TOPEKA (AP) — The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas has named a Google manager and former U.S. State Department employee as its new executive director.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Nadine Farid Johnson takes over Monday. The ACLU of Kansas has fought legal battles with the state over voting rights issues, the ability of transgender residents to alter their birth certificates and rules restricting protests at the Statehouse.
Former Executive Director Micah Kubic resigned last year to lead the ACLU of Florida.
Johnson has been a manager at Google for two years, overseeing diversity and inclusion initiatives on the company’s Los Angeles campus. She worked for the U.S. State Department from 2011 to 2017 and developed policy on the Middle East and North Africa.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A one-time speechwriter for former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius says she will begin a campaign on Tuesday for an eastern Kansas congressional seat.
The Kansas City Star reports that Democrat Abbie Hodgson will seek the party’s nomination to challenge freshman GOP Rep. Steve Watkins in Kansas’ 2nd Congressional District, which includes Lawrence, Topeka and Leavenworth.
The 37-year-old Hodgson is a former Kansas House Democratic staff member who has spent the past two years working in Washington, D.C., for Pew Charitable Trusts. She has moved back to Kansas and says she will step down from her position with Pew’s State Strategy Group.
Hodgson in 2017 criticized the treatment of women in the Statehouse and revealed that lawmakers relied on underage interns as designated drivers following lobbyist-hosted cocktail hours. Her disclosures were among the events that spurred efforts to reform the Legislature’s sexual harassment policies.
Hodgson, who grew up in Manhattan, Kan., said her campaign will focus on health care, agriculture, trade policy and the financial well-being of Kansans.
“When I talk to voters when I walk down Kansas main streets you don’t get that sense of optimism from people,” she said. “They don’t feel like they have enough money in their savings accounts to weather a crisis.”
The 2nd District has not elected a Democrat since 2006 and is not currently considered a 2020 target for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.
Hodgson said she has met with EMILY’s List, a national group dedicated to electing Democratic women. The organization hasn’t made an endorsement, but spokesman Benjamin Ray said the group is “excited to see a strong candidate like Abbie Hodgson step up.”
Watkins’ spokesman Jim Joice said EMILY’s List promotes an “out-of-touch radical agenda.”
The 42-year-old Watkins defeated former state legislative leader and former candidate for governor Paul Davis last year.
TOPEKA, Kan. — A state-court judge declined Monday to give a Kansas clinic permission to provide telemedicine abortions.
Shawnee County District Judge Teresa Watson rejected a request from the Trust Women Foundation for an injunction to block the state from subjecting the clinic and its doctors to enforcement of state laws against telemedicine abortions. She did so despite another judge’s ruling that no ban can be enforced and a Kansas Supreme Court ruling in April that access to abortion is a “fundamental” right under the state constitution.
The foundation operates a Wichita clinic that in October began providing pregnancy-ending medications to patients who conferred with off-site doctors by webcam. But the clinic stopped Dec. 31, saying it the legal climate was too uncertain, and Julie Burkhart, Trust Women’s CEO, said Monday evening that it has no plans to resume the service because of the court order.
“We cannot broaden that access and feel confident that the clinic or the physicians will not be penalized for that,” Burkhart said. “If we’re putting our physicians or the clinic in jeopardy, we’re working against our mission. The mission is to bring access to people.”
The Legislature has passed three laws aimed at banning telemedicine abortions since 2011, but all were put in limbo by legal challenges in which Trust Women was not a party. Trust Women filed its own lawsuit in January, saying the local district attorney and the state medical board wouldn’t promise in writing that the clinic is allowed to do the abortions.
Mary Kay Culp, executive director of the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, responded to news of the ruling with, “Good, great, wonderful!” She and other abortion opponents have argued that a ban on telemedicine has been in force for at least several years.
“It’s truly justice,” she said of Watson’s decision.
Watson’s decision is the first lower-court ruling on abortion since the state Supreme Court’s sweeping ruling protecting abortion rights. The judge acknowledged the high court’s decision in her ruling but described as “speculative” Trust Women’s claims that its patients would be irreparably harmed if she did not issue the order it sought.
“There is no evidence the challenged laws decrease access to abortion,” Watson wrote.
