TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas would make it illegal to distribute images or videos of nude adults without their consent under a bill the state House has overwhelmingly approved.
The House’s vote Monday was 113-11 in favor of the measure, which is aimed at deterring an online phenomenon known as “revenge porn.” The bill goes next to the Senate. Democratic Rep. Sydney Carlin of Manhattan and Republican Rep. Stephanie Clayton of Overland Park introduced bills last session to deter the online phenomenon of “revenge porn.
The measure would make it a felony to illegally disseminate nude images of an adult. While a first offense typically would be punished by putting the defendant on 18 months’ probation, a second conviction within five years could result in up to three years and seven months in prison.
It’s already illegal to use compromising pictures for blackmail, but it’s not against the law to disseminate pictures taken during an intimate relationship without another’s consent.
HUTCHINSON – Law enforcement authorities in Reno County are investigating a Kansas man for alleged kidnapping, burglary and battery.
Michael Meeks, 46, Hutchinson, was arrested just after 10:30 a.m. Sunday for allegedly entering a home in the 300 block of West 14th Street in Hutchinson and battering three residents.
Sheriff’s deputies say Michael Meeks, 46, is alleged to have battered two of victims by choking them.
He was also alleged to have forced one of the home’s residents into his truck and took her to the Wichita area.
Sedgwick County Sheriff Deputies allegedly found him at a residence in Haysville according to statements made in court.
Meeks faces potential charges of aggravated kidnapping, three counts of aggravated burglary, battery and battery-domestic violence.
He has prior convictions for two counts of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, criminal restraint in a case from 2012.
He also has prior convictions for violation of a protective order and flee and elude for a separate case from 2012
Bond in the new case is set at $137,500 and he is expected back in court on February 29 for the reading of formal charges.
MANHATTAN – Law enforcement authorities in Riley County are investigating a suspect in connection with a fire at a home on 615 Yuma Street on February 13, in Manhattan.
Donnie Hill, 43, Manhattan, was arrested on Saturday
for the offense of arson and theft and given a bond of $5,000.00.
The charge of theft is related to allegations that Hill stole a Bic lighter before the incident.
Emergency crews responded to fire just before 11a.m. on February 13, after an officer with the Riley County Police Department made contact with a 43-year-old man who had sustained a significant cut to his arm and was bleeding profusely.
He was transported to Via Christi Hospital for his injuries, according to a media release.
Immediately after making contact with the man, officers observed smoke coming from the home.
The house value is listed as $95,000 but no damage estimate has been released.
SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are now involved with an investigation in the alleged assault on a Great Bend High School Activity bus.
Investigators from the Saline County Sheriff’s Office traveled to Great Bend Monday to conduct interviews in connection with an alleged sexual assault that took place in Saline County
involving the Great Bend High School swim team.
Sheriff’s Captain Roger Soldan said a 15-year-old boy with a parent came to Salina Saturday to report a sexual assault that allegedly took place on a bus after it left Salina on February 3rd, following a swim meet at Salina South High School.
Soldan said the assault reportedly occurred about 10 minutes after the team left a Salina restaurant where the team stopped for a meal following the swim meet.
The victim said another member of the team sexually assaulted him.
This incident occurred before a freshman swimmer reported being assaulted by upperclassmen on the swim team February 6th coming back from a meet in Manhattan. That assault is alleged to have occurred in Ellsworth County.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas House has rejected a measure aimed at calling a convention of the states to propose changes in the U.S. constitution.
The vote Monday was 77-47 for a resolution pushed by conservative Republicans unhappy with the federal government’s reach. But supporters needed a two-thirds majority of 84 votes in the 125-member chamber.
Supporters said a convention could propose ideas for lessening the federal government’s power. The resolution decried the federal debt.
Critics questioned whether a convention’s scope could be limited.
The U.S. Constitution says Congress must call a convention if it gets applications from two-thirds of the states, or 34.
Any proposal approved by such a convention must be ratified by legislators in three-quarters of the states, or 38.
Lawmakers in five other states have approved the same resolution.
NEW YORK (AP) — Starbucks is changing the terms of its rewards program so that people who just get a regular cup of coffee will have to spend significantly more to earn a freebie.
The Seattle-based coffee chain says its loyalty program will award stars based on the dollars spent starting in April. Currently, people earn a star for each transaction, regardless of how much they spend, and get a free food or item of their choice after earning 12 stars.
