OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Court records say a suburban Kansas City man told investigators he didn’t seek medical care for his ailing mother before she died weighing just 58 pounds (26 kilograms) and suffering from open bed sores.

Records were released Wednesday in the case against 51-year-old Raymond McManness, of Olathe, Kansas. He’s jailed on $1 million bond on charges of first-degree murder and mistreatment of a dependent adult in the death last month of 75-year-old Sharon McManness.

His attorney didn’t immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press.

Court records say Raymond McManness told police he didn’t follow advice to take his mother to a doctor because the holidays had made him busy and he was “scared because he had not been taking adequate care of her.”

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers have reintroduced a proposal that would allow judges to order poachers to pay restitution fees ranging from $375 to $5,000.

Two identical bills filed in the Missouri House and Senate could gain more traction among lawmakers this year considering three recent cases in which elk were illegally killed, the Springfield News-Leader reported.

Under the proposed legislation, the fees vary depending on whether poachers were convicted for illegally killing deer, elk, black bears, turkeys or paddlefish. Deer poachers could face fines between $1,000 and $2,000, while fines for poaching wild turkey range from $375 to $750. The restitution money would be added to the state’s education fund.

“Under current Missouri law, the maximum fine for poaching can actually be smaller than the cost of buying a proper hunting or fishing license,” said Republican Sen. Mike Bernskoetter, who’s sponsoring one of the bills. “This has prompted some poachers to simply take their chances rather than pay for a permit.”

A bill seeking the same passed the House last year but died in a Senate committee. Lawmakers may view the proposed legislation with more urgency this time around, after two elk were shot this month and one was killed in January. Missouri doesn’t have a hunting season for elk.

“The rash of poaching at our elk conservation areas illustrates the necessity of harsher deterrents for poachers. Two of our elk were illegally shot in Shannon County this month, not for meat or even for their antlers, but just for sport,” Bernskoetter said. “These callous acts should demonstrate to all Missourians the need for harsher poaching penalties.”

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By JOHN HANNA

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s election created a national buzz about a possible shift to the left in Kansas politics, but many Republicans remain unimpressed and feel little pressure to take up her big initiatives.

The GOP-dominated Legislature has yet to have committee hearings on her plan to expand the state’s Medicaid health coverage for the needy. It has ignored her call to approve an increase in public school funding by the end of this month. A key part of her budget already appears dead . Top Republicans are pursuing a tax relief bill she considers fiscally reckless.

She and other Democrats believe her victory represented a repudiation of Republican predecessors’ policies. Three current lawmakers from the Kansas City area, where Kelly ran especially well, switched to the Democratic Party in December, drawing even more attention to what had been seen as a reliably red state.

Yet many Republican legislators treat Kelly’s victory as a fluke. She won with 48 percent of the vote and her political strength was concentrated in relatively few populous counties. More-local races left the Legislature more conservative, and the party switching didn’t change the balance of power because Democrats attracted GOP moderates likely to help Kelly anyway.

“There doesn’t seem to be a lot of enthusiasm for her governorship,” said Senate President Susan Wagle, a conservative Wichita Republican.

Democrats hold 23 governor’s offices after picking up seven in last year’s midterm elections as they tapped discontent with President Donald Trump, particularly in suburbs. Victories in governor’s races in Kansas, Michigan and Wisconsin broke GOP strangleholds on those state governments.

Kelly and her top advisers have said repeatedly that voters elected her to “fix” state government after Republican policies wrecked it. She said earlier this month, “I’m very confident that the people of Kansas are behind me.”

“Gov. Kelly won election in a Republican state. I say that’s a mandate,” said state Rep. Kathy Wolfe Moore, a Kansas City Democrat.

But Republicans repeatedly note Kelly’s failure to get a majority of the vote against the conservative GOP nominee, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, with independent candidate Greg Orman taking about 6.5 percent. Also, Kelly carried only nine of the state’s 105 counties.

Former U.S. Rep. Kevin Yoder, who lost his seat in his Kansas City-area congressional district last year, said Democrats are “misreading the tea leaves.”

“I don’t see this as an endorsement of the more liberal policies that Gov. Kelly is suggesting,” said Yoder, also a former Kansas House member. “The role of the Republican legislators is to represent the traditional Republican values that have made Kansas strong, keeping taxes down, small government, a focus on business.”

Republicans’ views about Kelly’s victories are partly shaped by an ongoing post-mortem of Kobach’s candidacy within the GOP.

