TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Topeka Police Department says a man has been arrested in the fatal shooting of a 51-year-old woman at a residence.

The department says officers responded to a report of a shooting shortly before 5 p.m. Wednesday at the residence, where they found a woman, identified as Cindy Pritchard, suffering a gunshot wound. Medical personnel pronounced Pritchard dead at the scene.

Officers say a 58-year-old man who was at the residence has been arrested on a charge of intentional first-degree murder. He has been booked into the Shawnee County Department of Corrections.

No further details were released by the department.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Senate is preparing to debate bills that would limit government fees for producing records, require additional disclosures by lobbyists and make legislative meetings more accessible.

Majority Leader Terry Bruce said the Senate would take final votes on the measures Thursday after debating them.

One measure seeks to limit the fees charged by state and local government agencies in fulfilling requests to produce records. An agency could charge no more than 25 cents a page for copies, and its hourly charges for staff time would be limited.

Another measure would require lobbyists to disclose any public funds they receive from a government agency to influence state officials.

A third bill would require the Legislature to provide live Internet audio of some committee meetings, starting in 2016.

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Kansas State University is researching how to use drones to detect invasive insects and emerging diseases in wheat fields.

The $1.74 million three-year project will initially target the Russian wheat aphid and wheat stripe rust, also commonly referred to as “yellow rust.” The research partners are Australia’s Queensland University of Technology, the Victorian Department of Environment and Primary Industries, and the Queensland Department of Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry.

Kansas State says flights will be conducted in fields around Kansas. Researchers in Australia are conducting complementary flights to collect supporting data.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Ethanol producers say a proposed excise tax in Kansas would harm the industry and put some plants out of business.

The House Taxation Committee held a hearing on a bill Wednesday that would impose a 4.33 percent tax on ethanol products and electricity from renewable sources.

Farmers, ethanol producers and representatives of the renewable energy industry testified to the committee that the tax would hurt rural economies and cause plant closures.

Only conservative think tank Kansas Policy Institute testified in favor of the bill, saying in written testimony the move would eliminate unneeded protections from the industry.

The Kansas Legislature also is considering measures to remove the property tax exemption for renewable power plants and freeze mandates requiring utilities to include increasing portions of renewable energy in the electrical grid.

By Andy Marso

Several dozen legislators and lobbyists filed into a committee room Monday for a video presentation, toting slices of pizza and cans of soda.

The lunch was sponsored in part by Altria, the parent company of Philip Morris USA and other tobacco sellers. The presentation was courtesy of Rich Marianos, a former agent with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, who told those gathered that when states increase tobacco taxes well above their neighbors’ rates, it opens up an enticing black market.

“When there is that tax discrepancy, it creates a world for criminals and smugglers,” said Marianos, who works as a consultant for Altria. Tobacco companies have largely avoided trying to directly influence the Kansas Legislature’s ongoing debate over whether to raise cigarette taxes by $1.50 per pack to cover a portion of the general fund’s projected $650 million budget hole.

But groups and individuals funded by the industry have filled that role, warning legislators about what they say would be the consequences of the tax hike. Marianos is one of the headliners — a 27-year ATF veteran who speaks of the history of cigarette smuggling from low-tax states like North Carolina to high-tax states like New York from the position of someone who has been on the front lines investigating it. “New York is just out of control,” Marianos said.

“It’s $14 for a pack of cigarettes, it’s $140 for a carton. So some of the less-taxed states make it extremely lucrative for criminals in New York.” Tracy Russell, representing the anti-tobacco coalition Kansans for a Healthy Future, questioned whether the tobacco companies Altria represents are truly concerned that tobacco taxes increase smuggling, because they get paid no matter in which state the cigarettes are purchased.

Russell said she thinks the companies’ real concern might be that increased tobacco taxes are proven to reduce smoking rates, thereby reducing profits for the industry. She said there’s little evidence that tobacco smuggling is a “widespread problem” throughout the country, which is why the industry tends to point to the Northeast corridor.

“The industry focuses mainly on areas that have a much higher tobacco tax than what is being proposed in Kansas and does not present an accurate comparison of what could happen in Kansas,” Russell said.

Marianos said smuggling is also a problem in the Midwest. But he said the force behind it in the middle of the country is not necessarily that cigarette taxes in some Midwestern states are too high, but that the tax in Missouri — the lowest in the country at 17 cents per pack — is too low. “Missouri’s doing no favors for anybody,” Marianos said. The Heartland Institute, a Chicago-based think tank with documented ties to the tobacco industry, also is weighing in on the Kansas tax proposal. The institute’s

John Nothdurft has composed a webpage that states the tobacco tax will fall disproportionately on low-income Kansans, harm businesses that rely on tobacco taxes and fail to bring in the revenue expected as customers quit or buy from neighboring states.

