TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A new report shows a small decline in the number of Kansans with health insurance coverage through the federal online marketplace during the spring and early summer.
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services reported Tuesday about 84,900 Kansas residents were enrolled in health plans through the federal marketplace at the end of June.
The figure is 0.7 percent less than the figure of nearly 85,500 for the end of March but still significantly higher than the 57,000 reported in the spring of 2014. Enrollment shifts expected as people’s circumstances change and they cancel coverage or newly enroll.
The report said the number of Kansas residents receiving tax credits to help play for their insurance declined 3.2 percent, from nearly 70,000 to about 67,700.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 45-year-old Arkansas man pleaded guilty to committing 12 robberies in five states during the summer of 2013.
Federal prosecutors say Timothy Patrick Hoyt, of Bella Vista, Arkansas, pleaded guilty Wednesday to indictments from Missouri, Kansas, South Dakota, Nebraska and Oklahoma, all of which were transferred to Missouri.
Hoyt pleaded to using what appeared to be a handgun to rob the Alliant Bank in Blackwater, Missouri, and 10 other businesses, including eight fast food restaurants. The weapon was a pellet or BB gun.
Besides those crimes, he acknowledged committing another robbery in Kansas and two in Iowa, where he was arrested.
Hoyt faces up to 20 years in federal prison without parole, a fine up to $250,000 and restitution for each of the robberies. No sentencing date was scheduled.
WARREN, Mich. (AP) — President Barack Obama knows his plan for a national program to provide two years of free community college is going nowhere in Congress.
So he’s in Michigan to try to start a national movement in support of the idea of free community college.
Obama says “it’s an idea that makes sense.”
The president teamed up with Jill Biden, the wife of the vice president, for a visit to Macomb Community College in Warren to underscore the importance of free access to community colleges.
Obama says “no kid should be priced out of an education.” He says education is the “secret sauce” that explains the nation’s success.
The president also says he’s “a little freaked out” that his older daughter, Malia, just started her senior year in high school.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita woman has made her first court appearance to face charges after allegedly abandoning her 5-year-old grandson three months ago while fleeing Kohl’s after a shoplifting incident.
The Wichita Eagle reports the 41-year-old grandmother appeared by video link Tuesday from the Sedgwick County jail to face charges of abandonment of a child and theft.
She had been on the lam until her arrest Friday. She is accused of trying to steal $200 worth of clothing from the store before fleeing, leaving the clothes and her grandson behind.
Attorneys say the boy remains in foster care because no one from his family is willing or fit to take him.
The boy’s mother in Texas hasn’t seen her son for four years. She tested positive for meth after his birth.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A former Sedgwick County jail deputy convicted of sex crimes against inmates is accused of violating his probation for driving drunk and refusing a breath test.
The Wichita Eagle reports that David Kendall is set for a hearing Sept. 25 in Wichita. His latest legal troubles come from his conviction on Aug. 14 for driving while intoxicated and refusing the breath test last January in Sumner County.
Kendall has been serving a two-year probationary sentence. He pleaded no contest last year to six counts of attempted unlawful sexual relations with inmates and one count of making a false information. Those crimes involved six different inmates in 2012.
His probation terms require he not possess or consume alcohol or drugs without a prescription.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Junction City is looking for new owners for lots it was forced to take back after a surge of troops at Fort Riley never materialized.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the first 25 of the city’s more than 900 lots are for sale. Junction City planning and zoning director David Yearout says sealed bids are due by 5 p.m. Thursday. On Tuesday, the city will decide whether to accept the bids, which must be for at least $5,000.
The lots in the land bank have utilities and streets leading to them, a legacy of the building spree following optimistic projections about the future of Fort Riley.
City manager Allan Dinkel says that if it goes well, more properties will go on sale in the future.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A 20-year-old former University of Kansas student accused of raping a woman in a university dorm room has entered a diversion program.
Douglas County prosecutors charged the man with sexual battery after a woman said he forced her to have sex with him in April 2014 in Gertrude Sellards Pearson Residence Hall.
The 19-year-old woman told police she repeatedly said “no.” According to a police affidavit, the man told police he thought it was a “playful no.”
The Douglas County district attorney’s office will not prosecute if the man meets several conditions, including writing the woman an apology and abstaining from alcohol and recreational drugs.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports an assistant district attorney said the woman agreed with the state’s decision to put the man in a diversion program.
SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Saline County are investigating a burglary and need help identifying the suspects.
On September 2, the Saline County Sheriff’s Office responded to 3608 W. Smolan Road in rural Saline County on a report of a burglary.
The Sheriff’s Office reported the suspects, a white male and female who appear to be in their 20s or 30s used a stolen credit card at least twice at two bank ATM’s and once at Sears in Salina.
The woman has a small tattoo on her right ankle. The man appears to have a tattoo on his upper right arm.
They were driving a red Ford Focus 4-door sedan. The car has a factory rear spoiler on the trunk.
If you can help in identifying these individuals, please contact the Saline County Sheriff’s Office at 785-826-6500.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials say a review of the state’s new welfare law shows it doesn’t conflict with federal rules governing state child care programs.
Kansas Department for Children and Families economic and employment services director Sandra Kimmons also said Tuesday that federal officials haven’t indicated that there’s a problem.
The Kansas City Star reports that the issue arose after a child advocacy group raised concerns that several aspects of the new welfare reform law could collide with federal rules, jeopardizing more than $40 million a year in federal funds. The law, called the HOPE Act, was approved by the Legislature last session.
Shannon Cotsoradis, president and CEO of Kansas Action for Children, maintains there could be a problem with certain state work requirements for parents and subsidy cutoffs for noncompliance.
MANHATTAN-A Kansas man on Tuesday plead not guilty to two counts of attempted first degree murder and one count of aggravated weapons violation by a convicted felon.
Mark Self Jr., 31, of Manhattan, appeared in Riley County District Court for an arraignment in connections with a shooting that occurred in the early morning hours of May 3, 2015 in Manhattan’s Aggieville.
According to the preliminary hearing held on July 31, it was alleged that Self was in a physical altercation with Kevin Green, 26, of Manhattan inside Tubby’s Sports Bar in Aggieville.
After both Self and Green were escorted out of the sports bar into the alley, Green began walking away when Self pulled a concealed handgun from his waistband and fired several shots in Green’s direction.
Green was then struck in the left arm. Another shot allegedly ricocheted and struck Jeremy Caudill, 19, Fort Riley, who was caught between Self and Green in the alleyway.
After emptying the weapon Self allegedly placed the handgun back into his waistband and began to walk away when a witness pointed him out to an approaching Officer with the Riley County Police Department.
After a brief foot chase, Self was tased by the officer and taken into custody, and police found the emptied Glock .40 handgun in Self’s boxer shorts that is believed to have been used during the shooting.
Trial in the case is scheduled for February 1, 2016.
Six Kansas cities have added e-cigarettes to their local smoking bans. photo -BIGSTOCK
By ANDY MARSO
Erica Anderson, a health promotion specialist for the Lawrence-Douglas County Health Department, likes to tell a story about a woman who came to one of her workshops eager to talk about electronic cigarettes.
The woman, who was pregnant, said she was in a restaurant when a man at the table next to her started puffing on an e-cigarette, which delivers nicotine to users in a vapor. As the white cloud of vapor wafted over to her, she got up and asked the restaurant owner to tell the man to stop.
“The owner promptly replied that it wasn’t covered under the local ordinance or the state law and so therefore he wasn’t about to ask that particular patron to discontinue use,” Anderson said. “She ended up deciding to leave and not expose herself and her unborn baby to the vapor.”
Kansas’ ban on smoking tobacco products in most public places has been in place since 2010. In those five years, the smoke-free atmosphere of bars, restaurants and other indoor spots has become the norm. Anderson said it’s jarring now to see someone puffing on something in those settings, and she and other health advocates would like to keep it that way.
She plans to be part of an effort next year to get legislators to add e-cigarettes and other “vaping” products to the statewide smoking ban.
“Advocates are going to come out ahead of this issue and really take a look at youth use of e-cigarettes and the modeling and the social norm issues that we are seeing, especially in Douglas County,” Anderson said.
Six Kansas cities already have added e-cigarettes to their local smoking bans. Topeka was the most recent, joining Olathe, Overland Park, Kansas City, Park City and McPherson.
Spencer Duncan, a lobbyist who represents vapor shop owners, said the “dominos” are beginning to fall and momentum is heading toward a statewide ban, although he has not heard much about it from legislators themselves.