Kobach barely unseated Gov. Jeff Colyer in the GOP primary and has since faced Republican grumbling that he ran a lackluster general-election campaign. Kobach’s vocal advocacy of tough immigration laws and take-no-prisoners style of conservatism alienated GOP moderates.

Some Republicans contend the more affable Colyer would have given Kelly a tougher race.

“I think she won because a lot of people were voting against Kobach,” said state Rep. Kyle Hoffman, a GOP conservative from southwest Kansas.

Republicans retained their legislative supermajorities and didn’t see their small net loss of seats until the party switching in December. GOP conservatives picked up at least half a dozen seats in the House and one in the Senate at the expense of moderates.

“The center of Kansas politics was somewhat hollowed out,” said state Rep. Don Hineman, a moderate Republican from western Kansas ousted as House majority leader after the election.

Many Republicans contend that the collective outcome of dozens of legislative races demonstrates that voters aren’t enthusiastic about Kelly’s agenda.

“It’s the legislative elections that are the more indicative of what is going on in the state,” said Sen. Ty Masterson, a conservative Wichita-area Republican who has called Kelly’s election “a tragic collision of timing.”

Republican resistance has meant a rocky start for Kelly’s administration. The House last week rejected a plan from Kelly to reduce the state’s annual payments to its public pension system to create breathing room in the budget, with GOP members united. When the Senate approved its tax relief bill earlier this month, most moderates backed it.

The lack of movement on Medicaid expansion is particularly frustrating for Kelly and fellow Democrats.

Her plan revives a bill that passed with bipartisan majorities in 2017, only to be vetoed by then-conservative GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. Supporters believe a majority of lawmakers still support Medicaid expansion, but opponents hold key leadership posts and committee chairmanships in both chambers, effectively blocking action for now.

The governor sent a letter this week to committee leaders in the House and Senate, asking for hearings on her plan — a courtesy routinely granted in the past, even when lawmakers strongly opposed a governor’s major initiatives.

Many Democrats and even some moderate Republicans believe their GOP colleagues are merely posturing at the beginning of Kelly’s administration. Also, the new governor’s power to veto GOP legislation means Republicans can’t write her off.

But Senate Minority Leader Anthony Hensley, a Topeka Democrat and Kelly ally, said, “At some point, I think she’s going to have to probably get their attention.”

CHEROKEE COUNTY— One person died in an accident just after 9p.m. Wednesday in Cherokee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a Jeep Commander driven by Russell, Julissa Russell, 50, Rincon, GA., was westbound on Kansas 66 one mile west of Galena.

The Jeep struck a bicycle ridden by David Furry, 47, Galena, that had crossed in front of the vehicle travelling from South to North crossing the highway.

Furry was pronounced dead at the scene and was transported to Frontier Forensics.

Russell was not injured and was properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Lawrence man has been sentenced to 17 months in prison for shooting and wounding a 17-year-old girl as several people shot fireworks at him.

21-year-old Rashan Gill apologized at Tuesday’s hearing, saying through tears that he “will never forget” what happened and that he could have killed the girl. In the early morning hours of July 5, 2018, he shot at a group of people who were firing Roman candle fireworks at him and his apartment.

One of the shots hit the girl who was in the group’s car. She suffered serious injuries but survived.

After a judge rejected Gill’s argument that he was justified in the shooting under Kansas’ stand-your-ground law, he pleaded no contest in January to attempted aggravated battery.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Big Brothers Big Sisters has announced that a cellophane-wrapped marijuana brick with a street value of $3,000 has been found in a Springfield donation bin.

The discovery was made last May as volunteers sorted through donations, but it only became public this month when the charity’s Ozark office highlighted it in its monthly bulletin.

Big Brothers Big Sisters’ Think Big Foundation president Tyler Moles says it’s “the most expensive thing ever put in the bin.” He says the charity initially hesitated to disclose the find. But he says donations of adult and children’s clothes and shoes are down during the cold winter months, so he’s hoping the publicity can serve as a reminder that the charity is collecting those items.

No arrests have been made.

BARNHART, Mo. (AP) – Court documents indicate a 39-year-old man who authorities say wrapped a small dog with tape and threw him in a ditch believed the animal was spying on him for police.

Paul Garcia, of Barnhart, is charged with felony animal abuse and armed criminal action.

A sheriff’s deputy found the dog Feb. 9 in a rural Jefferson County ditch. The dog, named Flick, recovered and was reunited with its owner Saturday. The owner said Flick had run away.

Garcia was arrested after investigators took fingerprints off the electrical tape.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Garcia told police when he found the dog under his truck, he thought it might have a camera attached to him to help law enforcement track Garcia’s movements.