DICKINSON COUNTY – A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 10p.m. on Saturday in Dickinson County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2007 Chevy Silverado driven by Darren Ray Gfeller, 34, Chapman, was westbound on Kansas 18 three miles north of Chapman.
The pickup left the roadway, struck a culvert and overturned.
Gfeller was transported to the hospital in Salina. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.
EPA
WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is moving swiftly to propose how it will prioritize and evaluate chemicals, given that the final processes must be in place within the first year of the new law’s enactment, or before June 22, 2017.
“After 40 years, we can finally address chemicals currently in the marketplace,” said Jim Jones, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Chemical Safety and Pollution Prevention. “Today’s action will set into motion a process to quickly evaluate chemicals and meet deadlines required under, and essential to, implementing the new law.”
When the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) was enacted in 1976, it grandfathered in thousands of unevaluated chemicals that were in commerce at the time. The old law failed to provide EPA with the tools to evaluate chemicals and to require companies to generate and provide data on chemicals they produced.
EPA is proposing three rules to help administer the new process. They are:
Inventory Rule. There are currently over 85,000 chemicals on EPA’s Inventory, and many of these are no longer actively produced. The rule will require manufacturers, including importers, to notify EPA and the public on the number of chemicals still being produced.
Prioritization Rule. This will establish how EPA will prioritize chemicals for evaluation. EPA will use a risk-based screening process and criteria to identify whether a particular chemical is either high or low priority. A chemical designated as high priority must undergo evaluation. Chemicals designated as low priority are not required to undergo evaluation.
Risk Evaluation Rule. This will establish how EPA will evaluate the risk of existing chemicals. The agency will identify steps for the risk evaluation process, including publishing the scope of the assessment. Chemical hazards and exposures will be assessed, along with characterizing and determining risks. This rule also outlines how the agency intends to seek public comment on chemical evaluations.
These three rules incorporate comments received from a series of public meetings held in August 2016.
If EPA identifies unreasonable risk in the evaluation, it is required to eliminate that risk through regulations. Under TSCA, the agency must have at least 20 ongoing risk evaluations by the end of 2019.
Comments on the proposed rules must be received 60 days after date of publication in the Federal Register. At that time, go to the dockets at https://www.regulations.gov/ and search for: HQ-OPPT-2016-0426 for the Inventory Rule; HQ-OPPT-2016-0636 for the Prioritization Rule; and HQ-OPPT-2016-0654 for the Risk Evaluation Rule.
Learn more about the proposals: https://www.epa.gov/assessing-and-managing-chemicals-under-tsca/frank-r-lautenberg-chemical-safety-21st-century-act-5.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors have charged a man in connection with a shooting death last summer in Kansas City, Kansas.
The Kansas City Star reports that 34-year-old Maurice Wayne Hall was charged Friday in Wyandotte County with one count of first-degree murder. He was arrested Wednesday.
Authorities allege Hall shot and killed Tyrone Wilson on July 25. Court records suggest that Wilson was shot while talking to people outside a building.
Online court records don’t show whether Hall has an attorney.
Hall’s bond is set at $250,000.
ROXANA HEGEMAN, Associated Press
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas lawmakers are expected to debate aspects of the state’s election laws this year as Democrats push to reverse some of the stricter measures enacted at the urging of Secretary of State Kris Kobach.
Democrats want to repeal the law that requires people to show proof-of-citizenship, such as a birth certificate or passport, to register to vote. They also want to allow same-day registration so people can register when they go to the polls to vote.
Meanwhile, Kobach is seeking authority to create separate voter registration lists — one for people who can vote in any election and another for only federal races.
Rep. Keith Esau, the Republican from Olathe who chairs the House Elections Committee, said elections are running smoothly as they are, with strong turnout.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A day after anarchists created chaos, thousands of women descended upon Washington for what a more orderly show of force on the first full day of Donald Trump’s presidency.
