SALINE COUNTY – A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 6:30p.m. on Saturday.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2003 Harley Davidson driven by William Joseph Russell, Jr., 36, Solomon, was northbound on Interstate135 five miles North of Magnolia Road

The driver attempted to exit onto the onramp to Interstate 70 Eastbound.

The motorcycle left the roadway to the north of the ramp, rolled and the driver was ejected.

Russell was transported to the hospital in Salina.

He was not wearing a helmet, according to the KHP.

HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) — A former Connecticut state correction officer and Army reservist is accused of collecting state wages while serving time in a Kansas military prison.

The Hartford Courant reports Dennis Dockery, of Bloomfield, was arraigned Friday on charges of first-degree larceny by defrauding a public community and second-degree forgery.

Dockery worked at the Enfield Correctional Institution and was commanding officer of the New Haven-based 395th Combat Sustainment Support Battalion.

The 52-year-old was on active duty between April 2009 and October 2012. During that time, he was imprisoned for 17 months for assaulting a woman in Hamden.

Prosecutors allege Dockery forged his military orders so it appeared he was serving at Fort Leavenworth rather than incarcerated, fraudulently receiving $5,182 from the state.

It’s unclear whether Dockery has a lawyer. He’s due back in court Aug. 1.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka woman has been sentenced to life in prison for sexually abusing a child over several years.

Tiffany Seel pleaded guilty April 13 to charges including aggravated indecent liberties by an offender older than 18 when the victim is younger than 14, aggravated indecent liberties with a child 14-15, criminal sodomy with a child and sexual exploitation of a child.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports she was sentenced Friday to life in prison without the possibility of parole for 25 years after admitting to encouraging, facilitating and taking part in the repeated sexual abuse over seven years.

NEW YORK (AP) — The U.S. government is investigating complaints from Harley-Davidson riders who say their motorcycle brakes failed without warning.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says the investigation covers 430,000 motorcycles with model years between 2008 and 2011. The investigation covers motorcycles with an anti-lock braking system.

Riders reported that the brakes on the hand lever and foot pedal did not work, causing one driver to crash into a garage door. The NHTSA say it received 43 complaints, three reports of crashes and two reports of injuries.

The NHTSA says it is possible that some riders who experienced brake failure did not change the motorcycle’s brake fluid every two years as recommended by Harley-Davidson.

Representatives of Milwaukee-based Harley-Davidson Inc. did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday morning.

SHAWNEE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Shawnee County are investigating a suspect in connection with a shooting incident.

Jessie Hughes, 19, Topeka turned himself in to the Law Enforcement Center in Topeka this week, according to a media release. On June 27, police issued an alert asking for help to locate him.

He was arrested and is being held on warrants issued including two counts of Aggravated Battery, two counts of Aggravated Assault, and two counts of Child Endangerment as a result of a May 17, shooting incident on SW 37th Terrace in Topeka.

RENO COUNTY – A Kansas man who entered a plea to a single count of making a criminal threat, while the state dropped all the other charges against him, was granted one year of probation on Friday.

Kerry Getz, 62, had been charged with aggravated assault with a deadly weapon, aggravated battery causing reckless bodily harm and criminal damage to property, but as a part of a plea agreement, the state dropped all the other charges.

On March 17, a sub-contracted employee of Westar Energy was at the Getz home replacing electrical meters on the houses in the area.

Getz became angry and began arguing with the Westar worker, Carter Coulteur who then fled to his truck for safety.

Getz then allegedly followed him in his own vehicle and blocked in the worker.

Another confrontation occurred and Getz allegedly damaged the Westar vehicle and attempted to take property from the truck.

In one of the verbal exchanges, he made the comment to the Westar employee that he had a weapon and may have to use it.

Getz also used his vehicle to run the Westar vehicle off the road.

The employee was able to escape with no injuries.

By MEGAN HART

Funding cuts and changes for children’s programs across the state became a reality at the start of this month — and that means fewer Kansas families will receive some services.

An official with TARC, a Shawnee County organization that serves people with developmental disabilities, said the nonprofit was out of options for administrative cuts in the wake of state funding reductions.

Sherry Lundry, the group’s development director, said TARC had left some nonessential positions vacant.

But that wasn’t enough to make up for the loss of some funding from the Kansas Children’s Cabinet, lower Medicaid reimbursements and an increasing number of young children with developmental delays who have been referred for services, she said. “Our administrative costs have been reduced as much as we can reduce them,” she said. –

With tax revenues repeatedly falling below expectations, Gov. Sam Brownback and other state policymakers reduced spending to balance the budget. They cut $3.3 million from the Children’s Cabinet, shifted Parents as Teachers to a federal funding source with more strings attached and trimmed $56 million from Medicaid by reducing payments to most medical and home and community-based service providers.

