KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Thousands of people remain without power in the Kansas City area after severe thunderstorms moved through the area overnight Saturday.

Utility officials believe the power outages will linger into Monday afternoon before everyone regains electricity. The storms that began Saturday generated winds gusts up to 70 mph that knocked down trees and power lines.

Our office windows are the only source of light in Pleasant Hill right now. That and all the lightning. pic.twitter.com/1EaP0nJgCZ

— NWS Kansas City (@NWSKansasCity) July 23, 2017

About 71,000 Kansas City Power & Light customers remained without power Sunday morning. At the height of the storm, 112,000 customers lost power.

Another 8,000 customers in Independence, Missouri are also without power, and nearly 14,000 in Kansas City, Kansas lacked power.

GOLDEN, Colo. (AP) — Colorado authorities say a person has died while inner tubing in the Platte River — the state’s third fatal tubing accident in a week.

The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office said Sunday that a 43-year-old Castle Rock resident drowned near the Platte River campground.

Authorities say the man had been tubing Saturday afternoon with his fiance and friends when he apparently lost his tube and went into an area near the bank with bushes and tall grass.

A camper saw the man emerge face down. Several people pulled him from the water but attempts to revive him failed.

On Friday, a 48-year-old woman flipped off her inner tube and drowned near Golden. On July 16, a 31-year-old man died after falling out of his inner tube at the Animas River Whitewater Park in southwestern Colorado.

KANSAS CITY –  A California man and woman were indicted by a federal grand jury Thursday for their roles in a conspiracy to distribute multi-kilos of methamphetamine and fentanyl (a synthetic form of heroin), which was confiscated during an interdiction at a Kansas City bus terminal, according to Tom Larson, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.

Edgar Israel Reyes-Toscano, 44, and Vanessa Sanchez, 44, both of Bakersfield, Calif., were charged in a three-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Mo. Today’s indictment replaces a federal criminal complaint that was filed against both defendants on July 6, 2017.

The indictment alleges that Reyes-Toscano and Sanchez participated in a conspiracy to distribute methamphetamine and fentanyl. In addition to the conspiracy, Reyes-Toscano and Sanchez are charged together in one count of possessing methamphetamine with the intent to distribute and one count of possessing fentanyl with the intent to distribute.

According to an affidavit filed in support of the original criminal complaint, Reyes-Toscano and Sanchez were arrested on July 5, 2017, at a local bus terminal. They had traveled together, the affidavit says, on a bus that originated in Los Angeles, Calif. Reyes-Toscano’s bus ticket bore a final destination of St. Louis, Mo. A Kansas City police detective searched his duffel bag and noticed a white cardboard box secured with clear package tape. Upon opening the lid of the box, the detective observed a large bundle wrapped in clear cellophane wrap. The detective also found a gift-wrapped package in the duffel bag that contained three bundles wrapped in clear cellophane wrap. According to the affidavit, those packages were later determined to contain a total of 2,380 grams of methamphetamine and 3,540 grams of fentanyl

Another Kansas City police detective noticed Sanchez, carrying a bag on her shoulder, walk past while intensely staring at what was transpiring between Reyes-Toscano and the detective. The detective had seen Sanchez exit the bus with Reyes-Toscano, and noticed that the bag she carried over her shoulder appeared to have a heavy, rectangular-shaped box in it.

Sanchez entered the women’s restroom and when she came back out, her bag no longer appeared to have a heavy rectangular box within. Sanchez immediately exited the bus terminal, walked out to the loading platform and sat down on a bench. While the detective questioned Sanchez, a third detective searched the women’s restroom and found a rectangular gift-wrapped package in the trashcan. According to the affidavit, the package, wrapped in the same gift wrap as the package carried by Reyes-Toscano, contained three bundles wrapped in clear cellophane wrap for a total of 2,410 grams of methamphetamine.

