HOLTON, Kan. (AP) — A Nebraska woman has been sentenced to more than four years in prison for a November 2017 head-on crash in northeastern Kansas that killed four members of a Sabetha family who were returning home from a state championship football game.
49-year-old Maria Perez Marquez, of Omaha, Nebraska, was sentenced Friday to four years and one month in prison. She pleaded no contest to aggravated battery and three misdemeanor counts of vehicular homicide for the crash that killed 42-year-old Carmen Ukele, her 11-year-old daughter, Marlee Ukele, and her brother-in-law, 62-year-old Stephen Ukele. Carmen Ukele’s husband, 60-year-old Lee Ukele, initially survived the crash but died last month of his injuries.
Investigators say the family was returning home from watching the Sabetha High School football team win the state championship when Perez Marquez crashed into their minivan while trying to pass another vehicle. At the time, two of Lee Ukele’s sons played on the team.
ATCHISON COUNTY — One person was injured in an accident just after 10a.m. Saturday in Atchison County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2000 Chevy S-10 driven by Kieffer Preston Krier, 16, Atchison, was westbound on 286th Road five miles west of Atchison.
The vehicle rear-ended a 2017 Kia Forte driven by Jesscia L. Stirton, 20, Everest, Kansas, that had slowed for traffic.
Stirton was transported to the hospital in Atchison. Krier and a passenger in the Kia were not injured. All three were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The percentage of Kansas high school graduates who attend state universities has fallen in recent years, and the schools are considering how to stop that decline and make up lost revenue.
In 2010, 55% of Kansas high school graduates enrolled at a state higher education institution, but by 2017 — the most recent year for which data is available — that figure had dropped to 50.3%, according to a May report by the Kansas Board of Regents.
“It’s certainly a concern,” Dennis Mullin, chair of the Regents, told The Lawrence Journal-World . “We better figure out ways to bring people into higher education.”
A healthy economy could be behind the fall. Economic growth leads to more jobs available for people with only a high school diploma, according to Elaine Frisbie, the Regents’ vice president for finance and administration.
Mullin suggested the cost of attending university also acts as a deterrent.
“The stronger economy has really taken away people who were in higher education,” he said. “They say, ‘Hey, I spend $25,000 on education or I can get a job for $45,000 a year.’ And they couldn’t do that a couple years ago.”
Shifting demographics could also play a part. The Hispanic population has grown significantly in southwestern Kansas, but Mullin said higher education is not always popular in that community due to cost, a need to support the family, and the desire to maintain a traditional family unit in one place.
The University of Kansas has taken steps to balance the loss of revenue from homegrown students by targeting out-of-state enrollment. Those students pay higher tuition and their numbers help keep the university enrollment level steady.
“KU took the strategic tack to make the university known nationally, recruit academically successful students and help them succeed to graduation once they are here,” university spokeswoman Erinn Barcomb-Peterson said.
Regents took it a step further, suggesting the higher tuition paid by out-of-state students could allow schools to decrease costs for students from Kansas pursuing higher education in their home state, thus boosting homegrown enrollment.
“We have to reach out beyond our borders,” Mullin said. “We’re going to have to draw people into the state in hopes that they are going to stay. … They are helping subsidize Kansas students.”
EL PASO, Texas (AP) — The Trump administration is facing growing complaints from migrants about severe overcrowding, meager food and other hardships at border holding centers, with some people at an encampment in El Paso being forced to sleep on the bare ground during dust storms.
Border Patrol continues to apprehend large groups of 100 or more migrants arriving at the U.S. Mexican border. This photos show USBP and BORSTAR agents processing individuals in March at El Paso, TX – image courtesy Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Border Patrol
The Border Network for Human Rights issued a report Friday based on dozens of testimonials of immigrants over the past month and a half, providing a snapshot of cramped conditions and prolonged stays in detention amid a record surge of migrant families coming into the U.S. from Central America.
The report comes a day after an advocate described finding a teenage mother cradling a premature baby inside a Border Patrol processing center in Texas. The advocate said the baby should have been in a hospital, not a facility where adults are kept in large fenced-in sections that critics describe as cages.
