Facebook may finally be getting a button that lets you quickly express something beyond a “like.”
Founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg said Tuesday that people have been asking for a “dislike” button on the social media site for years.
Speaking at an event at Facebook’s Menlo Park, California, headquarters that was streamed live online, Zuckerberg acknowledged that “like” isn’t always appropriate for some posts — about a tragic news event, for example — when people might want to express empathy.
Zuckerberg said the company, however, has veered away from making a “dislike” button, which could be used to vote down other people’s posts. He said the new button is ready to be tested soon and could be rolled out broadly depending on how it does.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Schools in Lawrence will be receiving additional laptops after some teachers raised concerns that digital textbooks were creating inequity for low-income students.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that 25 additional laptops will be delivered to each of the city’s two high schools.
The laptops will be available for semester- or year-long checkout for students enrolled in classes that rely on digital content. Those include algebra and advanced placement history at both high schools.
Lawrence schools Superintendent Rick Doll says as new curriculum is adopted districtwide, more digital textbooks will go into use. That creates a need for the district to purchase more computers.
The district is doing a cost analysis and inventory of laptops and tablets to determine how many computers are needed so that each student has a device.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A judge has reinstated convictions he had previously thrown out against a former Kansas doctor and his wife accused of a moneymaking conspiracy at a clinic linked to 68 overdose deaths.
The ruling Tuesday by U.S. District Judge Monti Belot could affect how long Stephen Schneider and his wife, Linda, remain in prison. The Haysville couple will be resentenced Sept. 24.
They were convicted in 2010 of conspiracy to commit health care fraud resulting in those deaths, unlawfully prescribing drugs, health care fraud and money laundering.
Belot agreed with prosecutors to vacate only the sentences on six counts.
The legal maneuvering comes in the wake of an unrelated U.S. Supreme Court decision that the victim’s drug use had to be the actual cause of death, not merely a contributing factor.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Advocates for government transparency are questioning whether Sedgwick County violated state law during the selection of a new county manager.
The Wichita Eagle reports Sedgwick County appointed Brig. Michael Scholes on Sept. 2, but actually green-lit the job offer two weeks earlier in a closed meeting.
County officials contend their choice of Scholes over three other finalists on Aug. 19 was non-binding and did not violate an open meetings law.
The newspaper says it has asked District Attorney Marc Bennett and Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt to investigate whether commissioners violated the Kansas Open Records Act.
Acting county manager Ron Holt says that after winnowing the field from 85 applicants to four finalists, commissioners decided in an executive session to send Scholes a job offer.
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas City, Kansas, man has been sentenced to nearly 52 years in prison for participating in a deadly attack on a Manhattan man.
Anthony Nichols, 35, was sentenced Monday in Riley County District Court for attempted murder. He initially was charged with first-degree murder in the September 2013 death of 68-year-old John Burroughs.
Nichols shot Burroughs after going to a rural Manhattan trailer park with a woman. Later, the woman returned with 34-year old James McKenith of Manhattan. McKenith is serving a life sentence for stabbing Burroughs.
Riley County Attorney Barry Wilkerson described Nichols’ extensive criminal history in seeking a long sentence.
Nichols previously pleaded no contest to voluntary manslaughter in a Geary County killing that happened one day before Burroughs died.
JACKSONSVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A young Florida man accused by the FBI of sending bomb-making plans to an informant for an attack at a 9/11 anniversary event in Kansas City will undergo psychological evaluation.
Joshua Goldberg appeared in federal court Tuesday in northeast Florida. The judge sent him to a mental health facility in North Carolina for 30 days.
The 20-year-old who lived with his parents was arrested last week after catching authorities’ attention earlier this year in online posts under the moniker “Australi Witness,” and others.
The FBI said Goldberg called for an attack on a contest for drawings of the Prophet Muhammad in Garland, Texas, and boasted about helping plan attacks on synagogues in Australia.