Eighteen other states have laws requiring doctors to be physically present when abortion medications are dispensed, according to groups on both sides of the issue, and an Iowa law has been blocked in court. The Wichita clinic has two doctors who live outside Kansas and can be at the clinic two days a week.
The Kansas attorney general’s office had argued that patients aren’t harmed if the clinic does not have permission to do telemedicine abortions.
However, during a hearing in May, Burkhart testified that webcam conferences made the doctors available an extra eight to 12 hours a week and sometimes cut patient wait times to less than two hours from six to eight hours. Trust Women also hopes eventually to open a clinic in rural Kansas offering telemedicine abortions.
The clinic also faces a complaint over its past telemedicine abortions filed with the State Board of Healing Arts from the anti-abortion group Kansans for Life.
The board has 15 members. One position is vacant, and the other 14 members were named by anti-abortion Republican governors. Two members’ terms expired June 30, giving Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, an abortion rights supporter who took office in January, a chance to replace them.
Kansas enacted its first telemedicine-abortion ban in 2011, only to see it swept up in a broader lawsuit against multiple restrictions filed by father-daughter doctors who operated a women’s health center in the Kansas City-area. Another Shawnee County judge, Franklin Theis, blocked all of the restrictions together.
Theis ruled Dec. 31 that his order on the 2011 restrictions also blocked a 2015 version of the telemedicine-abortion ban. And he declared that a 2018 version was an “air ball” without enforcement provisions. The state has appealed. The Wichita clinic is not a party in that case.
Watson said in her ruling that Trust women’s request for an order had added to “a growing procedural backwater” that hindered her ability “to resolve the underlying merits of the telemedicine abortion issue.”
Kansans for Life launched its complaint against Trust Women’s clinic before Theis’ ruling in December and received a notice in April that it had been assigned to an investigator. The Board of Healing Arts regulates the clinic’s physicians, while the clinic itself is regulated by the state health department, which is under Kelly’s control.
UPDATE: RICE COUNTY – The statewide Silver Alert for Vonita Renae Colle has been canceled.
The Rice County Sheriff’s Office reported Colle was located safe in Rice County Tuesday afternoon, a quarter mile south of her residence. She was transported to an area hospital for assessment.
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RICE COUNTY – The Rice County Sheriff’s Office requested that the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) issue a statewide Silver Alert for a missing Sterling woman.
The whereabouts of Vonita Renae Colle, 87, are unknown, and the public’s assistance is requested to help locate her. Colle is reported to have dementia and Alzheimer’s, according to information from the KBI. She was last seen near 2400 Ave. X in Sterling, Kan. The Rice County Sheriff’s Office provided the following description of Colle:
She is 5 ft., 5 in tall, weighs 115 lbs., with silver hair, and blue eyes.
She is wearing men’s black pants, red collared undershirt, black t-shirt, navy sweatshirt and green tennis shoes.
She is missing her front top two teeth.
If you see Colle, or have information about her whereabouts, please immediately contact the Rice County Sheriff’s Office at (620) 257-2363.
GREAT BEND (AP) — A Texas man has pleaded guilty in the deaths of a couple who were killed at a Kansas fair after one suspect ordered the killings as part of a “carnival mafia” initiation.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office said in a news release that 36-year-old Rusty Lee Frasier of Aransas Pass, Texas pleaded guilty Monday to two counts of first-degree premediated murder the 2018 deaths of Alfred “Sonny” Carpenter and Pauline Carpenter at the Barton County Fair, where they were vendors. The bodies of the Wichita couple were discovered in a national forest near Van Buren, Arkansas.
Prosecutors said 32-year-old Thomas Donald Drake of Van Buren, Arkansas, also pleaded guilty Monday to one count of obstructing apprehension.
Transportation problems persist on Nebraska county roads following massive floods this spring, officials said.
Interstates and state roads have been cleared for use. But traffic issues continue to plague damaged bridges and unending repairs still obstruct traffic outside major metropolitan areas, the Omaha World-Herald reported.
Heavy rain is to blame for the delay in repairs as that makes it difficult for machinery to access flood-damaged areas. County officials said they are struggling to find contractors, equipment, fill dirt, gravel and money.
