(AP) — A northeast Kansas couple has renewed a fight against an adult store along Interstate 70 west of Abilene that sells sex toys and explicit videos.

Phillip Cosby spearheaded protests and sought remedies after the Lion’s Den Superstore opened in 2003. He and his wife, Cathy, moved to the Kansas City area and worked for various groups that promote family values by fighting pornography and obscenity. They returned to Abilene a year ago.

Cosby says he has collected about 400 signatures on petitions seeking a grand jury to explore whether the store promotes obscenity.

Cosby is state director of the American Family Association of Kansas and Missouri. He has fought similar battles against adult stores in Missouri.

 (AP) — President Barack Obama is marking the 41st anniversary of the Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion by reaffirming his administration’s commitment to protecting a woman’s access to safe, affordable health care and her constitutional right to privacy, including the right to reproductive freedom.

In a written statement, Obama says the guiding principle of the court’s landmark decision is that all women should be free to make their own choices about their bodies and health. The justices’ Jan. 22, 1973 has been challenged ever since.

Obama commented Monday as thousands of anti-abortion demonstrators gathered in Washington’s sub-freezing weather for an annual march protesting the decision.

Obama says his administration also resolves to reduce the number of unplanned pregnancies, support maternal and child health, and build safe, healthy communities for children.

(AP) – Missouri Southern State University in Joplin was locked down briefly after students reported seeing a suspicious person, possibly with a gun.

After about two hours of searching Tuesday, campus police determined the campus was safe. No arrests were reported.

A campus alert was issued about 2:45 p.m. after students outside the university’s public safety center reported seeing someone, possibly with a gun, in an adjacent field.

University spokeswoman Cassie Mathes says students reported the person headed toward two residence halls.

Campus police locked down the dormitories while searching for the person. The lockdown ended about 4:40 p.m.

(AP)  The government wants to upgrade the standards for child safety seats.

The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will propose on Wednesday that child car seats for the first time would have to protect children from death and injury in side impact crashes.

Under the proposal, new crash tests would simulate a “T-bone” crash, where the front of a vehicle traveling 30 mph strikes the side of a small passenger vehicle traveling at 15 mph.

Officials say research shows that most child deaths and injuries in side-impact crashes involve a car carrying children that is stopped at an intersection, usually at a light or stop sign.

The agency says the new standards could prevent the deaths of about five children and injuries to 64 others each year.

The new regulations wouldn’t be made final until the agency reviews public comments and answers any important issues raised. That typically takes months and sometimes years.

“A new organization has been formed to oppose Missouri’s Keep Missouri Farming Amendment #1, and it raises some questions. As they said in the press conference today, they purport to represent farmers, but they also work closely with an organization, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), who has a stated goal to decrease the consumption of meat.

Most farmers in Missouri are in the meat business, one way or another. We either raise livestock or we raise grain that is fed to livestock. So, we have to really question the motives of the group that was formed today. We ha­­ve to remember that they are actually the groups that are against choice. The people backing Keep Missouri Farming Amendment #1, which will be on the ballot in November 2014, are the groups working to maintain people’s food choices, whether they want to buy local food, organic food, or whether they’re concerned about their budget and want to buy the most reasonably priced food. Only the Keep

Missouri Farming Amendment will guarantee those choices. Finally, the people at the event today spoke about foreign ownership of farmland. This is a little dishonest because Missouri Farm Bureau is one of the main backers of Amendment #1 and we also worked very hard to maintain Missouri’s prohibition on foreign ownership of farmland. We’ll be working in this year’s legislative session to tighten up the restrictions on foreign ownership of farmland. It’s very easy, very rational and very logical to both be for Amendment #1 and be opposed to foreign ownership of farmland.”

–Dave Ranney- KHI News

OLATHE — Since he was a teenager, Calloway “C.J.” Brazee, 36, has lived with schizophrenia. He’s been in and out of the state psychiatric hospitals more times than he can remember.

His most recent stay nearly killed him.

According to family members, Brazee was rushed to Olathe Medical Center on Jan. 4 after a nurse at Osawatomie State Hospital (OSH) realized he was unconscious.

At the emergency room, he suffered a seizure and started vomiting and choking. Doctors soon discovered he had an impacted bowel.

“They said his feces had petrified and there was baseball-size blockage in his intestine,” said Cuinn Brazee, the oldest of C.J. Brazee’s three brothers.

C.J. spent the next four days in an induced coma as doctors and nurses in the medical center’s critical care unit worked to relieve the blockage and minimize brain damage from his inability to breathe.

Cuinn said C.J. had called him twice earlier from the wall phone on his unit at OSH, saying he was dying and begging Cuinn to call an ambulance for him.

“I didn’t know any better,” Cuinn said. “I told him, ‘No, C.J., you’re OK. You’re in a hospital. There are doctors there. They’re taking care of you. You’re OK.’

“So he knew something was wrong, and I didn’t believe him,” he said. “That’s something I’ll have to live with for the rest of my life.”

Cuinn said OSH officials have denied family members access to information about the events that led to C.J. being taken to the emergency room.

“I’ve not gotten a single call returned from anyone down there (at OSH),” said C.J.’s mother, Nancy Brazee. “And when I call, I can’t get anybody who answers the phone to even tell me their name.”

Nancy has been assigned ‘durable power of attorney,’ which allows her to be involved in C.J.’s medical and other affairs

Cuinn, who lives in Lawrence, said C.J. was admitted to OSH on Aug. 21 after a third brother, Andy Brazee, reported that C.J. had been acting suicidal and was harming himself. At the time, C.J. was living with Andy in Bonner Springs. He was admitted to OSH voluntarily.

