TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Topeka is expected to quadruple its annual budget to demolish unsafe homes.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Topeka demolishes about 11 homes a year after the structures are declared unsafe. But the city expects that total to rise next year to about 44 homes.
Richard Faulkner, the city’s division director of property code and development, says the city will quadruple its annual budget from $100,000 to $400,000 to demolish those homes.
He says a recent survey identified 700 vacant houses in Topeka, and residents have expressed concerns about those structures.
The city is also trying to address problems involving vacant homes. Next year’s budget also provides funding for the neighborhood services department to increase its number of code enforcement inspectors to 10 from eight.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials are reviewing a contract with an Irish software company hired to build custom legislative software that some lawmakers say has been problematic.
The Wichita Eagle reports Kansas has paid Dublin-based Propylon $15.8 million since 2005 to build software and provide technical support for the Legislative Information Systems and Services.
Legislative leaders have held off renewing the contract until the firm addresses problems with the software. Senate President Susan Wagle has said glitches in the software often forced staff members to work late during the 2015 session and delayed votes.
Propylon CEO John Harrington says crews are putting plans in place to address the requests from state staff.
House Speaker Ray Merrick says he’s pleased with progress so far in the state’s discussions with Propylon about addressing issues.
JEFFERSON COUNTY – A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 5a.m. on Monday in Jefferson County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2001 Hyundai Accent driven by Kyle Christopher Inscho, 25, Topeka, was traveling southbound on U.S. 59 five miles south of Oskaloosa.
The vehicle traveled off the roadway into west ditch, hit a tree, rolled onto its side and caught tire.
Inscho was transported to KU Medical Center. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A woman has died after police say she was struck by a vehicle on the side of Interstate 135 in southern Wichita.
The woman, who authorities say was 21-year-old Jasmine Love was killed Sunday morning.
According to Wichita police Sgt. Matt Lang, the victim had car trouble, and she and a passenger pulled off to the side of the road. Lang says the two exited the vehicle and another came up from behind and struck the driver, who was thrown into a ditch. She was taken to a hospital where she was pronounced dead.
The other passenger was taken to a hospital with minor injuries.
Authorities say that a suspect in the crash turned himself on Monday morning. He was identified as Caleb M. Elliot, 26, according to online police arrest reports. He is being held for hit and run and vehicular homicide.
Janis DeBoer, executive director of the Kansas Area Agencies on Aging Association, says the association was blindsided by the new policy. CREDIT DAVE RANNEY / HEARTLAND HEALTH MONITOR
A recent change in Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services policy will reduce access to services that help the state’s frail elders avoid often-costly nursing home stays, according to directors of the state’s Area Agencies on Aging.
“This will have an impact on case management services, which we believe are pivotal when it comes to helping our customers remain in their homes,” says Janis DeBoer, executive director of the Kansas Area Agencies on Aging Association. “Case management is the glue that keeps everything together.”
Late last month, directors of the 11 Area Agencies on Aging in Kansas learned that KDADS officials were enacting a policy that, effective Oct. 1, prevents the programs from spending more than 20 percent of their Senior Care Act budgets on case management.
At the same time, those case managers are being required to conduct more in-person visits.
“About 30 percent of our Senior Care Act budget is for case management,” says Karen Wilson, who runs Northeast Kansas Area Agency on Aging (AAA), a seven-county program based in Hiawatha. “So this will be a major reduction for us.”
Five Area Agencies on Aging, DeBoer says, are spending more than 20 percent of their Senior Care Act budgets on case management.
The Senior Care Act refers to government-funded in-home services for frail elders who typically have low or modest incomes and are not eligible for Medicaid.
Because they are not eligible for Medicaid, many of these seniors pay for a portion of the services they receive. Payments are based on a sliding scale.
“That’s why people like it — they don’t see it as welfare,” says Dave Geist, executive director at Southwest Kansas AAA, which is based in Dodge City and covers 28 counties.
In Kansas, the Area Agencies on Aging divide $6.7 million in Senior Care Act funds annually.
Last year case managers helped more than 4,500 seniors find and pay for the services they needed to continue living at home.
Area Agencies on Aging directors say they were surprised when KDADS proposed the change.
“We were completely blindsided by this,” DeBoer says. “We frequently invite KDADS people to our monthly meetings, and there was no mention of this. Next thing we know, we get an email telling us that draft policies were posted on the KDADS website.
“We provided written comments and indicated we would have some concerns if that was what they were going to do,” she says. “Then, we get another email, telling us the policies were final. We were flabbergasted.”
Download the letter to KDADS on policy changes
Angela de Rocha, a KDADS spokesperson, said in an email that the agency “did not spring this on them (AAAs) out of the blue. We conferred closely with them, and they had to opportunity to provide feedback.”
