MATTHEW DALY, Associated Press
DARLENE SUPERVILLE, Associated Press
FORT BELVOIR, Va. (AP) — President Barack Obama says the government must ensure that the Veterans Affairs Department has the resources to keep up with the demands of troops returning from war.
Obama is speaking at a signing ceremony for a $16.3 billion measure allowing the Veterans Affairs Department to hire thousands of doctors, nurses and other health professionals at the VA’s nearly 1,000 hospitals and outpatient clinics nationwide.
The president is speaking at Fort Belvoir, an Army base 20 miles south of Washington. Congress approved the measure last week before taking a five-week recess. It was one of the few significant bills approved this year by both the House and the Senate.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A new Gallup poll shows Kansas is the only state in the nation to see a significant increase in its uninsured rate this year, while states that adopted parts of the Affordable Care Act have seen the largest declines.
The Kansas City Star reports the adult uninsured rate in Kansas rose from 12.5 percent last year to 17.6 percent during the first half of this year, giving it the seventh-highest uninsured rate in U.S.
Missouri’s uninsured rate remained essentially flat, with 15.2 percent uninsured in 2013 and 15.1 percent uninsured this year.
Research director Dan Witters did not offer an explanation for the growth in Kansas uninsured.
A spokeswoman for the Kansas Department for Aging and Disability Services says the ACA was directly responsible for her state’s spike.
TOPEKA — When police in Charleston, W.Va., respond to domestic disturbance calls, they write down the names of any children in the household and where they go to school.
They do the same thing when they arrest someone for manufacturing methamphetamine.
Before the officers leave the scene, they forward the children’s names to a supervisor, who then makes sure the information is passed on to the principal at the children’s school before the start of the next school day.
The principal then shares the information – only the child’s name and the date of arrest – with the child’s teacher and the school counselor.
“If you’re a teacher, wouldn’t you appreciate having that heads-up?” said Andrea Darr, who helped put together Charleston’s “Handle With Care” initiative, now in its third year since its launch at Mary C. Snow West Side Elementary School.
Darr last week addressed a joint meeting of Kansas’ three Citizen Review Panels. The panel members – a mix of judges, attorneys, social workers, state officials and child advocates – are charged with monitoring the state’s child-protection efforts and recommending improvements.
“If you’re in the second grade and the police get called to your house at 2 o’clock in the morning and your mom ends up in the hospital and your dad gets taken off to jail and you get sent to a relative’s … how do you think you’re going to do on that spelling test in the morning?” Darr asked the audience.
“If you were that child’s teacher, you wouldn’t expect him to take that test.” she said. “And if that child misbehaves that day, you might want to have him go to the counselor’s office instead of the principal’s office.”
Handle With Care has benefitted children in Charleston, Darr said, because it has lessened – rather than accelerated – their exposure to trauma.
Darr was accompanied at the Kansas meeting by a police officer, a school nurse and a social worker, all of whom had a hand in launching the Charleston initiative, which they said was modeled after a program in Massachusetts.
“You have to use whatever works for you,” said Darr, of the West Virginia Children’s Justice Task Force.
In Kansas, police typically do not notify a child’s school when a parent is arrested or the child is exposed to violence.
“We’re just starting to talk about this,” said Melissa Ness, a lobbyist and child advocate who coordinates the panel meetings. “I can see this happening in Kansas. There’s interest in it. But the point of today’s meeting was to get people thinking about trauma and school success, and to start connecting the dots.”
Mary Thrower, a district magistrate judge in Ottawa County who also oversees the foster care and juvenile offender dockets in Saline County, welcomed the idea.
“I see this as a perfect opportunity for us to recognize what’s going on in these kids’ lives and do something about it in a very systematic way,” Thrower said.
“We kind of do it now,” she said. “When a child is placed in police protective custody, law enforcement notifies DCF (Department for Children and Families) and the judicial system. Couldn’t we add schools to that list? And couldn’t we broaden it to include DV (domestic violence) or law enforcement’s being aware that there’s been a traumatic event in the home?”
Haskell County District Magistrate Judge Thomas Webb also embraced the concept.
“If a child’s mind is struggling with the hurt, the fear and the frustration of what’s going on at home and what’s going to happen to them when they get home, it’s very hard for them to learn,” Webb said. “I think teachers would love to have this information and would make good use of it.”
Kansas privatized most of its foster care services in 1996, after the state-run system failed several court-ordered reviews.
