KNOXVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Tennessee has scheduled an afternoon conference and is expected to provide an update on its tumultuous, embarrassing search for a football coach.

The news conference will be led by Chancellor Beverly Davenport, not athletic director John Currie, who has been forced out according to multiple reports.

Currie served as Athletic Director at Kansas State from 2009 until taking over as Vice Chancellor, Director of Athletics in Knoxville in February.

Currie fired Butch Jones last month and was close to hiring Ohio State defensive coordinator Greg Schiano on Sunday. That deal fell through amid a public backlash. Currie met Thursday with Washington State coach Mike Leach in Los Angeles.

Reports this week linked Oklahoma State’s Mike Gundy and Purdue’s Jeff Brohm to Tennessee’s vacancy, but both stayed put. North Carolina State’s Dave Doeren agreed to a new contract Thursday after speaking with Tennessee officials.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Court documents say a Kansas City man has been charged with killing his wife after the couple’s 7-year-old daughter told a school counselor that she had found a body and “didn’t want to be next.”

Forty-five-year-old Benjamin Byers was charged Thursday with second-degree murder, armed criminal action, abandonment of a corpse and child endangerment in the death of Melissa Byers. Bond is set at $500,000. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.

The probable cause statement says the girl last saw her mother alive Monday. The statement says she talked to a counselor Wednesday after finding “lots of blood” and a body with a “stab on the back.” The girl said her father had been acting “weird” and she didn’t tell him what she had seen because she “didn’t want to be next.”

LAWRENCE COUNTY—  A Missouri man died in an accident just before 2a.m. Friday in Lawrence County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2011 Dodge pickup driven by Josey R. Smotherman, 20, Miller, was eastbound on Highway TT two miles south of Halltown.

The vehicle ran off the road, overturned and ejected the driver.  Smotherman was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Lakin Funeral Home in Pierce City.

He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.

By JIM MCLEAN

Kansas Congressman Kevin Yoder is offering a vigorous defense of the Republican tax cut bill as the U.S. Senate prepares to vote on its version of the controversial measure.

In a lengthy news release posted Thursday that Yoder touted as separating myth from fact, the 3rd District representative said the bill does not favor wealthy taxpayers over middle-class families, as Democrats and other critics claim.

Noting that most taxpayers do not itemize, Yoder said critics are making too much of proposals to reduce or eliminate some deductions to offset the cost of a sharp reduction in the corporate tax.

In particular, he argues that middle-class families, which he defines as those making the median income of $59,000, would not be adversely affected by the House proposal to cap the itemized deduction for state and local taxes at $10,000 or the Senate plan to eliminate it.

“The middle class is by and large not benefitting from the state and local tax deduction,” Yoder said in the release, noting that most middle-income taxpayers do not claim itemized deductions.

“We significantly lower the tax burden for middle class and low-income Americans by doubling the size of the standard deduction — making the first $24,000 in a family’s income and the first $12,000 of an individual’s income tax-free,” he said, noting that the measure also preserves tax credits that generally help low-income families.

‘Toward an economic cliff’

But critics of the bill insist that wealthy Americans will benefit the most, noting that reductions for individuals would be temporary while corporate tax cuts would be permanent.

“The (Republican) party is now trying to pass a scam that throws a few crumbs to the middle class (temporarily — millions of middle-class Americans will soon see a tax hike if the bill is enacted) while heaping benefits on the super-rich, multiplying the national debt and endangering the American economy,” historian Robert McElvaine wrote in the Washington Post.

McElvaine, the author of a book on the Great Depression, sees echoes of the policies that precipitated the 1929 crash in the current GOP tax cut bill.

“Nine decades later, Republicans are rushing to do it again — and they are sprinting toward an economic cliff,” McElvaine wrote while warning of “catastrophic” results.

Critics of the bill say reducing the tax rate on “pass-through” business income is another way it benefits the wealthy by taxing them at a lower rate than many middle-class Americans. And they often point to Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s failed tax-cutting experiment as evidence that such “trickle down” policies don’t work.

Different than Kansas plan

Yoder said it’s unfair to compare the GOP tax bill to the Brownback plan, which state lawmakers largely repealed last session.

For one thing, he said the federal bill would only reduce taxes on pass-through business income, not exempt it as Brownback’s plan did.

“Our plan reduces the federal rate to 25 percent, which will allow American small businesses to compete at a level similar to that of other nations around the world without irresponsibly eliminating taxes all together,” he said in the release.

Yoder’s defense of the tax bill Thursday comes as the U.S. Senate is nearing a vote on its version.

Kansas Republican Sen. Pat Roberts supports the measure. But the state’s other GOP senator, Jerry Moran, has expressed concerns about its projected $1.5 billion impact on the federal budget deficit and provisions that would tax the university tuition waivers of graduate teaching assistants and repeal the Obamacare requirement that Americans purchase health coverage.

In a statement on his website, Moran said he is still “discussing ways to improve” the bill but is likely to vote for it regardless of the outcome of those discussions.

“I expect to support a tax package that grows the economy, protects taxpayers, creates good-paying jobs and helps Americans keep more of their hard-earned money,” Moran said.

Jim McLean is managing director of the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks.

SHAWNEE COUNTY — A Kansas woman was injured in an accident just before 5p.m. Thursday, the Shawnee County.

A 2016 Honda Odyssey Van driven by Judy A. Say, 73, was southbound in the 3100 Block of SW Indian Hills Road in Topeka, according to a media release from the sheriff’s department.

The driver of that van had a medical issue, crossed into the northbound lane hit and hit 31-year-old Molly A. Aldrich, who was walking southbound.

Aldrich was transported from the scene by AMR and is believed to have non-life threatening injuries.  The driver of the van was not injured.

The Sheriff’s Office was assisted by AMR, and Mission Fire.

The accident remains under investigation, according to the sheriff’s department.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — The man accused in an alleged hate crime at a suburban Kansas City bar that killed one Indian national and left two men wounded has pleaded not guilty.

Adam Purinton is charged with first-degree murder in the February shooting in Olathe that killed 32-year-old Srinivas Kuchibhotla. He also faces two counts of attempted first-degree murder for wounding two other men.

The Kansas City Star reports Purinton on Thursday waived his preliminary hearing and the not guilty plea was entered on his behalf.

His next hearing is scheduled for May 8.

Purinton also faces hate crime charges in federal court.

Federal prosecutors allege that Purinton targeted Kuchibhotla and another Indian man because of their race or ethnicity. The third man was shot when tried to help the two victims.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas nursing homes are facing a spike in fines and citations industry members consider heavy-handed enforcement of federal regulations.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the Legislature’s KanCare oversight committee heard concerns from nursing home industries on Wednesday. Industry members say rising citations and penalties from regulatory enforcement surveys make it tough to stay in business and provide care to patients.

A trade organization representing not-for-profit nursing homes called LeadingAge Kansas says federal fines levied against nursing homes for non-compliance have risen nearly 8,900 percent since 2012.

LeadingAge officials say the increased fines don’t result from a lack of quality at nursing homes and add to significant challenges the institutions already face, such as limited resources, a small workforce and slow Medicaid reimbursements.

An advocate for seniors says she thinks enforcement is instead lacking and that citations are underreported.