“Tobacco taxes rarely bring in the revenues their proponents say they will,” Northdruft writes. The page provides a series of links to other documents questioning the effectiveness and wisdom of tobacco taxes. A disclaimer at the bottom of the page warns

“Nothing in this Research & Commentary is intended to influence the passage of legislation” but also says the institute can make experts available to testify or speak to a legislative caucus. The institute’s position that cigarette taxes are not a reliable source of revenue runs counter to research presented to legislators earlier this month by Frank Chaloupka, an economics professor from the University of Chicago.

Chaloupka, whose research on the proposed Kansas increase was funded by a grant from the National Institutes of Health, said he has studied tobacco tax increases in many states for more than a decade. His research shows that states that raise the tax bring in new revenue while also saving on health care costs because some residents will quit, but not in numbers large enough to offset the tax revenue gain from those who continue smoking.

Russell said those should be the driving factors that legislators consider when looking at the tax increase. She added that smuggling can be minimized with the use of high-tech tax stamps and better enforcement. “Not enacting a tobacco tax increase is an extreme answer to a minor concern for which there are other remedies,” Russell said. “It is time to increase the only tax that comes with health benefits.”

MANHATTAN – A 58-year old Kansas man was sentenced in Riley County Court on Wednesday for the February 2008 murder of a Clay Center man.

A jury found Howard Barrett guilty of reckless 2nd degree murder in the killing of Thomas James in Barrett’s Leonardville apartment.

Barrett’s original trial was delayed when he was ruled incompetent to stand trial. Experts said he suffered from schizophrenia.

In 2010, a judge ruled that Barrett was competent to stand trial after the Larned State Hospital reported Barrett was mentally ill, but while on medication he did well and was a functioning adult.

Barrett was sentenced to 123 months incarcerations with the Kansas Department of Corrections and 36 months supervised post release.

The Judge did note on record that he hopes the Department of Corrections takes Larned State Hospital’s report and enters Barrett into a State Security Hospital.

By Andy Marso

State and county health officials will provide free chest x-rays and antibiotics to more than two dozen Olathe Northwest High School students and staff who have tested positive for tuberculosis.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment and the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment teamed up to test more than 300 people at Olathe Northwest after a student there contracted turberculosis earlier this month. Twenty-seven, or about 8 percent, tested positive.

Lougene Marsh, director of the Johnson County Department of Health and Environment, said that “does not exceed what we would anticipate” in a school setting. “Of course, we had hoped we wouldn’t find any additional TB cases, but we knew this was a possibility,” Marsh said.

“That’s why we took such thorough steps to test everyone who might have been in close contact with the first confirmed case of TB disease.” A second blood test for the 300-plus close contacts is scheduled for May 5, because tuberculosis bacteria can sometimes take up to eight weeks to show up on the test.

TB is spread through the air via coughing, sneezing, speaking or singing, according to the CDC. Symptoms include a bad cough that lasts three weeks or longer, pain in the chest, coughing up blood or sputum, weakness or fatigue, weight loss, no appetite, chills, fever and sweating at night.

Kansas recorded 40 cases in 2014 and 36 in 2013. The illness is potentially serious and can be antibiotic-resistant, but those infected are not contagious until they are symptomatic and there are effective treatments, though in some cases they include months of antibiotics.

Chest x-rays will be used to determine whether the TB bacteria is in the lungs, at which point it becomes contagious. “Early identification and treatment of TB infection is the key to preventing progression to TB disease,” Marsh said. “That’s why we are working so closely with the school and KDHE to investigate this case and assure that all precautions are being taken for the safety of everyone in the school and the community.”

 

Andy Marso is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ pension system would be forced to divest from any companies operating in Iran under a bill considered by a House panel.

The House Pensions and Benefits Committee discussed a bill Wednesday that would require the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System to sell stock in any companies that had invested $20 million or more in Iran since 1996.

The bill would immediately impact the pension system’s investments in Royal Dutch Shell, Total and Toyota. KPERS currently holds stock worth about $68.5 million in those companies.

Republican Rep. Scott Schwab, of Olathe, said the bill would send a signal to Washington about where Kansas stands on the country’s relationship to Israel and Iran. But other lawmakers worried that the cost would be high and politicize the pension system.