“The state of human rights in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands is grave and is only getting worse,” the immigrant rights group said in its report. “People are dying because of what is happening.”
Five immigrant children have died since late last year after being detained by the Border Patrol, including a flu-stricken teenager who was found dead in a facility migrants refer to as the “icebox” because of the temperatures inside.
Customs and Border Protection responded to the complaints by saying: “Allegations are not facts. If there is an issue it is best to contact CBP directly. In many cases the matter can be resolved immediately.”
The agency also cited its response to a critical inspector general’s report last month, in which it said the government is devoted to treating migrants in its custody “with the utmost dignity and respect.”
The Trump administration has blamed the worsening crisis on inaction by Congress.
Many of the complaints center on El Paso, where the inspector general found severe overcrowding inside a processing center. A cell designed for a dozen people was crammed with 76, and migrants had to stand on the toilets.
With indoor facilities overcrowded, the Border Patrol has kept some immigrants outside and in tents near a bridge in El Paso with nothing but a Mylar foil blanket. Others have been kept in an empty parking lot, where migrants huddled underneath tarps and foil blankets repurposed as shade covers against the sweltering heat.
A professor who visited two weeks ago said it resembled a “human dog pound.” The Border Patrol responded by adding additional shade structures, but migrants are still kept outside in temperatures approaching 100 degrees.
Migrants in El Paso and elsewhere also complained of inadequate food such as a single burrito and a cup of water per day. Women said they were denied feminine hygiene products.
Another complaint is that migrants are kept in detention beyond the 72-hour limit set by Customs and Border Protection. Some reported being held for 30 days or more, and one told The Associated Press she had been in detention for around 45 days.
The teenage mother with the premature baby, for example, spent nine days in Border Patrol custody after crossing the Rio Grande with her newborn, according to a legal advocate who visited the girl in a McAllen, Texas, processing center.
An exodus of people fleeing poverty, drought and violence in Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador has led to a record number of migrant families being apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border in recent months. Agents made 132,887 apprehensions in May, including a record 84,542 adults and children traveling together. Those apprehended also included 11,507 children traveling alone.
President Donald Trump’s $4.5 billion border request for things such as an expansion of detention, medical care, food and shelter has languished on Capitol Hill since he sent it over six weeks ago, with House Democrats at odds with the White House. Congress is set to go on a break in two weeks.
Lawmakers are becoming increasingly agitated.
“In the first five months of this year, the number of apprehensions at the border has already exceeded the population of Atlanta, Georgia,” said Republican Rep. Kay Granger of Texas.
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) — A jury has convicted a 19-year-old Independence man of second-degree murder and a weapons count in the January 2018 shooting death of a teen.
Gates-photo Independence PD
Tyler Gates was found guilty Thursday in the death of 17-year-old Matthew Haylock in the Kansas City, Missouri, suburb of Independence.
Haylock’s body was found on the pavement near a vehicle in the Independence Center mall’s parking lot on Jan. 2, 2018. A witness told police that Gates had been in the vehicle with the victim.
The jury recommended Gates serve 20 years for the murder conviction and seven years for the armed criminal action charge.
The 24th annual Kicker Country Stampede will be held from June 20-22 at Heartland Motorsports Park in Topeka. It typically is held at Manhattan’s Tuttle Creek State Park, but water levels have been high this spring.
Plans for one Topeka area road project and one highway project have been revised to ensure they don’t conflict with the expected rush of visitors. The event typically draws more than 170,000 people.
Meanwhile, Shawnee County Sheriff’s Sgt. Todd Stallbaumer says the sheriff’s office is working with event staff on personnel needed for staffing the event. This year’s performers include Old Dominion, Jason Aldean and Jake Owen.
STOCKTON, Mo. (AP) — Many residents of a rural southwestern Missouri county are critical of a state law that restricts how much local authorities can regulate industrial feedlots and say they feel betrayed by their local representatives who backed the legislation.
Speakers at a community meeting Wednesday in Cedar County said they supported ordinances introduced by county commissioners designed to protect them from the massive hog farms that they say cause pollution and depreciate property values, the Springfield News-Leader reported .
