SAN DIEGO (AP) – A person familiar with the negotiations says slugger Kendrys Morales and the Kansas City Royals have agreed to a $17 million, two-year contract.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity Thursday because the agreement with the AL champions was subject to him passing a physical.
Morales figures to take over at designated hitter from Billy Butler, who left as a free agent and agreed to a $30 million, three-year deal with Oakland.
Morales will get $6.5 million next year and $9 million in 2016. The deal includes an $11 million mutual option for 2017 with a $1.5 million buyout. Morales can make an additional $750,000 in performance bonuses in each of the first two seasons based on plate appearances: $50,000 for 375 and $100,000 apiece for 400 and each additional 25 until 550.
Approximate location of the Thursday afternoon explosion (click to enlarge)Law enforcement officials near the scene of Thursday’s explosion
ATCHISON – Authorities are responding to an explosion just outside Atchison, Kan. city limits.
According to officials with the Atchison Police Department the explosion is just off of US 59 highway and 258th Road.
According to the Atchison County Sheriff the explosion took place in a metal building used by GBW Rail Services to clean out railcars. There were 7 people injured out of around 15 people working in that building at the time. The Sheriff said most were minor burn injuries however, two individuals have reportedly been transported to the University of Kansas Medical Center.
The Kansas Fire Marshal’s office is currently on scene investigating.
The scene southwest of Atchison near the explosion at the rail car repair firm
Lake Oswego, Oregon-based GBW manufactures freight cars and barges for use in North America and Europe.
LEAVENWORTH- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 1:30 p.m. on Thursday in Leavenworth County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Ford Ranger driven by Ernest Bjorgaard Jr., 61, Leavenworth, was westbound on Kansas 32 just east of 222 Street.
The vehicle left roadway to the south, struck a field entrance, became airborne for approximately 35 feet coming to rest in the south ditch.
Bjorgaard Jr., was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital.
The KHP reported he was not wearing a seat belt.
MWSU Master Concept Plan. Photo courtesy Missouri Western
Missouri Western State University’s Board of GOvernors approved a general outline of a new campus master plan during a meeting held Thursday afternoon.
The Plan is to guide Western’s physical growth and is being created by the architectural firm Clark | Huesemann of Lawrence, Kan.
The board authorized the firm to proceed drafting a final plan with six major goals:
· Address basic and urgent needs
· Enhance the educational experience
· Strengthen connections to the community
· Develop a cohesive university community
· Build financial sustainability
· Create a pride of place
Clark | Huesemann presented what it called a “modified infill” concept, with new construction generally taking place within the current footprint bounded by Downs Drive. Plan elements include spaces for student recreation, performance venues, dining space, stadium replacement, additional housing, a new business school, and other deferred maintenance and renovations.
The Board of Governors contracted with Clark | Huesemann to begin the planning process in June. Since then, Steve Clark and Jane Huesemann have visited campus several times, assessing each facility and meeting with faculty, staff and students in three campuswide forums as well as numerous smaller gatherings.
The architects are expected to finalize the master plan and bring it back to the Board of Governors for acceptance early next year.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The St. Louis Rams will make a donation to a local police charity after five players’ protest over Michael Brown’s death in Ferguson drew the ire of local law enforcement officials.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the team will present an unspecified amount of money to The Backstoppers group before Thursday’s home game against the Arizona Cardinals.
The Backstoppers provides financial assistance to families of police officers, firefighters and paramedics killed in the line of duty.
The move comes after five receivers made the “hands up” gesture during pregame introductions at the team’s Nov. 30 home game.
That gesture has become the rallying cry of protesters in Ferguson and around the nation after Brown, who was black, was shot and killed in August by a white police officer.
Missouri Western State University announced Thursday that Ann Rahmat has been named director of international recruitment and global engagement.
“Missouri Western has made tremendous strides in growing our international student population and this position will help us keep that momentum going,” said Shana Meyer, vice president for student affairs. “Ann has the experience and the skills to enhance our international outreach, and I’m pleased to welcome her to Missouri Western.”
Rahmat will begin her duties Jan. 15.
