COOPER COUNTY — One person died in an accident just before 8p.m. Sunday in Cooper County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2006 Kawasaki motorcycle driven by Anthony D. Martin, 52, Kansas City, was eastbound on Interstate 70 just east of the Huntsdale exit.
The driver began to brake, the motorcycle ran off the road and hit the guardrail. The motorcycle returned to the road and the driver was ejected.
Martin was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Howard Funeral Home.
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. – The following is a listing of general highway maintenance and construction work in the Northwest Missouri region planned for the week of Sept. 17 – 23 from the Missouri Department of Transportation.
In addition to the work listed below, there may be other road work conducted throughout the region. Many of these will be moving operations and could include lane closures with delays. All scheduled maintenance and construction projects are subject to change.
MoDOT reminds the public to stay alert, watch for road work, buckle up, slow down, and drive with extreme caution through work zones and in changing weather conditions.
For more information about a project, please contact MoDOT at 1-888-ASK-MoDOT (888-275-6636) or visit modot.org/northwest. You can also follow MoDOT’s Northwest Missouri District on Twitter @ModotNorthwest and on Facebook.
Atchison County
Interstate 29 – Resurfacing project from the Iowa state line to Route 111, Sept. 17 – 21.
Buchanan County
U.S. Route 59 – Bridge maintenance at the Bankers Crossing Bridge, Sept. 17
U.S. Route 169 (Belt Highway) – Pothole patching from Karnes Road to Loop 29 (Pear Street), Sept. 17 – 20
U.S. Route 169 (Belt Highway) – Pedestrian crossing improvement project at U.S. Route 36 and South Belt Wal-Mart intersections, Sept. 17 – 21
Route AC (Riverside Road) – Bridge maintenance at the U.S. Route 36 Bridge, Sept. 17 – 21. This will include overnight lane closures and a reduced speed limit of 45 mph.
Route 759 – Concrete replacement southbound at the Burlington Northern Railroad crossing, Sept. 18 – 21. This will include overnight lane closures.
Route 752 – Resurfacing project from Route 371 (22nd Street) to I-229, Sept. 19 – 21
I-229 – Resurfacing project from Route 371 (22nd Street) to I-29, Sept. 21
Caldwell County
U.S. Route 36 – Guardrail work from just east of the DeKalb County line to Route 33 (DeKalb County), Sept. 17 – 21, daylight hours.
Carroll County
Route 10 – Guardrail work from Route FF to U.S. Business Route 65 in Carrollton, Sept. 17 – 21
Daviess County
U.S. Route 69 – Resurfacing project from I-35 to Route 6, Sept. 17 – 22. A pilot car will direct traffic through the work zone.
U.S. Route 69 – Resurfacing project from Route C to Route AA (Harrison County), Sept. 17 – 22. A pilot car will direct traffic through the work zone.
Route 13 – Shoulder work at the Honey Creek Bridge near Gallatin, Sept. 17 – 21
Route J – CLOSED for a culvert replacement from Titan Road to the city limits of Kidder, Sept. 17 – 21, 8 a.m. to 3 p.m. daily.
DeKalb County
Route D – Pothole patching from Route W to Route E, Sept. 17 – 18
U.S. Route 36 – Guardrail work from just east of the Caldwell County line to Route 33, Sept. 17 – 21, daylight hours
Route H – Pothole patching from Route 6 to Ridgeline Road, Sept. 19 – 20
Route F – Pothole patching from U.S. Route 169 to Gospel Road, Sept. 20 – 21
Gentry County
U.S. Route 136 – Bridge maintenance at the West Fork Grand River Bridge, Sept. 17 – 18
Route A – Pothole patching, Sep. 19 – 21
Grundy County
Route NN – Pothole patching, Sept. 17
Harrison County
U.S. Route 69 – Resurfacing project from Route AA to Route C (Daviess County), Sept. 17 – 22. A pilot car will direct traffic through the work zone.
Holt County
U.S. Route 59 – CLOSED for bridge maintenance at the I-29 Bridge, Sept. 17 – 19, 6 a.m. to 4 p.m. daily
Linn County
U.S. Route 36 – Bridge maintenance at Higgins Ditch, west of Laclede, Sept. 17 – 21. This includes a 14-foot width restriction.
