SALINE COUNTY — Two people were injured in an accident just after 2p.m. Monday in Saline County.

A 1997 Ford Ranger driven by Jared Oehlert, 30, Salina, was traveling in the 6500 Block of South Woodward, according to Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan.

The driver lost control of the pickup. It left the road, rolled and a passenger Dylan Stevens 26, Salina, was ejected.

Oehlert and Stevens were transported to the hospital in Salina.  Stevens was later transferred to a hospital in Wichita. Speed was believed to be a factor in the accident and the occupants were not wearing seat belts, according to Soldan.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say two people have been critically injured in a Wichita house fire.

Sedgwick County dispatchers say the fire was reported around 4:40 a.m. Tuesday. The Wichita Fire Department said in a tweet that emergency crews are treating multiple patients and that two of them are critical.

EMS treating multiple patients at 3400 N Park Pl house fire. Two patients are critical. Fire is under control. #icttraffic #ictfire https://t.co/HxHZO3GiLp

— WichitaFireDept (@WichitaFireDept) April 16, 2019

The blaze is under control. No information has been released about what caused the fire or where it started.

By BRENT MARTIN
St. Joseph Post

A state senator representing northwest Missouri will be part of a panel reviewing whether a “hyperloop” between Kansas City and St. Louis is feasible.

Senator Tony Luetkemeyer of Parkville has been appointed to serve on the Blue Ribbon Panel on Hyperloop.

“This is new, cutting-edge technology,” Luetkemeyer tells St. Joseph Post. “Missouri, if we were to get the project, would be the first state in the country to have this type of technology deployed. And so, I’m excited to get to explore the issue further and to be part of that process.”

The so-called hyperloop is a different type of transportation. Passengers would ride in pods enclosed in a tube levitating along a magnetically-charged rail at amazing speeds along I-70, perhaps as fast as 700 miles an hour.

The company Virgin Hyperloop One is testing the technology in Nevada.

Missouri is being considered, because I-70 between Kansas City and St. Louis is relatively flat and the I-70 corridor has enough right of way access to build the hyperloop.

Several questions must be answered before Luetkemeyer gives his endorsement, with the state senator stating safety is his top concern, closely followed by security. He says a hyperloop would immediately become a prime target for terrorists.

Also, Luetkemeyer wants to explore the economic feasibility of the proposal by Virgin Hyperloop One.

“What is it that they are wanting in order to come to Missouri?” Luetkemeyer asks. “Will there be a sufficient economic benefit to the state to justify any types of incentive programs that they might need in order to pick Missouri?”

Luetkemeyer cautions against dismissing the concept as science fiction.

“You think back in the mid-1960s, we were sending a man to the moon,” Luetkemeyer points out. “The notion that we went from where we were technologically to having a man on the moon in a relatively short period of time, that seemed very fanciful and something that was out of fantasy, but we obviously made that a reality.”

By JOHN HANNA 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Lawyers for Kansas told the state Supreme Court on Monday that it should sign off on a new law boosting spending on public schools and end a protracted education funding lawsuit partly because the law has broad, bipartisan support.

Attorney General Derek Schmidt, a Republican, filed written legal arguments defending the new law. It contains Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s proposal for an education funding increase of roughly $90 million a year and is aimed at satisfying a state Supreme Court ruling last year that education funding remained inadequate.

Four school districts sued the state in 2010, and their attorneys have said that the new law does not provide enough additional funding after the 2019-20 school year. Schmidt said the districts are seeking a “heckler’s veto” after Kelly, many Republican lawmakers and the GOP-led State Board of Education agreed that the increase she sought would satisfy the court.

“This court should give great weight to the considered decisions of both the education officials and the people’s representatives,” Schmidt’s written argument said. “That is particularly true here given the widespread, bipartisan consensus.”

Attorneys for the four school districts asked in their own filing for the Supreme Court to order higher spending after the 2019-20 school year, give legislators another year to comply and keep the case open so that the state’s actions can be monitored.

“The state cannot demonstrate it has met its burden,” they wrote.

The Supreme Court plans to hear oral arguments from both sides’ attorneys May 9 and has promised to rule on whether the new law is sufficient by June 30. The justices have ruled repeatedly that the state constitution requires lawmakers to fund a suitable education for every child.

The high court has issued six rulings directing lawmakers to increase education funding in a little more than five years, so that it now tops $4 billion a year. The court declared last year that a 2018 law promising funding increases into the future wasn’t sufficient because it hadn’t accounted for inflation.

The four school districts argued that accounting for inflation is a straightforward math problem that requires increasingly larger amounts of money each year through the 2022-23 school year. Under their calculations, the increase for that year would be $363 million instead of the roughly $90 million under the new law.

“While the state has increased funding to account for some inflation, it has not completed the plan,” the school districts’ attorneys wrote.

Schmidt’s filing argues that given that the new law represents the consensus of “just about every other stakeholder” in the education funding debate, the court should not declare the law insufficient simply because some districts “will always want more money.” The four districts are part of a coalition that initially endorsed Kelly’s plan , then withdrew its backing.

“They should not be allowed to single-handedly override the governor’s and Legislature’s reasonable and considered funding determinations,” Schmidt wrote, adding that the law was passed “in light of the many competing demands on limited state funds.”

Kelly’s chief counsel also filed a request Monday with the Supreme Court, asking for permission to file “friend of the court” arguments by April 26. Her attorney argued that as a former state senator “intimately familiar” with school funding issues, she has a “unique” perspective on the law now that she is governor.