GALENA, Kan. (AP) — The southeast Kansas town of Galena is shedding ten employees and raising taxes to correct a budget shortfall.

The Joplin Globe reports that Mayor Dale Oglesby says the city had a $260,000 cash shortfall. After the 2011 Joplin tornado, the city’s construction and demolition landfill brought in additional revenue that was used to keep the mill levy from rising.

But the landfill revenue has slowed, and the city’s new hospital hasn’t started showing a return yet.

The three part-time and seven full-time employees who were laid off last week worked for the city’s public works and police departments.

The mayor says the current mill levy of 43.23 will rise to 60.78. That will equate to an increase of about $100 a year for the owner of a $100,000 home.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Google Inc. says it might take longer to install gigabit-speed Internet across Kansas City and a handful of suburbs.

The Kansas City Star reports that Google initially said the wiring would be completed by year’s end. But now it’s telling prospective customers that the work may not wrap up until next summer.

The delay comes as other Internet providers are speeding up their broadband to match Google Fiber.

Akamai Technologies Inc., which helps companies distribute online content, reports that average peak connection speeds in the U.S. nearly tripled since Google started its work in Kansas City.

Time Warner Cable dominates the Kansas City market and sells speeds of 50 megabits per second for what it used to charge for just 15 mps.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — State records show that fewer irrigators are pumping more than they are allowed but that the issue remains a problem.

The Hutchinson News reports that 114 water right holders received a first-offense warning of civil penalties so far this year for overpumping in 2013. Another 70 irrigators were warned a second, and, for a few, a third time for overpumping, and issued a $1,000 fine and temporary cutbacks to their annual water use.

A handful of others tried to hide their overpumping and were caught cheating.

Last year, state officials hardened the fines, hoping to curb overpumping. Lane Letourneau of the Kansas Department of Agriculture says that while the number of irrigators misusing a water right is down from the past few years, it all adds up.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A new Missouri law requiring a 72-hour abortion waiting period is to take effect this week, and the state’s only abortion clinic isn’t planning to try to stop it.

The law tripling Missouri’s current waiting period was enacted Sept. 10 when legislators overrode a veto by Gov. Jay Nixon. It is to take effect Friday.

Paula Gianino is president and CEO of Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri. She says national attorneys from women’s health organizations reviewed the law and decided there wasn’t a good legal route to block it from taking effect.

A Planned Parenthood affiliate did challenge a similar 72-hour waiting period adopted by South Dakota in 2011. But the organization ultimately dropped that challenge.

MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press

Hundreds of nursing homes have failed to meet a federal deadline for fire-safety requirements.

MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A group called Food Policy Action wants Americans to think more about the subject when they vote. They’re putting money and organization into elections for the first time, starting with an effort to defeat Republican congressman Steve Southerland of Florida over his drive to increase work requirements for food stamp recipients.

The campaign against Southerland is a test of how to make food policy stick ahead of the 2016 presidential and congressional races. The managing director of Food Policy Action says it will spend up to $100,000 to boost voter turnout against Southerland.

Mothers and young people tend to care the most about issues like hunger, antibiotics in meat and labeling of genetically modified ingredients — and they tend to be politically aware and vote.

THOMAS BEAUMONT, Associated Press

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — President Barack Obama is giving Republicans a gift of sorts by confirming their midterm election narrative that next month’s balloting is a referendum on his policies.

Within hours of Obama’s remarks, GOP candidates across the political landscape sought to capitalize on his words with ads tying their Democratic opponents to the unpopular president.

On Friday, Republican Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas began airing an ad featuring Obama’s comments from a speech Thursday in Evanston, Illinois.

In remarks intended to motivate Democrats, Obama said, quote, “These policies are on the ballot — every single one of them.”

Just six seats from the majority, Republicans readily agree. From Kansas to Kentucky, GOP candidates have spent the year painting Democrats as Obama’s rubber stamp.

 BY DIANE OLSON

What’s for breakfast? What’s for lunch? What’s for dinner? These questions echo in households across the state through the day. Americans enjoy a variety of food choices to fill those queries and meet our nutritional needs, thanks to farmers around the world. Food is often taken for granted until a desired item isn’t available or price fluctuations occur. Then, people take notice.

