KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A woman running for the board that governs the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, has been charged with hitting four high school students with her car.

The Wyandotte County prosecutor’s office says 38-year-old Tamika Pledger, of Kansas City, Kansas, was charged Sunday with four counts of reckless aggravated battery. The teens sustained serious injuries in Friday’s crash near a community center.

Pledger is jailed on $50,000 bond. A prosecutor’s office spokesman didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press asking whether Pledger had an attorney.

The prosecutor’s office said in a written statement that Pledger has filed for a seat on the Unified Government’s Board of Commissioners. The seat has been empty since Mark Holland vacated it when he was elected mayor in 2013.

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KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Authorities have jailed a woman suspected of driving a car that struck four high school students near a community center in Kansas City, Kansas.

The Kansas City Star reports that the teens suffered serious injuries in the Friday afternoon crash. Jail records show the suspected driver is being held on suspicion of committing intentional aggravated battery to cause “great bodily harm of disfigurement.”

Police said an eastbound Mercedes-Benz sedan crested a hill and hit the students before veering into a yard and coming to rest near a fence. The driver stayed at the scene.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Parts of northern Missouri and northeast Kansas are digging out from a winter storm.

National Weather Service meteorologist Jenni Laflin says accumulations of up to 6 to 10 inches were reported Sunday near the Missouri-Iowa border. The Kansas City area got up to 2 inches, but the snow melted quickly across much of the metro.

Temperatures are expected to drop to single digits by Sunday evening. But strong winds, including gusts of up to 35 mph, will make it feel like it’s below zero.

Laflin says several rural power companies are reporting outages in northern Missouri. There also are reports of broken branches and a large tree falling onto a Trenton house.

Transportation officials reported snow-covered roads in northern parts of Kansas and Missouri. Several traffic crashes have been reported.

BASEHOR – A Kansas man was injured in an accident just after 11:30 a.m. on Sunday in Leavenworth County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2007 Infinity G driven by Jason V. Gasky, 37, Tongnoxie, was westbound on U.S. 24 at 158th Street in Basehor.

The vehicle rear-ended a 2002 Ford Escort driven by Coleman, David Coleman, 64, Tongnoxie, at the stoplight.

Coleman was transported to Shawnee Mission Medical Center.
Gasky was not injured.
The KHP reported both drivers were properly restrained at the time of the collision.

By Mike Sherry
Olathe Medical Center on Friday announced the largest expansion in the hospital’s six-decade history, a cradle-to-grave project that calls for new buildings for obstetrics and patients with dementia.

With an estimated price tag of more than $100 million, including buildings and equipment, the project also calls for construction of a new cancer center and expansion of the hospital’s cardiovascular center.

The total expansion – encompassing more than 200,000 square feet of space – will increase by about 20 percent the footprint on the campus, which is located at Interstate 35 and 151st Street in Olathe.

Officials said the expansion would create 200 new jobs there.

The medical center is part of a larger system that also includes Miami County Medical Center and nearly three dozen clinics.

“Olathe Health System really is poised to make history,” vice president Mike Jensen said in announcing the expansion before more than 500 attendees at the annual meeting of the Olathe Chamber of Commerce.

He said the four-story obstetrics building, which will include a neonatal intensive care unit, would “create an entirely new look and visibility” for the hospital from the interstate.

The hospital has already begun expanding the memory care unit and the other projects will start by July. Completion dates range from this November to early 2017.

Established in 1953 as a 30-bed facility, Olathe Medical Center is an independent, nonprofit hospital.

Other details of the four projects include:

Obstetrics/Neonatal Intensive Care Unit: A 105,000-square-foot wing on the northeast side of the hospital.
Cancer Center: A 25,000-square-foot facility that will be connected to an outpatient imaging center. Hospital officials said nearly 3,200 new cancer cases are diagnosed each year in the medical center’s service area.
Memory Care: A 29,000-square-foot expansion of Cedar Lake Village, which the medical center operates in partnership with the Evangelical Lutheran Good Samaritan Society.
Kansas Cardiovascular Center: The expansion includes a hybrid lab allowing for electrophysiology physicians and cardiothoracic surgeons to work together in the same room on highly complex heart rhythm procedures.
According to its latest federal tax filing, which the hospital submitted just over a year ago, the hospital had annual revenues of approximately $217.1 million and reserves of $364.3 million.

Including its primary and secondary service areas, the hospital serves Johnson, Miami, Franklin and Linn counties.

Those four counties are home to more than 580,000 people, a 13.5 percent increase since the 2000 census.

Projections from the Center for Economic Development and Business Research at Wichita State University estimate the counties will have a combined population of nearly 930,000 people within 25 years.

As has been the case historically, demographers expect Miami and Johnson counties to drive future population growth.

But the movement of people into its home community is one of the main drivers of the expansion, said CEO Frank Devocelle.

“We are keeping up with Olathe’s growth,” he said.

