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are asking the public for help to find a missing Kansas woman.

Connie M. Horne, 77, was last seen on May 27 at the Dollar Tree on North Topeka Boulevard, according to Shawnee County Deputy Shayna Anderson.

Horne is described as 5-foot -3 and weighs approximately 130 pounds. She has short gray hair and blue eyes. . Anyone with information is asked to call Detective Emily Adams at 785-251-2316.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri commissioner on Friday ruled that the state’s only abortion clinic can continue providing the service at least until August as a fight over its license plays out, adding that there’s a “likelihood” that the clinic will succeed in the dispute.

Administrative Hearing Commissioner Sreenivasa Rao Dandamudi granted what’s called a “stay,” which will allow the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic to continue providing abortions past Friday.

The state health department last week refused to renew the clinic’s license, but a St. Louis judge issued a court order allowing the procedure to continue through Friday.

St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Michael Stelzer wrote in his ruling that the order would give Planned Parenthood time to take their case to the Administrative Hearing Commission, where Stelzer said the licensing fight must begin.

The Administrative Hearing Commission scheduled a hearing on whether the state was right to not renew the license Aug. 1 in St. Louis.

The state has said concerns about the clinic arose from inspections in March. Among the problems health department investigators have cited were three “failed abortions” requiring additional surgeries and another that led to life-threatening complications for the mother, The Associated Press previously reported , citing a now-sealed court filing.

The Department of Health and Senior Services wants to interview physicians involved in those abortions, including medical residents who no longer work there. Planned Parenthood has said it can’t force them to talk.

The interviews are a major sticking point in the fight over the clinic’s license, and attorneys for the health department wrote in legal filings to the commission that physicians’ refusal to talk “presents the final, critical obstacle.”

But Dandamudi wrote that the physicians’ stonewalling “in itself does not constitute a failure to comply with licensure requirements.”

“Because DHSS relies substantially on the lack of these interviews as grounds for denial, we find there is a likelihood that Petitioner will succeed in its claim,” Dandamudi wrote in his order granting a stay, referring to the clinic and its effort to stay open.

Planned Parenthood has said Missouri is using the licensing process as a weapon aimed at halting abortions.

The fate of the clinic has drawn national attention because Missouri would become the first state since 1974, the year after the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision, without a functioning abortion clinic if it loses its license. The battle also comes as abortion rights supporters raise concerns that conservative-led states, including Missouri, are attempting to end abortion through tough new laws and tighter regulation.

Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed legislation on May 24 to ban abortions at or beyond eight weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest.

The number of abortions performed in Missouri has declined every year over the past decade, but uncertainty in Missouri is sending women to neighboring states, particularly Illinois and Kansas.

Missouri health department statistics show that abortions in Missouri reached a low of 2,910 last year. Of those, an estimated 1,210 occurred at eight weeks or less of pregnancy.

The Hope Clinic in Granite City, Illinois, 10 miles (16 kilometers) from St. Louis, has seen a big increase in Missouri clients since 2017, said Alison Dreith, the clinic’s deputy director. That year, Missouri adopted a more restrictive abortion law, including giving the attorney general power to prosecute violations.

Dreith said about 55 percent of patients at Hope Clinic are from Missouri, 40 percent from Illinois and 5 percent from elsewhere around the country. The clinic attracts clients from across the U.S. in part because Illinois allows the procedure for up to 24 weeks of pregnancy, longer than most states, she said.

The Granite City clinic saw about 3,000 total patients in 2017. Missouri’s more restrictive law played a big role in the number spiking to 3,800 in 2018, Dreith said.

This year, she expects well over 4,000 patients. So far in 2019, the number of Missourians at the Hope Clinic has spiked 30 percent due to concerns about the St. Louis clinic’s license and other anti-abortion efforts, Dreith said.

“Our patients are calling us with a lot of anxiety because they’re seeing the headlines that abortion is banned,” Dreith said.

Information from the state of Kansas shows that about 3,300 of the 7,000 abortions performed there last year involved Missouri residents, meaning that more Missourians get abortions in Kansas than in their home state. Kansas has an abortion clinic in Overland Park, a Kansas City suburb just 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the state line.

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By DEWEY TERRILL
Junction City Post

GEARY COUNTY — Former Geary County Sheriff Tony Wolf has been placed on 12 months probation and ordered to pay restitution totaling $2,200 plus costs and fees. That was the controlling sentence handed down in Geary County District Court on Friday morning for Wolf, who in April. pleaded no contest and was found guilty of one felony count of Theft, and a misdemeanor charge of Misuse of Public Funds, according to a media release.

Wolf submitted his resignation from the sheriff’s post in April following his convictions.

In District Court on Friday the court followed the recommendation of the attorneys and the plea agreement in the case, and sentenced Wolf to 12 months probation on each count. But they are to run concurrently, meaning 12 months is the controlling term.

Wolf stated in court, “I’m sorry. This is tough, this is real tough,” and he apologized. Wolf was remorseful, “I’m sorry this had to work out this way,” and also told the community that he was sorry.

According to the factual basis outlined in court in April, Wolf authorized an expense of $530.00 against a county credit card to purchase tires for a friend’s vehicle but initially claimed it was a payment to a confidential informat for drug information, which was false. Later he admitted to a KBI agent that the tires were purchase for a friend. Those funds were credited by the vendor back to the credit card and Wolf later paid the vendor.

In the second case Wolf used state asset forfeiture funds to purchase items ranging from weapons and ammunition to a scope. Wolf turned in a list on that, but it did not include six items including a scope. He will make the $2,200 restitution in that case.

As a result of his felony conviction Wolf cannot own, use or possess a firearm for five years.