The FBI says Goldberg sent instructions to an informant showing how to make a pressure cooker bomb.
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JACKSONVILLE, Fla. (AP) — A Florida man accused of sending bomb-making plans to an FBI informant for an alleged attack in Kansas City on the 9/11 anniversary is due in federal court for a detention hearing.
Joshua Goldberg was arrested last week after catching authorities’ attention earlier this year in online posts calling for an attack on a contest for drawings of the Prophet Muhammad in Garland, Texas.
The government says Goldberg also used online aliases to boast about helping gunmen plan attacks on synagogues in Australia.
The 20-year-old is charged with distributing information relating to explosives, destructive devices and weapons of mass destruction. A criminal complaint says Goldberg told an informant how to build a bomb and suggested targeting a Sept. 11 commemoration in Kansas City. No bomb was produced.
Photo by Mercy Hospital Independence The planned closure of Mercy Hospital Independence could create new urgency around the Medicaid expansion debate in the Kansas Legislature.
By JIM MCLEAN
The scheduled closure of the hospital in the southeast Kansas community of Independence could create new urgency around the Medicaid expansion debate.
Advocates of expanding the Kansas Medicaid program — known as KanCare — say the additional federal money it would generate would help stabilize a growing number of struggling hospitals in the state and might have helped save Mercy Hospital Independence.
They point to estimates produced by the Kansas Hospital Association that showed expansion would have generated an additional $1.6 million in annual revenue for Mercy.
Rep. Jim Kelly, a Republican from Independence and chairman of Mercy’s board, said he hopes that the scheduled Oct. 10 closure of the hospital will spur a more serious discussion about expansion in the 2016 legislative session.
“For me and for some others, particularly in this section of the state, this will be kind of a poster that we can carry forward and say, ‘This is happening, and it’s going to spread if we don’t come up with a way to deal with health care in rural Kansas,’” Kelly said.
According to the National Rural Health Association, at least 55 rural hospitals across the nation have closed and another 283 are at risk, including as many as 15 in Kansas. The Mercy board had hoped to strike a partnership with the neighboring Coffeyville Regional Medical Center (CRMC) to maintain some hospital services in Independence, but those talks broke down earlier this month.
Mark Woodring, CEO of CRMC, said the proposed partnership would have been too large a financial risk for his hospital. “We explored every option possible, it just didn’t work out,” Woodring said.
However, he said, if the state had expanded Medicaid, a solution might have been possible. “The dollars that would have come back into (both) communities would have far exceeded the cuts that have already taken place,” Woodring said.
Starting in 2016, Kansas hospitals will lose nearly $132 million because of reimbursement reductions in Medicare and other federal programs, according to an analysis done by the hospital association.
However, the same analysis indicates that expanding KanCare would offset those reductions and generate a net gain of nearly $231 million annually.
“We as a state ought to be asking ourselves, ‘Are we doing everything we can to help maintain access to health care?’” said Tom Bell, president and CEO of KHA. “And I think you would guess that our answer is no, we haven’t been doing that.”
A coalition led by KHA has failed over the past three years to convince Gov. Sam Brownback and the Republican-controlled Legislature to pass a Medicaid expansion plan. Advocates succeeded in getting a hearing during the 2015 session on a bill that would have authorized Brownback to negotiate an expansion plan with federal officials, but lawmakers never voted on the proposal.
Next year, hospitals and other expansion advocates will introduce a more specific blueprint for lawmakers to consider, Bell said. It likely will be modeled after plans considered in other conservative states. Generally, these so-called red state plans use federal Medicaid funds to help low-income adults purchase private coverage.
Many also require recipients to share in their health care costs in ways that traditional Medicaid doesn’t.
Thirty states and the District of Columbia have approved Medicaid expansion and Utah continues to discuss it.
Senate Vice President Jeff King, an Independence Republican, could play a key role in the expansion debate going forward. Last session, he said he didn’t believe the state’s rejection of expansion was the main reason that some Kansas hospitals were struggling.
