SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal shooting and on Friday asked the public again for help with the investigation.

Just before 9p.m. March 16, police responded to the report of a shooting in the 1100 block of SW Hillsdale Street in Topeka, according to Lt. John Trimble.

Officers found a victim identified as 25-year-old Robert McKinsey James, unresponsive in the yard suffering what appeared to be several gunshot wounds.

Officers were able to secure the scene and first responders performed first aid on McKinsey. He was transported to an area hospital where he died, according to Trimble.

The suspect vehicle is described as an older, boxy, dark colored SUV that was seen fleeing from the area shortly after the shooting. The SUV had several occupants, according to Trimble.

Anyone with information regarding this crime is encouraged to contact the Topeka Police.

BOWLING GREEN, Mo. (AP) — A northeast Missouri high school student is dead after his car struck a deer and ran off the roadway.

The accident Friday night killed 18-year-old Kaleo Dade, who was a senior at Bowling Green High School. A 17-year-old passenger was flown to a hospital in Columbia with serious injuries.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol says Dade’s 2006 Ford Focus was on Route MM when it struck the deer, left the roadway and struck an embankment. Dade was pronounced dead at the scene.

OMAHA (AP) — Even as floodwaters receded in hard-hit places in in the Midwest, experts warned Saturday that with plenty of snow still left to melt in northern states, the relief may only be temporary.

KHP pilots continue to help monitor the MO River flooding. This morning we surveyed the river levee near Elwood, KS, and took pics of the flooding after the levee breach east of Atchison yesterday. pic.twitter.com/fyzUOZinAk

— KHP Air Support Unit (@KHPAircraft) March 22, 2019

Rainfall and some snowmelt spurred flooding in recent weeks that’s blamed in three deaths so far, with two men in Nebraska missing for more than a week. Thousands were forced from their homes in Nebraska, Iowa and Missouri, as water broke through or poured over levees in the region. The damage is estimated at $3 billion, and that figure is expected to rise.

As temperatures start to warm, snowmelt in the Dakotas and Minnesota will escalate, sending more water down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers and their tributaries.

None of this is supposed to be under water.

Here’s what the Missouri River looks like just across from Nebraska City into Iowa. If you ever drive to Kansas City, you’re probably familiar with this interchange of I-29 and Highway 2. The Missouri looks like an ocean.#NSP575 pic.twitter.com/kwkkAs5fha

— NEStatePatrol (@NEStatePatrol) March 21, 2019

Lt. Col. James Startzell, deputy commander of the Corps of Engineers’ Omaha, Nebraska, district, said even warmer temperatures are possible into next week. He urged those living near rivers to keep a wary eye on them.

Bill Brinton, emergency management director for hard-hit Buchanan County, Missouri, which includes St. Joseph’s 76,000 residents, said he expects more flooding this spring. Buchanan and its neighboring counties have been ravaged by this round of flooding.

“There’s a sense from the National Weather Service that we should expect it to continue to happen into May,” Brinton said. “With our levee breaches in Atchison and Holt and Buchanan counties, it’s kind of scary really.”

A precautionary evacuation involving hundreds of homes in the St. Joseph area was lifted as the Missouri River began a swift decline after coming just inches short of the 1993 record. St. Joseph was largely spared, but Brinton said 250 homes were flooded in the southern part of Buchanan County. It wasn’t clear when residents would be able to get back.

When they do, officials say they need to be careful. Contaminants that escaped from flooded farm fields, industrial operations and sewage plants are part of the murky water now saturating homes.

In Fremont County, Iowa, homes remain underwater, so it will be some time before residents can return, said county Supervisor Randy Hickey.

“We don’t want them in that water, anyway,” Hickey said.

The water itself isn’t the only concern. Experts warn that sharp objects — broken glass, pieces of metal, pointy sticks and rocks — could lurk in muddy debris. Downed or broken power lines also may pose electrocution hazards.

Another risk is posed by river wildlife. Brinton said two people in Buchanan County were bitten by snakes after returning home following flooding in 2011.

The Missouri River had yet to crest further downstream in Missouri, but flooding impact in those areas was expected to be far less severe.

Concern was rising on the Mississippi River, too. Major flooding was reported at several spots north of the Iowa-Missouri line. St. Louis and other Missouri cities were seeing mostly moderate flooding.

Even the lower Mississippi River was impacted. The U.S. Coast Guard on Friday rescued two boaters from a disabled vessel near New Orleans. Coast Guard officials said the flooding means more debris in the river, and the currents can pull a boat into danger.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — A bicyclist has died after being struck by a vehicle in Overland Park, Kansas.

The accident happened Friday morning. The bicyclist was taken to a hospital and died Friday afternoon. Overland Park police have not released any information about the bicyclist, pending notification of relatives.

