WASHINGTON (AP) — National security leaker Chelsea Manning can get initial treatment for a gender-identity condition from the military after the Bureau of Prisons rejected the Army’s request to accept her transfer from Fort Leavenworth, Kansas, to a civilian facility.
A defense official says Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel has approved the Army’s recommendation to keep Manning in military custody and start a rudimentary level of gender treatment. Defense officials have said the Army doesn’t have the medical expertise needed to give Manning the best treatment.
The initial gender treatments provided by the military could include allowing Manning to wear some female undergarments and also possibly provide some hormone treatments.
Previously known as Bradley Manning, the Army private has been diagnosed with gender dysphoria, the sense of being a woman in a man’s body.
CAMERON- A participant in the Saturday morning triathlon in Cameron was injured when his bike was hit by a car.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a bicycle ridden by Brady R. Osmon, 28, Kansas City, was eastbound on Evergreen Street in Cameron in the triathlon race.
A 2007 Ford driven by Bernard L. Cordova, 79, Cameron, was stopped at the intersection of U.S. 69, Route BB and Evergreen Street by a flagman. The Ford was advised to proceed and struck the bicycle.
Osmon was ejected from the bike. He was transported to Cameron Regional Medical Center.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senators Roy Blunt (Mo.) and Claire McCaskill (Mo.) have introduced bipartisan legislation to improve power grid reliability while protecting utilities from conflicting environmental statutes. The Grid Reliability Act of 2014 would prevent a potential conflicting situation in which a utility is ordered by the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to run a plant to improve grid reliability while the operation of the utility would violate environmental statutes.
“Putting utilities in between regulators with conflicting rules, leaving them with no choice but to violate the law is an unacceptable way for our government to operate,” said Blunt. “This bipartisan bill would protect America’s utilities from unfair environmental fines or citizen lawsuits when the government forces them to operate for reliability purposes, and provide certainty to the people responsible for keeping the lights on.”
“This is an issue of common sense and fairness—the government shouldn’t be able to force an entity to take action and then allow it to be punished for that same action,” said McCaskill. “This bipartisan legislation does away with that conflict, allowing utilities to help improve regulated grid reliability without fear of burdensome and conflicting environmental statutes.”
In recent years, these conflicting laws have resulted in lawsuits and heavy fines for electricity providers attempting to comply with these statutes. This bill is similar to legislation sponsored by U.S. Representative Pete Olson (Texas) which passed the U.S. House of Representatives last year.
Roger Pugh left an imprint on Northwest Missouri State University as the institution’s dean of enrollment management from 1994 to 2000. Now, he’s showing his appreciation for Northwest and offering assistance to its student ambassadors by naming the University as a partial beneficiary of his estate.
The bequest will fund an endowment that will pay an annual student ambassador scholarship, worth $1,000, as well as additional funding for unrestricted use.
At Northwest, Pugh oversaw the University’s offices of Admissions, Financial Assistance and Career Services. During the course of a 36-year career, he also worked in secondary education and spent time at institutions in Montana, Washington, California and Missouri.
“I’ve been lucky to work with student ambassadors at each of those places, and Northwest has a unique program,” Pugh said. “The campus tour is one of, if not, the most critical things you can do, and we had really good buy-in from students who were active at Northwest. Having a University student talk with a high school student and a parent, helping to make a decision, is something I feel is very important.”
Northwest student ambassadors embody the friendly campus by conducting tours with about 2,700 families per year, help facilitate Green and White Visit Days, assist with scholarship and department open house days, and actively participate in Northwest online chats and student blogs.
Applicants are selected after a two-part interview process, and selected students must go through a trimester-long training program before they are approved to conduct tours on their own. These campus representatives also must maintain at least a 2.9 grade-point average and may serve as student ambassadors for the duration of their enrollment at Northwest.
Northwest student ambassadors are an integral part in the recruitment of high school and transfer students, and their ability to showcase the campus while discussing the benefits of attending Northwest make a strong impression on families considering the University.
Pugh’s gift will play an important role in the continued success of Northwest’s student ambassador program, Associate Director of Admissions Jeremy Waldeier said.
“Roger’s generosity will be well received and means a lot to our program and students,” Waldeier said. “Helping our students pay for their education is one way to say thank you, and Roger has made that easier with his generous gift.”
Pugh recently purchased a house in Maryville and maintains a strong connection with Northwest and his former colleagues. He also continues to consult with higher education institutions regarding their processes.
“I had six good years at Northwest and stayed in contact with a lot of people there over the years,” Pugh said, adding that he attends several Bearcat athletic games throughout the year. “I grew up in Montana, but I’m not sure I’ve found any better people than those I know in Maryville.”
Now that gardens across Kansas are bearing vegetables, it’s time to taste, enjoy and appreciate the fruits or our labor.
It seems like just a few short weeks ago folks walked to the machine shop, shed or garage and plucked a spade out of one of the dark corners and headed for the garden plot. Now that our home-grown produce is ready, it’s a real treat to pick armloads of radishes, potatoes, tomatoes and cucumbers.