Duncan said his work next session will focus mainly on trying to get legislators to reverse course on an e-cigarette tax that is scheduled to go into effect next year.
While he also opposes adding e-cigarettes to the state’s smoking ban, Duncan acknowledged he has “a clear bias.”
“I’m in no hurry to watch the state standardize that sort of ban,” he said. “But I know there’s others who don’t feel that way.”
City leaders who are adding e-cigarettes to their bans are making policy before they have research on the effects of secondhand vapor, Duncan said.
In Topeka, for example, the city council was encouraged to take a “better-safe-than-sorry” approach until the research is in.
Lack of data
The lack of hard data on e-cigarettes, which have been around for only about 10 years, cuts both ways.
Research is beginning to trickle out, but there are pitfalls in using it to reach sweeping conclusions.
Duncan’s clients believe they’re peddling a healthier alternative to traditional tobacco products that can help smokers quit.
“There are people — I know some of them — who have gone to e-cigarettes and quit smoking,” he said.
But Anderson said the anecdotes don’t add up to a substantial study.
“There is actually very little evidence that it helps people quit,” she said.
E-cigarettes can act as a “gateway” to traditional tobacco products, she said, especially for young people. In addition to nicotine, which is addictive, Anderson said e-cigarette liquids contain harmful chemicals and metals that vary by brand and product.
A government-funded study of Los Angeles high school students published last month showed a correlation between those who used e-cigarettes and those who went on to use traditional tobacco products. But the study did not prove any causal link that would establish that e-cigarettes were a “gateway” to the tobacco use.
The United Kingdom’s public health body approved e-cigarettes as a smoking cessation tool last month. The decision was based on a review of research that concluded the products carry a fraction of the health risks of traditional tobacco use.
But that decision has since come under criticism amid reports that the research the regulators examined was funded in part by the e-cigarette industry. Public health experts who analyzed it said the government had made an overreaching conclusion based on flimsy evidence.
FDA regulation pending
The U.S. Food and Drug Administration continues to consider how to regulate e-cigarettes and other vaping products. The process is complicated by the variety of ingredients in various vaping liquids and the quickly changing technology.
The FDA proposed a rule more than a year ago to allow it to regulate e-cigarettes as it does traditional tobacco products. But the rule is still winding its way through the approval process.
Duncan said that adds a legal wrinkle for ongoing attempts to incorporate e-cigarettes into local smoking bans.
Because the state and federal government do not regulate e-cigarettes, Duncan said, his group does not believe anyone in Kansas has the legal authority to ban them.
“The reason the courts allowed smoking bans is they were regulated products that had a clear and well-defined danger from secondhand smoke,” he said.
Duncan said a 2011 legal opinion https://ksag.washburnlaw.edu/opinions/2011/2011-015.pdf from Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt bolsters his group’s case, and members of his group are interested in mounting a legal challenge.
The end of the opinion states that in order to add e-cigarettes to the state smoking ban, which is called the Kansas Indoor Clean Air Act, legislators first would have to reopen the 2010 legislation and change the definitions of “cigarette” or “smoking” to make them broader.
Jennifer Rapp, a spokesperson for Schmidt’s office, said the opinion speaks for itself.
In 2013, a group of attorneys general from 40 states sent a letter to the FDA, urging it to regulate e-cigarettes the same way it does traditional tobacco products.
Schmidt was not among them.
“Attorney General Schmidt believes it is a policy decision for the Legislature to make,” Rapp said in an email.
Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Police say three people, including an infant, have been found fatally shot at a home in Kansas City.
Capt. Tye Grant says a family member returned home and discovered the bodies of a man, woman and infant Tuesday. Grant said in a statement early Wednesday that officers arrived around 9:30 p.m.
He says all the victims appear to have been shot to death.
Police do not yet have a description of a suspect.
Kansas City Police Chief Darryl Forte and Mayor Sly James both visited the scene.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Officials at Wichita State University say they plan to increase evening police patrols after two recent on-campus robberies.
University spokesman Lou Heldman said Tuesday the school will have additional officers on campus between 7 p.m. and 3 a.m. Heldman said the school is not adding officers, but rather using officers from day shifts more during the evening.
Officials say police officers will be conducting more foot patrols, as well.
According to school police chief Sara Morris, a 19-year-old female student was robbed of her purse at knifepoint Monday in a campus parking lot. The student was not injured.