Many conversations focus on food prices. Consumers today find some grocery items have increased in price. It becomes challenging to make food choices that provide adequate meals at an affordable price.

The American Farm Bureau Marketbasket Survey tracks food prices of 16 items. They represent a cross section of agriculture. Missouri participates in this survey and the good news for Show Me State shoppers is prices are down slightly from the same time last year. However, the total bill is more than earlier this year. The prices for the period ending in September ring in at $51.13 compared to last year’s cost of $52.44. That is down $1.31 year over year. At the end of March 2014, the same items were $49.08 for an increase within the year of $2.05.

Nationally, the prices for the same items totaled $54.26, reflecting an average savings of $3.13. It is the norm for Missouri prices to come in under the national average, thanks in part to our geographical location and ease of distribution.

Looking at the items surveyed, seven increased in price while nine dropped, some significantly and others slightly. There is volatility at the meat and dairy counter. This survey reveals increases in ground chuck, bacon and sliced deli ham, while prices dropped for sirloin tip roast, chicken breasts, eggs, whole milk and shredded cheese. The most significant changes found ground chuck going from $4.02 to $4.82 per pound, while eggs decreased by $0.51 per dozen to $1.34.

According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, food prices increased by about 2.5 percent so far this year, slightly higher than the average rate of inflation over the past 10 years. USDA forecasted a 2.5 to 3.5 percent increase in prices for food eaten at home and away from home in 2014 compared to the prior year.

Other price changes seem random or seasonal. Red Delicious apples increased $0.08 per pound; half gallon orange juice, $0.47; and salad mix, $0.99. Items decreasing in price included a 5-pound bag of russet potatoes, down $0.24; a 5-pound bag of flour, $0.12; and a 20-ounce loaf of bread, $0.41.

Despite slight price increases, American shoppers find grocery shelves well stocked. The challenge for many families is maximizing their food budget. Creative menu planning, cost comparison, shopping the ads and couponing are necessities for many households looking to answer the question: What do we have to eat?

With harvest season in full swing, what better time to stop and consider the important role agriculture plays in our lives? Let’s remember to thank a farmer!

Diane Olson, of Jefferson City, Mo., is Director of Promotion & Education for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.

By Andy Marso
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — Former Sen. Bob Dole is campaigning for Pat Roberts in his Senate re-election effort, but on the issue Dole has been most vocal about lately — the U.S. signing on to a United Nations agreement solidifying the rights of people with disabilities — Roberts’ opponent seems more in line with Dole’s views.

Roberts voted against the U.N. Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities in 2012, when it fell six votes short of Senate ratification despite Dole entering the chamber in a wheelchair before the vote to make one last pitch for the convention.
A spokesman for the campaign of Greg Orman, the independent candidate from Johnson County who is Roberts’ main obstacle to a fourth U.S. Senate term, said Orman would have voted for the treaty.

“Greg doesn’t believe that we should be playing politics with important issues like this and agrees with Senator Dole that those with disabilities should be granted the same rights and protection as everyone else,” Orman’s campaign manager, Jim Jonas, said in an emailed statement.

The U.N. convention was drafted at the end of 2006 and more than 150 countries, including nearly all of Europe and South America, have since ratified it.

The convention mirrors rights granted under the Americans with Disabilities Act, but opponents have raised concerns about the United States ceding sovereignty to an international body. The Home School Legal Defense Fund urged its supporters to lobby against the treaty, saying its educational rights provisions could pose a threat to those who home-school disabled children.

Dole has been touring all 105 Kansas counties this year and at a tour stop in the spring said that the home-school fears were unfounded, but he understood the political problem they created for conservative Republicans who voted no — including Roberts and Kansas’ other senator, Jerry Moran.

Dole, 91, was still pushing senators to ratify the convention as recently as July. Since then he has appeared at campaign events with Roberts and has recorded a TV ad for the incumbent that began to run this week.

Roberts’ campaign did not respond to an email seeking comment about his vote against the convention and whether his position had changed.

Dole declined to comment on Roberts’ position on the U.N. convention, and an aide said the former senator “would prefer not to broach that subject at this point.”

Jonas said the stalled U.N. convention was evidence of the sort of dysfunction Orman is running to change.

“The failure of this treaty – despite former Senator Bob Dole’s passionate advocacy for it – is just another example of how Washington is broken,” Jonas said.