FORT SCOTT –  A Kansas woman was found guilty Thursday of mistreatment of a dependent adult, according to Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt.

Denise Lynette Adkins, 55, of Fulton, pleaded guilty in Bourbon County District Court to one felony count of mistreatment of a dependent adult. The case stemmed from an investigation by the Bourbon County Sheriff’s Office, which discovered that between June and July 2017, Adkins worked as an in-home caregiver for a dependent adult and made personal purchases on the victim’s credit card. The defendant also opened a credit card account in the victim’s name and made unauthorized purchases for herself. As part of the plea, Adkins agreed to pay $5,778.56 in restitution to the victim.

District Judge Mark Ward took the plea and scheduled sentencing for May 31 at 1:30 p.m.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – A Kansas City area man was sentenced in federal court today for robbing four banks in Independence, Mo., Liberty, Mo., and Kansas City, Mo., over a span of five months, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

Tam Henry Holmes, 57, of the Kansas City metropolitan area, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner to 10 years in federal prison without parole. The court also ordered Holmes to pay $25,005 in restitution.

On Oct. 23, 2017, Holmes pleaded guilty to four counts of bank robbery.

Holmes robbed Central Bank of Kansas City, 2301 Independence Ave., Kansas City, Mo., on Nov. 16, 2016. Holmes approached the teller counter and placed a note up against the bullet-proof glass and whispered “700.” The teller told investigators she could not read what was printed on the note, but Holmes continued to whisper “700” and she realized it was a robbery. The teller turned over $450 to Holmes, who then left the bank.

On April 1, 2017, Holmes robbed Bank of the West, 850 S. 291 Hwy., Liberty. When he entered the bank, Holmes held up a spiral notebook containing hand-written notations. The teller told investigators that she read the first couple of lines, which she recalled were, “this is a robbery, give me all your large bills.” The teller gathered money from her drawer and gave it to Holmes and he left the bank. The bank reported a loss of $8,300.

On April 3, 2017, Holmes robbed Greater Kansas City Public Safety Credit Union, 19341 E. US 40 Hwy., Independence. Holmes walked up to a teller counter and showed the teller two hand-written notes on two yellow Post-it notes. The notes said, “this is a robbery. Don’t pull any dye packs, bail or alarms. I know where you live.” The teller removed cash from her drawer and handed it to Holmes, and he left the bank. The credit union reported a loss of $12,205.

On April 15, 2017, Holmes robbed First Federal Bank of Kansas City, 3500 Noland Rd., Independence. Holmes held up a handwritten note that said, “give me all the money, hurry up, or I will hurt you.” The teller opened her drawer and handed Holmes $100 and $50 bills. She then stared at Holmes, who stated, “hurry up or I’ll do what the note says.” The teller then gave Holmes $20, $10 and $5 bills. Holmes took the money, put it in his pockets and walked out of the bank. The bank reported a loss of $4,050.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – The Missouri House is advancing a bill to protect private businesses from lawsuits if they give preference to veterans in hiring or promotion.

The measure would shield businesses that favor veterans, spouses of veterans and spouses of veterans who have died.

The bill is one of Republican Gov. Eric Greitens’ priorities for the 2018 legislative session. The governor is a former Navy SEAL officer who has pledged to help veterans and military members during his time in office.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Trump administration is considering a proposal that would penalize immigrants for accepting almost any form of public benefit, including a popular tax credit.

Under a draft proposal first reported by The Washington Post, the Department of Homeland Security would expand the definition of “public benefit” to include the federal earned income tax credit as well as health insurance and housing subsidies.

The earned income tax credit benefits low- and moderate-income workers, particularly those with children.

Department spokesman Tyler Houlton says the proposed rule was sent to the Office of Management and Budget to be listed in the Federal Register Thursday.

He stressed the proposal is “pre-decisional,” but that the administration “is committed to enforcing existing immigration law,” as well as “respecting taxpayer dollars.”

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Stymied by state regulators, a renewable energy company seeking to build one of the nation’s longest power lines across a large swath of the Midwest has turned to a prominent politician in an attempt to revive its $2.3 billion project.

Former Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, now working as a private attorney after recently finishing 30 years in public office, is to argue Tuesday to the Missouri Supreme Court that utility regulators he appointed wrongly rejected the power line while relying on an incorrect court ruling written by a judge whom Nixon also appointed.

Should Nixon prevail in court, it could help clear a path for Houston-based Clean Line Energy Partners LLC to build a 780-mile (1,255-kilometer), high-voltage transmission line from the wind farms of western Kansas across Missouri and Illinois to Indiana, where it would feed into a power grid serving eastern states. Missouri had been the lone state blocking the project, until an Illinois appeals court in March also overturned that state’s approval.

