WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) met with Lieutenant General Robert Brown, Commanding General of the U.S. Army Combined Arms Center and Fort Leavenworth, in his Washington, D.C., office yesterday.
“It was a pleasure to visit with Lieutenant General Brown and get an update on Fort Leavenworth and the Command and General Staff College – the intellectual center of the Army,” Sen. Moran said. “I also appreciated the update on the transition assistance program, Solider For Life, which is designed to support soldiers and their families during the initial transition to civilian life and in the years to follow.”
During the meeting, they also discussed the Army’s initiative to combine its 86 training schools nationwide into an “Army University.” The “Army University” falls under the Command and General Staff College at Fort Leavenworth.
SHAWNEE, Kan. (AP) — Investigators in northeast Kansas say a fire that destroyed a 9,000-square-foot home this week was intentionally set.
The owner of the secluded mansion near Lake Quivira in Shawnee was out of town in Colorado when the fire broke out Wednesday afternoon.
The Shawnee Fire Department said Friday someone had also stolen items from the house and vandalized it. Investigators did not specify how the fire was set.
KCTV reports (http://bit.ly/1pY8bWX ) the four-bedroom, eight-bath house sits on 15 acres and also has a pool, a greenhouse and a fish pond. The home had recently been listed for sale for $1.5 million, but the listing had been pulled and the house was not for sale at the time of the fire.
KANSAS CITY- One person was injured in an accident just before 12:30 p.m. on Friday in Wyandotte County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1997 Pontiac driven by Kevin Gene Rieves, 44, Blue Springs, MO., was northbound on Interstate 35 just north of 18th Street.
The vehicle rear-ended a 1995 Honda Passport driven by Duangta Sisounthone, 48, Kansas City, that was slowing in traffic.
Sisounthone was transported to KU Medical Center.
The KHP reported Rieves was not injured and was not wearing a seat belt.
BUCKHORN, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Highway Patrol says the deaths of a couple attending a Memorial Day motorcycle rally were caused by carbon monoxide in their camper-trailer.
Pulaski County deputies found the bodies of 66-year-old Frank Wevers III and his 58-year-old wife, Mary Wevers, on May 27. The Kimberling City couple had driven to Buckhorn to take part in the Mid-American Freedom Rally, which drew thousands of motorcycle riders.
The patrol said Friday that autopsies showed they died of carbon monoxide poisoning. Officers had noted that a portable generator being used to power the trailer was placed close to the vehicle. The investigators said exhaust from the generator probably filtered back into the trailer.
The investigation concluded there was no suspicion of foul play.
POLK COUNTY-The endangered person advisory for a missing Polk County boy has been cancelled.
The Polk County Sheriff’s Office reported that 4-year-old Benjamin Adams’s father, Timothy Lormand, took him from a Bolivar courthouse. The boy was located in Springfield .
A grandmother had received temporary custody of the child because she believed the man was abusing him.
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BOLIVAR, Mo. (AP) — Authorities have issued an endangered person advisory for a 4-year-old boy who was taken from a courthouse during a custody dispute.
The Polk County Sheriff’s office says the boy was taken from the courthouse in Bolivar Thursday by his father. The boy’s grandmother had been awarded custody after she alleged the father was abusing the boy.
The boy is white, 3-feet-1-inch and weighs 44 pounds. He has blonde hair and blue eyes with a fair complexion.
His 36-year-old father, Timothy Lormand, is 6-foot-1-inch and 165 pounds with brown hair and brown eyes.
The sheriff says Lormand may be driving a silver 1993 Buick Le Sabre or 2014 Ford Explorer. A license plate number wasn’t available.
Authorities believe Lormand and his son could be headed to Steamboat Springs, Colorado.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas courthouse is open again after being evacuated when an employee found a couple of liquid-filled bottles taped together near a handicapped entrance.
Douglas County sheriff’s spokesman Lt. Steve Lewis says investigators decided not to take any chances after the suspicious bottles were found around 8:30 a.m. Friday at the old courthouse in Lawrence.