“I haven’t even put a dent into fixing a lot of this stuff,” said Scott Huppert, highway superintendent for Dodge County. “It’s a lot of damage up there. It got spread all over Dodge County.”
It’s the same story across a vast swath of the state. Eighty-one of 93 counties have disaster declarations.
Heavy rain and snow melt crippled levees , causing the Missouri River and its tributaries to overflow in Iowa, Nebraska, Missouri and Kansas. Repairs to roads have been hindered by the extent of the damage and lingering floodwaters.
Three of the four bridges on a 48-mile (77-kilometer) stretch of the Niobrara River between Holt and Boyd Counties are closed, causing significant hardships for residents in the area and forcing traffic onto one road. That road now sees 700 cars a day at peak when it usually served an average of 70, according to Gary Connot, Holt County highway superintendent.
Continued heavy rain has only made the situation harder to overcome.
Officials have struggled to get heavy equipment in when roads are damaged. Richard Cook, Logan County superintendent, said heavy rain caused a gravel truck to get stuck on a road he thought was repaired.
“The rain isn’t giving us a chance to get one completely repaired before it washes them out again,” he said.
Total repair costs haven’t been finalized yet because damage is still being assessed. Federal aid is expected to cover 75% of costs while the state is responsible for 12.5%. Counties must come up with the rest, and contractors want to be paid now.
Huppert said he took out a $5 million loan to pay contractors after he spent the department’s $4 million emergency fund. He’s estimating that it will cost $17 million to $18 million to repair the entire road and bridge damage in his county.
He said he realizes people are frustrated but that they need to understand it’s a long process.
“It’s coming, but very, very slow,” he said. “We’ll probably still be doing work two years from now.”
CHICAGO — Nearly one-quarter of Americans say they never plan to retire, according to a poll that suggests a disconnection between individuals’ retirement plans and the realities of aging in the workforce.
Experts say illness, injury, layoffs and caregiving responsibilities often force older workers to leave their jobs sooner than they’d like.
According to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, 23% of workers, including nearly 2 in 10 of those over 50, don’t expect to stop working. Roughly another quarter of Americans say they will continue working beyond their 65th birthday.
According to government data, about 1 in 5 people 65 and older was working or actively looking for a job in June.
For many, money has a lot to do with the decision to keep working.
“The average retirement age that we see in the data has gone up a little bit, but it hasn’t gone up that much,” says Anqi Chen, assistant director of savings research at the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College. “So people have to live in retirement much longer, and they may not have enough assets to support themselves in retirement.”
When asked how financially comfortable they feel about retirement, 14% of Americans under the age of 50 and 29% over 50 say they feel extremely or very prepared, according to the poll. About another 4 in 10 older adults say they do feel somewhat prepared, while just about one-third feel unprepared. By comparison, 56% of younger adults say they don’t feel prepared for retirement.
Among those who are fully retired, 38% said they felt very or extremely prepared when they retired, while 25% said they felt not very or not at all prepared.
“One of the things about thinking about never retiring is that you didn’t save a whole lot of money,” says Ronni Bennett, 78, who was pushed out of her job as a New York City-based website editor at 63.
She searched for work in the immediate aftermath of her layoff, a process she describes as akin to “banging my head against a wall.” Finding Manhattan too expensive without a steady stream of income, she eventually moved to Portland, Maine. A few years later, she moved again, to Lake Oswego, Oregon.
“Sometimes I fantasize that if I win the lottery, I’d go back to New York,” says Bennett, who has a blog called Time Goes By that chronicles her experiences aging, relocating and, during the past two years, living with a pancreatic cancer diagnosis.
Meanwhile, Americans have mixed assessments of how the aging workforce affects workers: 39% think people staying in the workforce longer is mostly a good thing for American workers, while 29% think it’s more a bad thing and 30% say it makes no difference.
A somewhat higher share, 45%, thinks it has a positive effect on the U.S. economy.
Working Americans who are 50 and older think the trend is more positive than negative for their own careers — 42% to 15%. Those younger than 50 are about as likely to say it’s good for their careers as to say it’s bad.