Route 5 – Pothole patching from Route O to U.S. Route 36, Sept. 17 – 21
Mercer County
Route W – Pothole patching, Sept. 17 – 21
Nodaway County
Route M – Pothole patching from U.S. Route 71 to Route AH, Sept. 18 – 19
Route V – Pothole patching from Icon Road to Route ZZ, Sept. 20 – 21
Putnam County
U.S. Route 136 – CLOSED for a bridge replacement project at the West Locust Creek Bridge. The road will be closed through September. A signed detour is in place.
U.S. Route 136 – CLOSED for a bridge replacement project at the Elm Branch Bridge. The road will be closed through September. A signed detour is in place.
Sullivan County
Route T – Pothole patching, Sept. 17 – 18
Worth County
Route K – Pothole patching, Sept. 18 – 19
Route H – Shoulder work at 115th Trail, Sept. 20
Route YY – CLOSED at the Middle Fork of the Grand River after a regularly scheduled inspection revealed critical deterioration to the structure. At a minimum, the bridge will remain closed through November. The closure could be extended if further assessment warrants.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A nationwide shortage of truckers has some industry officials and national lawmakers supporting a plan to allow 18-year-olds to become long-haul drivers, while others in the industry say it’s a bad idea that will decrease safety on the nation’s road.
Apex CDL Institute in Kansas City, Kansas, trains truckers and would likely have more students if federal proposals to allow those under 21 to drive big rigs across the country. But institute director Jeffrey Steinberg thinks most 18-year-olds would make bad long-haulers.
“Sure, I’d make money” if the law was changed, Steinberg said. “But is it going to create more problems than it would solve? In my opinion, yes. I don’t think it’s safe.”
Bills before the U.S. House and the Senate — co-sponsored by U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran of Kansas — both propose that people under 21 who have commercial drivers’ licenses be allowed to take their cargo across state lines. Federal law now requires truckers to wait until age 21 to get a CDL permitting them to drive big rigs across the country, The Kansas City Star reported .
Steinberg is not alone in his objection to dropping that minimum age to 18. The 160,000-member Owner Operator Independent Drivers Association, headquartered in Grain Valley. Missouri, has joined more than a dozen traffic safety groups in writing protest letters to a congressional committee that will hear the idea. The federal proposals set training requirements for young CDL holders.
“Younger drivers both lack overall experience and are less safe behind the wheel than their older counterparts,” their April 17 letter said. “In fact, CMV (commercial motor vehicle) drivers under the age of 19 are four times more likely to be involved in fatal crashes.”
Republican-led proposals before the U.S. Committee On Transportation and Infrastructure would affect Kansas City, a central trucking hub, and other communities long state borders. Both Kansas and Missouri allow 18-year-olds to obtain CDLs, but only for travel within one state.
Some industry analysts with deliveries surging because of Amazon, eBay and Fed Ex, it’s long past time to relax interstate restrictions.
“What isn’t interstate commerce these days?” asked Satish Jindel of shipping logistics adviser SJ Consulting Group, Inc. “Anyone who makes a distinction between interstate and intrastate trucking is stuck in the past.”
He said whether the minimum age is 18 or 21, the federal government needs to be consistent with the state CDL laws.
The American Trucking Associations expect the costs of delivered packages — in addition to groceries, furniture and most every consumer product — to climb as road shippers try to find 51,000 drivers to fill the empty cabs. That’s up from a trucker shortage of 20,000 in 2013 and 36,500 in 2016. The ATA recently forecast a shortage of 100,000 drivers by 2021.
With the median age of a long-hauler at 49 and shipping demands ascending, the industry aims to recruit 90,000 new drivers a year for the next decade to keep cargo moving, said ATA vice president Sean McNally.
Norita Taylor of the independent drivers association said major carriers could fix the driver shortage by paying more but they don’t want to do that.
“Their shareholders benefit from high turnover and low pay,” said Taylor. “Dropping the minimum age to 18 is just another way to get cheap help.”
The median annual wage in 2015 for a trucker working with a private fleet, such as a driver for Walmart, was $73,000, according to ATA.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The chances of a Kansas voter’s ballot being counted might depend on which county he or she lives in — especially if they vote by mail.
The issue of counties having different standards for determining whether a ballot should be counted came up last week (Monday) during a meeting of the State Objections Board, where Davis Hammet of Topeka objected to Republican Kris Kobach’s victory in the Aug. 7 GOP primary for governor. Hammet’s objections involved how the election was administered and whether the varying standards could have influenced the outcome of a race that Kobach won over Gov. Jeff Colyer by less than 350 votes.
Hammet noted Johnson County rejected 153 mail-in ballots because the signature on the envelope used to mail the ballot back to the county did not match the voter’s signature on file in the county election office.
