TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — State regulators will hear from gas customers this week about a proposed 10 percent rate hike.

State officials say Kansas Gas Service’s rate proposal would add an estimated $5.60 a month to the average gas bill. The Kansas Corporation Commission will hear from the public Thursday in Topeka before deciding whether to grant the request.

KGS, a division of Oklahoma natural gas giant ONEOK, says that four main factors are driving its request. They included increased employee wages and more efficient appliances that are reducing consumption.

Kansas House Minority Leader Jim Ward says he’s suspicious of the need for an increase because it’s been less than two years since rates last went up. Ordinarily, rate cases are requested by companies every four to five years.

NEOSHO, Mo. — Law enforcement authorities have captured an escaped Oklahoma prisoner who wrecked a stolen truck in Missouri before fleeing on foot.

On Tuesday, Newton County Deputies, Neosho Police Officers and Troopers with the MSHP pursed a suspect later identified as 24-year-old Walter B. Blount who was suspected of using stolen credit cards in Neosho, according to a media release.

After a chase and crash of the suspect’s vehicle, which was stolen, Blount fled on foot in the area of Business 60 and Highway 59 (Elwood Junction) in Newton County.

It was determined the suspect was the escapee from Moore, Oklahoma who was arrested and escaped custody a week ago.

He was among three suspects who were caught with stolen items a week ago, more than 200 miles away in Moore, Oklahoma, at the scene of a car break-in. Police there say he managed to dive through the window of a patrol car and steal a bike and then a truck.

Authorities have not released details of the arrest.

 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas welfare officials have barred a group home operator’s employee who is accused of sexual misconduct from working in locations where children are present.

Kansas Department for Children and Families spokeswoman Taylor Forrest says the agency was disappointed that The Villages declined a recommendation to fire the worker. Welfare officials announced the new employment conditions for him last month.

The worker was the human resources manager, but it’s unclear if that is still his role with the Topeka-based organization.

In 1989, the Boy Scouts of America and Seaman High School cut ties with the employee after an accusation that he made sexual advances toward an exchange student.

The Villages’ executive director, Sylvia Crawford, says the organization is in full compliance with all applicable personnel regulations.

KISSEE MILLS, Mo. — A man was rescued after being stuck in a cave in Taney County.

Around 8:00p.m. Tuesday, Central Taney County FPD, Western Taney County FPD and TCAD were dispatched to a location along Devil’s Tea Tables Road for a cave rescue, according to a media release.

At that time dispatch was unsure of the number of people in the cave. During the response dispatch advised that there were 3 people in the cave, but only one injury. CTCFPD Chief 3 arrived on scene and established command and found out from bystanders that the one injury was that a man was having trouble breathing, could not climb about 10ft straight up and was having a panic attack.

He quickly assembled 2 teams of 2 to enter the cave and find the people. First crew went in with rescue gear on and by rope they found the people about 30ft in the cave.

Crews outside were setting up a patient hoisting system with ropes to bring everyone back out. A safety harness was placed on the Male having the panic attack and he was safely brought to the top and out of the cave. TCAD EMS was on scene and immediately began to assess the patient.

Patient refused to be transported by ambulance to the hospital just to make sure he was fine. The other 2 people were assisted out of the cave by rescue personnel. There were no injuries or other problems. 

 

Columbia, MO — The Josh Hawley for U.S. Senate Campaign released a statement Tuesday from U.S. Senator Pat Roberts calling on Senator Claire McCaskill to remove Roberts’ quote from her new campaign ad entitled “Independence.”  Hawley is challenging incumbent McCaskill in a very close race for the U.S.  senate.

Sen. Roberts said, “Senator Claire McCaskill’s days of bipartisanship are long over. On critical issues over the last year, I’ve watched her vote to raise taxes on Missourians and oppose conservative judges including Judge Kavanaugh for the Supreme Court.

I’m very disappointed that she’s sided with her party’s leadership and opposed the Trump Administration against the best interests of Missouri at every turn.

“When President Trump was elected, she made it her mission to obstruct the administration’s agenda. Higher taxes. Liberal courts. That’s not what Missourians want.

“That’s why I am supporting Josh Hawley and calling on Senator McCaskill to remove my name and quote from her ad.”

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Department of Mental Health employees have been removed from a lawsuit over the death of a developmentally disabled man.

U.S. District Court Judge Douglas Harpool last week dismissed the department’s director Mark Stringer and other agency leaders from the lawsuit filed by the mother and sister-in-law of Carl DeBrodie.

The lawsuit alleged that state mental health agency’s employees, the Callaway County public administrator and the home’s employees didn’t properly oversee DeBrodie’s care.

In April 2017, police found DeBrodie’s body encased in concrete and hidden inside a Fulton storage unit. His body was found about a week after he was reported missing from Second Chance Homes, a nearby supported-living facility. Police believe his death went undetected for months.

DeBrodie’s mother, Carolyn Summers, believes that DeBrodie was left to die at a Second Chance employee’s residence, according to the federal lawsuit. She also believes that DeBrodie actually died near the end of October 2016.

The Missouri Attorney General’s Office had asked Harpool in June to dismiss the state from the wrongful death lawsuit because DeBrodie was in private care.

“Mr. DeBrodie was not in state custody. He resided in a private facility,” the attorney general’s office argued.

Harpool’s ruling last week sided with the attorney general’s office, but made it possible for the state to be brought back into the case should it later be revealed that state employees “undertook an affirmative action” that restrained DeBrodie’s freedom or endangered him.

The mental health department declined to comment on the litigation.

The state’s attorney Rudy Veit said the wrongful death case “has gotten their attention.”