At the Women’s march in Topeka, KS pic.twitter.com/wTHAquKD5d
— Andrea Johnson (@andreaj) January 21, 2017
Organizers of Saturday’s Women’s March on Washington expected more than 200,000 people to attend their gathering, a number that could rival Trump’s swearing-in ceremony. The organizers’ mission statement says attendees are “hurting and scared” as the new president takes office and want a greater voice for women in political life.
The gathering featured a morning rally and afternoon march. It comes a day after protesters set fires and hurled bricks in a series of clashes that led to more than 200 arrests. Women in Kansas also marched in solidarity with the Women’s March on Washington.
The march in Wichita began at 10am at The Keeper of the Plains, 650 North Seneca. They marched to City Hall where a rally was held. A similar rally was held at 1p.m. in on the south steps of the state capitol in Topeka.
Among the scheduled speakers were Stephanie Mott (LGBTQ), Elise Higgins (Repro Rights)
Barbara Ballard (KS legislator), Heather Ousley (Education), Dot Nary (Disability Rights)
Ana Maldonado (Sexual Assault/Violence)
Glenda Overstreet (BLM), Anaya Vasu and Sho Glashausser (Youth), CarynMirriam-Goldberg (KS Poet Laureate, 09-12)
TULSA, Okla. (AP) — A subsidiary of Magellan Midstream Partners will complete $16 million in upgrades to pipelines and pay a $2 million fine as part of a federal settlement following pipeline ruptures in three states.
Federal officials said in a statement Thursday a leak in May of 2015 spilled about 1,800 gallons of diesel near El Dorado, Kansas.
Another incident occurred in February 2011, when a pipeline carrying petroleum ruptured north of Texas City, Texas, spilling hundreds of gallons. Later that year two lines were ruptured when struck by heavy machinery near Nemaha, Nebraska, causing more than 2,800 gallons of diesel and jet fuel to spill.
Magellan is based in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The settlement is unrelated to a Magellan leak of anhydrous ammonia in Nebraska that killed a farmer last October.
SALINA – Law enforcement authorities in Salina are investigating a suspect on attempted murder charges after a Friday automobile accident.
Aaron Rogers, 36, Salina, was booked into the Saline County jail on requested charges of Aggravated kidnapping, Criminal Damage to Property; Value Unknown, Domestic battery; Knowing rude physical contact w/ family member and Attempted Murder, according to the Saline County Sheriff’s Booking report.
He was involved in what was originally reported as an injury accident with a woman passenger
on the North Ohio Street overpass, according to Salina Police Seargeant Mike Miller.
There were no injuries, according to Miller.
Rogers is expected to make a court appearance next week.
NEWTON, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas prosecutor says the death penalty “is on the table” in the case of two people who investigators say fled to Mexico as suspects in a triple homicide last October.
Harvey County prosecutors have charged 35-year-old Jereme Nelson and 31-year-old Myrta Rangel each with one count of capital murder and three counts of first-degree murder.
Nelson and Rangel were arrested earlier this month in Mexico and were returned to the U.S., where they remain jailed in California and await extradition to Kansas.
Authorities have said the bodies of 33-year-old Travis Street and 37-year-old Angela May Graevs, both of Moundridge, and 52-year-old Richard Prouty of Newton, were found Oct. 30 outside a rural home near Moundridge. An 18-month-old child was found unharmed.
It’s unclear if Nelson and Rangel have attorneys.
———————
HARVEY COUNTY –Law enforcement authorities continue to investigate suspects in connection with a Kansas triple-murder case.
On January 12th, Mexican authorities arrested 35-year-old Jereme Lee Nelson and 31-year-old Myrta Rangel in Rosarita Beach for the murders of 33-year-old Travis Street and 37-year-old Angela May Graevs, both of Moundridge, and 52-year-old Richard Prouty of Newton.
They were handed over to the U.S. Marshals Service and returned to the U.S. according to a media release.
During a Friday news conference, the Harvey County Sheriff’s office confirmed Nelson and Rangel waived extradition.
They remain jailed in San Diego.
No hearings in the case are scheduled until the suspects are returned to Kansas.
BY ANDY MARSO
Kansas legislators are seeking answers from the Brownback administration after federal officials denied a one-year extension of the state’s Medicaid program known as KanCare.