“I think it’s a great opportunity for our state and an important one policy-wise” for the nation, Nixon said in an interview with The Associated Press.

The power line, known as the Grain Belt Express, has come to symbolize one of the largest challenges for renewable energy developers in the U.S. Although converting wind into electricity is increasingly affordable, it can be hard to get the regulatory and legal approval needed to transmit the power from remote areas where it’s produced to the places where it’s most needed.

Clean Line has been working on its proposed direct-current power line since 2010 but still hasn’t been able to begin construction.

The Missouri Public Service Commission rejected the project in July 2015 while determining it had little benefit for Missouri consumers and citing the burden on landowners in its path. Clean Line then agreed to sell power to coalition of Missouri municipal utilities. It won Nixon’s endorsement in June 2016 after the Democratic governor said the company agreed to his request to add more landowner protections.

Clean Line reapplied but got denied again by Missouri regulatory commissioners last August. This time they said that while Clean Line’s project was worthy, it first needed approval from all counties where it planned to string power lines across roads. The commission cited a western district state appeals court ruling in an unrelated case.

That’s when Clean Line turned to Nixon, a former state attorney general whose term as governor ended in January 2017.

Nixon was hired because he had “a strong working knowledge of the project” and the Dowd Bennett law firm where he now works has “extensive appellate experience,” Mark Lawlor, Clean Line’s vice president of development, said in an email.

Nixon won the first round in court, when an eastern district state appeals court ruled in February that commissioners were wrong about local pre-approval being necessary. The judicial panel transferred the case to the state’s highest court for a final determination.

When Nixon steps into the Missouri Supreme Court, he said it will mark his first arguments there in more than 15 years. He’s been preparing by holding mock court sessions in front of attorneys who have grilled him with questions. He also enlisted the aid of longtime colleague James Layton, the state’s former solicitor general who argued 92 cases before the state Supreme Court over a two-decade career.

Two of Missouri’s seven Supreme Court judges were appointed by Nixon, including one who previously worked for him in both the governor’s and attorney general’s offices. But Nixon said he expects no favoritism and sees no potential conflict of interest.

“I don’t think anything says that after you’ve been governor, if you happen to be there for a while, that you should be limited in your ability to aggressively represent the clients that you so desire,” Nixon said.

Attorney Paul Agathan, who will be arguing on behalf of landowners opposed to the power line, also sees no conflict in Nixon appearing before judges he appointed, though Agathan added: “It can’t hurt him, obviously.”

The case likely will hinge on two paragraphs of state law describing the Public Service Commission’s power to grant certificates for construction of electric facilities and franchise rights to serve particular areas. Nixon says the state traditionally treated pre-approval from local counties as necessary only for service-area permits — not electric-line permits as sought by Clean Line.

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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Ken Martin remembers a Travel Channel episode about the world’s tallest waterslide. The Richmond, Virginia-based amusement-park safety expert said he was horrified that test sandbags flew off the ride and that nylon straps with Velcro restrained multiple riders on rafts dropping 17 stories at up to 70 miles per hour.

“I am sitting on my couch and I am thinking, ‘Oh my God. What are these people thinking?'” Martin recalled in an interview. “I started praying for anyone who got on that ride.”

The Verruckt waterslide was a big attraction for the Schlitterbahn park in Kansas City, Kansas, from its opening in 2014— until a 10-year-old boy’s decapitation in August 2016 forced it to shut down. A Kansas grand jury earlier this month indicted the Schlitterbahn Waterparks and Resorts and Verruckt’s co-designer on numerous criminal charges, including second-degree murder over Caleb Schwab’s death.

As water parks prepare to open across the country for the summer season, the Kansas indictments highlight the inconsistent patchwork of state regulations that cover amusement parks.

The federal Consumer Products Safety Commission says it knows of 12 deaths at water parks and another 22 at other amusement parks since 2010, and about 40,000 emergency room visits by park patrons in 2016.

Schlitterbahn said in a statement on its website that all rides are “thoroughly inspected daily” by supervisors and managers and annually, by both an insurer and another “an independent third party.” The company said indicted co-owner Jeffrey Wayne Henry has designed rides “the world over” and, “Nearly every waterpark that exists today has an attraction or feature based on his designs or ideas.”

At the time of Caleb’s death, the International Association of Amusement Parks estimated that more than 85 million people safely visited water parks each year.

Schlitterbahn’s Kansas City park plans to open as normal in May, according to the company’s website. The Verruckt ride will be idle but has not yet been torn down.