“While we haven’t seen them take any direct action to ensure this won’t happen again, I know it’s on their radar,” he said.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A political novice who rode his profile as an outsider-adventurer to the Republican nomination in a competitive Kansas congressional district is facing scrutiny about some of the biographical details he shares with voters.

Steve Watkins’ campaign website featured a since-removed testimonial to his “heroic leadership” when a deadly earthquake shook Mount Everest during an expedition. He has acknowledged inaccurately claiming that he started a Middle East business, expanding it from three to 470 people. And there are doubts about Watkins’ self-description as a devoted, sixth-generation Kansan.

Even before Watkins won the crowded primary to succeed retiring GOP Rep. Lynn Jenkins in eastern Kansas’ 2nd District, some fellow Republicans were skeptical. One former GOP foe, state Sen. Steve Fitzgerald, called him “a charlatan, a fraud and an opportunist,” though he now won’t criticize him.

Watkins’ campaign website calls him “an accomplished athlete and explorer,” citing his 2015 attempt to be the first person to race in the Iditarod and scale Mount Everest in the same year.

In that year’s 1,000-mile dogsled race as a rookie, he finished 58th out of 78. Watkins started the race in March 2018 but didn’t finish.

His 2015 expedition on the world’s tallest mountain was cut short by an earthquake in Nepal that killed nearly 8,900 people. Watkins’ website previously quoted Everest outfitter Guy Cotter as saying he relied on Watkins’ “heroic leadership amid the chaos.” Watkins said it was in response to his calm and the moral support he offered his group of stranded climbers.

Cotter told The Associated Press that he never said it and was unaware Watkins had put the quote on his campaign website. It was removed after the AP questioned Watkins about Cotter’s comments.

“There was not really anything heroic to be able to do,” Cotter said in a phone interview from New Zealand. “We all felt quite hopeless … because we were not there, where all the injured and dying people were, through that event. We were actually up on the mountain, so there was very little we could contribute.”

Watkins said: “I captured the statement, to the best of my memory. He and I spoke frequently and often when we were up there, and he shared the sentiment.”

As for the Iditarod, four-time winner Jeff King saw Watkins’ entry this year as a stunt for his political campaign and Watkins’ self-portrayal as an adventurer as a “gigantic fallacy.”

Musher Tara Cicatello was at the back of the pack with Watkins, and both were forced to quit 11 days into the contest because they were so far behind. She said Watkins’ chief concern after being forced to withdraw was the publicity he had lined up. He was on the phone talking about speaking engagements and left the dogs that had carried him more than 700 miles in the care of people who were already overwhelmed with other dogs, she said.

“People were irritated with Steve because they were doing more work for his dogs than he was,” Cicatello said. “I don’t think he mistreated them. It just sounds like he was all about his campaign and the show of it than the actual doing of it.”

Watkins said he entered the 2018 dogsled race because he believed it could be his last chance to compete.

Recently the Kansas City Star reported that while Watkins claimed to have started a company and built it from scratch, in fact he joined an existing company as a contractor. To explain the discrepancy, Watkins said he helped create products and services for the company’s clients.

And public records show the 42-year-old Army veteran hadn’t lived in Kansas since he left high school — nearly two decades before returning to the state last year to run for Congress. During the AP interview, he acknowledged a “transient” life.

“It was exciting, and it was dangerous, challenging and meaningful,” he said.

Military records show Watkins spent five years on active duty with the Army, including six months in Afghanistan. His work as a contractor began late in 2004.

He said his priorities shifted after being injured as a contractor in Afghanistan in 2013. In a 2015 Washington Post interview, he described it as a traumatic brain injury and also said he’d been diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder nearly a decade earlier. He told AP the 2013 injury was a “tipping point” that pushed him toward “a more conventional life” but would not discuss details.

Watkins said Kansas “was always home in my heart.” However, he applied 11 times between 2002 and 2015 for the Alaska Permanent Fund Dividend, a payment to those who have lived in the state for a full year and say they intend to remain indefinitely.

Property records show Watkins owns two condos in Alaska, purchased in 2005 and 2015, while the Topeka residence on his voter registration is rented.

Days before Watkins won the seven-candidate August primary, 40 local Republican leaders signed an open letter expressing concerns including his absence from the district. Some GOP leaders also were wary of him after three Democrats said publicly that he met with them last year about running as a Democrat — something he strongly disputes.

Many GOP doubters have since endorsed him because the stakes for the party are high. Even though President Donald Trump won the district by nearly 17 percentage points in 2016, Democrats see the seat as a prime opportunity. Watkins’ better-known Democratic opponent, attorney and former Kansas House minority leader Paul Davis, carried the district when he narrowly lost the 2014 governor’s race.

Davis has his own baggage after representing a legislative district in the liberal-for-Kansas city of Lawrence. Republicans have revived a 1998 incident in which Davis, then a 26-year-old attorney, was present during a drug raid at a strip club while visiting its owner, a client. Police did not accuse him of wrongdoing.

But in nominating Watkins, the GOP took a risk because he’s not been active politically until now, said Bob Beatty, a Washburn University of Topeka political scientist.

“The party does not know what he was doing in Alaska and in the other places he lived,” Beatty said. “It may be a good leap of faith, but it’s still a leap of faith.”

TUNAS, Mo. (AP) — Authorities have released the names of the two southwest Missouri homeowners who were shot to death in an apparent gunfight with possible intruders.

Brandy and Joseph Allen were killed Sunday morning outside of their home in the Dallas County town of Tunas. The Dallas County Sheriff’s Office says the homeowner apparently interrupted an attempted robbery.