LOS ANGELES (AP) — Big Sugar and Big Corn face off in court this week in a bitter, multibillion-dollar battle over sweeteners.
The jury in the trial starting Tuesday will take up one of the most vexing debates in nutrition: What’s the difference between sugar and high fructose corn syrup?
Sugar processors are seeking as much as $2 billion in a false-advertising suit against corn refiners and agribusinesses giants Archer Daniels Midland and Cargill.
Sugar says it lost money when corn refiners tried to rebrand high fructose corn syrup product as “corn sugar” and claimed it was the same as cane sugar.
The corn refiners are countersuing for $530 million, accusing the sugar industry of making false and misleading statements about their product.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Four members of a motorcycle group that demonstrates outside the Westboro Baptist Church in Topeka have pleaded not guilty to picketing during a religious event.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the group’s trial next month could bring clarity to a city ordinance the protesters say is ambiguous.
On Sept. 12, Chantel Hosier, Ron Martin, Brook Barger and Nicholas Hines were ticketed because they were carrying an American flag, which is considered a banner under a Topeka municipal code regarding focused picketing. The group, called Journey 4 Justice, says it uses the flag to shield people from Westboro Baptist’s signs that bemoan homosexuality and predict doom for the nation.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Authorities in Lawrence say a crowd caused thousands of dollars in damage when they took down a football goal post at the University of Kansas after the Kansas City Royals’ World Series win.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports a crowd broke the lock to a gate at Memorial Stadium, took down a goal post and threw it into a lake late Sunday after the Royals’ beat the Mets in the World Series.
University police Capt. James Anguiano says the department is investigating the incident, which led to about $10,500 in damage. He estimates several hundred people were involved in the incident.
Jim Marchiony, the university’s associate athletic director, says university officials are disappointed the celebration involved vandalism.
CONWAY SPRINGS, Kan. (AP) — A Conway Springs teacher has been asked to resign after showing students an anti-bully video that depicts a dystopian society in which homosexual children bully heterosexual children.
Conway Springs Middle School social studies teacher Tom Leahy is on leave and said he likely won’t return to teaching because the controversial video “upset too many people.”
Leahy said he showed the independent film “Love Is All You Need” to three eighth-grade history classes as a lesson in tolerance last month. Showing the video was a response to an assignment Leahy gave his students to create a colony. At least one group rejected gay people in its colony.
The Wichita Eagle reports the school board is expected to accept the teacher’s resignation at its Nov. 9 meeting.
The newspaper’s calls to several board members weren’t returned Monday.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Child support payments for separated or divorced parents in Kansas are expected to increase up to 3.5 percent next year under new guidelines adopted by the state Supreme Court.
The court announced Monday that it adopted updates recommended by a 14-member committee that spent a year reviewing child support guidelines that took effect in 2012. The new guidelines take effect in January and will be used by district court judges to set parents’ payments.
Federal law requires states to update their guidelines every four years. The new guidelines won’t affect existing court orders unless a parent seeks to have his or her obligations modified.
Child support is paid by noncustodial parents after a divorce or separation, or when parents never married and live separately.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) —Good Samaritan Hospital in Kearney has been included in a settlement with more than 450 hospitals over inappropriate use of a heart device.
The Omaha World-Herald reports that Good Samaritan was named in the settlement, which totals more than $250 million.
Other hospitals included in the lawsuit are Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska Heart Institute & Heart Hospital and St. Elizabeth Regional Medical Center, both in Lincoln
The four Nebraska hospitals currently are owned by CHI Health, but Tenet Healthcare owned Creighton University Medical Center during the period in question. The CHI hospital in Garden City is not included in the settlement.
The U.S. Department of Justice alleges that from 2003 to 2010 each of 457 hospitals in 43 states implanted the devices during periods in the patients’ care that are prohibited by federal regulations.
PITTSBURG, Kan. (AP) — Construction of a state-owned casino in southeast Kansas won’t resume for a while.
Kansas Crossing spokeswoman Carrie Tedore told The Pittsburg Morning Sun the company will report on the status of a lawsuit involving the casino at the end of November, and a decision will be made then on whether to seek another 90-day extension on completing the casino.
The southeast Kansas casino is the last of four nontribal casinos allowed under a Kansas law.
Castle Rock Casino, which submitted a failed bid for the casino, filed a lawsuit against the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission and the Kansas Gaming Facility Review Board, arguing the board made the wrong decision in awarding the casino contract and didn’t follow state law.
The commission says the board used proper procedures.
SEATTLE (AP) — Dozens of young people want a say in the planet’s future, so minors nationwide have been suing states and the federal government in recent years to push action on climate change.
They say their generation will bear the brunt of global warming and that government at every level has an obligation to protect natural resources, including the atmosphere, as a “public trust” for future generations.
In Seattle, eight young activists petitioned Washington state last year to adopt stricter science-based regulations to protect them against climate change. Oral arguments are scheduled Tuesday.
The Oregon-based nonprofit Our Children’s Trust has been leading efforts to file lawsuits or court petitions in every state and against the federal government. Some have been dismissed, while others are pending in Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Oregon.
NEWTON- Two people were injured in an accident just after 5p.m. on Monday in Harvey County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2012 Chevy Malibu driven by Jack Chillcott, 34, Newton, was northbound on Interstate 135 just south of Newton. The vehicle was in the left lane, and came up on a very slow car due to traffic stopped ahead.
