Irene Caubillo, president of advocacy group El Centro
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach says that a federal court ruling that blocks an executive order on immigration vindicates his efforts.
A federal judge in Texas temporarily blocked executive orders Tuesday that would have protected as many as 5 million people who entered the U.S. illegally from deportation.
Kansas is one of 26 states that have challenged the orders as unconstitutional. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt on Wednesday called the ruling a preliminary victory in the case.
Kobach said the ruling will boost his state-level efforts to deny benefits to people in the U.S. illegally.
Irene Caubillo, president of advocacy group El Centro, said she expected the ruling to be appealed and her organization would continue to aid those in the country illegally to gain legal status.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol announced another sobriety checkpoint and DWI saturation patrol.
Captain James E. McDonald, commanding officer of Troop H, announces that sometime during the month of March, Troop H will conduct a sobriety checkpoint in Buchanan County and a DWI saturation in Nodaway County.
The areas selected for enforcement are based on a high number of drinking-related crashes, high number of contacts with drivers who have been drinking, and officers’ input as to probable contact with DWI violators.
“The Missouri State Highway Patrol is dedicated to removing intoxicated drivers from Missouri roadways,” stated Captain McDonald. “Anytime your plans include alcohol, please have a sober designated driver.”
INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) — A Gates Bar-B-Q restaurant near the Truman Sports Complex in Kansas City has burned to the ground.
Battalion Chief Mike Ditamore said an employee called firefighters about 1 a.m. Tuesday after seeing a fire around the exhaust system above a grill. The fire spread to the building’s attic and roof. No one was injured.
Investigators say the exact cause is still unclear. The building is total loss.
It was one of six Gates restaurants in the Kansas City area. It was popular with athletes, fans and celebrities who came from nearby Arrowhead Stadium and Kauffman Stadium.
Founder Ollie Gates says it’s too early to say if he will rebuild at that location but he will definitely have another restaurant in Independence.
WASHINGTON – To U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.), Chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security, released the following statement on President Obama’s executive order related to improving critical infrastructure cybersecurity:
“Recent high-profile data breaches demonstrate the significant cyber threats that businesses and consumers face in our digital world,” Sen. Moran said. “The President’s actions today are not a complete solution, but do help prepare a policy foundation on which Congress can build a robust legislative strategy to solving the data security challenges American businesses face. I hope the President will keep his commitment to work with Congress to align incentives for American businesses to protect themselves and consumers. As Chairman of the Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection and Data Security, I will continue my efforts to provide solutions to these important issues.”
Sen. Moran chaired a hearing of the Commerce Subcommittee on Consumer Protection, Product Safety, Insurance and Data Security entitled, “Getting it Right on Data Breach and Notification Legislation in the 114th Congress.” The hearing featured testimony from experts to inform committee efforts in crafting a federal data breach bill, and focused on issues including the consumer benefits of a uniform federal law in place of disparate state laws, the timeliness of notification to consumers, and how sensitive personally identifiable information should be defined.
An overflow crowd is expected Tuesday evening as State Auditor Tom Schweich presents the formal report from his audit of the St Joseph School District.
The final report will be released at 5pm today in a public meeting at Oak Grove School, 4901 Cook Road.
The meeting is open to the public.
If you can’t make it, consider listening to the meeting live on 680 KFEQ. We also plan to offer a live stream of the meeting here at St Joe Post.
Release of the initial report from the auditor’s office, presented to the Board of Education behind closed doors last month, prompted the board to place two top district officials including the superintendent on paid administrative leave. There have been no comments from officials as to why Dr. Fred Czerwonka and Rick Hartigan were suspended.
Last week, Mr Hartigan, the district’s Chief Operating Officer, issued a statement suggesting that he’s being treated unfairly, and says he and his family have been publicly humiliated and disgraced in the community. Hartigan insists he still hasn’t been told why he was suspended.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a man who was shot and killed by police last week was a 21-year-old from Kansas City, Kansas.
Police on Monday identified Andres Lara-Rodriguez as the suspect who died after a chase on Friday after he carjacked a pest control truck.
Officers pursued the truck for about 30 minutes from Kansas into Kansas City, Missouri, and then back to Kansas. The chase ended when the suspect crashed into a fence at a church in Kansas City, Kansas. Police say he showed a gun and a Kansas Highway Patrol trooper and three Kansas City police officers shot him.
Sen. Jim Denning, left, and Sen. Ty Masterson, right, look over documents during a Ways and Means Committee meeting with David Fye of the Kansas Legislative Research Department.-Photo by Dave Ranney
By Dave Ranney
It looks like the state won’t be spending more money on its four hospitals for people whose disabilities or mental illnesses prevent them from safely caring for themselves. Budget committees in the House and Senate have adopted Gov. Sam Brownback’s plan for keeping the hospitals at their current spending levels through fiscal year 2017.
The committees each have forwarded their flat-spending recommendations to their respective chambers. The state’s two hospitals for people with severe developmental disabilities are in Topeka and Parsons.