The denial letter, dated Jan. 17, outlines a series of concerns about the state’s privatization of Medicaid under three insurance companies. Federal officials cited poor coordination between the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services and said neither state agency was doing enough to hold the three insurance companies known as managed care organizations, or MCOs, accountable to Medicaid rules.
The lack of oversight puts the health of the 425,000 Kansans enrolled in Medicaid at risk, federal officials said.
Download the KanCare extension denial letter from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
Sen. Vicki Schmidt, a Republican from Topeka who chairs the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee, asked committee members to read the Topeka Capital-Journal’s initial report on the denial letter .
Schmidt said they should prepare questions for KDHE Secretary Susan Mosier.
“I’ll be asking the (KDHE) secretary to appear before the committee Monday to respond to this,” Schmidt said.
Rep. Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican who chairs the House Health and Human Services Committee, said he planned to take his concerns straight to Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer. Gov. Sam Brownback has made Colyer, a plastic surgeon, the administration’s point person on KanCare.
Hawkins said the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services denial of the extension indicates that KDHE does not have enough control over the MCOs that administer KanCare: Amerigroup, UnitedHealthcare and Sunflower State Health Plan, a division of Centene.
He said he would press for hiring an independent KanCare inspector general based out of the Kansas Attorney General’s Office. An inspector general position within KDHE has been vacant since 2014.
“I think, from a legislative standpoint, that’s long overdue,” Hawkins said.
Administration’s response
A spokeswoman in the governor’s office said Brownback and Colyer are in Washington, D.C., attending the presidential inauguration of Donald Trump.
In a statement from the governor’s office, administration officials cast the KanCare extension rejection as a partisan move and said the program was in no jeopardy.
Colyer called it “an ugly parting shot” from the administration of outgoing President Barack Obama, a Democrat.
“It is politically motivated pure and simple,” Colyer said in the statement, “and we expect this situation to be resolved quickly once the new administration in Washington comes into office.”
The state signed contracts with the MCOs in 2012 to take over Kansas Medicaid, which is now a $3.4 billion program.
Those contracts are set to expire at the end of this year. The state had planned to solicit new bids in 2017 but asked to extend the current contracts after Trump’s election, in anticipation of changes to Medicaid funding that may allow more flexibility.
That extension application is what CMS blocked this week.
Hawkins said it’s possible a Trump-led CMS will reverse that decision. The Brownback administration also has one month to correct the problems within KanCare and resubmit the application. Mosier, in a prepared statement, said that process is underway and she is confident it will be a success.
But Hawkins said none of that comforts him, with the end of the KanCare contracts looming and no new contracts to put up for bid yet.
“We’ve got to have this extension,” Hawkins said. “I think this (denial) was a blow. Because to give us time to really be able to produce a new KanCare RFP (request for proposal), we need this extension. I don’t want to hurry this. I want to get this right.”
Stakeholders see opportunity
Organizations that work with KanCare recipients said the extension denial provides an opportunity for the state to address their longstanding concerns.
Interhab, a Topeka-based nonprofit that represents businesses that provide long-term support services to Kansans with disabilities, released a statement calling on state officials to streamline KanCare reimbursements and increase scrutiny of the MCOs.
The rejection letter from CMS gave special attention to long-term support services, which allow Kansans with disabilities to live independently in their homes and communities rather than nursing facilities. The letter said federal investigators uncovered significant infractions of Medicaid rules for those services, including MCO changes to service plans and hours without input from the service providers or the disabled people affected.
The findings came largely from on-site reviews of the MCOs in October that substantiated complaints CMS officials heard during a listening tour of the state earlier in the year.
Tim Wood, Interhab executive director, said he wished CMS would have stepped in earlier.
“What this tells me is that perhaps long-term supports were not a good fit (for KanCare),” Wood said.
Federal officials’ concerns about the medical side of KanCare were largely confined to the number of providers the three MCOs truly have in their networks.
CMS officials said the state had done little to no vetting of the MCO provider lists and the information on network adequacy couldn’t be verified.
