OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A Missouri man convicted of fatally shooting three people at Jewish sites in Kansas has been sentenced to death.

A jury convicted Frazier Glenn Miller Jr. in August of one count of capital murder, three counts of attempted murder, and assault and weapons charges. The same jury recommended that Miller be sentenced to death.

On Tuesday, Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan followed that recommendation and ordered the death penalty.

Miller is an avowed anti-Semite who admitted that he shot the three in April 2014 because he wanted to kill Jews before he died. He has chronic emphysema and has said he doesn’t think he has long to live. All of his victims were Christians.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A new report by the Center for Public Integrity and Global Integrity gives Kansas a failing grade for government transparency.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit news organization ranked the state 42nd in the nation for openness in its report released Monday.

The report cited the centralization of power in the executive branch, the Governmental Ethics Commission’s inability to audit lawmakers’ financial disclosures and use of private email addresses by Gov. Sam Brownback and administration officials.

The commission’s executive director, Carol Williams, says her seven-person staff is large enough to ensure lawmakers are filling out the forms, but not large enough to audit the roughly 6,000 forms it receives each year.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says the report “contains errors,” and the report’s assertions that officials are not transparent are disingenuous.

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The state of Kansas is at the bottom of the class when it comes to public integrity, according to a new study.

The Center for Public Integrity released grades for each state Monday, finding Kansas scored an “F.”

The Center studied laws and systems used by each state to deter corruption, ranging from executive and judicial accountability to lobbying disclosure.

Click HERE for more on the study.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former sales manager for the company that makes Glock firearms has been sentenced to 1½ years in prison for bribery.

The office of the U.S. Attorney for Kansas says 44-year-old James Craig Dutton, of Acworth, Georgia, pleaded guilty to one count of conspiracy to defraud Glock. The office says Dutton, who was an assistant national sales manager for Glock, accepted bribes and kickbacks from a Kansas gun dealer.

Dutton was sentenced Monday.

Co-defendant John Sullivan Ralph, III, was sentenced earlier to 18 months after pleading to conspiracy.

The prosecutor’s office says Ralph owned Olathe-based Global Guns & Hunting, Inc., and that Ralph admitted paying about $900,000 to Glock employees in exchange for preferential treatment.

By ANDY MARSO

A budget deal in Washington, D.C., is helping Kansas balance its own books temporarily with an infusion of Medicaid cash. But a Democratic senator says the savings should be used to provide home and community-based services to Kansans with disabilities.

Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget director, Shawn Sullivan, answered lawmaker questions Monday about the administration’s plan to shift about $125 million to the state general fund.

The transfers are needed because state revenue estimators revised tax receipt projections down for the fourth straight time last week, leaving Kansas with a projected deficit for the fiscal year that ends June 30. Almost half of the $125 million comes from the state highway fund, but about $25 million of it comes from Medicaid.

Sullivan said some of that money is available because the D.C. budget deal reduced projected Medicare premiums for low-income residents who get their premiums paid through Medicaid. Sullivan said the rest of the Medicaid savings comes from revised actuarial cost estimates that will not affect any recipients or providers within KanCare, the state’s managed care Medicaid system that serves more than 425,000 Kansans.

“It does not involve any service reductions or provider rate reductions or changes,” Sullivan said. “It is, this part, a change in the estimates.”

While facing a tight budget in the last year, the state has used increased federal money from the Children’s Health Insurance Program and a prescription drug rebate program to fill gaps. Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, asked Sullivan if the $25 million could be used to fund services for Kansans with disabilities on waiting lists for Medicaid programs that provide services to help them remain in their homes rather than institutions. Sullivan said they could, but the state’s budget picture compels the administration to go a different route.

“Just like anything, when you have savings, you can either choose to use that for state general fund or reappropriate to something else,” he said. “Yes, we could do that, but in our case we’re helping with the state general fund shortfall.” Sullivan said fully funding the current waiting lists would cost more than $100 million.

The Brownback administration has, in past years, used savings from the managed care switch to pare down some of the waiting lists.

After Monday’s meeting of the Legislative Budget Committee, Kelly said the administration also should consider using the latest savings to further reduce the number of people on the waiting lists, given that Brownback has made elimination of the lists a pre-condition of the state considering Medicaid expansion.