By SAM ZEFF

If you weren’t paying really close attention to the oral arguments in the Gannon v. Kansas school funding case before the Kansas Supreme Court on Tuesday, you probably missed a little question from Justice Dan Biles about a provision of the new school funding formula that exclusively benefits two Johnson County districts.

“Does the state really want us to strike the entire formula because $2 million went askew in the process?” Justice Biles asked.

There’s a provision in the formula that funnels extra money to the Blue Valley and De Soto districts as though they serve more students from low-income households than they actually do — $2 million of the $23 million intended to bolster programs for academically struggling children statewide.

Lawmakers boosted the funding for at-risk kids because, when the justices declared the previous school funding formula inadequate in March, they’d pointed to the disproportionate numbers of minority and low-income children who are behind in math and reading.

To qualify for the extra money, the new formula requires 10 percent of children in a district to be categorized as at-risk. Blue Valley and De Soto don’t meet that threshold. So, the bill’s sponsors said, to make the legislation equitable for all districts, they allocated $2 million to those two districts anyway.

In crafting the bill, lawmakers decided that if this piece of the school funding formula is declared unconstitutional, the whole formula will go down with it.

Kansas Solicitor General Stephen McAllister told the court, momentarily stumped by Biles’ question about the provision: “I don’t think anyone, including the schools, wants to strike down the entire law and stop all funding of the schools.”

“So the state would very much like to avoid that outcome,” McAllister said.

Some Democrats suggested the provision had simply been a way to buy support for the school funding bill from the Johnson County delegation.

Not so, says Rep. Melissa Rooker, a Republican from Fairway. “It is an attempt to provide one more avenue of funding to put directly towards activities that will help those students.”

Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, from Overland Park, says, “No doubt it was a Johnson County provision.”

But he also says it’s money the districts need to provide services to their students, so he’s happy with the provision.

“Now if that’s something they (the Supreme Court) want to reverse, we have to live with it,” Denning said.

Sam Zeff covers education for KCUR and the Kansas News Service.Follow him on Twitter @SamZeff. 

 

JACKSON COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal fireworks accident.

Just before noon Friday, the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call from a victim of an apparent explosion at 15530 150th Road in rural Mayetta., according to a media release.

Jackson County Sheriff’s Office deputies entered the residence and found the caller and victim, 11-year-old Colby Harris dead.

Jackson County authorities asked the Kansas Bureau of Investigation’s Crime Scene Team to assist with the investigation.

They determined that Colby Harris had been experimenting with fireworks and other minor explosive devices. He was home alone for a very short period of time prior to making the 911 call.

An autopsy was performed Saturday in Kansas City and the manner of death was determined to be accidental and the preliminary cause of death is due to massive blood loss caused by shrapnel.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A former Lawrence school district para-educator has been sentenced to nearly three years in prison for having sex with a student.

Thirty-four-year-old Teri Lynn Johnson, of Baldwin City, was sentenced Friday. She was convicted in March of unlawful sexual relations and sexual exploitation of a child, both felonies, and promoting obscenity to a minor, a misdemeanor. Johnson must also register as a sex offender.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports the crimes occurred in fall 2015 when the victim — then 17 — was a student at the Douglas County Juvenile Detention Center’s Day School. Prosecutors say the conduct lasted until December of that year.

JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Sen. Pat Roberts is working with fellow Republicans on legislation to overhaul health care even as fellow Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran grabs national headlines for helping to stall the effort.

Roberts acknowledged during an Associated Press interview that he’s not happy with parts of the latest version of the bill to replace the Affordable Care Act.

His staff said he’s been working with the plan’s drafters on provisions protecting financially stressed hospitals and a home health program for rural states.

Roberts said Congress needs to move quickly because delay allows conditions in the health insurance market to worsen.

Moran jumped into the spotlight by tweeting early this week that he couldn’t support the latest version of the GOP plan, denying it a vote that it needed to pass.

