State Representative Delus Johnson of Saint Joseph will host a town hall meeting Thursday night. He will discuss legislative priorities including tax reform, education funding, and economic development. Johnson will also review bills he is sponsoring in this session, and will answer questions.
The 9th District Republican represents Andrew County and part of Buchanan County. The town hall meeting is scheduled for 7:30 Thursday night at the East Hills Library.
News that U.S. beef and cattle prices hit record high prices early in the new year is a good sign for producers and even some consumers, according to a Kansas State University agricultural economist.
“This is a good thing for both sides,” said Glynn Tonsor, livestock marketing specialist with K-State Research and Extension, noting that while the prices may be construed as impeding some beef purchases at grocery store meat counters, some consumers are willing and able to buy at these prices.
Following a string of record-setting days, the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Jan. 13 reported choice beef cutout values at a record high $216.94 per hundredweight (cwt), up from $200.65 on Dec. 31 and $194.09 on Jan. 13, 2013.
Also after several days of increasingly higher values, the USDA reported live steer prices climbed to a record high average of $139.68 per cwt the week of Jan. 6-10, 2013 in the five-area price report, which includes Kansas, Texas, Oklahoma, Nebraska and other states. That was up from an average $137.53 a week earlier and $126.04 a year earlier.
Overall beef demand strength has surprised analysts, playing a key role in current cattle prices throughout the industry, Tonsor said. Over the next few months, beef supplies are expected to continue their decline leading to higher retail beef prices as long as retail demand is constant or improving.
“The lower available supplies by definition means that per capita beef consumption will decline. It is important to recognize this consumption reduction not be uniform across households,” he said, adding that the amount of beef that shoppers will buy will vary by income and the overall value individual households place on beef offerings.
“In the past we’ve had per capita beef consumption of 55 to 65 pounds, but that’s coming down,” Tonsor said. Per capita consumption of beef has been going down the past two years and per capita consumption of chicken and pork have been going up. That will continue in 2014.”
The USDA reported the average price of choice sirloin beef steak at $6.80 per pound in November 2013, while the average price of boneless pork chops was $3.95 per pound. The same month the average price of boneless chicken breast was $3.45 per pound.
Overall, the beef price increases are linked to fewer cattle on U.S. farms and ranches, Tonsor said. The size of the U.S. cow herd has been down for several years – first because beef production was not profitable – and the past three years, because drought reduced forage and feed supplies, forcing producers to sell off their herds. Fewer cattle translated into less beef, which helped spur the higher prices.
In its last annual Cattle Inventory report, the USDA reported that there were 89.3 million head of cattle on U.S. farms and ranches as of Jan. 1, 2012, marking the lowest Jan. 1 inventory of all cattle and calves since 88.1 million head were reported in 1952. Another inventory report is due out Jan. 31.
(AP) — The only major recycling center in southeast Kansas is facing a dire future if it doesn’t find a permanent funding source.
The Southeast Kansas Recycling Center in Pittsburg takes in recycling from several southeast Kansas towns and take trailers to collection points in Cherokee County.
But Jim Triplett, president of the center’s board, says the recycling center lost nearly $69,000 last year. He blames the loss on falling commodity prices, building loans and more competition for clothing — which provides money for the center. He also says the center is the only recycling center in Kansas that isn’t financially supported by a city or county.
The Crawford County Commission recently gave the center a $10,000 temporary payment.
Congressman Sam Graves (MO-06) today praised a decision by the Department of the Treasury and the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) concerning the treatment of volunteer firefighters and other volunteer emergency responders under Obamacare’s employer mandate.
“Treasury and the IRS made the right call with this commonsense decision for rural communities and volunteer firefighters,” said Graves, who is a volunteer firefighter in Tarkio. “The potential disruption to fire and rescue services in towns throughout the Sixth District could have been enormous without this clarification.”
Graves was concerned that volunteer firefighters would be counted when the IRS determined the number of full-time employees of the ‘shared responsibility requirements’ under the Obamacare employer mandate, leading to the potential closure of firehouses in areas that could not afford to provide health coverage or pay a fine. As a result, Graves joined Rep. Lou Barletta (PA-11) and others in introducing the Protecting Volunteer Firefighters and Emergency Responders Act (H.R. 3685) to ensure that volunteer firefighters and emergency responders would not be counted in that determination. The Treasury Department late Friday instead announced that it would follow the course of action recommended in the Barletta-Graves legislation and exclude such volunteers.
(AP) — Former Cardinals first baseman Jack Clark is asking a court to dismiss a defamation lawsuit filed against him by fellow former St. Louis slugger Albert Pujols.
The lawsuit followed comments Clark made on his St. Louis radio show in August. Clark said he knew for a fact that Pujols “was a juicer.” Pujols has vehemently denied using performance-enhancing drugs.