Police say the vehicle and bicyclist were heading in the same direction when the accident happened just after 9:30 a.m. The bicyclist was not wearing a helmet.

By NOMIN UJIYEDIIN

Social workers can perform a myriad of tasks. Some check on children in abusive homes and some train foster families. Others support patients through medical procedures like kidney dialysis or provide talk therapy to mental health patients.

But there are too few of them in Kansas.

An array of health care providers, state agencies and nonprofit organizations that employ social workers say low pay and emotionally challenging work make it hard to hire and retain qualified social workers — especially in the wake of years of declining state funding.

Advocates say Kansas’ uncommonly high standards make the problem worse. The state has stringent requirements for granting the most advanced social work certification and for allowing people certified elsewhere to practice in Kansas.

Now lawmakers are considering a bill that would lower those standards, bringing them closer to requirements in most other states.

“Currently there’s a chronic (worker) shortage,” said Becky Fast, executive director of the Kansas chapter of the National Association of Social Workers, “in rural medical care, in mental health and in child welfare.”

Currently, Kansas requires aspiring licensed clinical social workers to pay for 4,000 hours of supervised experience with clients and 150 hours of direct contact with a supervisor. Most other states require between 3,000 and 4,000 hours of client experience and less than 110 hours of supervisor contact.

The state also requires social workers, counselors and other professionals who were licensed outside of Kansas to have worked at least 60 out of the last 66 months before applying for a license in Kansas.

A bill pending in the Legislature would reduce those requirements, instead asking for 48 months of work experience out of the preceding 54 months. It would also reduce the work requirement for licensed clinical social workers from 4,000 to 3,000 hours.

The state Senate approved the bill unanimously last month. It now awaits a vote from the House of Representatives.

Advocates and employers say the reductions would motivate more social workers to seek jobs or clinical certification in Kansas and would make it easier for nonprofits, state agencies and health care providers to recruit.

Laura Howard, the newly appointed secretary of the Kansas Department for Children and Families, has said she wants to make hiring social workers a priority for the department. She said on KCUR’s Up to Date that her agency has been able to fill more vacancies since Gov. Laura Kelly came into office, and that recent interns have expressed interest in staying with the department.

“This is the hardest work that someone can do,” Howard said in the interview. “We have some aggressive recruitment campaigns with the schools of social work across the state.”

But Kansas employers often lose out to neighboring states with lower standards for clinical social worker certification, said Fast. One reason: the cost of paying a clinician to oversee training time, which can be as much as $70 an hour.

“Most social workers now have to pay for that clinical supervision because agencies can’t afford to lose that billable time,” Fast told lawmakers. “You’re paying several thousand dollars. Many just give up and say, ‘I’m going to move to Missouri.’”

Fast told legislators that it took her two years to get her clinical license in Missouri, while her colleagues working in Kansas needed three or four years to complete the required hours.

She called the requirements “a primary barrier” to recruiting social workers from nearby states.

In an interview, Fast said she doesn’t have an exact number for open social work positions in Kansas, but she said employers routinely send her job postings and tell her that they have trouble hiring workers. The impending retirement of Baby Boomer social workers and the mobility of the millennial workforce have made things worse.

“There’s a real generational shift right now,” she said. “Today’s young professionals want to live in many states and want to move across state lines. And how do you meet that changing workforce need?”

Fast said the shortage of licensed clinical social workers has a particular impact in rural western Kansas, where patients rely heavily on Medicare. Among the variety of social work and counseling positions, only clinical social workers and psychologists can bill Medicare.

There are only 79 licensed clinical social workers in the western half of the state, Fast said. “It is at (a) crisis point in rural areas of Kansas.”

Christie Appelhanz, executive director of the Children’s Alliance for Kansas, said in an interview that the shortage reduces social workers’ ability to manage their caseloads and help their clients.

“It’s really about fulfilling the needs that each individual has on a day-to-day basis,” she said. “Social workers are definitely feeling the stress.”

Nomin Ujiyediin is a reporter for the Kansas News Service. You can reach her on Twitter @NominUJ.

FRANKLIN COUNTY — Four people died in an accident just before 1:30p.m. Friday in Franklin County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2010 Chevy Cobalt driven by Michael T. Declue, 58, Desoto, was southbound on Highway 47 at North Neade Farm Road. The vehicle traveled left of center and struck a northbound 2010 Kenworth semi head-on.

The Cobalt spun and struck the left side of a 2012 Chevy Cruz driven by Adriah L. Weston, 25, Marthasville.

Declue and passengers in the Cobalt Catherine A. Mesey, 78; Alayah L. Pratt, 4 and Isaac D. Pratt, 5, all of Descloge, were pronounced dead at the scene.

Union Ambulance transported the semi driver Derek A. Eoff, 46, Belle, to Mercy Hospital.

The children in the Cobalt were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the MSHP.