Tornadoes touched down near Joplin, Missouri, on the eighth anniversary of a massive twister that devastated the city and killed 161 people there.
Jasper County Emergency Management Director Keith Stammer said a tornado started Wednesday night southwest of the small town of Carl Junction and moved northeast through the towns of Oronogo and Golden City. Carl Junction is about 4 miles (6.4 kilometers) north of Joplin.
Stammer said authorities were conducting a house-to-house search in Carl Junction to determine whether anyone was hurt but no injuries were reported. He said roofs of homes were damaged, along with fences, farm buildings and utility poles.
Stammer said officials won’t know the true extent of the damage until the morning.
The Joplin Globe also reported that the National Weather Services confirmed a tornado in Galena, southwest of Springfield, near Branson.
MANHATTAN — Thomas Lane, a highly experienced student affairs administrator, will become Kansas State University’s new vice president for student life and dean of students.
Thomas Lane photo Kansas State University
Kansas State University President Richard Myers announced the appointment of Lane, who currently serves as associate vice president for student affairs and dean of students at Missouri State University. His appointment follows a national search to replace Pat Bosco, who is retiring after nearly 50 years of service in student life administration at the university.
Lane will join Kansas State University on July 14 and brings more than25 years of experience in student life administration to his new job.
“We are excited to have found someone of Dr. Lane’s caliber for this vital position at K-State,” Myers said. “His broad experience in student life administration will serve him well as the top advocate for Kansas State University students while he plays a key role in ensuring and enriching their development and success.”
Lane will provide executive-level leadership, strategic planning, oversight and coordination of all units in the Division of Student Life, which include the Office of Student Life, Housing and Dining Services, Recreational Services, K-State Student Union, Career Center, Lafene Health Center, Counseling Services, Academic Achievement Center and many other key services and programs essential to student success. He also will provide leadership for the development and implementation of high-quality and student-centered approaches to support student success in nonacademic dimensions of student university experiences, and he will respond to student crises and issues and concerns, among many other duties.
“I am truly humbled and excited to be joining the K-State family,” Lane said. “During my time on campus, it was clear to me the university is deeply committed to students’ personal and academic success. I am greatly looking forward to working with students, faculty, staff, administration and alumni in ensuring a Wildcat student experience that is welcoming, inclusive and changes lives for the better.”
Lane has been in his current position at Missouri State University since June 2015. He joined the university in 2005, serving as assistant dean of students and director of the student union. He was promoted to assistant to the vice president for student affairs in 2008 and became the assistant vice president for student affairs in 2011, serving until his appointment as associate vice president for student affairs. Before joining Missouri State, Lane served as associate director of the student union and activities at Minnesota State University Moorhead, where he initially was assistant director of operations. He also has been a coordinator with Visitor and Information Services at Illinois State University.
Lane earned a bachelor’s degree in communications in 1991 and a master’s degree in educational administration in 1995, both from Illinois State University. He earned a doctorate in educational leadership and analysis in 2010 from the University of Missouri, where he serves as an adjunct assistant professor in the educational leadership cooperative doctoral program.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Fourteen public safety officers were awarded the Medal of Valor by President Donald Trump on Wednesday, including eight who responded to a shooting at a southern California polling place.
“Every officer, firefighter and first responder who receives this award embodies the highest ideals of service and sacrifice, character and courage,” Trump said during a White House ceremony.
Watch LIVE: President Trump Presents the Public Safety Officer Medal of Valor https://t.co/tPqXH9Bgcp
The medal is the nation’s highest honor for bravery by a public safety officer.
Captain Dustin More with the President Tuesday
Eight men from the Azusa, California, police department were honored for placing themselves in danger and saving the lives of civilians and fellow officers during the shooting on Election Day 2016. The recipients were: Retired Lt. Xavier Torres; Sgt. Seth Chapman; retired Sgt. Terry Smith Jr.; Sgt. Thomas Avila III; Sgt. Rocky Wenrick; Cpl. Andrew Rodriguez Sr.; senior officer Carlos Plascencia; and detective Manuel Campos.
When they arrived at the polling place, a person was shooting from a house across the street from a park. An elderly woman had been killed and a man lay wounded on a sidewalk. Two vehicles had collided and a woman in one of the cars was critically injured. The shooter was eventually killed and the officers were credited for preventing other deaths and injuries.