The driver changed to the right lane and rear-ended a 2001 Chevy Silverado driven by Anthony Curiel, 63, Newton, that was stopped and legally parked in the right lane due to accident ahead.
Chillcott and Curiel, were transported to Newton Medical Center. A passenger in the Silverado was not injured.
All were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.
Photo by Phil Cauthon Kansas Department of Corrections Secretary Ray Roberts.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The state’s corrections secretary has outlined a proposed $27 million expansion of a maximum-security prison outside El Dorado as an option for dealing with crowded prisons in Kansas.
Corrections Secretary Ray Roberts told a joint legislative committee Monday that by mid-2018, the state expects to have 9,400 male inmates in its custody. That would be about 600, or 7 percent, more than its capacity.
He told the committee that the number of female inmates will also exceed the state’s bed space by then.
The secretary outlined a proposal to add 512 beds to the El Dorado prison.
Roberts also said Kansas could increase the amount of time inmates receive off their sentences for completing programs. He says the state could also house more inmates in county jails and private prisons.
WICHITA- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 4p.m. on Monday in Sedgwick County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2010 Honda motorcycle driven by Ryan M. Brown, 31, Valley Center, was westbound on Kansas 96 and exiting on 13th Street at a high rate of speed.
The driver failed to stop for a traffic control light, struck the median and was ejected from the motorcycle.
Brown was transported to Wesley Medical Center.
He was not wearing a helmet, according to the KHP.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Looks like the honeymoon’s over for President Barack Obama and new House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Just four days after Ryan took the helm in the House, the White House is accusing him of “pandering to the extreme right wing” of his party.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest says Ryan’s recent comments on immigration reform are “preposterous” and disappointing.
Ryan said Sunday that he’s ruled out passing comprehensive immigration legislation while Obama is president. He said Obama cannot be trusted on the issue.
Earnest called the remark “ironic.” He says it’s Ryan who supported an immigration deal, then blocked it from passing the House.
Earnest says Ryan’s remarks don’t bode well for a “new era of Republican leadership.”
Kim Richter, who runs the tobacco cessation program at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kansas, says her average patient has been smoking for 29 years. CREDIT DAVE RANNEY / HEARTLAND HEALTH MONITOR
Studies have shown that nearly half of the cigarettes consumed in the United States are smoked by people thought to have a mental illness.
At the same time, people who have a mental illness die an average of 25 years earlier than those who don’t have a mental illness.
“There’s a really big disparity in who’s smoking and in who’s dying,” said Kim Richter, who runs the tobacco cessation program at the University of Kansas Medical Center in Kansas City, Kan.
“And we as a society haven’t really done anything about this,” she said. “We really need to turn this around.”
Richter led a Saturday session, “Mental Illness & Tobacco Use: Why Do I Smoke and What Will Really Help Me?” during the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Kansas annual conference in Topeka.
“People tend to assume that people with serious mental illnesses are dying years earlier than the general population because of things like suicide or the side effects of homelessness,” Richter said. “But that’s not the case. They’re dying because of chronic conditions like diabetes or heart attacks or strokes or COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) or cancer, all of which are a direct result of tobacco use.”
Efforts to reduce smoking among people with mental illness, she said, have long been hamstrung by the perception — especially in the state’s medical community — that people can quit smoking if they really want to, and until they want to quit, cessation efforts are a waste of time.
“I think we forget how formidable tobacco is in people’s lives,” Richter said.
She asked the audience to realize that the average smoker takes 12 to 15 puffs per cigarette, which means that a pack-a-day smoker takes somewhere between 87,000 and 109,500 puffs in a year.
Richter said her average patient at the KU hospital has been smoking for 29 years.
Nicotine, she said, is incredibly addictive and cigarettes constitute “the best drug-delivery system that’s ever been created.”
Richter said surveys have found that most people who try to quit smoking take a “cold turkey” approach that doesn’t include counseling or cessation medication. These efforts, she said, typically have a 5 percent success rate.
For people with a mental illness, the success rate is between zero and 3 percent. “It’s very low,” Richter said.
But she said that success rate significantly improves when patients take advantage of cessation counseling and medications, most of which are now covered by private insurance, Medicaid and Veterans Affairs benefits.
“Chantix alone triples the odds of being able to quit,” Richter said, referring to the prescription drug that reduces craving for nicotine.
Health care professionals, she said, need to recognize that tobacco is an addictive substance and that successful cessation likely will require many attempts.
“We’ve got to stop blaming people for not quitting on the third, fourth or fifth time they try,” she said. “We’ve got to stick with them. The trick is … to use all the resources that are available and to make every quit attempt useful.”
Richter encouraged anyone who’s interested in finding out more about the resources that are available to call the state’s cessation hotline — 1-800-784-8669 — or talk with their health care provider.
Asked whether switching to e-cigarettes can help some people quit smoking, she replied: “The jury is still out on that one.”
Richter is an active member of a Kansas Health Foundation-funded fellows program that is looking for ways to help people with severe and persistent mental illness reduce their use of tobacco products.
Richter’s presentation struck a chord with Randy Selley, a 53-year-old resident of Wichita.
“I’m a smoker, have been for probably 30 years,” he said. “I’ve tried to quit before, many times. She’s right, people don’t realize how hard it is to quit.”
Selley, who said he has schizoaffective disorder, said he may try to quit smoking again.
“I’m not ready,” Selley said. “I might someday, but not now. Smoking makes me feel better. After I smoke about half a cigarette, it relieves my anxiety. My racing thoughts calm down.”
Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
BRIAN MELLEY, Associated Press