John Schlageck writes for the Kansas Farm Bureau.
The tomatoes my mother grew remain the best I’ve ever eaten. Hot days coupled with cool nights, low humidity and 180 degrees of sunlight ensured these tomatoes tasted terrific. The wonderful, rich sandy loam soil of northwestern Kansas where I grew up played a part as well.
Every winter Mom started each tomato plant from seeds from her mother’s garden – talk about heirloom tomatoes. Talk about flavor.
While texture, variety and acidity are all paramount, for me the litmus test of a terrific tomato is the amount of juice within. It’s also the amount of juice left in the serving bowl once the tomatoes are gone. As kids, we’d wrestle every meal to see who drank the juice out of the bowl.
In the late ‘50s and ‘60s, fresh produce wasn’t as plentiful as today. Families grew many of the foods they ate. Some couldn’t afford to go to the store and buy fresh fruits and vegetables.
Today, while most people can afford to buy all their produce, some would still rather grow their own.
One of the main reason people choose to do so is because home-grown fruits and vegetables taste better when their picked fresh off the vine. There’s also nothing more satisfying that to walk out to your own garden, gather a handful of onions or radishes and head for the kitchen
Another thing folks are discovering is how good foods taste raw. If you don’t believe me, just bite into a fresh carrot, radish or slice up a cool, refreshing cucumber and slip it into your mouth. The proof is in the tasting.
Some of us were born with a sweet tooth. I’m one.
Fresh fruit, ice cream and chocolates are my favorites. If you’ve ever picked strawberries, and sprinkled them on a heaping bowl of vanilla ice cream, you know what I’m talking about. Sometime popping a few fresh strawberries ripe from the vine into your mouth is even better.
When I was a kid, Dad always planted sweet corn. We called them roasting ears. Corn pulled fresh from the stalk, steamed or grilled and spread thick with butter – hey someone bring me a napkin please, I’m drooling.
For those of us concerned about saving energy, eating our fruits and vegetables fresh out of the garden could be another alternative. Once you acquire a taste for fresh produce, it’s nearly impossible to go back to cooking the bejesus out of your fruits and veggies.
So the next time you’re out working in your garden this summer and sweat begins to drip down your face, remember all those wonderful, fresh berries, peppers, radishes and tomatoes you’ll soon eat on your own table. Harvesting the fruits of your own labor will be worth it.
John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
Cito Vickers, a junior at East High School in Kansas City, Mo., practiced his bedside manner with a patient simulator during KCUMB’s Med Student for a Day program- photo Todd Feeback
By Mike Sherry
KHI News Service
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Shannon North can preach and preach to her students that their aspirations are achievable, that advanced education is attainable.
And she does just that as the college and career facilitator at Hogan Preparatory Academy in Kansas City, Mo. Almost all of the students at the charter school come from families with incomes low enough to qualify them for a free or reduced-price lunch.
But since talk is cheap, North leapt at the chance to take her students to the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences as part of KCUMB’s Med Student for a Day program.
“It’s one thing to constantly say, ‘You can do this. You can do this,’ and they kind of believe it,” North said. “But if you can’t picture it, if you can’t see yourself on a med campus, if you can’t see yourself holding a heart, if you can’t see yourself with a stethoscope, it makes the dream a little bit farther away. This is an opportunity to make it not a dream; like, ‘This is my reality. I will be doing this.’”
Hands-on
For more than 60 inner-city students hailing from nine high schools, the day allowed them to learn about pathology and microbiology and perform osteopathic manipulative medicine treatments. They also worked with organs from cadavers.
Initiated in 2011, the most recent Med Student for a Day took place toward the end of school year.
And, North said, it could not have come at a better time.
The students, she said, “were already like, ‘Oh, I’m so tired of school. I don’t want to do this anymore.’ (The day) was just a little bit more motivation to be like, nope, back on track, let’s get started, we are not over yet, let’s finish strong.”
Located on Independence Avenue on the northeast side of the city, KCUMB emphasizes outreach to the economically challenged neighborhoods in the area. Med Student for a Day helps further that goal, said Sara Selkirk, the university’s executive director of community and student affairs.
Serving the community
“Our mission as a university is to train community-minded physicians, and so in doing that, we have the opportunity to reach into areas of high need, and so much of that is here in the northeast,” Selkirk said. “So it’s a great opportunity for us to invite these students onto our campus who may have walked by it as a neighbor but never known what went on inside the building.”
What really made an impact on her students, North said, is that some presenters during the day were physicians who overcame obstacles to get where they were.
“They heard those personal testimonies from other doctors,” she said. “It was beyond measure for me.”
In fact, Med Student for a Day was the brainchild of a nontraditional student – Kameelah Rahmaan, a California native who did not enter medical school until her late 20s. A decade earlier, she was an aimless teen and a single mom.
The birth of her daughter spurred her to turn her life around, according to a 2012 story about her in KCUMB’s magazine.