The other recipients were:
Paramedic Andrew Freisner receives honors from President Trump-photo courtesy the White House
—Fire Capt. Dustin Moore and firefighter and paramedic Andrew Freisner of the fire department in Lenexa, Kansas, risked their lives to rescue a family from inside a burning apartment building on April 24, 2017. They climbed a ladder to the second floor, went inside and rescued an unconscious adult, two young children and the family dog.
—Ohio State University police officer Alan Horujko, who risked his life on Nov. 28, 2016, to save the lives of civilians. A driver had driven down a sidewalk and struck several pedestrians, and then got out of his car and began attacking people with a knife. Horujko killed the attacker after trying unsuccessfully to get him to disarm. Thirteen people were attacked and 11 were hospitalized, one in critical condition.
—Nicholas Cederberg, senior trooper with the Oregon State Police, who suffered life-threatening injuries while helping apprehend a man wanted for shooting his estranged wife eight times. The attacker rammed the patrol car and shot Cederberg in the right hip. As he lay on the ground, Cederberg was shot 12 more times. Five bullets were stopped by his armored vest, but seven penetrated his body. Cederberg underwent surgeries to repair a collapsed lung and two broken arms.
Two awards also were given to the families of fallen officers:
—Sgt. Verdell Smith Sr. of the Memphis, Tennessee, police department was clearing an intersection of pedestrians on June 4, 2016, when he was struck by a vehicle driven by a suspect in a triple shooting.
—Officer Brent Thompson of the Dallas, Texas, Area Rapid Transit Police Department was killed on July 7, 2016, during a shootout with a man who had just killed three Dallas police officers and wounded three others with an assault rifle. Thompson’s actions created a distraction that allowed others to aid the wounded and gave cover to officers so they could force the attacker inside a building where he was killed by the Dallas Police SWAT team
Path of the Dickinson, Geary County tornado -NWS image
TOPEKA —The National Weather Service survey crews have completed their work reviewing tornadoes from Tuesday.
The first tornado reported occurred at 4:32p.m. in Dickinson County and was rated and EF1, according to the National Weather Service. The tornado produced peak winds of 105 miles per hour and traveled over 7 miles.
The second intermittent tornado in Dickinson and Geary Counties that passed northwest of Junction City has been rated EF0. It was estimated 150 yards wide and traveled approximately 17 miles, according to the National Weather Service.
Just after 7p.m., an EF1 tornado was reported southwest of Oneida in Nemaha County. It traveled approximately 3 miles, according to the National Weather Service.
Tornado that traveled across Dickinson and Geary County Tuesday photo courtesy Rick Dykstra
An EF3 tornado also was reported in Nemaha County at 7:20p.m. It had maximum winds of 140 miles per hour and traveled almost 6 miles.
The National Weather Service also reported an EF2 tornado in Jackson County just after 6:30p.m. Tuesday along with an EF0 tornado north of Topeka that is responsible for tree and power line damage.
Planned Parenthood Great Plains, based in Overland Park sued one day after Kansas moved to terminate its participation in the Medicaid program. FILE PHOTO
So Kansas hired three high-powered East Coast law firms to defend it in a case that would slog on for nearly three years before Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s administration agreed to drop the termination effort in April.
The case dates back to the administration of Gov. Sam Brownback, a Republican who vowed to defund Planned Parenthood after he accused it of profiting from the sale of fetal tissue.
The state’s legal defense cost taxpayers at least $899,000, according to records obtained by KCUR through the Kansas Open Records Act.
One of the law firms retained by Kansas — Washington, D.C.,-based Consovoy McCarthy Park — represents President Donald Trump in a lawsuit seeking to block his accounting firm from complying with a congressional subpoena of Trump’s financial records. (A federal judge on Monday ruled that the accounting firm must comply with the subpoena.)
A boutique firm boasting several former U.S. Supreme Court law clerks, Consovoy McCarthy billed more than $396,000 for its work on the Medicaid termination case from August 2016 through August 2018, invoices from the firm show.
One of the biggest law firms in the world, Norton Rose Fulbright, billed Kansas more than $471,000 for work it performed during the same two-year span.