Olathe Mayor Michael Copeland said high-quality health care is a key selling point for people and businesses looking to relocate to the community.

Olathe Medical Center’s announcement comes amid several health care projects and developments in and around Johnson County, including the recent enlargement of Overland Park Regional Medical Center at Interstate 435 and Quivira Road.

The Olathe cancer center has plenty of competition nearby. Just north of Olathe along I-35 are cancer centers at Shawnee Mission Medical Center and the University of Kansas Medical Center. The KU Cancer Center has earned federal recognition as a designated center through the National Cancer Institute.

Devocelle said Olathe Medical Center’s target population is the service area stretching south and west.

“I don’t know why they would have to go any further than Olathe,” Devocelle said, referring to cancer patients in the community.

Devocelle said the expansion plans accord with the precepts of health care reform in that the new construction mainly serves outpatient needs as opposed to more costly hospital stays.

Friday’s announcement comes only months after the medical center opened a new hospice house on the hospital campus. That facility has served more than 60 families, according to hospital officials.

Devocelle said that, even with the new construction, about half the medical center’s 250-acre site remains available for development. Future plans, he said, include more facilities in Cedar Lake Village.

He said the hospital board of trustees looked at some 60 hospitals from around the world to gather design concepts. The final plan, he said, drew on ideas from a hospital in Dubai and from the MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston, Texas.

Mike Sherry is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

By Ashley Booker |

Testimony this week on a bill that would expand who could clear middle school and high school athletes to return to sports after a head injury revealed a split between medical doctors and chiropractors.

Currently, the state’s school sports statutes only allow medical doctors and doctors of osteopathic medicine to sign a written clearance following a concussion. Bryan Payne, immediate past president of the Kansas Chiropractic Association, said during a legislative hearing that chiropractors currently are able to diagnose and treat concussions but aren’t allowed to sign the form to release their patients to play or practice.

“Chiropractic physicians are very well-trained to diagnose and treat concussions,” Payne said. “We go through an extensive period of our education, and all chiropractic programs hold that stringent education requirement.” Chiropractors generally have more training in anatomy but less in physiology than medical doctors (M.D.) and doctors of osteopathic medicine (D.O.).

Chiropractic school is similar in length to medical school, but chiropractors have fewer residency requirements afterward. The proposed bill, HB 2016, was discussed Wednesday in the House Health and Human Services Committee. It would change the definition of health care provider within the school sports act from a M.D. or D.O. to a “licensee of the healing arts,” as defined by a separate state statute that includes chiropractors.

Sean Hubbard, who owns a chiropractic and balance center in Wichita, told the committee that after treating patients for head injuries, he must tell them to go back to their M.D. or D.O. to clear them to return to their field of play. “(That’s) one more day off work, one more day out of school — and many of these kids I end up seeing have missed weeks of school at a time,”

Hubbard said. “So that just adds another undue burden when they are ready to go back.” One of Hubbard’s patients, Ryan King, a graduate student at the Fuqua School of Business at Duke University, has suffered four concussions in his lifetime.

The first occurred when he was playing a club soccer game in high school. He told the committee how chiropractic care from Hubbard relieved symptoms that couldn’t be cured with more traditional medicine. The symptoms from his concussions were so debilitating,

King said, that he removed himself from sports between concussions, became depressed and had to take a semester off from college. King’s pastor suggested he see Hubbard, and within a couple weeks of chiropractic care, King was able to go a full day without a headache.

He was shocked when he heard the Kansas State High School Activities Association and the state don’t give chiropractors the authority to clear athletes for competition. King said the current law is “doing a disservice to all Kansas athletes that have or will get concussions in the seasons to come.”

After the hearing, Rachelle Colombo, director of government affairs for the Kansas Medical Society, said there is a distinction between chiropractic training and medical training. “Physicians should be the one to make the call on return to play,” Colombo said, “because physicians and those who work under a physician-led team are trained in a medical model that’s trained in the whole body.”

The medical society represents medical doctors from across the state. Bart Grelinger, an M.D. and board-certified neurologist in Wichita, also told the committee that the treatment of concussions should stay within the traditional medical community. Grelinger said physicians look at the patient holistically, considering what diseases they have, what medications they are on that could be affected by the head injury and what medications could help relieve symptoms. “A concussion is going to make those particular medical diseases more problematic,” he said. “Physicians cannot be left out of the loop. … It affects the health of the patient far beyond just a concussion.”

Rep. Dick Jones, a Republican from Topeka, asked whether chiropractors and medical doctors could work together to treat concussions and clear athletes for play. Grelinger said it’s an option, and referrals happen often in medicine. But Grelinger said care of head injury patients needs to be kept in a “physician-led group.”

After the hearing, Rep. Jim Ward, a Democrat from Wichita, said the bill’s future hinges on lawmakers’ level of confidence in chiropractors to diagnose and treat head injuries. Doug Smith, executive director of the Kansas Academy of Physician Assistants, proposed an amendment to include physician assistants in the concussion clearance process. He said his organization is neutral on the underlying bill.

