An investigation is underway into a fight that started in a dormitory at Northwest Missouri State University and ended with a stabbing at the College Park Pavilion. A suspect is in custody. The victim was treated and released at St Francis.
In a news release, school officials said campus police were called at 3:57 p.m. Wednesday to the report of a disturbance at South Complex residence hall. As officers were responding, the altercation moved toward the Raymond Courter College Park Pavilion and a stabbing occurred.
Officers took into custody a 21-year-old male, who is a Northwest student. The 21-year-old male victim, who is also a Northwest student, was transported to St. Francis Hospital and Health Services in Maryville, where he was treated and released.
The investigation is being handled by University Police and is ongoing.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The suspect in a triple homicide in Kansas City is now accused of assaulting three people at a motel several hours after the killings.
The Platte County prosecutor on Wednesday charged 34-year-old Brandon Howell with burglary, three counts of assault and other offenses. Investigators said Howell punched three guests Tuesday afternoon at a Motel 6 in a section of northern Kansas City that lies in Platte County.
Howell was arrested shortly before midnight Tuesday in northern Kansas City. Jackson County prosecutors charged him Wednesday with first-degree murder for the shooting deaths of three people in southern Kansas City. Investigators said the shootings followed a failed attempt to steal a car on a quiet residential street.
Police said two of the motel guests identified Howell from a lineup.
NEW YORK (AP) — Hundreds of workers from McDonald’s, Taco Bell, Wendy’s and other fast-food chains are expected to walk off their jobs Thursday, according to labor organizers of the latest national protest to push the companies to pay their employees at least $15 an hour.
This time organizers said they plan to engage in civil disobedience, which could lead to arrests, and draw more attention to the cause. They also said home-care workers will join the protests, which are expected to take place at fast-food restaurants in 150 cities nationwide.
The “Fight for $15” campaign, which is backed financially by the Service Employees International Union and others, has gained national attention at a time when the wage gap between the poor and the rich has become a hot political issue.
DEXTER, Mo. (AP) — A warrant has been issued for a pastor who is accused of stealing more than $112,000 from his former church in southeast Missouri.
The Dexter Daily Statesman reports that 35-year-old Marcus Credale Geuin is charged with felony stealing and forgery. He does not have an attorney.
Authorities allege that in April 2012, Geuin took money from the First Pentecostal Church of Dexter and forged documents from its board of directors, allowing him to conduct business on behalf of the church.
Church members told police last year that when Geuin left the church, the bank accounts were empty and bills were unpaid. Geuin resigned as pastor in May 2013.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Fewer than one-quarter of Missouri’s 520 public school districts are using a new staff evaluation model developed by the state Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.
The department says half of the districts are using their own evaluation systems that align with the seven key evaluation principles developed by the agency. It says 28 percent are using an evaluation model developed by the University of Missouri and 22 percent are using the state’s model.
One of the state’s new guidelines calls for student performance measures to be used when evaluating staff.
A proposal on Missouri’s November ballot would require student performance data to be the majority factor in staff evaluations that are used in determining which teachers to retain and how much to pay them.
LONGTON, Kan.- A Kansas man died in an accident just before 5 p.m. on Wednesday in Elk County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2006 GMC Sierra driven by James Robert Williams, 56, Moline, was westbound on U.S. 160 four miles east of Longton.
For unknown reason, the truck drifted to the right, and the passenger side tires dropped off the roadway.
The driver over corrected, entered the south ditch and rolled, ejecting the driver.
Williams was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Frontier Forensics.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Gov. Sam Brownback says he’s open to proposals for phasing out a renewable energy requirement for Kansas utilities because policies aimed at nurturing the wind industry shouldn’t remain in place forever.
The Republican governor said Wednesday that he’s not developing a proposal of his own and wants wind energy companies, critics of the requirement and other interested parties to negotiate a new policy.
But Brownback said he has supported the policy because it helped develop the wind industry in Kansas but said the industry is now strong.
A 2009 state law requires utilities to have wind and other renewable sources account for 15 percent of their peak capacity for generating electricity by 2016 and 20 percent by 2020.
Brownback said such policies shouldn’t remain forever.
LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — A Leavenworth physician has been convicted of defrauding the Medicaid program by billing for services he didn’t perform and altering patients’ records.
