By Bryan Thompson, KPR

WICHITA — The National Cancer Institute has selected a Wichita-based partnership of cancer treatment and research specialists serving most of Kansas for five years of funding.
Wichita oncologist Shaker Dakhil, who heads the Cancer Center of Kansas, will remain the principal investigator for the community-based clinical trials and care delivery research. He said the NCI grant project will include fewer patients than the program it replaces, but it will furnish more funding per patient and deliver better results.

“They want the NCI to take care of the phase three trials, which are the more mature, which are practice-changing. Let the drug companies do phase one and phase two,” Dakhil said. “Industry is picking up the tab for the rest. Why should the taxpayers’ money be spent on that?”

The program hopes to enroll 340 cancer patients in clinical trials over the next year. The Via Christi Cancer Institute, in Wichita, will administer the five-year, $1.7 million grant.

It’s one of 53 such grants under the newly created NCI Community Oncology Research Program that replaces two community-based clinical research programs, one of which Via Christi has participated in for 30 years.

Other providers in the Cancer Research of Kansas Consortium include the Lawrence Cancer Center, Lawrence Memorial Hospital Oncology Center, Wesley Medical Center, West Wichita Family Practice, Wichita Surgical Specialists, Associates in Women’s Health and Hutchinson Clinic.

NCI is part of the National Institutes of Health, which is one of 11 agencies in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Police in Topeka are looking for two men after a woman reported being pistol-whipped and carjacked outside a motel.

WIBW-TV reports officers were called around 7 a.m. Monday to the Traveler’s Inn in the southern part of the city.

The victim told police that two men attacked her, then stole her maroon, 2004 Chrysler Pacifica with Kansas plates 406 GGZ.

The woman’s injuries were not life-threatening.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is sending Attorney General Eric Holder to Ferguson, Missouri, to meet with federal law enforcement authorities investigating the police shooting of an unarmed teenager.

Obama says Holder will travel to the St. Louis suburb on Wednesday.

Holder recently authorized a federal autopsy on the body of Michael Brown, the unarmed 18-year-old who was fatally shot on Aug. 9. Brown was black; the officer who shot him was white.

Obama spoke from the White House on Monday after independent autopsy results determined that Brown was shot at least six times, including twice in the head. Missouri’s governor also called in the National Guard early Monday after police again used tear gas to quell protests that have taken nightly since Brown’s death.

JIM KUHNHENN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama plans to speak about the situations in Iraq and in Ferguson, Missouri, after meeting with top aides on both trouble spots.

The White House says Obama will issue a statement on both developments on Monday afternoon.

Obama met with his national security team Monday morning to discuss Iraq, where he has ordered U.S. air strikes against Islamic militants.

He also met with Attorney General Eric Holder to discuss the police shooting of an unarmed 18-year-old man in a St, Louis suburb.

Obama was in Washington Monday in a brief break from his family vacation in Martha’s Vineyard.

TOPEKA- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 8 a.m. on Monday in Shawnee County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2005 Jeep Grand Cherokee driven by Humberto Paulin, 23, Salina, UT., and a 2013 Chevy Cruz driven by Lance Anthony Dirk, 34, Lawrence, were westbound on Interstate 70 just east of Topeka.

The Chevy slowed due to traffic and was rear-ended by the Jeep. The Chevy then rolled and came to rest on the on ramp from Deer Creek to westbound Interstate 70.

Dirk was transported to Stormont Vail. The occupants of the Jeep were not injured. The KHP reported all were properly restrained at the time of the accident.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says no curfew will be in place early Tuesday morning in Ferguson, and the National Guard keeping watch there will have immediate and limited” responsibilities.

A midnight to 5 a.m. curfew had been in place the previous two nights.

Nixon ordered the National Guard into the St. Louis suburb following another night of rioting, more than a week after a Ferguson police officer fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown.

In a statement Monday, Nixon said Missouri National Guard Brigadier General Gregory Mason will oversee Guard operations in Ferguson under the overall command of the state highway patrol. He says the Guard’s limited role will be to provide protection and ensure the safety of the police command center that was believed to be targeted Sunday night.

 

WASHINGTON, D.C. – As part of his efforts to meet with Missourians across the state concerned about the Obama Administration’s continued executive overreach, U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) visited local farm families and agribusiness leaders on Wednesday at the Jackson family farm outside of La Plata, Mo. Blunt’s stop in Adair County comes on the heels of the U.S. House of Representatives voting to authorize Speaker John Boehner (Ohio) to move forward with a lawsuit in an effort to compel President Barack Obama to uphold his constitutional responsibility to uphold the law. For high-resolution photos of Blunt’s visit, please click here.

“Missourians are rightly concerned about excessive regulation by the Obama Administration, particularly the EPA’s burdensome energy, utility, and water policies, which affect potentially our whole state,” Blunt said. “There are other ways to deal with these important issues that won’t dramatically raise costs on consumers or serve as a blatant overreach into Missourians’ private lives and property, and challenging those excessive regulations is an important thing.”

Blunt continues to call for Congress to pass the “ENFORCE The Law Act,” legislation that he introduced to put a procedure in place to allow Congress to authorize a court case against the executive branch for failure to faithfully execute the laws. The ENFORCE the Law Act passed the House in March 2014. For more information on the bill, please click here.

In June 2014, Blunt joined U.S. Senator John Barrasso (Wyo.) and 28 colleagues to introduce the “Protecting Water and Property Rights Act of 2014,” legislation to stop the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) from taking over all private and state water in the United States.

FERGUSON (AP) – A Missouri grand jury could begin hearing evidence Wednesday in the shooting death of a black teenager by a white police officer in suburban St. Louis.
St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch is overseeing the case that will determine whether Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson faces criminal charges for the Aug. 9 shooting death of 18-year-old Michael Brown.
McCulloch spokesman Ed Magee said Monday that prosecutors would try to start presenting evidence Wednesday, the regular once-a-week meeting date for the grand jury.
Cases often are presented to grand jurors in a single day. But Magee says Brown’s case is complicated and will take longer, though he gave no specific timeline.
Brown’s death has sparked violent clashes between police and protesters who want the officer to be charged.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — A pathologist hired by the family of an unarmed Missouri teenager fatally shot by police says a bullet wound to his arm may have happened when he put his hands up, “but we don’t know.”

Forensic pathologist Shawn Parcells said Monday that an independent autopsy shows 18-year-old Michael Brown was shot at least six times, including twice in the head.

Parcells says a graze wound on Brown’s right arm could have occurred in several ways. He says the teen may have had his back to the shooter, or he could have been facing the shooter with his hands above his head or in a defensive position.

Brown was fatally shot by a police officer Aug. 9 in Ferguson, touching off a week of rancorous protests in the St. Louis suburb.