In contrast, Shawnee and Douglas counties’ election officials didn’t reject any ballots because of mismatched signatures.
“This means either Johnson County erroneously rejected these ballots, or there is massive voter fraud in Johnson County,” Hammet told the board. “If the board rules that my objection is wrong and that Johnson County’s rejection is correct, then, given the discrepancy between Johnson County and Shawnee County, it can reasonably be presumed that Shawnee County and other counties improperly allowed fraudulent votes.”
Hammet also noted Kansas doesn’t require county officials to verify signatures when voters mail back their ballots. They are required to do so only when the voter fills out a form requesting an advance ballot by mail.
The Objections Board rejected the argument that county officials should not verify ballot signatures. Deputy Secretary of State Eric Rucker said that while the law does not require verifying signatures on advance ballot envelopes, it does say election officers have a duty to challenge ballots when there is reason to believe the people casting them are not who they say they are, and a mismatched signature can be evidence of that.
Shawnee County Election Commissioner Andrew Howell said his office didn’t reject any ballots in August because of mismatched signatures, but he said he typically sees at least a few mismatched signatures in each election. Deciding whether to count a ballot is often a judgment call that is left to local officials, he said.
“Anytime the law leaves it open for interpretation, everybody does the best they can,” Howell said. “We’re always left with the challenge of trying to make a reasonable determination.”
Howell said Shawnee County also spends a lot of time calling, writing or mailing voters if there is a problem with a ballot before deciding to reject it.
Douglas County Clerk Jamie Shew said the county also didn’t reject any ballots because of mismatched signatures. His office often sends “runners” to voters’ homes to clear up any problems with their ballots.
“There’s nothing in the statute that says we have to reach out to the voter. That’s a decision we make,” Shew said.
Attorney Brant Lauenn said Hammet raised issues that the Legislature should resolve. But Rep. Vic Miller, D-Topeka, an attorney who often frequently handles election contests for Democratic candidates, said he thinks the secretary of state’s office should decide what he called administrative issues.
Howell also said he wasn’t sure whether imposing uniform standards on all counties would be helpful.
“It’s kind of a double-edged sword,” he said. “Too much subscription takes away from judgment calls, and a lot of times you need to make judgment calls. On the other hand, it would be helpful to be super clear what to count and not to count.”
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CARROLL COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 8p.m. Saturday in Carroll County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2007 Toyota passenger vehicle driven by Brian Tebbenkamp, 37, Holden, was westbound on U.S. 24 just east of County Road 311.
The Toyota crested the hill and struck an unoccupied farm tractor and John M. Burns, 68, Brookfield, and an unoccupied Ford passenger vehicle.
The collision pushed the tractor into Brian Hale, 42, Carrollton.
Burns was transported to Carrollton County Hospital where he died. Burns was treated at the scene. Tebbenkamp was not injured.
Apple pie, apple fritters, apple cider and more can be found at the AppleJack Festival next weekend in Nebraska City.
Tammy Partsch with the Festival said while there is photographic evidence of festivities and celebrations at Nebraska City orchards that goes back over 100 years, this year will mark the 50th official year of the annual AppleJack Festival.
“Nebraska City is at a perfect area, harvest-wise, the land is just really great for growing apples and there was one point where it had the most apples growing in a certain area west of the Mississippi, except for the state of Washington, it had more orchards per capita,” Partsch said. “There was always kind of a fall harvest festival happening (and) 50 years ago some local business people said let’s capitalize on this and let’s make this an event, let’s get people here.”
Partsch said about 80,000 people attend the Festival over the weekend each year. With it being the 50th year of the festival, this year’s theme is a flashback.
“We’ve been asking (people) for over a year, ‘What are the things that you remember about AppleJack when you were a kid?’ and one of the big things was a water barrel fight,” Partsch said. “The fire department used to do it and it’s like a reverse tug-of-war. They would have an empty barrel strung from a wire, you have fire hose on either side and then you aim your hose at the barrel and whoever pushes the barrel across, that team wins.”
A water barrel fight will be held this year as a fundraiser for the NC Museum of Firefighting. Teams of four can register online and the event will be held right after the parade.
The parade this year will feature over 100 entries and about 30 high school and middle school bands from the area will be there for the marching band competition.
The parade starts at 1 p.m. Saturday, but there are many other events that day and all weekend including an apple pie eating contest, apple peeling contest, a classic car show, a fun run and a carnival.