When Verruckt was built, Kansas had lax regulations and Martin — whose company is certified to inspect rides in four states — said the state still has weak oversight. Caleb was the son of Kansas state Rep. Scott Schwab, a Republican from the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, and lawmakers passed a law last year requiring annual checks by qualified outside inspectors. But it allows park employees to do daily inspections through the season. On Wednesday, the Kansas House approved a bill to weaken the rules for rides at short-term annual fairs and events such as hayrack rides to allay the misgivings of rural legislators.

“We certainly should have adopted those other regulations sooner,” said state Rep. Jene Vickrey, a conservative Republican.

Local officials did check Verruckt to see if the ride met their building codes so that, for example, the tower had metal staircase rails and not wooden ones. But they did not pass judgment on its engineering, nor did the state.

Saferparks, a nonprofit California group seeking to prevent amusement park accidents, says 20 other states provide comprehensive oversight. New Jersey requires ride manufacturers to get their ride types certified by the state and has licensed inspectors to review rides, and 22 have state inspections.

The group says seven states, including Alabama, Mississippi and Nevada, don’t require annual inspections.

The Kansas grand jury indictments allege that Henry made a “spur of the moment” decision in 2012 to build the world’s tallest waterslide to impress the producers of a Travel Channel show. The indictments allege Schlitterbahn skipped “fundamental steps in the design process” because Henry and ride co-designer John Timothy Schooley lacked the necessary expertise.

But Schlitterbahn is disputing the allegations of poor engineering and shoddy planning, saying the indictments are “filled with information we dispute.” Henry and Schooley hold numerous patents for everything from conveyor roller belts to flow systems for water parks, through their New Braunfels, Texas-based company, Henry, Schooley & Associates.

In a 2016 story in the real estate blog Curbed, Henry said his specialty was “transportainment,” designing artificial rivers that carry visitors throughout water parks rather than the more daring waterslides.

Schlitterbahn said comments attributed to Henry and Schooley in the indictment and used to bolster the criminal case against them are based on television outtakes “scripted for dramatic effect and highly edited.”

Blaine LaCesne, a law professor at Loyola University in New Orleans, called the criminal charges against Henry and Schooley “legally baseless.” A regular media commentator on legal issues arising from a giant oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010, LaCesne said he contacted a family attorney for Schooley, who was an acquaintance, and plans to follow the cases closely.

He said too many events occurred between the slide’s design and Caleb’s death — including design modifications and “thousands” of rides without injuries — to warrant such criminal charges.

“The danger of this is you’ve got a sensational case that is highly emotional,” he said. “You never know what a jury will do because of the especially strong empathy for the victim.”

But Martin, reflecting on what he saw on the Travel Channel, had a different reaction: “Poor Caleb,” then, later, “he didn’t have a chance.”

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – The Missouri Senate is considering whether to mandate use of paper ballots.

The proposal would still allow electronic machines to count votes and to assist disabled voters in marking their ballots. But systems that only recorded votes electronically would be phased out.

About two-dozen counties in the state use the electronic voting machines that would be banned, and each still produces a paper record of vote totals.

Proponents say this change could prevent hackers from potentially hijacking elections. The debate comes as many states are considering the move to paper ballots after evidence that Russian hackers tried to access voting information in a number of states in the 2016 elections.

Opponents say the current system is already secure.

The bill already passed the House in a 108-31 vote.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas residents can now review their vehicle registrations on a smartphone or other mobile device.

Gov. Jeff Colyer unveiled the “iKan” app in March. It can be downloaded on mobile devises that have an iOS or Android operating system and can also be accessed online through a website.

The app only offers vehicle registration renewals for now, but officials hope to add other services, including voter registration applications or access to birth certificates.

“The launch of this exciting service will provide a noticeable change as far as the ease and transparency of government and the convenience of accessing central government services,” Colyer said.

The app was developed by PayIt LLC, which creates digital platforms for customer transactions for governments. The app was extensively tested in Shawnee County, said CEO John Thomson.

“One of the things we believe in is accessibility, transparency, convenience,” he said. “Consumer behavior patterns have changed dramatically over the last several years, and this is a response to that.”

The data is secure from hackers and the information won’t be sold or transferred to third parties, he said.

“Contractually, we do not share or sell any data,” Thomson said.

The company was chosen to build the app through a competitive building process, said Donna Shelite the state’s interim chief information technology officer. The contract didn’t require the state pay the company upfront, she said. Instead, the app charges a $2 fee for each transaction, which will be paid to the company.