When C.J., who is 5 feet 11 inches tall, arrived at OSH, he was mentally ill but physically healthy, Cuinn said. He weighed 200 pounds. Four months later, he weighed 160 pounds.

“I just don’t understand how someone who’s under medical care and supervision can lose that much weight and not cause alarm,” Cuinn said. “It had to have been obvious that he was in medical distress and that this was an emergency.”

Olathe Medical Center records, Cuinn said, show that C.J. was taking nine prescription drugs while at OSH: Benztropine, Citalopram, Clozapine, Duloxetine, Etodolac, Lithium carbonate, Mirtzapine, Trazadone, and Diphenhydromine.

According to several pharmacological websites, constipation is a potential side effect for five of the nine drugs.

Angela de Rocha, a spokesperson for the state Department for Aging and Disability Services, said OSH officials would not comment on the Brazees’ concerns.

“We can’t talk about his because of HIPAA and other confidentiality laws and regulations,” de Rocha said, referring to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, a federal law that ensures medical privacy.

It’s possible, she said, that some information would be shared with their mother, Nancy.
State pays 50 percent

Typically, de Rocha said, OSH patients are first transported to Miami County Hospital in Paola, a distance of about seven miles.

Those found to have “more serious problems,” de Rocha said, usually are taken to Olathe Medical Center.

The Olathe and Miami County hospitals are owned by Olathe Health Systems.

“We pay Olathe Medical Systems 50 percent of the (OSH patient’s) bill,” de Rocha said.

At this point, it isn’t clear who might cover the other 50 percent of the cost. Olathe hospital officials said in cases involving OSH patients they often end up with no payment from anyone for the remaining balances due.

It’s not yet known how much C.J.’s stay — which includes 10 days in the medical center’s critical care unit — will cost.

OSH was the subject of a consultant’s report last fall that proposed an overhaul of the hospital’s administrative structure so that doctors, nurses and other staff could spend more time with patients and less time in meetings.

Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services Secretary Shawn Sullivan has said the agency intends to phase in the recommendations over the next two to three years.

KDADS, he said, also is looking for alternative placements for patients whose conditions may not be serious enough to warrant hospitalization but who have nowhere else to go.

OSH has a licensed capacity of 176 beds but can accommodate as many as 190 patients.

According to the consultant’s report, the hospital often exceeds its licensed capacity because many patients need more services — especially residential services — than their community mental health centers have the resources to provide.

KDADS reports show that since July 1, the average daily patient count at OSH has been 182 patients, which is six patients beyond the facility’s licensed capacity.

The consultant’s study was one of a package examining four of the state hospitals with an eye toward improved efficiency. The consultant, The Buckley Group, concluded that more than $8 million could be saved at the four hospitals by shifting duties and eliminating staff positions.

KDADS officials later said they thought changes resulting in about $3 million in savings would be more prudent, realized mostly through staff reductions at Larned State Hospital and at Kansas Neurological Institute in Topeka.

The consultants did not examine the quality of medical care at the facilities, but with respect to the Osawatomie hospital noted that they found the staff “to be dedicated and intent on providing quality services.”

OSH’s catchment area includes 46 counties in eastern Kansas.

‘Very medically dangerous’

Susan Crane Lewis, executive director with the Kansas City-based advocacy group, Mental Health America of the Midwest, said it was unusual for an OSH patient to be referred to an acute care hospital such as Olathe Medical Center.

“It doesn’t happen very often,” she said, “because when someone’s admitted to one of the state hospitals they’re screened and their medical conditions are supposed to be addressed from the start.”

But KDADS officials said seven OSH patients have been taken to Olathe Medicaid Center alone since July 1.

Lewis said she was surprised that C.J.’s condition hadn’t been addressed earlier.

“Bowel problems are a common side effect of a lot of psychotropic medications, so (OSH staff) really ought to be watching for it,” she said.

“I know (patients) don’t like being asked all the time about their bowel movements, but it’s like I tell our folks here, ‘If your bowel and bladder ain’t working, it’s very, very medically dangerous. It’s not some minor deal’,” Lewis said.

“The (state) hospitals are constantly over census,” said Rick Cagan, executive director of the National Alliance on Mental Illness-Kansas, “and the only way for them to deal with that is to either run the staff ragged by making them put in all kinds of overtime hours or by shorting patient care. They both have negative consequences for the patients, which is what I’d say this case illustrates.”

Lawsuit pending?

C.J. left Olathe Medical Center last week. His family refused to allow him to return to OSH.

“He’s living with me now,” said Cuinn, who lives in Lawrence. “We’ll be working with Bert Nash (community mental health center) to see what kinds of services are available.”

Cuinn said the family likely would sue the state.

“I’m not a sue-happy person, but when someone is denied medical care because they’re disabled — no, this never should have happened. Somebody has to be held accountable,” he said. “The other thing is we don’t want anybody else to ever have to go through what we’ve been through.”

WARRENSBURG, Mo. (AP) — A General Motors supplier that manufactures acoustic insulation plans to open a new plant in Warrensburg.

Michigan-based Janesville Acoustics announced Tuesday the plant will supply the Chevrolet Malibu model built at GM’s Fairfax plant in Kansas City, Kan. The plant is expected to create 164 jobs in the next two years.

Janesville Acoustics plans to invest $13.4 million in Warrensburg, which is about 60 miles southeast of Kansas City.

The plant in Warrensburg initially will produce trunk liners, specialized carpets and dash liners along with general acoustic insulation for the Malibu. The plant is expected to open in July.