Ashley Booker is a reporter for Heartland Health Monitor, a news collaboration focusing on health issues and their impact in Missouri and Kansas.

HOPE YEN, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal regulators are putting together the first-ever rules on payday loans aimed at helping cash-strapped borrowers avoid falling into a cycle of high-rate debt.

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau says state laws governing the $46 billion payday lending industry often fall short.

The bureau says fuller disclosures of the interest and fees may be needed. The annual percentage rate of such loans typically exceeds 300 percent.

Full details of the proposed rules are expected early this year.

A payday loan, or a cash advance, is generally $500 or less. Borrowers provide a personal check dated on their next payday or give the lender permission to debit their bank accounts.

Charges often range from $15 to $30 per $100 borrowed.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A new center that hopes to eventually provide resources for science and engineering students throughout the Kansas City region is now open.

The KC Engineering Zone workspace for students was dedicated this week. It’s a 4,200-square-foot room on the University of Missouri-Kansas City campus.

The Kansas City Star reports it offers students such tools as milling machines, a metal lathe and shear, a band saw, drill presses and rows of computers. More importantly, professional engineers are mentoring the high school students, who work there on Saturdays, holidays and after school.

The KC STEM Alliance and its partners have grand plans to attract science, technology, engineering and math students from throughout the region. They want it for more schools’ robotics teams and engineering projects, as well as STEM summer camps.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A long-sought federal safety mandate could threaten passenger rail across Missouri.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the issue is a dispute over who should bear the cost of installing train collision avoidance technology. The equipment is supposed to be in place by Dec. 31.

Michelle Teel, of the Missouri Department of Transportation, testified before a U.S. Senate committee last week that Amtrak has notified the Kansas City Terminal Railroad that it may discontinue passenger service into Kansas City beginning in 2016 if it has to pay a $12 million share of the upgrade.

Missouri would have to pay about $20 million, and a $2 million annual share for maintenance.

Amtrak officials have said they are “hopeful” a resolution can be reached to maintain service to Kansas City.

BY DAN CASSIDY

Cuba remains somewhat of an enigma. It’s hard to believe most people have little idea what lies 90 miles off the coast of Florida — roughly the distance between Jefferson City and Macon. Those who have visited the country report beautiful surroundings, friendly people and a culture reminiscent of the U.S. in the 1950s. The streets are full of what we would consider vintage cars, and farms would remind many of us of our grandparents’, or even great-grandparents’, operations.

In his recent State of the Union address, President Obama upped the ante when he included references to Cuba and signaled his intent to ask Congress to end the current embargo. Many in my generation have little recollection of the events surrounding Fidel Castro’s rise to power in 1959, the origin of the U.S. trade embargo in 1960 or the Cuban missile crisis in 1962. In fact, most of us know little about our history with this neighbor to the south.

Over the past decade there have been several attempts in Congress to ease travel and export restrictions to Cuba. It’s ironic we often complain that non-tariff trade barriers erected by European nations, Japan, Russia and China stymie our exports but in the case of Cuba it is the U.S. government that has waved the red flag for more than five decades.

The road to Havana is littered with hurdles, yet Americans have nonetheless had some success exporting agricultural products. Despite export restrictions, the U.S. is the largest supplier of agricultural goods to this nation of 11 million consumers. In 2013, authorized U.S. food exports to Cuba approached $350 million, down from the 10-year peak of $710 million in 2008. A 2009 U.S. International Trade Commission study reported that if U.S. restrictions on financing and travel were lifted in 2008, U.S. agricultural exports to Cuba would have increased between $216 million and $478 million.

We have had personal experience with Cuban officials. A delegation of Missouri Farm Bureau (MFB) county leaders visited the Cuban Interest Section in Washington, D.C. in 2000. Former MFB President Charlie Kruse hosted Fernundo Remirez, Chief of the Cuban Interest Section, on a three-day tour of southeast Missouri in September of 2000. Cuban officials toured Bootheel farms, a cotton gin and a rice mill. They made friends each step of the way, and the message was clear: Their country wanted what our farmers produce.

Mr. Remirez is no longer in the U.S., yet we look forward to picking up the relationship where it left off. Governor Nixon planted Missouri’s flag shortly after President Obama announced his plans, and our state is working quickly to promote farm products in Cuba. The governor and Director of Agriculture Richard Fordyce met with leaders of Missouri agriculture organizations and there was unanimous support for moving full-speed ahead. Governor Nixon, Director Fordyce and MFB President Blake Hurst plan to be among the first to take advantage of new travel and export opportunities during a trade mission planned for March.

Opening the door further to trade with Cuba is not the equivalent of pending multi-nation trade agreements, yet it will lower a self-imposed embargo that will benefit both farmers and consumers.

Dan Cassidy, of Fulton, Mo., is the chief administrative officer for the Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.