People will now have to earn 125 stars for a free item, with each dollar spent being worth two stars — meaning they have to spend $62.50 to get their free item. That means that people who now spend around $5 or less per visit are losing out.
For instance, someone who regularly gets a $2 regular drip coffee would currently earn a free item after spending around $24 over 12 visits. Someone who gets a large latte for $4.45 currently spends around $53.40 over a dozen visits before getting a free item.
Still, Starbucks Corp. says the change is the No. 1 request among loyalty program members and predicts it will lead to higher spending by customers eager to earn more stars.
In a call with analysts, Starbucks Chief Strategy Officer Matthew Ryan said the vast majority of customers will earn rewards at an equal or better rate with the change. Without providing details, he said a “small minority” of customers will earn rewards at a slower pace.
The change is not an opportunity to “opaquely reduce” the value of the program, Ryan said.
The current rewards system can also increase waiting times in store lines, Ryan said, because some people try to get additional stars by asking to ring up multiple items separately. Such instances account for 1 percent of all transactions, he said.
The change comes as Starbucks has been pushing to get more people signed up for its My Starbucks Rewards program. Loyalty members spend three times as much as non-members, and help push up profit, according to the company.
Last month, Starbucks said it had 11.1 million loyalty program members in the U.S., up 23 percent from the previous year.
The coming change will not benefit customers such as Vincent Fiorese, who works in construction management and spends less than $3 on a cup of coffee whenever he goes to work. But Fiorese said it wouldn’t deter him from getting his coffee.
TOPEKA – Lawmakers are debating a bill that would give the state more authority to monitor refugee resettlement in Kansas.
Rep. Tony Barton, R-Leavenworth, and Christopher Holton, vice president for outreach for the Center for Security Policy, spoke last week to the House Federal and State Affairs Committee in support of House Bill 2612, which would:
Create a state office for refugees within the Department for Children and Families (DCF).
Require the governor to appoint a state refugee coordinator.
Require that state coordinator meet with local agencies to plan and coordinate resettlement of refugees.
Allow local governments to submit applications for a moratorium on new refugee
resettlements in communities that “lack sufficient absorptive capacity.”
Allow the governor to suspend resettlement activity for up to a year if it’s determined the community doesn’t have the capacity (education, health care, law enforcement) to handle an influx of new refugees.
Allow the Kansas Bureau of Investigation to look into crimes committed by and against refugees.
Create a state database on refugee resettlement and share data with law enforcement.
“There is no adequate vetting process to determine if these refugees are a danger to our citizens. In some cases there are no records and no way to know who the refugees are,” Barton told the committee.
The bill includes the assurance that refugees are not placed or resettled in an area that may not be able to accommodate them, said Holton, whose organization is based in Washington, D.C., and promotes public policy on national security.
The bill would require the federal government to communicate with local refugee settlement agencies and with state and local governments.
“Clearly, the federal government has not been sufficiently consulting with state and local governments regarding the resettlement of refugees, as evidenced by recent executive orders and lawsuits by state leaders,” Holton said.
Part of Barton’s case for the bill includes an article from CNN with a statement from the Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.
“Clapper warned that ISIS and its eight branches were the Number 1 terrorist threat, and that it was using refugee exodus from violence in Iraq and Syria to hide among innocent civilians in order to reach other countries,” Barton said.
However, Ken Williams, president and CEO of Catholic Charities of Northeast Kansas, opposes the bill because he says the specific idea of establishing a temporary ban on new refugee resettlement activities is impractical in certain communities.
“Imagine being forced to flee your country for fear of being tormented or even killed because of who you are and what you believe,” Williams said in written testimony presented to the committee.
In his statement, Williams said the goal of resettlement is to educate refugees to become self-sufficient in order to lead better lives. If enacted, the bill could make the resettlement process more complicated.
The issue of refugee resettlement and its impact on national security has been a concern for some state governments.
Gov. Sam Brownback has signed two recent executive orders on refugee resettlement. In 2015, the governor issued an executive order forbidding state agencies from assisting in the resettlement of Syrian refugees to Kansas. In January, he issued a second executive ordering to prevent state departments and agencies from assisting with the relocation of “refugees that present a safety and security risk to the state of Kansas, until such time as an adequate vetting process is in place with adequate assurances to the state.”
Paige Nachtigel-Photo Harvey Co.Jim Nachtigel-Photo Harvey County
NORTH NEWTON, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas police chief investigating a child torture case involving three adopted Peruvian children is alleging that “somewhere, some time, the system broke down.”