WGNU radio has canceled the radio show hosted by Clark and Kevin Slaten, and the station’s owner broadcast a lengthy apology and posted similarly contrite statements on its website.
Pujols’ lawsuit was filed in October. It names Clark but does not name the radio station or Slaten.
In a court motion filed Monday, Clark argued that the lawsuit fails to make the case that Pujols was defamed.
(AP) Children’s Mercy Hospital in Kansas City says it plans to open a pediatrics care clinic in Joplin as part of an affiliation with Freeman Health System.
Hospital officials said Tuesday the clinic will offer care in seven areas. Those are cardiology, endocrinology-diabetes, gastroenterology, hematology-oncology, nephrology, rheumatology, and telemedicine.
The clinic will be called Children’s Kansas City and is on the Freeman campus in Joplin.
Officials with Children’s Mercy and Freeman say the two institutions also will collaborate on clinical practices.
Children’s Mercy said a donation from the Coleman Family Foundation in Pittsburg, Kan., helped fund the expansion into Joplin.
Geary County Attorney Steve Opat says that former music minister for Faith Tabernacle Apostolic Church in Junction City, Jordan Young, has been sentenced to 297 months in prison.
The prison term stems from Young’s convictions in an alleged child molestation case.
As part of the sentence handed down in Geary County District Court on Monday, Opat said Young was also assessed a post-release of lifetime with lifetime registration. The prosecutor stated, “Basically, means if and when he ever gets out on parole, or post-release, if he has occasion to screw it up he goes back to the Department of Corrections.”
Young pleaded no contest in November, and was found guilty of one count of Aggravated Criminal Sodomy and three counts of Aggravated Indecent Liberties With a Child.
According to a stipulation of the facts that were filed in court, Young was employed as a music teacher at the Apostolic Academy when nine teenage boys came forward on August 5, 2012 and disclosed that Young was sexually inappropriate and / or had engaged in sexual acts with the boys.
Young was arrested and charged in the case following a Junction City police investigation in August of 2012.
(AP) — The Joplin City Council has chosen a $4 million financing package to lure an independent baseball team from El Paso, Texas.
The plan approved Monday by the council would require the city to take on $1.8 million in debt as its part of a project to renovate and improve Joe Becker Stadium, which would be the home of the former El Paso Diablos.
The city is negotiating with WLD Suarez Baseball, investors in the El Paso franchise from the American Association of Independent Professional Baseball, which includes the Wichita Wingnuts and Kansas City T-Bones.
City Manager Mark Rohr said the $1.8 million in debt could be repaid by leasing the stadium to the baseball group for $150,000 a year, and the city could also borrow money specifically for stadium renovation.
Other aspects of the deal would require Joplin to sell land it owns next to the stadium to the Suarez group and use funds from a cellphone settlement, a surplus in the Convention and Visitors Bureau fund and the fund the city uses to pay its workers’ compensation costs.
The proposal raised some concerns from the council.
“My major concern is that the Suarez group needs to demonstrate to us that they have the funds to do their part,” Councilman Benjamin Rosenberg said.
He said the Suarez partners should be required to provide a letter of credit or some other proof that they have the money to cover their share of the investment. Rohr said city officials are working on a performance agreement between the city and the Suarez group that would include that information.
Mayor Pro Tem Bill Scearce said he is concerned whether Suarez can sustain professional baseball for 20 years, which is the term of the agreement.
Rohr estimated the city would realize the return of its $4 million investment in less than five years.
The council could take final action on the baseball proposal at its Feb. 18 meeting.
(AP) — Wichita police say a 70-year-old man shot himself to death at a home where a 10-year-old boy was accidentally shot during a game with a gun.
Lt. Doug Nolte says the man was found dead in the backyard of the house in southeast Wichita on Monday night.
He is the same age as a man who was arrested Sunday when the boy was taken to a hospital after he was grazed by a bullet. The child was treated and released.
Police allege the man began playing “quick draw” with two boys, using his .22 caliber handgun, and accidentally fired a shot. A 14-year-old boy was not injured.
(AP) A southwest Missouri man who stabbed his classmate to death because he thought he was a police informant has been sentenced to life in prison.
Eighteen-year-old Gabriel Roche of Republic was sentenced Monday in the December 2011 death of 17-year-old Weston North. Roche took North to a secluded area and stabbed him before slitting his throat.
Greene County prosecutors and North’s mother sought a first-degree murder sentence, which would have kept Roche in prison for life.
Instead, Judge Calvin Holden convicted Roche of second-degree murder and sentenced him to life in prison, which will make him eligible for parole. He was also sentenced to a concurrent three-year term for armed criminal action.