Ed McEowan said a hog-raising operation opened up next to his home in the southeast of the county more than a decade ago. He spoke of how going outside or even opening windows became impossible due to the smell of ammonia and feces, and the sound of thousands of hogs squealing. The value of his property dropped.
“Then the depression comes, because you feel like everything you’ve ever worked for on the place and built up has all come to nothing,” McEowan said.
County rules now in place prevent industrial farms from setting up too close to homes and vulnerable waterways that could become polluted by manure runoff, according to county treasurer Peggy Kenney.
“We didn’t do it to keep anyone out,” she said. “We didn’t do it to hinder agriculture in any way.”
The legislation signed into law last month prevents counties from adopting stricter rules governing concentrated animal feeding operations than those at the state level. The law takes effect Aug. 28.
Tim Gibbons, the Missouri Rural Crisis Center’s communications director, called the legislation “an attack on our fundamental rights” that must be stopped.
Attendees applauded a proclamation that communities need “local control, not corporate control” and that their “future depends on it.”
In a separate interview, Missouri Farm Bureau President Blake Hurst told the newspaper that his parents live about a quarter of a mile from an operation in northwest Missouri. He said the smell is only an issue a few days a year, and the well water is just fine.
“We’re living the dream here, and it has not changed our quality of life,” he said.
Rep. Warren Love, whose district covers northern Cedar County, said he voted for the bill, and that if residents don’t like the rules, they know what to do.
“If you want to live where there’s no livestock, go live somewhere in the city limits,” Love said.
RAYTOWN, Mo. (AP) — Police say a woman has been shot and killed in the Kansas City, Missouri, suburb of Raytown.
The shooting occurred early Saturday morning in Sarah Colman-Livengood Park in Raytown. Police found the woman around 12:30 a.m. Saturday in the park. Police say two people were seen running away from the park after the shooting while others attempted to administer first aid.
No one else was injured.
Police said the park office building and at least three houses in the area were hit by bullets overnight.
Police have not arrested anyone in the shooting. The name of the woman killed had not been released by midday Saturday.
Every summer since 1922, locals and tourists have flocked to Garden City’s Big Pool. Once promoted as “the world’s largest outdoor free concrete municipal swimming pool,” it holds around 2 million gallons of water. “Holds” might now be an overstatement.
The Big Pool leaks. A lot.
Garden City’s Big Pool, nearly a century old, loses 200,000 gallons of water a day. CORINNE BOYER / KANSAS NEWS SERVICE
Around 200,000 gallons of water from the pool seep into the ground per day — even after renovations that replaced pipes and sealed cracks in the concrete.
Even for a pool of its size, the water loss is “excessive,” according to Fred Jones, Garden City’s water resource manager. “It’s kinda to the point where we feel like it’s probably nearing the end of its service life.”
As the pool’s centennial nears, concern over costs and repairs have grown. The city has been asking residents this year about replacing it, though nothing’s been decided yet.
Drip, drip drip
Refilling the leaking pool costs Garden City $1,000 a day. During the period that the pool is open from Memorial Day until Labor Day, the city spends between $700,000 and $800,000 on repairs, staff and water, according to Assistant City Manager Jennifer Cunningham, who oversees the operation of the pool.
The pool’s water comes from the city’s potable water supply, which is drawn from the Ogallala and Dakota aquifers. Watering and irrigation of landscapes and lawns is the biggest consumer of water in the summer, but Jones said the 200,000 gallons the pool loses each day is still a worry.
Coating the concrete in the pool’s deep end would stop the leakage. The city spent $150,000 to coat the baby pool, the shallow area, and the plunge pool. But Cunningham said the deep end would cost another $750,000, and would only solve the problem for about five years in Garden City’s harsh weather.
“Concrete breaks down over time, especially when it’s out in the cold in the wintertime and it’s out in the heat in the summertime and it’s filled with water,” she said. “It expands, it contracts and eventually breaks down.”
Instead of continuing to throw money into an old facility with porous concrete, Cunningham said bonding the amount spent on the pool and its repairs could pay for a new swimming facility.