“As a first-generation college graduate, an international student and a productive member of my adopted country, I have come full circle by assisting the next generation of international students reach for success,” Rahmat said. “I look forward to working with my new colleagues to contribute to the growth of Missouri Western’s international community.”
Rahmat is currently senior assistant director for international recruitment in the Office of Admissions at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, a position she has held since 2009. The number of international students at Miami increased from 348 in 2008 to 934 in 2013, with a record number of 498 undergraduate international students, including 251 first-year degree-seeking students enrolling this fall.
Prior to working at Miami, Rahmat worked for 13 years at the University of North Texas in Denton, including two years as an international advisor and five years as director of international admissions.
Rahmat earned master’s and bachelor degrees in business administration from the University of North Texas, and an associate’s degree from MARA Institute of Technology in Malaysia.
At Missouri Western, Rahmat will serve as the primary international recruiter and oversee the international student services area directed by Amy Kotwani. An initial important task will be to develop a strategic plan in conjunction with the International Strategic Enrollment Team.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has started issuing gender-neutral marriage forms amid ongoing litigation over its same-sex marriage ban.
Copies of the new forms were included in a motion that seeks to have former Kansas Department of Health and Environment Secretary Robert Moser dismissed from the litigation.
The motion, which was filed Wednesday, notes that Moser has resigned and that new marriage forms delete all references to husbands and wives. Applicants seeking to wed now fill in information under the headings “Party A” or “Party B.” They can select whether they want to be referred to as a bride, groom or simply a spouse.
The forms were changed last month after the U.S. Supreme Court denied Kansas’ request to prevent gay and lesbian couples from marrying while the state fights the issue in court.
Cindy Luxem, chief executive of the Kansas Health Care Association.-KHI photo
By Andy Marso
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — Hundreds of nursing homes and other assisted living facilities in Kansas will be required to participate in a fund meant to spread the risk of malpractice lawsuits starting next month. Advocates for those facilities say the change is a positive, but it has insurance agents scrambling to find liability coverage for their assisted living clients in a limited market.
For more than two decades, health care facilities in Kansas have been required to participate in the Health Care Stabilization Fund, a pot of money derived from a surcharge on their private malpractice insurance that provides additional coverage for malpractice claims. The fund makes it less likely that a few expensive claims could sink a facility financially.
Until this year, nursing homes and other adult care facilities were not considered health care providers under the law. Cindy Luxem, president and CEO of the Kansas Center for Assisted Living, said that wasn’t good for the facilities or consumers who might file a claim.
“We had a lot of providers in Kansas that weren’t really able to provide anything (in compensation),” Luxem said. “And that doesn’t set up a good situation for the consumer.”
Luxem said she and other assisted living advocates wanted to be included in the stabilization fund for years. The opportunity presented itself this year when legislators reopened the statutes governing the fund in response to Kansas Supreme Court concerns over a long-static $250,000 cap on non-economic “pain and suffering” damages in malpractice suits.
Legislators voted to gradually raise the cap and to include nursing homes and other assisted living facilities in the stabilization fund.
Fred Benjamin, president of Coffeyville’s Medicalodges and chairman of the Kansas Health Care Association’s board of directors, called it a “positive change” that was overdue given the evolving ways that health care is delivered.
“People that were in hospital intensive care units 10 years ago are in skilled nursing facilities today,” Benjamin said.
‘Unexpected hurdles’
Hundreds of Kansas adult care facilities are now slated to come under the Health Care Stabilization Fund at the beginning of 2015. But some are still scrambling to find the necessary private liability coverage to do so.
“The changes created some unexpected hurdles in the nursing home market,” said Stephanie Mulholland, a spokeswoman for the Kansas Association of Insurance Agents. “We know that several of them had to find new insurance carriers in a pretty short amount of time.”
All facilities within the stabilization fund must purchase private liability coverage from an “admitted carrier” approved by the Kansas Insurance Department. The insurance department vets the carriers’ financial information to ensure their solvency.
Previously, adult care facilities not in the stabilization fund were allowed to purchase coverage from “foreign surplus lines,” or carriers that the Kansas Insurance Department allows to do business in the state “if such coverages are not readily obtainable in the admitted market.”