Its acute care facilities for Kansans with severe and persistent mental illnesses are in Larned and Osawatomie. In recent months, federal surveyors have cited Osawatomie State Hospital for being overcrowded and not doing enough to ensure proper medical care or prevent suicidal patients from harming themselves.
Hospital officials have submitted a plan to correct the deficiencies in an effort to avoid losing millions of dollars in federal Medicare payments.
Sen. Caryn Tyson, a Republican from Parker whose district includes Osawatomie State Hospital, on Monday proposed adding $500,000 to the facility’s budget in fiscal year 2016, which begins July 1. Her proposal was driven by “the hardships the hospital has been running into,” she said, adding that the latest findings had “created quite a stir” among hospital employees. Tyson withdrew her motion after the committee’s chairman,
Sen. Ty Masterson, a Republican from Andover, suggested that she instead recommend discussing the additional funding during omnibus budget deliberations. Tyson heeded Masterson’s suggestion, and her altered motion passed. Committee members did not discuss recent reports that renovations in the hospital’s deficiency correction plan were expected to cost $3 million.
Angela de Rocha, a spokesperson for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, said the agency had not yet determined how much the renovations are likely to cost.
“We have not put anything out because we do not know,” she wrote in an email to KHI News Service. “The $3 million is a very rough estimate, could be more.”
The renovations, she said, include replacing the ceilings in every patient area; refitting the bathrooms; installing new beds, closet doors, door handles, light fixtures and vents; and replacing glass mirrors with stainless steel mirrors. Also on Monday, House Majority Leader Jene Vickrey, a Louisburg Republican whose district includes many hospital employees, said understaffing is to blame for many of the facility’s shortcomings.
The hospital is understaffed, he said, because many of its direct-care workers quit after being required to work multiple overtime shifts. “That’s been our struggle for years,” he said.
Vickrey said he and other area legislators last month asked KDADS Secretary Kari Bruffett to put together a plan to reduce staff turnover. “There needs to be a strategy to meet the needs we have now,” he said.
Implementing the plan should not cost the state more money, Vickrey said. Instead, he said Bruffett should be able to “move the funds around within” the agency’s budget. Rebecca Proctor, executive director at the Kansas Organization of State Employees, a labor union that represents many of the hospital’s front-line workers, said Vickrey’s expectations are unrealistic. “If there’s going to be a plan, it’s going to have more money in it,” Proctor said.
“That’s the only way it’s going to work. These are chronic problems that have been going on for years. “You can’t be in this rural setting where there aren’t that many people to begin with, and then you make them go for years without a raise, and then you make them work all this mandatory overtime,” she said.
“Then you wonder why you can’t get people to work there?” Vickrey said he and Sen. Molly Baumgardner, also a Republican from Louisburg, plan a public forum where hospital employees, patients’ family members and community leaders can weigh in on the hospital’s future. “We need to get some key issues out in the open, and I very much believe in there being open communication, in there being a dialogue,”
Baumgardner said. “I was at a legislative forum Saturday, and I have to say that, right now, the No. 1 concern of the people in my district is whether the state is going to close the state hospital.” KDADS officials, she said, will attend the forum — tentatively set for the evening of March 2 or 3 — and stand for questions. According to budget documents, the hospital has 483 full-time employees. Its annual budget is $29.9 million.
Dave Ranney is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The White House says the Justice Department will appeal a federal judge’s ruling which temporarily blocked President Barack Obama’s executive action on immigration.
On Monday, U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen in Texas issued a temporary injunction, giving a coalition of 26 states time to pursue a lawsuit that aims to permanently stop the orders. The ruling puts on hold Obama’s orders that could spare as many as five million people who are in the U.S. illegally from deportation.
In a statement early Tuesday morning, the White House said Monday’s ruling “wrongly prevents” the president’s “lawful, commonsense policies” from taking effect.
The White House said that the Justice Department, legal scholars, immigration experts and the federal district court in Washington have determined that Obama’s actions are well within his legal authority.
STOCKPORT, Ohio (AP) — New standardized tests based on the national Common Core standards are being introduced in U.S. schools.
The first students to take them are in Ohio beginning Tuesday.
The reading and math tests replace traditional spring standardized tests and most students will take them by computer or electronic tablet.
They were developed by two groups of states and will be given to about 12 million students in 29 states and the District of Columbia.
Some school administrators worry their schools will have Internet connectivity problems, but the tests have a paper option.
The Common Core standards, which arose from the federal No Child Left Behind law, have been adopted in more than 40 states and spell out what reading and math skills students should master in each grade.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democrats on a congressional oversight panel are stepping up their investigation into how well states are regulating the disposal of oil and gas waste, citing public concern about the potential environmental and health risks of hydraulic fracturing.
Rep. Matt Cartwright of Pennsylvania is the lead Democrat on a House oversight subcommittee. He is pressing agencies in Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia for answers on their level of enforcement and inspections. Republicans on the panel haven’t taken a position on the probe.
Of particular concern is making sure waterways are not contaminated by waste from fracking, which uses millions of gallons of high-pressure water mixed with sand and chemicals to break apart rocks rich in oil and gas.
Cartwright also wants to know how health complaints from local residents are handled.