In some cases, organizations had only a few weeks to prepare between when cuts were announced and when they took effect July 1.

Lundry said TARC employees are trying to raise additional funds from donors and applying for grants to avoid cutting support services for parents, such as respite care. “We’ve written three or four grants in the past week for help,” she said. “We are going to persevere and do the best we can.”

Fear of setbacks

TARC isn’t the only group coping with reduced funding following cuts to the Children’s Cabinet, which funds children’s programs with the state’s share of the 1998 master settlement agreement with large tobacco companies.

Rich Minder, collaborative projects coordinator for the Success by 6 Coalition of Douglas County, said it reduced the number of early childhood classrooms where it partnered to educate teachers about improving their interactions with students, didn’t fill a position in its partnership to work with homeless parents and will stop offering sensory assessments to some children with special needs.

Parents may have to pay for the assessments, which cost about $500, Minder said. They are used to identify if certain behaviors or tendencies for self-harm are the result of the child being easily over-stimulated or having an unusually high need for stimulation, he said.

The coalition also cut the job of a social and emotional development coach, who works with teachers in early childhood centers to improve classroom management and reduce behavior problems among higher-risk children, Minder said. Success by 6 may have to focus more on slightly older children, in pre-kindergarten classrooms, who are more likely to have established behavior problems, he said.

“In the pre-K years, you’re going to see more need for intervention,” he said. Responding to funding changes isn’t as simple as cutting a line item from a budget, Minder said.

For organizations that have public-private partnerships, losing state support could mean losing other sources of funding as well as wasting effort trying to minimize the cuts, he said.

“That sets everybody back,” he said. “It makes everybody less effective and less efficient.”

The Children’s Cabinet cuts were particularly difficult because they came after years of reductions in funding from the state and other sources, said Pat Hanrahan, president and CEO of United Way of the Plains in Wichita.

The organization distributes its Children’s Cabinet funds to five groups that run eight programs for children. Facing a 14 percent overall budget cut, the groups decided to reduce the number of families they serve from about 500 to around 350, he said.

“The agencies all said there’s no way to absorb it, make it up. It’s pure and simple,” he said. “Somebody’s going to do without.”

Some organizations were able to limit the direct impact of the cuts on children. Craig Cornell, superintendent of Coffeyville USD 445, had feared the cuts would limit the school district’s ability to open and staff its recently completed preschool building.

The district will have existing employees oversee the preschool program’s finances and assessments, and a custodian already on staff will be responsible for the building, he said.

Four County Mental Health, a community mental health center based in Independence, previously provided two case managers and half of a parent educator’s time to work with parents of young children in the Coffeyville district.

Now, Cornell said, a full-time employee from the community mental health center will work in the preschool building. “We’re hopeful, since she’s centrally located, that we won’t lose services,” he said.

“We just hope that there aren’t any more cuts coming up in the future, because if there are any more, it will impact our students.” ‘

On the back burner’

For Parents as Teachers, which offers home visits to teach parents about child development, a funding shift will limit some families’ access to the program.

The state’s decision to use federal funds from the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families, or TANF, program means families must meet certain risk factors.

The federal funds also can’t be used for administrative costs or overhead, such as rent.

Wes Topel, program supervisor for Parents as Teachers in the USD 636 North Central Kansas Special Education Cooperative in Phillipsburg, said its two parent educators will continue to serve four participating families that don’t qualify under TANF, as well as the 26 that do.

But the program may not be able to take non-qualifying families in the future unless funding becomes available, he said.

“We’ll have to tell them if they’re not TANF eligible, we’ll have to put you on the back burner,” he said.

The state typically funds Parents as Teachers services for 8,000 to 9,000 families, according to the Kansas State Department of Education.

An estimated 30,000 Kansas families will qualify for the program, based on their income and their children’s ages.

The Kansas State Department of Education has done a good job sharing information about how the new funding stream will work, Topel said, but he still has some questions, such as how to report costs when a parent educator drives to see both a TANF-eligible and non-TANF family.

Another question is about cash flow, because the federal funds are reimbursed instead of being paid at the beginning of the fiscal year, he said. “How that works, I have no idea,” he said.

“We’ve had to do quite a bit of work just to get ready. Hopefully we’re on the right track.”

Megan Hart is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team. You can reach her on Twitter @meganhartMC

TOPEKA – On Friday, Kansas  filed a federal lawsuit challenging the Obama administration’s unilateral expansion of Title IX to cover gender identity, according to Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

The filing follows through on Schmidt’s announcement last month that Kansas would bring a legal challenge to the federal administration’s threat to withhold funds from schools that do not follow its new “guidance” on the issue.

The lawsuit filed Friday in federal district court in Lincoln is led by Nebraska. In addition to Nebraska and Kansas, the plaintiffs are Arkansas, Michigan, Montana, North Dakota, Ohio, South Carolina, South Dakota and Wyoming. The lawsuit notes that the Kansas State Board of Education voted unanimously not to implement the new federal guidance but instead to leave to local school districts discretion in how to accommodate transgender students.

Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 prohibits discrimination in federally funded education on the basis of sex. The new “guidance” attempts, without an act of Congress, to redefine “on the basis of sex” to cover gender identity in addition to biological sex. In some cases, the new federal “guidance” has been construed to govern the policies used by local school districts in providing bathroom facilities for their students.

A copy of the complaint can be found here

In July, Kansas Highway Patrol troopers will travel to Cleveland to provide assistance to the City of Cleveland and the Ohio State Highway Patrol during the 2016 Republican National Convention, according to a media release.

The convention runs from July 18-21, 2016. The Patrol’s assistance aids in answering an Emergency Management Assistance Compact (EMAC) request for mutual aid.

While in Cleveland, troopers will provide support to federal, state, and local entities as a high visibility deterrent, observing/reporting, and interacting with the public. Kansas is one of several state patrol organizations across the country that will be assisting in Cleveland.

This is not the first time the Kansas Highway Patrol has sent members to assist public safety partners across the nation during critical events. Following Hurricane Katrina, Patrol personnel deployed to various locations in the south to assist local authorities with manpower in affected areas.

EMAC is a national interstate mutual aid agreement that allows states to share resources during times of disaster. EMAC has grown to become the nation’s system for providing mutual aid through operational procedures and protocols that have been validated through experience. EMAC acts as a complement to the federal disaster response system, providing timely and cost-effective relief to states requesting assistance from others who understand the needs of jurisdictions that are struggling to preserve life, the economy, and the environment. EMAC can be used either in lieu of federal assistance or in conjunction with federal assistance, thus providing a “seamless” flow of needed goods and services to an impacted state. EMAC further provides another venue for mitigating resource deficiencies by ensuring maximum use of all available resources within member states’ inventories.

RILEY COUNTY -Following Thursday night’s tragic shooting in Dallas, residents in Manhattan came together outside the Riley County Police Department on Friday to honor and pray for the five police officers who lost their lives.

“Today we mourn with those who mourn,” said Riley County Police Chief Brad Schoen.

“I remind all of those here who work for RCPD to look to your core values to guide what you do and how you react, and how we treat and interact with our local community.”

The impromptu vigil saw a turnout of several dozen local residents and law enforcement officials who shared their thoughts and prayers openly to those in attendance.

“We all have to do our part,” said event coordinator Angela Christian.

She said she hopes similar events can help bring the people of America closer together.

“We can set back and complain, but we have to take action. It’s time to investigate and find out what the real facts are. And the facts are these men and women are here for us,” she said.

“A reminder of who we are as a country. What our constitution means, that we need to stand for what we believe in. Enough is enough.”

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Overland Park police are investigating an online post allegedly made by one of their officers that appears to be threatening a child.

The Kansas City Star reports reports the Facebook post was apparently made by an officer from his personal account after the killing of police officers in Dallas. The post was on the page of a woman who had posted a picture of a small child.

The officer allegedly posted this: “We’ll see how much her life matters soon. Better be careful leaving your info open where she can be found 🙂 Hold her close tonight it’ll be the last time.” See more here

The department said Friday in a statement it’s investigating the post “reportedly made by one of our officer’s” and that the department doesn’t tolerate discrimination or threats.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Another influential agricultural group is backing the Republican primary challenger to U.S. Rep. Tim Huelskamp in the sprawling 1st District of western and central Kansas.

The Kansas Farm Bureau’s political arm, Voters Organized to Elect Farm Bureau Friends, announced Friday its endorsement of Great Bend obstetrician Roger Marshall.

The Kansas Livestock Association has also endorsed Marshall. The two groups did not endorse a candidate when Huelskamp ran for re-election in 2014.

Huelskamp’s campaign did not immediately return phone and email messages.

Huelskamp, a tea party favorite, has been losing support in his mostly rural district since he was removed from the House agricultural committee by his Republican colleagues.

Kansas Farm Bureau president Rich Felts says endorsements are based on county affiliates’ recommendations from across the state.

JASPER COUNTY, MO – Two people died in an accident just after 1a.m. on Friday in Jasper County, Missouri.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 1995 Ford Econoline van driven by Dennis L. Becker, 39, Arma, was eastbound on Interstate 44 two miles west of Carthage.

The van collided with a westbound 2013 GMC Sierra driven by William W. Hummingbird, 34, Buckeye, AZ.

Becker and Hummingbird were pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Woodard Funeral Home in Webb City.

Passengers in the Sierra Michelle M. Hummingbird, 47, and Jasmine M. Mares, 23, both of Buckeye, AZ, were transported to the hospital in Joplin with moderate injuries, according to the MSHP.

Becker was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.