BASHOR, Kan. (AP) — A Basehor man has been sentenced to a year in jail and probation for a crash that killed two relatives who were to be groomsmen at a wedding the day they died.

Leavenworth County Attorney officials say 22-year-old William Wilson was sentenced Friday for involuntary manslaughter while driving under the influence of alcohol.

The charge stemmed from a June 2015 crash near the Kansas River that killed 29-year-old Jesse Aldrich and 34-year-old Justin Wilson.

The Leavenworth Times reports prosecutors say William Wilson had a blood-alcohol level of .09 after the accident. He was 20 at the time and the legal limit for a driver under 21 is .02.

William Wilson and the two victims were to serve as groomsmen at Wilson’s brother’s wedding in Basehor the day they died.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A Leavenworth woman has been sentenced to nearly 13 years in prison for beating her mother to death.

Sixty-year-old Victoria Smith was sentenced Friday for intentional second-degree murder in the July 2016 death of Anna Maria Higgins.

The Leavenworth Times reports prosecutors say Smith hit Higgins several times with a flashlight and a three-pound mallet at a home where Smith lived.

Friday’s hearing began with District Judge Gunnar Sundby denying a defense motion to allow Smith to withdraw her no contest plea.

Family members said before sentencing that Smith had a history of abusing Higgins.

Smith told the court she intended only to scare her mother and then “snapped” but she believed she should be sentenced for manslaughter, rather than second-degree murder.

BALTIMORE (AP) — The NAACP announced on Saturday it would embark on a nationwide listening tour to talk to its local members and help figure out what the future of the nation’s oldest civil rights organization should be.

The announcement came at the beginning of its 108th national convention in Baltimore, the location of its national headquarters.

Leon Russell, the NAACP’s national board chairman, said the organization needs to figure out how best to support civil rights workers on the ground in communities who are working on issues like police brutality, the upcoming census, redistricting and voter suppression.

Talking with local members will help them figure out how to “address the issues and challenges that face African-Americans and our communities,” Russell said.

The first stop on the listening tour will be in Detroit on Aug. 24, followed by San Antonio, Texas in September, officials said.

The tour should “expand our reach, touch our people, engage more diverse audiences and reinforce our focus on civil rights in this age of great political and social uncertainty,” said Derrick Johnson, chair of the convention and vice chair of the NAACP Board of Directors.

The NAACP has in recent years been overshadowed at street-level advocacy by groups like Black Lives Matter as nationwide concern increased over the deaths of black men, women and children at the hands of the police.

Russell said the NAACP has coexisted during the civil rights movement with younger groups like the Congress of Racial Equality, while Johnson pointed out that all of the organizations today are working toward the same goal of equality and fairness.

“In fact, many of the young people who are in the ranks of those organizations come out of the ranks of the NAACP. It’s not a competition,” Johnson said.

The NAACP parted ways with its president and CEO Cornell William Brooks in May. Russell said they hoped to have a new president in place by the end of the year but the board is not rushing the process.

“We’re going to sit down and really be intentional on how we do this, where we look and how we look,” Russell said.

President Donald Trump declined an invitation to speak at the annual convention. Trump also did not speak to the NAACP convention last year, citing scheduling conflicts with the Republican National Convention.

The NAACP convention will wrap up on Wednesday.

CHICAGO (AP) — Funeral services have been set for an Illinois man killed along with a passenger when his World War II-era aircraft crashed in Kansas last weekend.

Visitation for Vlado Lenoch of Burr Ridge will be held Sunday in the Chicago suburb of Willowbrook. His funeral will be held Monday at St. John of the Cross Catholic Church in Western Springs.

The 64-year-old Lenoch and 34-year-old Bethany Root were killed Sunday when their P-51 Mustang fighter crashed in a field about 10 miles from an airport in Atchison, Kansas.

The crash occurred one day after the fighter flew in a festival that celebrates famed aviator Amelia Earhart in her Kansas hometown.

The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the plane crash.