KANSAS CITY- One person was injured in a 3-vehicle accident just before 10 a.m. on Wednesday in Wyandotte County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2002 Chevy Tahoe driven by Michael K. McCrave, 53, Lenexa, spun out of control on the icy bridge and struck outside barrier wall.
A 1997 Ford Taurus driven by Ronald Mondaine, 47, Kansas City, MO., struck the Tahoe while it was spinning out of control.
A 2007 Kenworth semi driven by Jody Dillon, 30, Blue Springs, MO., got side swiped during the earlier collision.
A passenger in the Taurus Jackson, Angela Jackson, 42, Kansas City, was transported to St. Luke’s.
The KHP reported Mondaine was not wearing a seat belt.
Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign. Photo by Nadia Thacker
The Salvation Army’s 2014 Red Kettle Campaign in St. Joseph is about 75% behind on its goal.
The campaign kicked off four weeks ago with 14 bell ringing locations around town.
The goal was to raise $350,000 to support the agency’s programs and services including the homeless shelter, food assistance, emergency rent and utility assistance, youth and senior programs and more.
Captain Chuck Cook said the agency is still hoping to achieve that goal with less than two weeks left.
“We are dependent on the funds we receive from the red kettles to help people in need in our community all year long,” said Cook. “We’re counting on the many generous members of our community to dig a little deeper this year, if they’re able, to help us reach our goal.”
The 2014 Kettle Campaign will end Christmas Eve, however donations will continue to be accepted through January.
Salvation Army Red Kettle Campaign. Photo by Nadia Thacker
If you would like to help out you can make a credit card donation by calling 816-232-5824.
Checks may be mailed to The Salvation Army at P O Box 1417, St. Joseph, MO 64502
The money collected during the Red Kettle Campaign support Salvation Army programs in St. Joseph for the entire year.
TOPEKA — A former physician now in the Kansas Legislature says she will promote a bill expanding background checks for gun sales because she believes gunshot wounds are a public health issue.
Rep. Barbara Bollier, a moderate Republican from Mission Hills, this week attended the first conference of a newly formed group of state lawmakers committed to curbing gun violence. Bollier joined almost 200 representatives from both parties and all 50 states at the Washington, D.C., meeting of American State Legislators for Gun Violence Prevention, calling it “a tremendous opportunity for the people’s voice to be heard throughout the country.”
“This upcoming session I will support state legislation for background checks,” Bollier said in a statement distributed during the conference. “It is imperative that this public health issue be addressed in Kansas.”
Bollier was a practicing anesthesiologist in the Kansas City area for more than a decade, but said via phone that she first recognized the public health implications of gunshot wounds during her residency at Ben Taub General Hospital in Houston.
She said Ben Taub had one of the busiest emergency rooms in the country at that time and treatment of gunshot wounds was “routine.”
Rep. Ken Corbet, a conservative Republican from Topeka who is one of the House’s most vocal supporters of firearm rights, said he did not see the connection to public health.
“I don’t believe it’s a public health issue,” Corbet said. “I think if the Founding Fathers wanted that to be a public health issue, it would have said that in the Second Amendment. They did not bring that up.”
A study published in 1997 found that the cost of medical expenses, public services and work-loss hours due to gunshot wounds was about $40 billion annually in the United States, or about $154,000 per gunshot survivor.
Federal law currently requires background checks for people purchasing from licensed gun dealers to determine whether buyers have a felony conviction that could disqualify them from gun ownership. The Federal Bureau of Investigation has conducted more than 100 million such checks in the last decade, resulting in more than 700,000 denials.
Sales at gun shows and private person-to-person sales are exempt from that federal requirement.
According to Governing magazine, 14 states require background checks at gun shows for at least some firearm purchases. Four of those states only require checks for handgun purchases. Five of the 14 states have provisions for universal background checks that apply to almost all gun sales, including person-to-person sales and online sales.
Kansas has no background check requirement beyond what is required by federal law.
Bollier said Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, a Wichita Democrat, is working on draft language of background checks legislation for the upcoming session in Kansas. The extent of the bill has yet to be determined.