The Wichita Eagle reports that North Newton police chief Randy Jordan says he’s trying to find out what happened. He says state welfare officials received around a dozen reports before the adoptive parents, Jim and Paige Nachtigal, were charged last week with three counts each of child abuse. But Jordan says none were forwarded to his department for further investigation. Some of the reports were from 2014.
State welfare officials have declined to discuss the specifics of the case.
Jordan says one possible source of information in the case will be post-adoptions reports. It wasn’t immediately clear if the Nachtigals have an attorney.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita police say a 65-year-old man was tied up by two other men during a residential robbery in west Wichita.
According to Wichita Police Department Sgt. Joe Kennedy, the robbery happened shortly after 9:30 a.m. Sunday. Police say the man reported that two suspects pointed a handgun at him and told him to sit down before both suspects tied him up. Police say the suspects went through the home, took small two safes and $100, and then left.
The man was able to untie himself and call police. Kennedy said the man was not injured.
Crews work a Sunday fire in Harvey County- photo Newton police
HARVEY COUNTY – Fire officials in Harvey County reminded residents that
hazardous fire conditions continue to impact the area as dry conditions persist throughout the region, according to a social media report from Newton Police.
On Sunday Newton Fire and Emergency Medical Service along with mutual aid partners from Sedgwick Co. Fire and Sedgwick Fire/EMS, worked together to make a quick stop on a grass fire near Kansas 96 and of Interstate135.
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senators Pat Roberts on Monday responded to reports that the administration will present Congress on Tuesday with a plan to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility and relocate the remaining terrorists held there to a location on the mainland United States.
“Congress passed a law in November explicitly barring the transfer of Guantanamo prisoners to domestic soil,” the senators said. “Military leaders have repeatedly said they will not break the law to close the facility and relocate its prisoners on the mainland, which would be yet another of the administration’s misguided national security decisions. With ever-growing threats abroad and our increased efforts to combat ISIS, we need a place to house these terrorists, and that place is not in our communities, nor back on the battlefield.”
“This plan is expected to present the options for the relocation of Guantanamo, but regardless of whether it is Kansas, South Carolina, or Colorado, none of these options are acceptable. Our states and our communities remain opposed to moving the world’s deadliest terrorists to U.S. soil. The terrorists at Guantanamo Bay are where they should remain – at Guantanamo Bay.”
Sens. Roberts, Scott and Gardner have been outspoken opponents of President Obama’s intentions to close Guantanamo Bay. They have stated concerns with the 30 percent recidivism rate among released detainees, the hundreds of millions of dollars it will cost to construct a new facility, and the fact that opening domestic facility would place a bullseye for acts of terror on an American community. Sites in South Carolina, Kansas, and Colorado have been surveyed as potential replacements for Guantanamo.
ELLSWORTH – Law enforcement authorities in Ellsworth County continue to investigate the alleged sexual assault by members of the Great Bend High School swim team on a school activity bus.
The Barton County community wants to know what investigators believe happened.
A mother of a freshman swimmer said her son was sexually assaulted by upperclassmen on the swim team on their way back from a swim meet in Manhattan on February 6.
The town of Great Bend has been in an uproar since the story reached the media.
Ellsworth County Sheriff Tracy Ploutz said at the earliest the investigation will be ready for the County Attorney by Wednesday, February 24. “I am still conducting interviews and have to tie a bunch of it up,” he said.
When asked if he thought the case involved criminal activity, Ploutz had a very quick response. ‘I do,” he said.
USD 428 Superintendent Brad Reed issued a statement last week that said the school district has handled the situation according to their policy and were unsure if any criminal activity took place on the bus.
Reed also sent a letter to all swim team parents last Friday warning them of media outlets potentially contacting them for questioning after requesting swim team rosters from the district.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say one person has died in a fire that was contained to a single unit of a seven-floor Wichita apartment building.
Wichita fire marshal Brad Crisp said a resident called Sunday afternoon to report that his apartment at Shadyway Plaza Towers was on fire. The Wichita Eagle reports that a 70-year-old man was found dead inside the apartment. Another person who was found suffering from smoke inhalation is in stable condition at a Wichita hospital.
The fire was contained to the living room space of the one-bedroom apartment. Shadyway Plaza Towers has 20 apartments on each of its seven floors.
The cause of the fire is under investigation. No other information was immediately available, including the name of the victim.