The Applejack Festival in Nebraska City takes place Sept 21-23.
For a full list of all the things happening at the festival that weekend, click here.
By CELIA LLOPIS-JEPSEN
Sepsis hits nearly two million people in the U.S. a year and kills more than a quarter million. It’s a particular problem in nursing homes, where the aging, confused and immobile are especially susceptible.
In Kansas, scores of nursing homes have received federal citations since 2015 for practices that can put residents at a higher risk of sepsis.
A Kaiser Health News compilation of those warnings to nursing home operators shows eight Kansas nursing homes earned the most serious level of citations.
Those health issues matter, says sepsis expert Steven Simpson at the University of Kansas Medical Center, because of where they can lead.
“Sepsis is one of the most common causes of death if you’re in a nursing home,” he said.
Simpson’s school works with nursing homes across Kansas to teach them about early signs of sepsis, warnings that can save a patient’s life.
“People think a lot about heart attacks. People think about strokes,” he said. “But infection is a huge, huge killer.”
Sepsis occurs when your body is fighting off an infection but the chemicals flowing into your bloodstream inadvertently trigger other life-threatening complications, including potential organ failure.
Recognizing the signs of sepsis earlier and more often would cut down on annual deaths from it. Even better would be preventing sepsis from taking hold at all — by keeping elderly residents from developing bed sores or other complications that open the door to infection.
The Kansas News Service has published the Kansas-specific data from Kaiser Health News. View citations since 2015, if any, at nursing homes in your area above
The citations relate to infection prevention and control, catheters, feeding tubes and bedsores.
Citations are ranked on a scale. Immediate jeopardy to resident health or safety is most serious. Want more info about a given nursing home? You can view additional health indicators and read inspection reports in detail on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid nursing home website.
Read Kaiser Health News’ in-depth report on sepsis at nursing homes.
Data methodology is available here.
Risk for developing infections leading to sepsis can relate directly to staffing levels at nursing homes.
Residents who can’t move easily without help, for example, require frequent attention to stave off bedsores. Mayo Clinic’s tips for preventing bedsores include shifting one’s weight every 15 minutes if seated in a wheelchair.
That lack of mobility is just one reason nursing home residents are especially vulnerable to sepsis, Simpson said.
Additionally, immune systems weaken with age. Some elderly also may not develop fevers or elevated heart rates that serve as clear warning signs. They may also have trouble describing their discomfort.
“Probably the most important things to look out for in your family member who is in a nursing home are mental status changes,” Simpson said.
For instance, if someone who is normally clear-headed suddenly becomes confused and can’t remember basic facts, sepsis might be the cause.
Kaiser Health News also published federal data on staffing levels at nursing homes around the country. The Kansas News Service has reproduced the Kansas data on the map below.
Read Kaiser’s in-depth report on staff levels at nursing homes.
Data glossary and methodology are available here.
Celia Llopis-Jepsen is a reporter for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of KCUR, Kansas Public Radio, KMUW and High Plains Public Radio covering health, education and politics. You can reach her on Twitter @Celia_LJ.
CARROLL COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 10p.m. Saturday in Carroll County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2004 Dodge passenger vehicle driven by Virgil A. Keller, 49, Hale, was northbound on County Road 331 just north of Route J. The vehicle traveled off the left side of the road and overturned.
Hale was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Bittiker Funeral Home. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.
MARSHALL COUNTY — One person died in an accident just before 2p.m. Saturday in Marshall County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1997 Harley Davidson driven by Cameron Dodds, 47, Washington, Kan., was eastbound on K9 one mile west of K99 in Frankfort.
The motorcycle traveled across the westbound lane, entered the north ditch and overturned several times.
A passenger Diane Thompson, 50, Sterling, NE., was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Kinsley Mortuary.
Dodds was transported Bryan Medical Center West in Lincoln.
They were not wearing helmets, according to the KHP.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A 33-year-old Kansas firefighter has been charged with sexual exploitation of a minor after he allegedly solicited sex from someone he thought was 15.
Wyandotte County District Attorney Mark Dupree says that Devin Rich turned himself in Friday and is being held in the Wyandotte County jail on a $100,000 bond.
Dupree says the person Rich solicited was actually an undercover FBI agent. Dupree says some of the communications occurred when Rich was on duty.
A court date has not been set.
Rich’s attorney, John Duma, said he would not comment on the case.
The Kansas City fire department said in a statement Friday that Rich was an eight-year veteran of the department and has been suspended without pay since April.