“From my perspective, I would like to see universal (background checks),” Bollier said. “But we may have to start with gun shows.”
Polls have shown about 90 percent of Americans support universal background checks, but gun lobbying groups including the NRA strenuously oppose them and have helped squelch any federal action on them.
Corbet said the measure faces an even tougher road in the Kansas Legislature, where the trend in recent years has been a wide-ranging expansion of gun ownership and carrying rights, including a bill stating that the federal government has no jurisdiction to regulate guns made and sold strictly within Kansas.
“The last couple of gun bills, they passed overwhelmingly, for pro-gun rights,” he said. “But she (Bollier) apparently has some constituents that feel that’s an issue and that’s her job to bring that forward.”
Corbet, who owns a hunting lodge in southern Shawnee County, said his constituents feel differently about background checks.
“I know that most of the people in my district, the 54th District, including myself, would probably be opposed to that,” he said.
Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
WASHINGTON, DC – U.S. Senator Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) today said the Commodities and Futures Trading Commission (CFTC) had work to do to address regulatory overreach and will need to do more in the future to recognize the concerns of all market participants including farmers and ranchers.
At a hearing of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry, Roberts, a senior member and the former ranking member of the Committee, thanked CFTC Chairman Timothy Massad on his willingness to correct the mistakes of the previous Commission, especially on issues Roberts had concerns with including residual interest rules and proposals for reporting requirements.
Senator Roberts and Senator Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) introduced legislation, S. 2601, to enhance customer protections for farmers and ranchers by preventing regulations from the CFTC from being overly laborious and making it significantly more difficult for farmers and ranchers to make economical trades on commodities.
“The Commission’s actions over the last several months have demonstrated that the previous commission and Chairman often took Dodd-Frank regulations much further than required by the law…and wouldn’t stop to listen to feedback from stakeholders including market participants and Congress,” Roberts said.
“While I value the work you have undertaken to correct several regulatory missteps and over-reaches, several of the tweaks the commission has proposed, but not yet finalized, were simply low hanging fruit that many of us around this table have raised for years,” Roberts said. “I know that most of us are anxious to see the easiest fixes put into place, particularly for agriculture and end users, including the proposals for reporting requirements and residual interest.”
Roberts also noted that the CFTC is set to receive nearly 50 percent more in funds since 2010, including the “cromnibus” proposed by the House. Roberts said that despite the challenges facing the agency, its spending should not be allowed to continue to grow unchecked.
Roberts remains concerned with the following CFTC regulatory issues:
market participation: small and medium sized Future Commission Merchants (FCM’s) are closing and consolidating;
time and resources on the further study of the collection of residual interest despite the Commission’s decision to end the automatic pre-funding of margins given the unpopular and unrealistic rule’s high cost to farmers for little to no benefit;
the use of staff no-action letters and regulatory guidance instead of following federal rulemaking procedures including a cost benefit analysis;
cross-border issues from lack of regulatory equivalence from the European Union including the definition of “U.S. person”;
and foreign businesses are choosing to relocate their business and capital away from the U.S. markets.
Senator Roberts is a senior member of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition and Forestry.
AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Four more states have joined a Texas-led coalition suing the Obama administration over executive action on immigration.
The addition of Arkansas, Michigan, North Dakota and Oklahoma brings to 24 the number of states fighting the order in a federal district court in Brownsville.
Announced last month, the president’s unilateral move is designed to spare millions of people living illegally in the United States from deportation. But the lawsuit accuses the White House of “trampling” the U.S. Constitution.
Outgoing Attorney General Greg Abbott says Texas is uniquely qualified to sue because its sprawling border with Mexico means it will be especially harmed.
Abbott, the governor-elect of Texas, added Wednesday that the presidential decree “circumvents the will of the American people.”
Toys collected for Noyes Home for Children. Photo by Nadia Thacker
All of the kids at the Noyes Home for Children have been fully adopted this Christmas through the Toyland Express, A Toy Drive held by K-Jo 105.5 and Olive Garden.