The attorney general’s office said 71-year-old Adnan Ashkar pleaded no contest Wednesday to six felony counts in Leavenworth County District Court. He will be sentenced Oct. 22.
Ashkar was ordered as part of his plea agreement to immediately pay $12,000 in restitution to Kansas Medicaid program. He will also be barred from future participation in the program.
Prosecutors said the fraud went on from January 2009 to December 2013.
TOPEKA — House Minority Leader Paul Davis, the Democratic candidate for governor, said Tuesday that if elected he would order a “top-to-bottom” review of KanCare.
Republican Gov. Sam Brownback spearheaded KanCare, which places the state’s 400,000 Medicaid recipients under the administration of three private insurance companies, also known as managed care organizations (MCOs).
The governor has said the program is on track to meet its goal of saving the state $1 billion over five years through care coordination without cutting services, eligibility or provider payments.
But health care providers who serve Medicaid recipients have complained of later payments since the switch, and Davis said he’s hearing from nursing homes, hospitals, doctors and home health agencies that are becoming financially strapped.
“It’s causing a lot of cash flow problems for health care agencies across the state, and I think it’s further proof this is just not working very well,” Davis said. “What I want to do when we come into office is really take a top-to-bottom look at the KanCare program.”
The Brownback campaign referred questions to the Kansas Department for Health and Environment, which administers the KanCare contracts for the three managed care companies: Amerigroup, Sunflower State Health Plan and United HealthCare.
Sara Belfry, a spokeswoman for KDHE, said the state is working with the companies to smooth claims processing. But she said some of the problems lie with the health care providers submitting the claims.
“Individual providers continue to struggle with some aspects of their billing,” Belfry said via email. “We are making every effort to assist them. KDHE continues to work with all MCOs on provider payment issues that arise. We believe KanCare is working better and more efficiently for the people it serves than (the) old Medicaid system.”
While some payments are delayed, Belfry said claim denials have been cut in half since fiscal year 2008 and now are around 15 percent.
Meanwhile, Belfry said the Medicaid recipients are seeing health care improvement under KanCare versus the previous state-run fee-for-service plan.
She highlighted $1.6 million in newly covered adult dental care, a more than one-third increase in primary care physician usage between 2012 and 2013, and a 4 percent drop in emergency room utilization in the same time frame. For recipients of home- and community-based services, who were added to KanCare this year, ER visits are down 27 percent, she said.
“The KanCare model encourages consumer-centered care at the right time and right amount with more flexibility to address individual situations than ever existed in Kansas Medicaid before KanCare,” Belfry said.
Davis said he’s “not necessarily against managed care” and that it can work well under some circumstances, but the provider complaints suggest KanCare is “clearly not working very well right now.”
If elected, Davis said his administration would consult with medical providers and Medicaid clients to “find out what’s working and what’s not working.”
Officials from KDHE told legislators that in 2013 none of the three managed care companies met the goals for timely claims payment that the agency set in the contracts the companies signed.
Representatives from the companies, which lost more than $100 million in the program’s first year, have said the state’s goals are aggressive but that they are committed to meeting them.
Belfry said the managed care companies paid 99.98 percent of “clean claims” within a month of receiving them, but the state is shooting for 100 percent.
“All three KanCare contracts require that the MCOs pay providers within 30 days of a clean claim being submitted, and the state is very serious about ensuring providers are paid promptly,” Belfry said.
Davis also said Tuesday that it is important for the state to have an inspector general for the KanCare program, but he questioned whether the current position, housed within KDHE, provided enough independence to act as a proper watchdog.
He also questioned the administration’s previous choice to appoint Rep. Phil Hermanson, who resigned before going through a Senate confirmation hearing.
“Clearly the last person they put forward was not qualified for the job, and I hope we can find somebody for that job who is well-qualified,” Davis said.
Davis said he had no names in mind.
Belfry said KDHE is setting up interviews with candidates for inspector general.
Keen Umbehr, the Libertarian candidate for governor, also has been critical of KanCare.
An investigation is underway into a fight that started in a dormitory at Northwest Missouri State University and ended with a stabbing at the College Park Pavilion. A suspect is in custody. The victim was treated and released at St Francis.