“We could take 25 percent of people off the waiting list, right now,” Kelly said. The $125 million in fund transfers also includes $9 million from the Children’s Initiatives Fund, which pays for early childhood health and education programs. Sullivan said the Children’s Cabinet that administers the fund had been improperly holding over money from the Early Childhood Grant Program from one year to the next.

He said bringing the $9 million into the general fund would not affect the program. Shannon Cotsoradis, president and CEO of the Topeka nonprofit Kansas Action for Children and a member of the Children’s Cabinet, disagreed.

In a statement released last week, Cotsoradis said nearly $60 million has been transferred out of the Children’s Initiatives Fund since passage of controversial income tax cuts in 2012.

“While Budget Director Sullivan continues to suggest these decisions are without consequences for our state’s children, that is simply false,” Cotsoradis said.

“Unlike the tax plan that got us into this perpetual budget crisis, these are evidence-based programs that offer a tremendous return on investment for the state while changing the course of a child’s entire life.”

The latest budget transfers also include $5 million from the Kansas Bioscience Authority, an agency that provides start-up help for human and animal health innovations.

KBA advocates say several years of budget cuts have put the future of the agency in doubt. Sullivan said the state also was transferring $3 million from the Health Care Access Improvement Program, $2.2 million from the Kansas Eligibility Enforcement System and $2.5 million from an Osawatomie State Hospital fee fund to help balance the budget.

He said the KEES savings came from payments that will not be made to the contractor Accenture due to ongoing delays in implementation of the computer system overhaul.

The Osawatomie State Hospital savings came from increased funding from non-state sources, such as patient co-pays and insurance payments. Some of the transfers are one-time money, but Sullivan said some may be carried over into the next fiscal year, when the state faces a projected deficit of $175 million.

Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz has filed for the Kansas Republican Presidential caucus.

KSN-TV reports that Cruz is the fifth presidential candidate to file for the Kansas presidential caucus, which is scheduled to be held in March at about 95 different caucus locations around the state.

Other candidates who have filed for the Kansas caucus include former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, Donald Trump and Ben Carson.

MANHATTAN – A Kansas man appeared in Riley County Court on Tuesday for a preliminary hearing in connection with the September 4, aggravated robberies near the KSU campus.

Detectives with the Riley County Police Department arrested Johnathon Elliott, 20, Manhattan, on September 11.

Elliott was booked for two counts of Aggravated Robbery, Contributing to a Child’s Misconduct and theft. He was held on a $130,000 bond.

Three other suspects, Carson Buckley, Janir Vega and Sean Johnson, were also arrested for their alleged involvement in the robberies.

According to testimony by RCPD Detective Brian Johnson, Elliott admitted to police that he agreed to drive the other three around in order to commit random robberies.

During the hearing, Ransom Gardiner testified being approached from an alleyway after walking home from Aggieville in the early morning hours of September 4.

Gardiner said a man ran up to him with what looked like a black semi-automatic handgun.

The man, who Gardiner said he only saw for a split second, had him get on the ground where he took his phone and wallet at gunpoint.

Gardiner noted that he could not recognize the man who robbed him, but did see a second man in the alleyway talking with the robber.

Cody Kohler and Nathan Becker also testified about being robbed during the preliminary hearing.

Walking into their back yard after coming home from Aggieville they saw two African American men, one acting sick. The second stranger asked them for a glass of water, and after they came back out from the house with the glass they were held up at gunpoint.

A third individual, whom Detective Brian Johnson testified was Elliott, came around from the side of the house and participated in the hold up.

Judge Malcolm held Elliott over for arraignment following the hearing, which will be held on December 14 at 9 a.m. with Judge Stutzman.

A motion to reduce bond or allow work release was denied.

DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress has passed a $607 billion defense bill that bans moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States — something Barack Obama has been trying to do since he was sworn in as president.

The Senate’s vote of 91 to 3 gave final legislative approval to the measure. The House has already passed it with a veto-proof majority, 370-58.

Obama does not like the Guantanamo provisions. But so far, the White House has not threatened to veto the bill.

The legislation has become a lightning rod for debate over whether the president needs congressional approval to move some of the remaining 112 detainees from the U.S. detention center in Cuba to the United States, or if he could do it with an executive order.