“We thought we had everybody adopted,” said Aaryn Sommers with K-JO. “I kept up with the Noyes Home and they just get kids in and out a lot it’s just kind of how it works and yesterday I got an email and I had six new kids.”
All 31 kids staying at the Noyes Home have been adopted according to Sommers, but it was close.
“They’re teenagers so they’re a little more expensive gifts and I didn’t know what to do and I’m like I’m going to have to figure out how to get money,” she said. “We had people bring in money and we were able to go shopping for these six new kids that needed five presents each.”
More than 100 community members took part in this year’s drive dropping off monetary donations and gifts to benefit the Noyes Home for Children and the Adopt-A-Family program.
“We did a lot here but It was our listeners and people who came in and donated and gave,” said Sommers. “We wouldn’t have been able to do this without them, there’s no way.”
All of the presents for the Noyes Home have been wrapped and are ready for delivery. A parade from the station located at 4104 Country Lane to the Noyes Home will take place tonight at 5 p.m.
“We’re going to eat and watch the kids open toys,” said Sommers.
The extra toys collected from the drive will go to AFL-CIO Community Services for the agency’s Adopt-A-Family Christmas program.
JEFFERSON CITY – Governor Jay Nixon has written to Stephen Miller, Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission chairman requesting MoDOT to analyze and provide options for using tolls to improve and expand I-70. In response to the Governor’s request, Chairman Miller has directed MoDOT staff to immediately prepare the report and to submit it to the Governor by December 31 as requested.
In a letter to the Governor, Chairman Miller stated that the Commission welcomed the Governor’s involvement in exploring ways to fund transportation and concurred in the Governor’s assessment that transportation is vital to Missouri’s prosperity and funding has reached a critical juncture.
TOPEKA- Two Kansas drivers were injured in separate accidents on Wednesday morning in Shawnee County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported that just after 7:50 a.m., a 2000 Buick LeSabre driven by Veronica L. Morgan, 62, Burlingame, was on the ramp from northbound U. S. 75 to westbound Interstate 470.
The driver lost control and struck the guardrail.
At 8:20 a.m. a 2000 Chevy Colorado driven by Valerie L. Smith, 51, Rossville, was eastbound on U.S. 24 one mile west of Topeka. The driver lost control on the icy bridge, entered the south ditch and rolled.
Just before 9 a.m. a 1999 Chevy Blazer driven by Debra Fisher, 60, Topeka, was eastbound on U.S. 24 just east of Kansas 4. The driver lost control on an icy bridge and struck concrete wall.
Smith was transported to Stormont Vail. Morgan was transported to St. Francis Hospital. Smith and a passenger in the Blazer were possibly injured but not transported for treatment.
The KHP reported all were properly restrained at the time of the accidents.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Science City at Kansas City’s Union Station is rebounding from years of stagnant attendance, thanks to new exhibits and attractions and an increase in donations.
The latest good news came Wednesday, when two new exhibits costing more than $1 million and resulting from a high school science competition opened.
The Kansas City Star reports more than half of Science City has been overhauled in recent years, sparked by more than $5 million in donations from the Burns & McDonnell Foundation and in-kind services from the company.
It appears to be paying off. Attendance at Science City increased 7 percent in 2013 and has grown by double digits this year. Revenues increased 17 percent in 2013 and Union Station CEO George Guastello says the science center is financially self-sustaining.
WASHINGTON (AP) — A government investigator says the IRS paid at least $6 billion in child tax credits in 2013 to people who weren’t eligible to receive them.
Payments went to families that mistakenly claimed the tax credit or claimed the wrong amount, as well as taxpayers who committed fraud. Those were the findings of an audit released Tuesday by the Treasury inspector general for tax administration.
More than 36 million families will claim the $1,000 per-child tax credit this year. Millions of low-income families qualify for the credit even though they don’t make enough money to pay federal income tax.
These families receive the credit in the form of a tax refund. The audit focused on payments to these families.
The IRS did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
KANSAS CITY- One person was injured in a 3-vehicle accident just before 10 a.m. on Wednesday in Wyandotte County.