Just 6% of fully retired AP-NORC poll respondents said they left the labor market before turning 50.
But remaining in the workforce may be unrealistic for people dealing with unexpected illness or injuries. For them, high medical bills and a lack of savings loom large over day-to-day expenditures.
“People like me, who are average, everyday working people, can have something catastrophic happen, and we lose everything because of medical bills,” says Larry Zarzecki, a former Maryland police officer who stopped working in his 40s after developing a resting tremor in his right hand and a series of cognitive and physical symptoms he at times found difficult to articulate.
At 47, he was diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease. Now 57 and living in Baltimore, Zarzecki says he has learned “to take from Peter and give to Paul, per se, to help make ends meet.”
Zarzecki has since helped found Movement Disorder Education and Exercise, a nonprofit organization that offers support and treatment programs to those with similar diseases and certain traumatic brain injuries. He has also helped lobby state and national lawmakers to address rising prescription drug prices.
He receives a pension and health insurance through the state, but he spends more than $3,000 each year out of pocket on medications.
“I can’t afford, nor will my insurance cover, the most modern medication there is for Parkinson’s,” he says. “Eat, heat or treat. These are decisions that people in my position have to make. When it’s cold out, or if it’s real hot out, do you eat, heat (your home) or treat (your ailment)?”
EDITOR’S NOTE — Andrew Soergel is studying aging and workforce issues as part of a 10-month fellowship at The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research, which joins NORC’s independent research and AP journalism. The fellowship is funded by the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. ___ The AP-NORC Center survey of 1,423 adults was conducted by The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research with funding from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation. It was conducted Feb. 14 to 18 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 3.7 percentage points.
Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods and later were interviewed online or by phone. ___ Online: AP-NORC Center: https://www.apnorc.org
SALINA — An attempt to stop a vehicle in Salina for not having a working headlight early Saturday morning ended with spikes being deployed and the vehicle finally stopping in Republic County.
Saline County Sheriff Roger Soldan said Monday that a deputy on saturation patrol in the 200 block of North Broadway Blvd. at approximately 12:20 a.m. Saturday noticed a northbound 2005 Chevrolet Cavalier that had one headlight out. The deputy attempted to stop the vehicle, but when both pulled into the carwash at State Street and Broadway Blvd., the Cavalier took off north on Broadway Blvd. and took the following route, Soldan said.
North on Broadway Blvd. to Ninth Street
North on Ninth Street to Interstate 70 (I-70)
East on I-70 to the Niles exit
Back on to I-70 to Solomon Road
North on Solomon Road to Kansas Highway 18 (K-18)
West on K-18 to a gravel road in Ottawa County
From the gravel road to Old 81 Highway
From Old 81 northbound on U.S. Highway 81 through Cloud County, where spikes were deployed
Soldan said that despite losing its tires, the car continued into Republic County, where it finally stopped. The car reached up to 90 mph on I-70 and was driving at 60 mph after the spikes removed the tires, Soldan said.
Cameron Hanson, 18, of Independence, Kan., was taken into custody, Soldan said. Hanson was driving a car that was stolen out of Abilene, however, he had a bill of sale for the car, Soldan said. It is believed that Hanson purchased the car, which turned out to be stolen, Soldan added.
During the arrest, drug paraphernalia with methamphetamine on it was found in the car, Soldan said. Hanson was arrested on suspicion of the following, Soldan said.
Flee and elude
Possession of methamphetamine
Possession of drug paraphernalia
Driving while license is suspended
Speeding
Improper turn
Improper driving
Failure to stop at a stop sign
Driving with a defective headlight
Soldan said personnel from the Kansas Highway Patrol, the Ottawa County Sheriff’s Department, and the Cloud County Sheriff’s Department assisted in the pursuit.
TOPEKA (AP) — A bat found in northeastern Kansas has tested positive for rabies.
Topeka television station KSNT reports that the bat was found in Shawnee County. The Shawnee County Health Department is urging residents to be aware of the signs and symptoms of rabies and the steps to take if exposed.
Rabies is a fatal but preventable viral disease that is typically transmitted by raccoons, bats, skunks and foxes.