In fact, she said, the department did not implement several of its proposals due to concerns that the Area Agencies on Aging directors raised.
De Rocha said KDADS made the change so that the Area Agencies on Aging can “put as much of the funding as possible into direct services to keep seniors living independently in their homes.”
But DeBoer says case management is a direct service that is “most crucial” in maintaining contact with seniors and making sure they’re getting the services they need to remain in the community.
“It’s as direct a service as you’re going to get,” she says.
The KDADS change also requires case managers to meet at least twice a year with each client known to be receiving Senior Care Act services in their regions. They’re also expected to call each of them at least twice a year.
“That may not sound like much, but that’s double what we’re required to do now for the same amount of money, or in some cases less money,” says Michelle Morgan, executive director at the Northwest Kansas AAA in Hays and president of the state Area Agencies on Aging Association.
For years, Morgan says, case managers have been able to visit their high-need clients more often than those with fewer needs.
“We’ve always been able to do that because there was flexibility built into the Senior Care Act,” she says. “You could transfer funds to wherever there was the most need. Now, there’s a cap and everybody has to be seen face-to-face at least twice whether they need to be or not.”
The loss of flexibility, she says, means the Area Agencies on Aging will take on fewer clients, ask their counties for more money or increase their fundraising efforts.
“We’ll do our best to minimize the effects of all this,” Morgan says. “But it doesn’t make a lot of sense to us.”
The change in policy also blocks the Area Agencies on Aging from spending more than 20 percent of their Senior Care Act funds on administration.
“That’s not a big deal,” DeBoer says. “Nobody spends that much on administration.”
Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
John Richard Schrock is a professor at Emporia State University.
The announcement that Tu Youyou had shared in the this year’s Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine has been long awaited in China. It has repercussions for Western education and science publishers as well.
While Tu’s award constitutes the long-awaited first science Nobel Prize going to a Chinese researcher born, educated and conducting her research in China, a handful of Chinese have won prior science Nobel Awards. Three Han Chinese born in China won science Nobels but trained and worked in other countries. Two Chinese scientists were in China at the time of their award, but had conducted their research elsewhere. Three Americans of Chinese descent won science Nobels. And three non-Han Chinese born in China were trained in America where they also conducted their research.
Therefore an award to a Chinese researcher who was born, educated and did her work in China affirms to China that “we can do it!”
But the Chinese social media reaction has been mixed. One common puzzlement centers around “Why didn’t it go to a researcher at the Chinese Academy of Sciences?” Unlike our National Academy of Science that is a group of dispersed researchers, the CAS is a large institution in Beijing (with additional branch campuses) that operates as a university, turning out more science graduates than any other university. It is a highly-funded high-pressure institute—its researchers will get Nobel Prizes soon.
But the extensive media chatter in China reflects a characteristic ranking mentality: the first prize should have gone to CAS or Tsinghua or Beijing University! So the Nobel committee must have intended to insult them. Chinese universities really are classified into first, second and third tier. So a researcher at a first tier school should have won. Rank and position in Chinese society are very important. There is almost a nationwide feeling that these schools have “lost face.”
But by splitting the award with two other researchers who also made major breakthroughs in treating worldwide diseases, this award was clearly objective. Even the science leadership in China makes a nod to this older applied research with references to passing the baton to the new era of research that most certainly will come from the recognized top-ranked schools.
Decades ago, China thought that the U.S. predominance in Nobel prizes in science was due to our educational curriculum. However, they discovered that the amount of science offered in American K-12 grades is pitiful, about one-third the amount of science studied in other developed countries.
China has long been sending over 100,000 thousand college students to America each year. Many study masters and doctoral level research. The increasing number of these graduates returning to Chinese universities have also brought with them the American system of open questioning. How would we set up an experiment to solve this problem? Here are some results; what do they mean? That is in stark contrast to the student memorization and teacher teaching-to-the-test that predominated in China. It is therefore ironic that China is attempting to move away from memorization for high-stakes tests while the United States has for the last 15 years rapidly moved toward a test-prep system.
Meanwhile, some Western publishers may have to curtail their corrupt practices toward Chinese researchers. For over a decade, China’s scientists have been rewarded for publishing in English journals. Asian author names are surpassing Western names in most key journals.
However, some Western journals are now attempting to coerce unnecessary fees for English services. Tu’s work on the anti-malaria drug artemisinin originated with Chinese medicine; but some journals will not accept research that has that origin despite following modern Western research criteria. And some Chinese researchers find their manuscripts immediately rejected without reading in the last half of each year, raising suspicions that some Western journals have set a quota on articles from China.
Tu’s award may help curb these corrupt Western publication practices.
In 2001, after their high school students scored high on international testing, one Asian Minister of Education said: “we train students to take tests but we do not get Nobel Prizes.” Fourteen years later, China and some other parts of Asia are making changes in education and research that ensure that Tu’s Nobel Prize will not be their last.
SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating a theft from a construction site.
Police reported a Hilti GPS robot valued at $25,000 was stolen from a trailer on a construction site trailer in inside a fenced area at Husener Elementary School, 1300 Norton,
The theft occurred between late afternoon on October 8th and the morning of October 9, according to police.
A lock was cut on the fence and the trailer was pried open.
In addition to the robot, several power tools were also taken.
The stolen items are property of W.C. Weins and Company of Hutchinson.
A total loss amount was not immediately available.
HARVEY COUNTY -Law enforcement authorities in Harvey County say that after an investigation, the Cox Cable truck involved in Monday morning’s fatal crash had been stolen in Hutchinson and the deceased driver was not a Cox employee.
The Sheriff’s office reported in a media release a truck driven by
a 20-year-old man from McPherson, was traveling on Dutch Avenue when the driver lost control and hit a bridge guardrail.
The rail impaled the truck and it flipped the truck over and into Sand Creek.
The driver died as a result of the accident.
Dutch Avenue was closed for several hours between Sandhill and Willow Lake Roads about six miles north of Newton due to damage to the bridge and the guardrail.
The name of the victim has not been released pending notification of next of kin.
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NEWTON – A Kansas man died in an accident on Monday morning in Harvey County.
The Sheriff’s office reported in a media release a Cox Cable truck was traveling on Dutch Avenue when the driver lost control and hit a bridge guardrail.
The rail impaled the truck and it flipped the truck over and into Sand Creek.
The driver died as a result of the accident.
Dutch Avenue was closed between Sandhill and Willow Lake Roads about six miles north of Newton due to damage to the bridge and the guardrail.
The name of the victim has not been released pending notification of next of kin.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The president of the Olive Garden restaurant chain has apologized to a Kansas City police officer after a restaurant employee asked him to leave because he was armed.
Officer Michael Holsworth says he was on duty and in uniform Sunday when the employee at the Olive Garden in Independence, Missouri, asked him to leave because guns aren’t allowed in the restaurant.
Holsworth says he was there to celebrate his birthday with his family. He says he thought the employee was kidding, but she wasn’t.
Olive Garden spokesman Rich Jeffers told The Kansas City Star that Olive Garden president Dave George called to apologize to Holsworth later Sunday.
Jeffers says the employee’s request was unacceptable and that the restaurant chain welcomes law enforcement.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials say no court order will be needed in the future to process birth certificate applications of children from same-sex couples who conceive by artificial insemination.
That assurance came in a court filing Monday in a federal lawsuit that challenges the Kansas ban on same-sex marriages. A U.S. Supreme Court ruling already cleared the way for such marriages in Kansas, but the judge wanted evidence the state was complying with that decision.
Kansas also objected to the American Civil Liberties Union even raising the birth certificate issue because none of the plaintiffs in the federal gay marriage case are seeking to become parents.
The state says nothing has been offered in this or other lawsuits to show paternity laws that recognize biological differences between men and women are unconstitutional.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas City, Kansas, activist charged in the death of a pedestrian has filed motions challenging the charges and the legality of the Wyandotte County court proceedings.
The Kansas City Star reports Tamika Pledger is charged with involuntary manslaughter and aggravated battery. She’s accused of running into four teenagers Jan. 13. A 16-year-old girl died a week later from her injuries.
Pledger was running for a seat on the board of commissioners of the Unified Government in Wyandotte County at the time of the crash. She contends Wyandotte County officials don’t have jurisdiction to prosecute her and that a judge didn’t sign the affidavit to support the charges.
Wyandotte County District Attorney Jerry Gorman says he’ll comment on Pledger’s comments in the courtroom.
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — Reno County health officials say the number of suspected cases of whooping cough has risen lately, but the spread is slowing.
The Hutchinson News reports the whooping cough outbreak in Reno County began in early May. So far this year, 331 pertussis cases have been confirmed in 38 Kansas counties, with Reno County reporting the most.
There were 120 suspected cases at last count two weeks ago in Reno County. The number of laboratory confirmed pertussis cases in the county as of Oct. 3, was 92.
Reno County Health Department Director Nick Baldetti says the county has received a report of on another suspected case of whooping cough recently, but that the spread is slowing down and there have only been sporadic cases reported in schools.
HUTCHINSON- A Kansas teen was injured in an accident on Sunday in Reno County.
The Reno County Sheriff’s office reported Madison Valentine, 16, was driving a 4wheeler on the west shoulder of Kent Road just north of 43rd Street.
The vehicle hit an unknown object and crashed.
Valentine was transported to Hutchinson Regional Medical Center. She suffered a fractured wrist and a fractured pelvic bone, according to the Sheriff’s office.