Melinda Miner, a dentist in Hays, said Thursday that didn’t surprise her.
Miner and other dentists aired concerns about dental providers dropping out of KanCare following a 4 percent cut in reimbursements last year. She said KDHE officials assured her the dental networks remained robust, even in her rural corner of Kansas.
That didn’t match what Miner was seeing on the ground. So she got the MCO lists of dental providers. For the next two weeks, she called each of them on her lunch breaks and between patient appointments.
Some were dead, some had retired and some told her they had never signed up to be KanCare providers.
“The more phone calls I made, the more interested I got in it,” Miner said. “Each county brought so many surprises it just led me to say, OK, just one more county.”
Miner eventually compiled a map that showed dental shortages throughout the western half of the state – including more than 20 counties that don’t have a single dentist who takes KanCare .
“It wasn’t my job,” Miner said. “Somebody on the state level really needed to discover what their actual network was.”
Miner said the federal findings about the lack of network oversight brought her a sense of frustration, not validation.
“I really, really hope this wakes people up to something the providers already know,” Miner said. “Which is that the system is broken.”
Andy Marso is a reporter for kcur.org‘s Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio and KMUW covering health, education and politics in Kansas. You can reach him on Twitter @andymarso.
SHAWNEE COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities in Shawnee County are investigating an attempted robbery and asking for help to identify a suspect.
Just after 7pm on Thursday, a man entered the Dollar General, 1920 SW 10th Avenue in Topeka and demanded money, according to a social media report from police.
The suspect threatened used of a weapon but did not show one. Based on witness description and video, police are seeking a Latino man wearing a dark colored jacket with a hood over a dark colored jersey with white lettering, blue jeans and black and white shoes. He was last seen leaving the building.
He did not take anything and there were no injuries, according to police.
If you can provide any information in the case, contact police in Topeka.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Friends of a missing Kansas women are praying for her safe return.
A candlelight vigil for 20-year-old Toni Anderson was held Thursday night at a church in her hometown of Wichita.
Anderson was last seen early Sunday when she was pulled over by a Kansas City, Missouri police officer for an improper lane change.
The officer watched Anderson, who was alone in the car, drive to a nearby convenience store. She texted a childhood friend about being pulled over and hasn’t communicated with anyone since then.
Anderson worked as a server at Chrome, a strip club in Kansas City.
Anderson’s car was a black 2014 Ford Focus with Kansas license plate 989-GAX. She is white, about 5-feet-4-inches tall and 140 pounds.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Some top Republican legislators in Kansas are looking to cut aid to public schools significantly to close a shortfall in the state’s current budget by June 30.
Their goal is to avoid the accounting moves proposed by GOP Gov. Sam Brownback and used in the past to cover budget holes.
Senate Ways and Means Committee Chairwoman Carolyn McGinn said Friday that she’s working on a bill to cut spending to close the projected $342 million shortfall in the state’s current budget. The Sedgwick Republican said she hopes to have it drafted next week.
She said her proposal is likely to reduce aid to public schools by between $90 million and $125 million. Senate Majority Leader and Overland Park Republican Jim Denning suggested that schools could withstand a $200 million cut.
TOPEKA -The Kansas Supreme Court on Friday affirmed the Saline County District Court’s decision to deny 36-year-old Dane C. DeWeese’s motion for new trial.
DeWeese was convicted of first-degree murder and sentence to life in prison for the April 2013 death of 27-year-old Kristin Taylor whose beaten body was found in a ravine off Interstate 135.
In the motion, DeWeese argued the state violated Brady v. Maryland, 373 U.S. 83, 83 S. Ct. 1194, 10 L. Ed. 2d 215 (1963) when it failed to disclose a police report to the defense before trial.
Chief Justice Lawton R. Nuss wrote the opinion for a unanimous court, which rejected DeWeese’s arguments. The court held that the evidence contained in the undisclosed report was cumulative and, therefore, not material under Brady. Accordingly, the court affirmed the district court’s decision.
DeWeese must serve at least 25 years of the life sentence and nearly 11 years for the conspiracy charge before being eligible for parole.