Lewis says the Olathe bomb squad was called in to handle the items, and after a robot retrieved them a search dog sniffed around and didn’t find any signs of explosives.
The courthouse was reopened at 1 p.m. Friday and Lewis says the incident is considered resolved.
The Rainbow Mental Health Facility in Kansas City, Kan., has been mostly closed since 2011 but will reopen in April as an around-the-clock crisis stabilization center for people with mental illness-Photo by Alex Smith
By Mike Sherry
Hale Center for Journalism
KANSAS CITY, Kan. — A reconstituted mental health facility in Kansas City, Kan., has been a financial and therapeutic success in its first five months of operation, officials involved in the transition said Wednesday.
“It’s great news so far,” said Kari Bruffett, secretary of the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services, “and I think it’s only going to get better.”
Bruffett spoke to a group of about 30 people gathered at the Rainbow Mental Health Facility, which reopened in April as a collaboration between the state and mental health/substance abuse providers in Johnson and Wyandotte counties.
According to data presented at the briefing, the new Rainbow has served nearly 560 clients, including some more than once. Officials also estimate the facility has saved more than $2 million by diverting patients from Osawatomie State Hospital or hospital emergency rooms.
Once a 50-bed inpatient hospital operated by the state, Rainbow now has a 30-person capacity split equally between a short-term sobering area, an observation station designed for a maximum stay of 23 hours and a crisis-stabilization section for maximum stays of 10 days.
Wyandot Inc., a family of organizations in Kansas City, Kan., that includes a community mental health center, is operating the new center under a three-year contract with KDADS worth $3.5 million annually.
In announcing the new arrangement earlier this year, state officials said spending on the new Rainbow equaled its previous budget when also taking into account inpatient dollars the state has shifted from Rainbow to Osawatomie.
Reopening Rainbow this spring culminated a lengthy process, which began in the fall of 2011 when the state shifted the beds to Osawatomie after authorities cited fire-safety concerns with the facility.
Year-over-year data provided at the briefing also showed that:
• Osawatomie State Hospital has had fewer admissions from the Rainbow service area since the facility opened, with the largest decrease of 42.4 percent coming in June.
• Clients from the Rainbow area have logged 900 fewer bed days at Osawatomie from April through August this year compared with the same period last year.
• Based on information gathered during intake, the emergency room would have been the alternative for about half of the patients served at Rainbow.
Despite the decrease in admissions from the Rainbow service area, Osawatomie has been over capacity several times in recent months, setting a 10-year high of 258 patients on Aug. 26.
One item on the wish list for Rainbow is the capacity to serve clients who are so intoxicated that they need medical attention, said Wyandot Inc. CEO Randy Callstrom.
Officer Thomas Keary of the Overland Park Police Department, who attended the briefing, said Rainbow proved its worth during a call in June involving a male who was drunk and suicidal.
Without Rainbow, Keary said, his best alternative would probably have been an emergency room where he would have had to spend at least two hours.
At Rainbow, he said, “I was in and out of the door in 13 minutes.”
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Electric customers of Ameren Missouri will see a small increase on their bills starting later this month.
The Missouri Public Service Commission says a typical residential customer will pay an additional $1.54 a month to Ameren to offset increases in the utility’s costs to purchase fuel or power.
Ameren Missouri is the state’s largest electricity provider, with about 1.2 million customers. The cost increase will take effect Sept. 24.
State utility regulators approved a similar fuel-based cost increase earlier this month for customers of Kansas City Power & Light Co.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans’ campaign arm raised more than $6 million last month and spent more than twice that in an effort to claim the majority.
The National Republican Senatorial Committee on Friday said it spent about $13 million in August and still has more than $19 million saved.
Party committees typically spend heavily in August and September to buy ads ahead of November’s elections.
The group’s Democratic rival says its fundraising reports for August are not yet completed. Party-run campaign committees have until Sept. 20 to file reports.
Heading into August, the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee had outraised the GOP peer in 17 of the 19 most recent months.
Senate Republicans need to pick up a net of six seats to regain the majority, which they lost in the 2006 elections.