The swimming days go way back
During the first weekend in June, Sherry Frizzell, 57, spent time at the Big Pool with her family like she’s done since she was born.
Originally the pool was just one, undivided expanse of water. There have been upgrades over the years that added swim lanes, diving boards and an inflatable obstacle course in the pool’s deep end. A walkway now divides the pool’s deep and shallow ends. Water slides empty into part of the shallow end and a separate wading pool with an elephant slide sits at the entrance.
“I want to see the pool stay,” Frizell said. “Instead of putting other stuff in, they should have fixed what was wrong in the first place.”
Sixteen-year-old Ethan Rich has been going to the pool for most of his life too — since he was 3 or 4.
“It helps in the summer when it’s hot,” he said.
Back in 1921, Garden City’s Mayor H.O. Trinkle liked to swim too and he wanted a pool. So, members of the community started digging.
“It was dug with horse-drawn slips, which is kind of like a great big shovel pulled by horses, and men with shovels,” recounted Laurie Oshel, assistant director of the Finney County Museum.
Ice skaters glided across the frozen surface in the late 1920s — before the water was drained every year.
Two elephants were trained to walk over from the Lee Richardson Zoo next door and swam in the pool from 1987, when they were babies, until around 2004 when they were relocated to Florida, according to former education curator at the zoo, Whitney Buckman.
Former Garden City resident Hank Avila, now 74, remembers taking swimming lessons at the pool in 1950 and 1951. That was soon after Latino residents gained access.
The “water was cold,” he said.
But those lessons were evidence of a breakthrough. Avila recalls that some members of the Hispanic community never learned to swim because the pool was off limits. A few years before he learned to swim, the Latino community had petitioned the city for access to the pool and been denied.
The pool ultimately became integrated before restaurants and movie theaters in the area, and turned into a haven.
“I had a lot of fun there — it was part of daily life during the summer,” Avila said. He and his uncle snuck in on hot nights after hours.
Black residents in Garden City fought longer to gain access to city’s pool.
In a July 12, 1950, Garden City Daily Telegram article, one man demanded that black community members be allowed to enter the pool. S.M. Hawkins spoke at a Garden City Commission meeting and, the newspaper reported, said, “that it was all right for Negroes to participate when it came to paying taxes, but apparently it isn’t all right for Negroes to use the swimming pool which is supported by these same taxes.”
At the same meeting, Commissioner Al Gottschalk said, “It just has never been the policy to admit Negroes.”
Through the 1960s, about 65,000 people visited the pool annually, according to documents at the Finney County Museum.
A new Big Pool?
Around 300 people use the pool every day now. Cunningham said one reason attendance has declined is because of the cost, $2 per person per day. Admission was free until 2003.
“I would love to be able to drive down there and instead of seeing a hundred to 200 kids swimming, that I see 2,000 kids swimming,” she said. “From all over town and enjoying it every day.”
To decide its future, Garden City officials gathered input all over town about the Big Pool. They talked with the Realtor’s Association, the Lion’s Club, the county health coalition, every Garden City student from 3rd through 12th grades, along with kids from nearby Holcomb, Lakin, Deerfield, and Cimarron.
Across all age groups — from households with kids to adults over age 56 — the majority responding to the city’s survey said they wanted a facility similar to the existing pool. Other options, including multiple community pools, splash parks or a water park, all ranked lower.
“This is what Garden City is known for,” said Lana Steinmetz, 46, a Garden City resident who has been coming to the pool since she was 8, hopes it will stay open. “They already put so much money into it.”
COOPER COUNTY— One person died in an accident just before 4p.m. Friday in Cooper County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2011 Jeep Wrangler driven by Richard E. Casanova, 75, Booneville, was northbound on Old Concord Road just west of Route B.
A 2011 Honda Odyssey driven by Leigh E. Snoddy, 31, Boonville was southbound. Both vehicle crossed the centerline while negotiating a curve, according to the MSHP.
Casanova and Snoddy were transported to Pinnacle Regional Hospital where Casanova died. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.