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DEB RIECHMANN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Senate is expected to pass a bill that bans moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States — something Barack Obama has been trying to do since he was sworn in as president.

The Senate plans to vote Tuesday on the $607 billion defense policy bill, which passed the House last week, 370-58.

While current law and the new bill prohibits Obama from moving Guantanamo Bay detainees to the United States, lawmakers are voicing opposition to the prospect that Obama could do it through executive action.

The Pentagon is expected soon to release a report that addresses the possibility of housing some of the remaining 112 detainees in Colorado, Kansas or South Carolina prisons.

Congress has repeatedly thwarted Obama’s effort to fulfill a campaign promise to close the prison.

SALINA- Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating a case of identity theft.

Police are asking for the public’s help in identifying and locating a suspect wanted for stealing a woman’s purse from her residence on October 25, and unlawfully using her credit cards.

The suspect used one of the stolen credit cards to make purchases at various locations in Salina, according to police.

He was observed driving a white 4-door vehicle.

If you have any information concerning who committed this crime, call Crimestoppers at 785-825-TIPS, text SATIPS to CRIMES (274637), or visit www.pd.salina.org and follow the Crime Stoppers link to submit a web tip. You may receive a cash reward of up to $1,000 and you are not required to give your name.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The family of a Topeka homicide victim have put up two billboards in hopes of getting information leading to an arrest in the case.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Juan Solis was shot and killed in 2013 during what police said was a home invasion.

The victim’s mother, Dina Garcia, wants the billboards to remind people that her son’s killer remains at large.

She says she also hopes that a $20,000 reward will help convince anyone with information to come forward. Family and friends have been raising money for the reward, which has increased since Solis’s death.

Garcia says a third billboard will go up in a couple weeks.

COLUMBUS, Kan. (AP) — A southeast Kansas county is working to cull its list of registered voters of people who have died or moved out of the county.

The Joplin Globe reports that Cherokee County is starting a mass mailing to refine the county’s list of registered voters.

Kansas state election numbers say Cherokee County has 102.6 percent of its voting-age population registered to vote. Two other counties — Lane and Rawlins — also have more than 100 percent voter registration.

Census estimates from 2009 to 2013 put the number of people eligible to vote in Cherokee County at 15,970, or about 570 fewer than the 16,540 actual people registered to vote.

County Clerk Rodney Edmondson says the county will start printing the voter cards Thursday and mail them out gradually.

BOSTON (AP) — A legally blind barber has been awarded $100,000 by a Massachusetts commission against discrimination after it says he was wrongly fired.

The Boston Herald reports Joel Nixon had been working for Tony’s Barber Shop in Norton for a year before his boss discovered his condition.

The 29-year-old has retinitis pigmentosa, a condition affecting his peripheral vision and making it hard for him to see at night, the Herald reports. He’s been declared legally blind by the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind.

Nixon says barber shop owner Tony Morales fired him in 2012 after he tripped a couple of times while in the shop.

The state awarded Nixon $75,000 in lost wages and $25,000 for emotional distress in a Friday decision.

Morales disputes Nixon’s account and plans to appeal.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas is planning a town hall meeting to discuss race and other matters after recent protests and resignations at the University of Missouri

University of Missouri System President Tim Wolfe resigned Monday amid pressure from students who said the school responded inadequately to racial problems. The university’s Chancellor, R. Bowen Loftin also stepped down Monday.

The University of Kansas says the town hall is set for Wednesday afternoon in the Kansas Union. University of Kansas officials say the goal of the meeting is provide a chance for students, faculty and staff to discuss race, as well as respect and responsibility.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports that Tammara Durham, vice provost for student affairs at the University of Kansas, will moderate the forum.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Wichita Park Board members have voted to keep the Confederate flag from flying at Veterans Memorial Park.

The Wichita Eagle reports that Mayor Jeff Longwell ordered the flag removed in July after acknowledging community feedback to a June shooting in a Charleston, South Carolina, church. The accused shooter in that incident posted photos with the flag on social media.

The Park Board on Monday recommended the flag be replaced with the Kansas flag. They also approved a Reconciliation Memorial to address the diverse sides of the Civil War.

Board members say the conference-room meeting was standing room only. They say there was heated debate between those on both sides of the issue.

The Confederate flag had been in the park near downtown since 1976.