“Expanded Medicaid is not the silver bullet,” he said in April. But when contacted last week to discuss the closure of the Independence hospital, King said he is open to considering a more conservative approach to expansion.
“I don’t want to expand Medicaid just copying the Affordable Care Act, but want to take the model that we’ve seen in Arkansas, seen in Indiana, that Pennsylvania attempted, to have a Kansas-based Medicaid program that expands to meet the needs of those it currently isn’t covering,” King said.
KanCare now covers about 425,000 children and low-income, disabled and elderly adults. But that number includes relatively few non-disabled adults. Adults with dependent children can participate in KanCare, but only if they have incomes below 33 percent of the federal poverty level, annually $7,870 for a family of four.
Adults without children aren’t eligible for coverage no matter how poor they are. Expansion would cover all Kansans with incomes up to 138 percent of poverty – annually $16,105 for an individual and $32,913 for a family of four.
Estimates vary, but expansion would extend coverage to between 140,000 and 170,000 Kansans. Opponents of expanding KanCare eligibility have said they’re concerned about the potential long-term cost to the state, even though the Affordable Care Act requires the federal government to cover no less than 90 percent of expansion costs beginning in 2017.
In addition, conservative political groups have threatened to target Medicaid expansion supporters in next year’s election. “We certainly plan to hold accountable any legislator who supports this misguided scheme,” said Akash Chougule, a senior policy analyst in the national office of Americans for Prosperity.
Chougule made the comment during his testimony at the hearing on expansion conducted last session by the House Health and Human Services Committee.
Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.
WICHITA- Law enforcement authorities in Sedgwick County have identified a suspect wanted in connection with the sexual battery of a girl in a high school bathroom.
According to a police report the suspect identified as Guy D. Harris, 28, walked into East High School on Wednesday just before 11 a.m. and went into the girl’s restroom.
The report indicated the suspect touched the teenage student as she attempted to leave.
Photo Wichita Police
Harris was not located but a security camera took his picture.
Police reported in a media release that Harris is also wanted on two felony warrants and one misdemeanor City bench warrant.
Police are asking for the public to help locate him.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The state of Kansas is selling hundreds of bottles of liquor accumulated by regulators on an online auction. See the web site here
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the selection on the online auction site includes 72 bottles of brandy, 22 jugs of vodka and 13 flasks of rum.
The liquor was acquired collected by the Alcoholic Beverage Control from the owners of newly acquired restaurants who can’t legally sell alcohol that was left behind by the previous business owners.
The bidding isn’t open to anyone looking to stock their liquor cabinets, only holders of state retail or wholesale liquor licenses.
Kansas Department of Revenue spokeswoman Jeannine Koranda says proceeds from the auction will be deposited into the state’s general treasury.
SALINE COUNTY – A Kansas semi driver was injured in an accident just before 8 a.m. on Tuesday in Saline County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1979 Freightliner semi driven by Weston W. Dent, 30, Salina, was northbound on Brookville Road at the Ottawa County line.
The truck left the right side of the roadway and overturned.
Dent was transported to Salina Regional Medical Center.
He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.
MANHATTAN -It’s official, the Kicker Country Stampede 2016 headliners will be Tim McGraw, Jake Owen, Dierks Bentley and Sam Hunt!
Stampede officials made the announcement on Tuesday morning at 8 a.m., and have updated their website to show the new headliners!
There’s a big change this year, however! The festival is cutting out the Sunday shows, so the event will only be three days instead of four. On their twitter account, Country Stampede said that the reason for shortening the festival was so that they could spend the money they would have normally allotted for the Sunday acts to Thurs-Saturday.
Haven’t snagged your tickets yet? Three day admission is $120, VIP is $510 and reserved is $250 until November 30. Camp is available again this year and will cost ya $135 bucks.
The Associated Press