According to DCF records, more than 6,000 children were in the state’s foster care system in March, April, May and June – the most in state history.
HARRISONVILLE (AP) – The Missouri State Highway Patrol says a 65-year-old man died when the ambulance taking him to a hospital crashed during heavy rain.
Patrol spokesman Sgt. Bill Lowe says the man from Nevada, Missouri, died Wednesday night on Interstate 49 just north of Harrisonville. His name has not been released.
Lowe says the driver of the ambulance from the Vernon County Ambulance District lost control when the back end started sliding on wet pavement. The ambulance went off the road and overturned.
A 23-year-old paramedic sitting with the patient suffered serious injuries and the 25-year-old driver suffered minor injuries.
KANSAS CITY (AP) – Emergency workers are searching for a woman who might have fallen into a river in eastern Kansas City during heavy rainfall.
Police say a man reported seeing a woman going into the Blue River Wednesday night during the rain. Firefighters and police searched the area until about 10:30 p.m., when the effort was called off because of darkness and the high water in the river. The search was resuming Thursday morning.
Further details of how the woman might have entered the water were not immediately available.
UNDATED (AP) — Scientists are linking a newly identified gene to breast cancer.
It’s long been known that faulty BRCA (BRAK’-uh) genes greatly raise the risk for breast cancer. Now scientists say another gene that’s less common can do the same.
The newly-discovered gene is called PALB2, and genetics expert Dr. Jeffrey Weitzel says it’s probably the most dangerous in terms of breast cancer after the BRCA genes. The doctor with the City of Hope Cancer Center in Duarte, California says, “this one is serious.”
Researchers looked at 362 women in families that have the PALB2 mutation. They say the faulty gene seems to give a woman a 14 percent chance of breast cancer by age 50 and a 35 percent chance by age 70.
The women were at an even greater risk if they had two or more close relatives with the disease.
The study is in this week’s New England Journal of Medicine.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Thinking about getting inked? Check the bottle first.
The Food and Drug Administration is warning tattoo parlors, their customers and those buying at-home tattoo kits that not all tattoo ink is safe.
Last month, California company White and Blue Lion Inc. recalled inks in in-home tattoo kits after testing confirmed bacterial contamination in unopened bottles.
At least one skin infection has been linked to the company’s products, and FDA officials say they are aware of other infections linked to inks with similar packaging.
People getting tattoos can get infections in the skin even in the cleanest conditions. The ink can carry bacteria that can spread through the bloodstream — a process called sepsis. Less severe infections may involve bumps on the skin, discharge, redness, swelling and pain at the site.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Five Kansas residents are accused of trafficking in marijuana and laundering the profits through slot machines at a Kansas City, Kansas, casino.
U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom says a federal indictment handed down on Wednesday alleges the defendants laundered more than $200,000 in cash by depositing the money into slot machines and then cashing out without playing.
The investigation began after the Kansas Racing and Gaming Commission contacted the Kansas Bureau of Investigation about suspicious activity at Hollywood Casino. Prosecutors say the defendants were seen depositing large amounts of money in small denominations into the machines, cashing out and redeeming ticket vouchers without making wagers.
An attorney for the lead defendant, 30-year-old Gregory Rapp of Gardner, was not available for comment Wednesday afternoon. No attorneys were listed for the other four.
PATTONSBURG- A truck driver was injured in an accident just before 1 a.m. on Thursday in Daviess County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2014 Freightliner semi driven by James J. Pfeifer, 59, Brooklyn Center, MN., was southbound on Interstate 35 seven miles south of Pattonsburg when the driver fell asleep. The truck traveled off the east side of the road, rolled into the median and over turned.
Pfeifer was transported to Cameron Regional Medical Center.
The MSHP reported he was wearing a seat belt.
COLUMBIA (AP) – Columbia police are searching for a man they say robbed an area bank.
Police told the Columbia Daily Tribune Wednesday that a man with a bandanna over his face robbed the Landmark Bank at gunpoint. Police say he fled on foot and there is no indication the robbery is related to a similar crime in the area.
There were no customers at the time of the robbery and no injuries were reported.
Police haven’t said how much money was stolen. They say they will examine surveillance footage from the bank.
FORT BELVOIR, Va. (AP) — President Barack Obama says the government must ensure that the Veterans Affairs Department has the resources to keep up with the demands of troops returning from war.