Chip Wheelen, executive director of the Health Care Stabilization Fund, said a surprising number of the adult care facilities had obtained their professional liability coverage from the non-admitted carriers.
“I have to admit a lot of them have said, ‘Our insurance agent got our coverage from an excess and surplus lines carrier,'” Wheelen said.
Mulholland said the limited number of admitted carriers for adult care facilities has made it difficult in some cases to find affordable coverage that will satisfy the stabilization fund requirements. There are seven companies admitted in Kansas to provide liability coverage to adult care facilities.
“Insurance agents have quite a bit of experience finding coverage for those harder-to-place markets,” Mulholland said. “They’ve been able to do that in most cases, but in the long term I think we need to look at creating more competition within this particular market to drive rates down.”
Wheelen noted that adult care facilities that have been declined by at least two of the admitted carriers can purchase insurance from the Health Care Provider Insurance Availability Plan that will satisfy the requirements of the stabilization fund.
That public plan is administered on a third-party basis by Topeka-based Kansas Medical Mutual Insurance Company, or KaMMCO, one of the private commercial insurers that is an admitted carrier in Kansas.
Premiums for the availability plan are set at 120 percent of those for the commercial insurance policies, because Wheelen said the availability plan is not intended to be a competitor for the private sector, but rather a backstop for health care providers who are unable to get liability insurance there.
No extra cost expected
The long-term cost to the facilities now joining the Health Care Stabilization Fund is unknown.
Debra Zehr, president of LeadingAge Kansas, a group that represents 160 nonprofit assisted living providers, said she did not expect an increase for her members
“There really isn’t any extra cost necessarily for providers who have carried liability insurance historically, which is 100 percent of our members and a large percent of all providers,” Zehr said.
Zehr noted that when the state switched to managed care Medicaid under KanCare in 2012, the three companies administering the managed care contracts all required facilities to carry liability insurance to be in their networks.
“There may have been in the past some members, some years when rates really went up, they’d drop their coverage,” Zehr said. “But that’s not true anymore.”
The challenge now is making sure those policies come from admitted carriers, to satisfy the requirements of the stabilization fund.
Wheelen said the Kansas Association of Insurance Agents deserves credit for trying to educate agents about that change, including hosting a webinar about it as early as June.
“Unfortunately, I’m afraid a lot of them weren’t watching and they still got caught by surprise,” Wheelen said.
Wheelen said “a lot” of agents have contacted the stabilization fund to find out where to get the needed coverage. Those calls have a greater sense of urgency now.
“Beginning Jan. 1, the rules become more strict,” Wheelen said.
Lisa Ignoto, director of marketing and communications for KaMMCO, said any administrators at adult care facilities who are unsure if they’ve done what they need to do to comply with the Health Care Stabilization Fund requirements can contact advocacy groups like LeadingAge Kansas or the Kansas Health Care Association.
“As the deadline is getting closer, our underwriting department is prepared to step up its game,” Ignoto said. “There’s still time to get it done.”
Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas
Photo courtesy Mercer County Fire Protection District
The Mercer County Fire Department was called out to an early morning house fire Thursday.
According to a social media post by the Mercer County Fire Protection District mutual aid was provided to Spickard Fire Department for a structure fire west of Spickard early Thursday morning.
Grundy County Rural fire was also requested.
Nine firefighting units in total responded.
Firefighters entered the building but had to pull back due to deteriorating conditions.
An evacuation order was given shortly before a flashover and the roof collapsed.
The Midland Empire Chapter of the American Red Cross was contacted to assist the family with disaster relief.
Happy Heart Daycare in St. Joseph is being awarded by the State of Missouri for its support of Breastfeeding in the workplace.
The Daycare, located at 2739 Mitchell Avenue will receive the Missouri Breastfeeding Friendly Worksite award Friday during a presentation scheduled to take place at 9 a.m.
The Daycare is being recognized by several state partnerships including the Missouri Breastfeeding Coalition and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
According to a news release from the St. Joseph Health Department, Happy Hearts application to the coalition was accepted based on its pro-active approach to encourage mothers to make healthy choices in infant feeding.
Kansas City Royals have agreed to a $17 million, two-year contract.