And a third firm specializing in litigation, Cooper & Kirk, billed nearly $31,000 for a month’s worth of work in June 2016. (The firm had initially billed $61,910, but a note on the invoice states it was “renegotiated per Governor’s office 12/22/16.”)
Law firm invoices typically provide detailed descriptions of the services they rendered. However, those portions of the invoices were blacked out in the copies obtained by KCUR. So it’s unclear what work the firms performed for the money.
Katelyn Radloff, an attorney with the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, the defendant in the case, told KCUR in an email that the redacted portions fell under the attorney-client privilege exception to the Kansas Open Records Act.
Ordinarily, the state attorney general’s office defends Kansas in suits brought against it or its agencies. But occasionally — and especially in matters involving complex litigation — the state hires outside counsel to represent it.
A spokesman for Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt did not respond to questions about why the state chose to hire outside counsel in this case rather than have the attorney general’s office defend the case.
Ashley All, a spokeswoman for Kelly, made clear in an email that the newly elected governor regarded the case as a waste.
“Multiple courts ruled against the previous administration’s effort to remove Planned Parenthood as a KanCare provider,” All said. “To continue with this costly litigation would be unwise and out of step with the priorities of Kansas. Governor Kelly is focused on expanding healthcare options to women, not limiting them.”
It’s not clear how many patients would have been affected, or how much money Planned Parenthood would have lost, had Kanas succeeded in its effort to cut off its Medicaid funding. But a similar — and so far successful — effort by the state of Missouri has affected several thousand Planned Parenthood patients.
Video release
Kansas was originally represented in the case by Stephen R. McAllister, a former University of Kansas Law School dean who served as Kansas solicitor general for more than a decade before becoming U.S. Attorney for Kansas in 2018.
McAllister, however, withdrew from the case without explanation less than two weeks after the suit was filed by Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri (now Planned Parenthood Great Plains) and Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region, which had a handful of patients in Kansas.
But in his State of the State address in January 2016, Brownback accused Planned Parenthood of trafficking in “baby body parts” and vowed to defund Planned Parenthood. The state made good on his threat on May 3, 2016, when the Kansas Department of Health and Environment notified Planned Parenthood that it was terminating its Medicaid contract.
Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri and Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region sued the next day. At every stage of the case, the state lost.
After Kansas appealed, the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in February 2018 ruled that states may not cut off health care providers from Medicaid “for any reason they see fit, especially when that reason is unrelated to the provider’s competence and the quality of the healthcare it provides.”
The high court’s decision to stay out of the issue let stand decisions by five federal appeals courts that have ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood and one federal appeals court that has ruled against it.
While Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which operates health centers in Kansas, Missouri, Arkansas and Oklahoma, never lost its Kansas Medicaid funding, the story is different in Missouri.
A year ago, that state suspended Medicaid reimbursement payments to the organization’s affiliates in Missouri, saying the suspension was required by a provision in the 2018 state budget cutting off funds for abortion providers and counselors.
The move affected about 7,000 Medicaid patients who relied on Planned Parenthood’s 11 Missouri clinics for health services, including cancer screenings, testing for sexually transmitted infections and birth control.
Although federal law already barred the use of Medicaid funds for abortions, Missouri cut off funding for all of Planned Parenthood’s services.
Kate Maxcy, a spokeswoman for Planned Parenthood Great Plains, said that while the affiliates technically remained in the Medicaid program, they haven’t been reimbursed for services for nearly a year.
Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies
Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor had positive things to say to the 20 members of the House Biofuels Caucus. The Caucus sent a bipartisan letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler in support of year-round E-15 sales. The lawmakers in the caucus called on the EPA to finish lifting outdated restrictions on the biofuel blend in time for this summer’s driving season.
“We are grateful for the continued support of champions on both sides of the aisle who are fighting for a strong rule that will ensure more biofuels reach consumers at the pump,” Skor says. “The rural economy is at a breaking point. It’s vital that the EPA act by June 1 to uphold the president’s commitment to farm families and allow retailers to keep more homegrown fuel on the market this summer.”
The congressional letter to Wheeler says, “Our farmers, renewable fuels producers, and retail gas stations stand to benefit from the adjustment of volatility requirements for E-15 during the summer driving season of June 1 through September 15.” The group says they are concerned that the EPA proposal would create inefficiencies in the marketplace due to “unnecessary restrictions on the components that can be used for fuel blending.”
LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. (AP) — A 19-year-old Missouri man is accused of assaulting workers and terrorizing guests during an attempted robbery at a hotel.
Hughes photo Jackson County
James A.R. Hughes, of Deepwater, is charged with attempted robbery and armed criminal action after the alleged attack Sunday at a Holiday Inn Express in Lee’s Summit.
Police went to the hotel after a caller reported a man in the front lobby was threatening to shoot people.
According to court records, Hughes forced a family who was leaving to return to the hotel and said he was going to shoot them. Hughes allegedly chased and hit hotel employees and threatened to shoot and rape others.
Hughes was arrested at the hotel and is being held on $250,000 bond.
Online court records don’t list an attorney for Hughes.
Chinese purchases of Canadian soybeans have “slowed to a trickle,” according to the Financial Post. Those purchases have dropped 95 percent in the first few months of 2019 because of “tensions between Ottawa and Beijing.” The purchase decline comes in addition to Chinese authorities ramping up pre-entry inspections of shipments from Canada.
Soybean shipments from Canada to China plunged to just 3,282 tons between January and March, down from just shy of 73,000 tons during the same period a year ago. The sudden drop in exports is even more eye-opening when compared to Chinese purchases late last year. China purchased a record 3.2 million tons of Canadian soybeans over the last four months of 2018.
“Trade with China fell off a cliff,” says Ron Davidson, Executive Director of Soy Canada. “They slowed to a trickle after December. Now, exporters are being told that their shipments are being held for further testing and that China is testing for things it never has before.” China also stripped the import permits of two Canadian canola exporters. They’ve also halted more purchases of canola over concerns about “prohibited pests” found in shipments.
Beijing says it’s in “no rush” to get talks going again between the U.S. and China. That’s from the South China Morning Post. The Chinese newspaper says the country is prepared to not meet with President Trump if he’s “not prepared to be realistic.” In the article the Chinese government appeared to invite a U.S. delegation to make a trip to Beijing for more discussions.
However, there’s no schedule set in stone yet and CNBC says negotiations are “in flux.” The South China Morning Post says Chinese state media outlets have gone on the offensive. An international relations expert at the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences tells the paper, “There’s no need to get into frantic calculations about when Trump will come if the U.S. continues to lack sincerity. After all, enough has been said by both sides in many different rounds of talks.”
A Peking University international relations professor says, “The standoff should last for a while because the U.S. has refused to make even the slightest compromise, to a point that’s somewhat unreasonable.” China put retaliatory tariffs on $60 billion worth of U.S. goods in response to President Trump increasing tariffs on another $200 billion in Chinese goods.
ULYSSES, Kan. (AP) — A 17-year-old Kansas student will collect diplomas from high school and Harvard University this month.
Braxton Moral photo courtesy KCTV
Braxton Moral received his high school degree from Ulysses High School Sunday. He will graduate with a bachelor’s degree from Harvard on May 30.
Moral’s parents are likely to miss both graduations because his mom, Julie Moral, had kidney transplant surgery at the University of Kansas Medical Center Wednesday after being on a wait list for nearly a year.
The teen majored in government and minored in English through Harvard’s extension program. He took classes online during the school year and on the Harvard campus during summers. Some Harvard classes substituted for high school class credits.
Moral now plans to attend law school but he hasn’t chosen a school.
Growth Energy CEO Emily Skor had positive things to say to the 20 members of the House Biofuels Caucus. The Caucus sent a bipartisan letter to Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Andrew Wheeler in support of year-round E-15 sales. The lawmakers in the caucus called on the EPA to finish lifting outdated restrictions on the biofuel blend in time for this summer’s driving season.
Chinese purchases of Canadian soybeans have “slowed to a trickle,” according to the Financial Post. Those purchases have dropped 95 percent in the first few months of 2019 because of “tensions between Ottawa and Beijing.” The purchase decline comes in addition to Chinese authorities ramping up pre-entry inspections of shipments from Canada.
Beijing says it’s in “no rush” to get talks going again between the U.S. and China. That’s from the South China Morning Post. The Chinese newspaper says the country is prepared to not meet with President Trump if he’s “not prepared to be realistic.” In the article the Chinese government appeared to invite a U.S. delegation to make a trip to Beijing for more discussions.
