TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran plans to support former corporate executive Robert McDonald’s nomination as secretary of the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

The Kansas Republican announced his backing for McDonald after meeting with him Wednesday in the senator’s Washington office. Moran is a member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee.

McDonald is a former Army Ranger who was forced out as CEO of consumer products giant Proctor & Gamble last year. Democratic President Barack Obama nominated him to head the Department of Veterans Affairs after revelations of widespread treatment delays and falsified records to cover up months-long waits for appointments.

Moran says he was impressed with McDonald’s candor and commitment to veterans. The senator says he believes McDonald is ready to take on challenges that include dismantling the VA’s bureaucracy.

LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. (AP) — A bat that bit a suburban Kansas City man has tested positive for rabies.

Police say the Lee’s Summit man was bitten on the foot last week when he was standing outside on his deck. Animal control officers recovered the bat from the home and sent it to be tested for rabies. Results Tuesday showed the bat tested positive for rabies.

The Kansas City Star reports the man, who was not identified, has started a precautionary series of rabies shots.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Prosecutors have charged the boyfriend of a Springfield woman in her stabbing death.
Fifty-year-old Lorenzo Roy was charged Wednesday with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the April death of 26-year-old Jessica Conner. She was found dead in her apartment.

A probable cause statement says DNA evidence linked Roy to Conner’s death. Her mother found the body after Roy called her and said he hadn’t heard from Conner since they argued the previous night.

Conner’s mother, Kimbrly Candie, told authorities at the time that she believed her daughter was pregnant. But an autopsy found that Conner was not pregnant.
The Springfield News-Leader reports Conner had been the subject of several domestic violence cases in the past.
Online court records don’t indicate that Roy has an attorney.

By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — A spokesman for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said he expects the agency’s computer system to be fully compatible with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services system by Aug. 15.

KDHE Chief Information Officer Glen Yancey shared the prediction Monday in a letter sent to CMS headquarters in Baltimore.
The letter was in response to CMS officials last month directing officials in six states, including Kansas, to submit plans for correcting delays in determining eligibility in their respective Medicaid programs, primarily for pregnant women, children, and people with disabilities.

The six states were Kansas, Alaska, California, Michigan, Missouri and Tennessee.

“Our response was that we’re moving forward and we’re going to make sure this gets fixed,” said Sara Belfry, a spokesperson for KDHE.

Several news outlets characterized the CMS letters as “demands” that the six states address months-long delays in the processes for determining eligibility.

But Kansas’ troubles, Belfry said, have more to do with difficulties in sharing information with CMS computers than with processing applications.
“We kind of got lumped in with the other states because the letters all went at the same time,” Belfry said. “We don’t have a backlog in applications.”
In the initial letter, CMS Director Cindy Mann wrote that while Kansas appeared to be in compliance or near-compliance with six of the seven “critical success factors” for ensuring implementation of the Affordable Care Act, it “still does not have the ability to send or receive account transfers from the FFM (federally facilitated marketplace), which interferes with Kansas’ residents’ ability to apply and enroll in Medicaid.”

Most of the shortcomings, Belfry said, are tied to ongoing efforts to redesign the Kansas Eligibility and Enforcement System (KEES), the software package used to calculate Medicaid eligibility, gather and share data, and let enrollees know if they are eligible for other benefits.

Earlier, KDHE officials predicted KEES would be up and running by October 2013. The rollout was later pushed back to March or April 2014. It’s now Aug. 15.

Advocates for uninsured and underinsured Kansans on Tuesday said they had not heard any reports of Medicaid applications being stuck in the state’s system for determining eligibility.

“When the stories about the CMS letter came out last week, we used our social media to ask if this was a problem,” said Sean Gatewood, director of the Kansas Medicaid Access Coalition. “We didn’t hear back from anybody.”

KDHE last month announced that enrollment in the state’s Medicaid program had reached a historic high of 426,642 people in April. That’s a 30,300-person increase over the previous year.

DONNA CASSATA, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Republicans have blocked a bill aimed at restoring free contraception for women who get their health insurance from companies that object on religious grounds.

NEW YORK (AP) — Apple will pay up to $400 million to compensate consumers ensnared in a plot to raise the prices of digital books unless the company overturns a court decision attesting to its pivotal role in the collusion.

The terms of the settlement disclosed in a Wednesday court filing came a month after attorney suing Apple notified U.S. District Judge Denise Cote that an agreement had been reached to avert a trial.

Lawsuits filed on behalf of digital book buyers had been seeking damages of up to $840 million for a price-fixing scheme that Cote ruled had been orchestrated by Apple Inc.

Apple is appealing Cote’s decision. The Cupertino, California, company won’t have to pay the $400 million settlement if it prevails.

Five major book publishers previously reached settlements totaling $166 million.

By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service

TOPEKA — Television and radio talk show host Tavis Smiley will address this year’s Kansas Conference on Poverty in Topeka on Friday.

“He was one of Time Magazine’s 100 most influential people in the world back in 2009,” said Tawny Stottlemire, one the conference’s organizers. “So it’s really cool that he’s going to be here.”

Smiley also leads the Tavis Smiley Foundation, which last year launched “Ending Poverty: America’s Silent Spaces,” a $3 million, four-year campaign aimed at helping communities alleviate poverty.

Smiley is scheduled to speak during the conference’s closing luncheon, from noon to 2 p.m. at the Capitol Plaza Convention Center, 1717 S.W. Topeka Blvd.

More than 350 people – a mix of program directors, social workers, front-line case managers, and consumers – have registered for the two-and-a-half day event, which begins Wednesday.

“We’re here to raise awareness and inspire action,” said Stottlemire, who’s also executive director at the Kansas Association of Community Action Programs. “We want people to come learn the facts about what’s really going on in their communities and not just rely on what they see on television or read in the popular media.”

Low-income Kansans, she said, are “ready to be heard. It’s time to turn off the bully pulpit and hear from people who know what works and what doesn’t work, people who know that the best way to invest in communities is to invest in people.”

Also addressing the conference will be Enid Borden, chief executive at the National Foundation to End Senior Hunger since July 2012. She had a similar position with the Meals on Wheel Association of America for 22 years.

Borden will speak during Thursday breakfast session, which begins at 7 a.m.

The Thursday luncheon will feature a noon screening of the HBO documentary “Paycheck to Paycheck: The Life and Times of Katrina Gilbert,” part of a Maria Shriver-produced project on the increasing numbers of women in poverty.

Gilbert, a single mother from Tennessee, will take part in a question-and-answer session after the screening.

Other sessions will address effective advocacy, fundraising practices, tax policies, financial wellness, domestic violence, suicide prevention, substance abuse, human trafficking, trauma-informed care, Medicaid expansion and veterans issues.

The conference, now in its 11 year, is underwritten by several public and private organizations, including the Topeka Community Foundation, United Way of Greater Topeka, St. Francis Community Services, Community Health Council of Wyandotte County, Kansas Center for Economic Growth and Amerigroup.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri education officials plan to expand a scholarship program to some high school students who came to the US illegally before their 16th birthday.
The Missouri Department of Higher Education says those students will be eligible to participate in the A+ program, which gives qualifying students to receive two free years of tuition at a Missouri community college.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports the program will be opened to students who have applied with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security for “Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals” status.

That status allows eligibility for work authorization but also makes the population eligible for education benefits because the students would be deemed “lawfully present” in this country. Bill Thornton, education department attorney, says no timeline has been established for expanding the program.