Health officials those who suspect they’ve been exposed to the disease should seek immediate medical treatment. Once a person begins to exhibit signs of disease, survival is rare. Symptoms include general weakness or discomfort, fever or headache and progress to confusion, agitation and delirium.
SALINA — A 32-year-old Salina man is dead following a physical altercation at a local restaurant Friday afternoon.
According to a news release from the Salina Police Department, officers were dispatched at 3:45 p.m. on Friday to McDonald’s, 701 S. Broadway Blvd., for the report of an unconscious person in the parking lot. When officers arrived on the scene they discovered Scott McMurray unconscious. McMurray was transported by Salina Fire Department EMS to the Salina Regional Health Center (SRHC), where he was treated by emergency room medical staff, the news release stated.
During the initial on-scene investigation, officers were told that McMurray was involved in a physical altercation with Austin Ferguson, 29, of Salina. On Monday, Salina Police Captain Gary Hanus said that the dispute was over a third individual, a female. At one point during the altercation, Ferguson landed a punch to McMurray, which caused McMurray to fall to the pavement, the news release states.
Ferguson had remained on the scene and was taken to the police department for questioning. At approximately 6:30 p.m. Friday, Ferguson was booked into the Saline County Jail on suspicion of aggravated battery and aggravated assault, the news release states.
According to the news release, SRHC emergency room medical staff discovered McMurray’s medical condition was deteriorating and he was taken to the operating room, however at 10:06 p.m. on Friday, McMurray was pronounced deceased.
The news release noted that as the investigation continued over the weekend, new and reliable information was discovered. After discussing the case with the Saline County Attorney’s Office and considering the statutes of Kansas, Salina Police determined that a request for charges would not be filed and Ferguson was released from the Saline County Jail at 12:34 p.m. on Sunday.
Hanus said Monday that an autopsy of McMurry had been ordered and that the investigation is ongoing.
HUTCHINSON — The Hutchinson Fire Department rescued three people from the Arkansas River on Sunday after they were displaced from tubes shortly after entry.
The three entered at the Fourth Street river bridge. There were four people in the group. Two of them became hung up close to the east bank. The other two tubers got farther down the river before one was able to access the bank. The other person became stranded as well.
Initial contact was made by the Reno County Sheriff’s Office, however, deputies were unable to free the three from the river.
No life jackets were present, according to reports.
The Hutchinson Fire Department deployed a boat under the Kansas 96 river bridge and was able to quickly access all three upstream, place them into the boat and into life jackets, then return them to shore.
All three were checked by Reno County EMS following the rescue with no injuries reported.
TOPEKA – A man from Mexico was sentenced today to 51 months in federal prison after a state trooper found 15 pounds of crystal methamphetamine hidden in child booster seats and other locations in his car, U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister said in a news release Monday.
Israel Felix Garcia, 32, was a passenger in a car driven by his girlfriend when the Kansas Highway Patrol stopped the car on I-70 at milepost 341 in Wabaunsee County. A trooper found five plastic wrapped bundles of crystal methamphetamine in two booster seats in the car. He found more bundles hidden under the rear window deck, bringing the total to 15 pounds.
Garcia told investigators he was being paid $400 per bundle to drive the drugs from California to Topeka. He said his girlfriend and two children in the car did not know about the methamphetamine.
McAllister commended the Kansas Highway Patrol, the Drug Enforcement Administration and Assistant U.S. Attorney Stephen Hunting for their work on the case.
Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach
TOPEKA (AP) — Former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is launching a campaign to run for the U.S. Senate next year.
Kobach filed paperwork Monday with the Federal Election Commission forming a campaign committee. He scheduled a speech Monday afternoon in Leavenworth.
He is seeking the Republican nomination for four-term GOP Sen. Pat Roberts’ seat. Roberts is not seeking re-election in 2020.
Some Republicans do not want Kobach to run for the Senate because he lost the governor’s race last year to Democrat Laura Kelly.
Kobach is an advocate for tough immigration policies. He was an early and vocal supporter of President Donald Trump in 2016 but has frequently alienated GOP moderates.
Kobach is joining a potentially crowded race. At least 16 prospective candidates have expressed an interest in running.