Med Student for a Day is a program that Rahmaan initiated and coordinated during her four years on campus. She graduated this year and is now in a psychiatry residency program at Baylor University in Waco, Texas.
In an interview during this year’s event, Rahmaan said organizers did not necessarily gear the day toward students focusing on a medical career.
Role models
Most important, she said, was showing the students what can happen through hard work.
“How many people get to come to a medical school? How many students get to see things like this? Not many,” Rahmaan said. “So that is just what I want them to have – some type of insight into what they can become.”
Selkirk said Rahmaan worked hard to ensure the program would continue after she left campus. She said two second-year medical students already have started planning next year’s event.
One innovation they began this year was having participating high school students fill out a goals sheet of where they want to be in the next year and the next five years, as well as the steps they plan to take to get there.
Med Student for a Day draws some returning students, and Selkirk said it will be interesting to see the progress made on those goals.
Student reactions
Two participants this year were East High School students Samuel Gutierrez, a senior, and Cito Vickers, a junior.
Samuel said the day opened his eyes to osteopathic medicine, the type of curriculum taught at KCUMB. Osteopathic medicine teaches students to focus on the body as a whole when addressing a particular medical issue, and the training includes techniques to manipulate the body to help alleviate pain and restore motion.
According to the American Association of Colleges of Osteopathic Medicine, nearly one in five medical students in the United States attends an osteopathic medical school.
Cito said he learned a lot as well.
“I am really not into medical, I’m into law, but I was thinking about this maybe as a second plan, and I really wasn’t interested that much until I came (for the day),” he said. “I recommend that everyone takes part in program next year and the year that comes after it.”
MARY CLARE JALONICK, Associated Press
ANN SANNER, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration is warning consumers to avoid pure powdered caffeine sold on the Internet after the death of an Ohio teen.
Even a teaspoon of the powder could be lethal — it is equivalent to 25 cups of coffee. Eighteen-year-old Logan Stiner of LaGrange, Ohio, died May 27 after consuming it.
The FDA said teenagers and young adults may be particularly drawn to the caffeine powder, which is a stimulant.
The agency said the products are 100 percent caffeine and may carry minimal or insufficient labeling. Consumers may not be aware that even a small amount can cause an overdose.
Symptoms of caffeine overdose or toxicity include rapid or erratic heartbeat, seizures, vomiting, diarrhea and disorientation.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The wording cannot be changed just three weeks before Missouri’s primary election on a ballot measure asking voters to declare in the state Constitution that the right to bear arms is “unalienable,” the state Supreme Court ruled Friday.
The court dismissed an appeal by opponents of the gun measure, saying a state law forbids the court from making changes to ballot measures within six weeks of an election.
The ruling means the wording will not be changed on Proposed Constitutional Amendment 5, which will go before voters on Aug. 5.
Soon after the amendment was officially certified for the August ballot on June 13, opponents filed two separate lawsuits challenging its wording. Those suits, filed by prosecutors from St. Louis and Kansas City, the St. Louis police chief and a gun-control activist, later were consolidated by a trial judge.
Opponents argue that the ballot wording failed to mention other significant changes, including that gun-control measures would become subject to tougher legal scrutiny and that a current constitutional provision allowing restrictions on concealed guns would be repealed.
Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem dismissed the legal challenge on July 1. In its ruling Friday, the Supreme Court agreed it was bound by that law and dismissed the appeal.
The justices noted that there are good reasons for the six-week restriction, including the need to print and distribute ballots to absentee voters and to overseas military voters 45 days in advance.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – A 24-year-old Kansas City man is charged with robbing a victim who authorities say he met through Craigslist.
Debvon L. Buckner was charged Friday with first-degree robbery and armed criminal action. Online records don’t list a lawyer for Buckner.
The Kansas City Star reports prosecutors allege that Buckner was one of three people who on Wednesday robbed a man who posted an Xbox game system for sale on Craigslist and went to meet someone who called about the ad. One of the robbers pulled out a handgun, and the robbers took the Xbox and equipment.
A Liberty couple were also robbed and shot later that night when they were trying to buy a car from someone who advertised on Craigslist. No charges have been filed in that case.
Artist’s concept image of a boot print on the moon and on Mars. Image Credit: NASA
MARCIA DUNN, AP Aerospace Writer
CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — Buzz Aldrin says he was “out of town” on July 20, 1969, and missed the world’s Apollo 11 celebration.
Forty-five years later, Aldrin wants to know where everyone was that Sunday when he and Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon. He’s set up a YouTube channel inviting celebrities and ordinary people to share their memories of that day.
Among those reminiscing via social media: actors Tom Hanks and Tim Allen, and London’s mayor, Boris Johnson.
It’s the first big anniversary of man’s first moon landing without Armstrong. He died in 2012 at age 82.
Aldrin and Michael Collins, the command module pilot, will take part in a NASA ceremony at Florida’s Kennedy Space Center on Monday. Armstrong’s name will be added to the historic Operations and Checkout Building.
