FRANKLIN COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 5:30a.m. Tuesday in Franklin County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1995 Ford F150 driven by Yaple, John Brian Yaple, 47, Harrisonville, Missouri, was westbound on Kansas 68 seven miles east of Ottawa. The pickup rear-ended a semi that jackknifed.
The semi driver Christopher James Erion, 30, Montevideo, MN, reported he had been traveling at highway speeds westbound on Kansas 68 when a deer ran out from the north running to the south.
After striking the deer, he pressed the brakes which locked up causing the truck and trailer to jackknife.
The truck and tractor went into the eastbound lanes and struck the guardrail causing the vehicle to jackknife on the bridge between Utah and Vermont.
The semi was wedged on the bridge between guardrails at the time of the crash.
Yaple was pronounced dead at the scene. Erion was not wearing a seat belt at the time of the accident and transported to Ransom Memorial Hospital, according to the KHP.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Senate has overwhelmingly rejected a nominee for the state’s second-highest court whose political tweets offended lawmakers.
The vote Tuesday was 38-0 against confirming Labette County District Judge Jeffry Jack’s nomination to the Court of Appeals.
Democrat Laura Kelly became the first Kansas governor to have an appeals court nominee rejected. Yet the Republican-controlled Senate’s vote also allowed Kelly to name a second nominee.
Kelly herself had urged senators to reject Jack after trying to withdraw his nomination in March. The state Supreme Court ruled Friday that a 2013 law didn’t allow her to withdraw Jack’s nomination. That forced Tuesday’s vote to keep Jack off the appeals court.
“A president who is objectively ignorant, lazy and cowardly,” read one tweet.
Jack’s nomination was doomed by tweets in 2017 that included vulgar language and criticism of President Donald Trump and other Republicans.
Missouri and Kansas have joined 41 other states and Puerto Rico in a lawsuit accusing generic drug makers of conspiring to manipulate and drive up prices for more than 100 generic drugs.
The 510-page lawsuit, filed in federal court in Connecticut, names 20 drug companies and 15 executives as defendants, alleging they participated in a conspiracy led by generic drug giant Teva Pharmaceuticals USA.
The suit alleges that Teva Pharmaceuticals colluded with competing companies to carve up markets and raised prices on scores of generic drugs. BIGSTOCK
“We have hard evidence that shows the generic drug industry perpetrated a multi-billion dollar fraud on the American people,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong said in a statement. “We have emails, text messages, telephone records, and former company insiders that we believe will prove a multi-year conspiracy to fix prices and divide market share for huge numbers of generic drugs.”
Tong, who is taking the lead in the case, announced the lawsuit Sunday night on “60 Minutes,” which aired a story about the case.
The lawsuit expands on an earlier case brought by Connecticut and 19 other states in December 2016. That lawsuit, which is pending, has since been joined by more than two dozen other states.
In a statement Monday, Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt called the alleged conspiracy “one of the most damaging and far-reaching price fixing schemes in modern history, with certain companies inflating prices by nearly 1,000%.”
“Millions and millions of Americans rely on generic prescription drugs every day to treat diabetes, infections, depression, cancer, HIV, and more,” Schmitt said. “This price fixing scheme by Teva Pharmaceuticals and other industry giants demonstrates a level of corporate greed the state of Missouri and the country rarely sees. By joining this lawsuit we’re sending a clear message to pharmaceutical companies: if you harm any of the 6 million people that call Missouri home, we will pursue action and hold you accountable for your actions.”
Teva Pharmaceuticals USA, which is based in Pennsylvania and is a wholly owned subsidiary of Israel-based Teva Pharmaceuticals Industries, denied wrongdoing in a statement .
“The allegations “are just that – allegations,” the company said.
“Teva continues to review the issue internally and has not engaged in any conduct that would lead to civil or criminal liability. Teva delivers high-quality medicines to patients around the world, and is committed to complying with all applicable laws and regulations in doing so. We will continue to vigorously defend the company.”
Teva subsidiaries operate out of two locations in Overland Park, Kansas, where until recently they employed about 350 people. The city and state granted Teva more than $53 million in tax abatements in 2013 to erect a $46 million, five-story headquarters building at College Boulevard and Nall Avenue, where it employed back office workers in its branded drug business. A smaller facility is located a few blocks away on 107th Street.
In December 2017, Teva announced plans to slash its global workforce by 25%. The local workforce has since been reduced, although it’s not clear by how much. A spokeswoman for Teva did not immediately respond to a query about how many people it now employs in the area.
The lawsuit filed Friday in Connecticut alleges that Teva significantly raised prices on more than 100 generic drugs beginning in July 2013 and colluded with competing companies to carve up markets and raise prices on at least 86 of those drugs.
The suit claims that the defendants coordinated their moves in person or by cell phone at golf outings, cocktail parties, industry dinners and other social occasions.
Besides Teva, the companies named in the suit are:
Actavis Holdco US, Inc.
Actavis Pharma Inc.
Amneal Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Apotex Corp.
Aurobindo Pharma U.S.A. Inc.
Breckenridge Pharmaceutical Inc.
Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories Inc.
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals Inc., USA
Greenstone LLC
Lannett Company Inc.
Lupin Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Mylan Pharmaceuticals Inc.
Par Pharmaceutical Companies Inc.
Pfizer Inc.
Sandoz Inc.
Taro Pharmaceuticals USA Inc.
Upsher-Smith Laboratories LLC
Wockhardt USA LLC
Zydus Pharmaceuticals (USA) Inc.
Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargolies.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri lawmakers have passed a bill to block local officials from regulating industrial farms more strictly than the state does.
House lawmakers voted 103-44 Tuesday to send the measure to Gov. Mike Parson.
Industrial farms known as concentrated animal feeding operations allow for more efficient production of beef, pork, poultry, dairy and eggs. They’ve also stoked concerns about air and water pollution.
If enacted, the bill would ban counties from enacting rules on those farms that are “more stringent” than state regulations.
Backers of the change say consistent rules across the state will help family farms survive.
Critics raised concerns about loss of local control and questioned the need for change, arguing that large animal feeding operations have been successful in the state under current laws.
SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Police have announced plans to conduct a follow-up investigation into a racist video that a Missouri high school student posted on Snapchat.
A student at Kickapoo High School in Springfield warned black classmates to stay out of a locker room and talked about lynching in the profanity-laden video that was posted Thursday. The Springfield NAACP demanded that it be investigated as a terroristic threat.
Kickapoo Principal Bill Powers told parents he requested that social media platforms remove the video and disciplined the student, who is a juvenile.
The video comes after at least one student waved a Confederate battle flag last month while driving through the school’s parking lot on a day focused on raising awareness about LGBT bullying. Two posters promoting the event also were torn down.
OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — A former employee of a suburban Kansas City sports medicine clinic alleges in a lawsuit that she was sexually harassed by a surgeon.
Kansas City Spine and Sports Medicine Center google image
The former medical assistant at the Kansas City Spine and Sports Medicine Center in Overland Park, Kansas, sued last month. The suit says she complained to management multiple times that Dr. Glenn Amundson regularly made sexual comments and touched her inappropriately in front of other employees, including management.
The medical assistant says that when she spoke to human resources, the department determined that she should transfer. The suit described the conditions as “intolerable.”
Amundson declined to discuss the allegations with The Star. The Kansas City Spine and Sports Medicine Center says Amundson is no longer with the company.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The U.S. Postal Service will issue a stamp honoring the famous World War II battleship the USS Missouri that was the site of Japan’s unconditional surrender on Sept. 2, 1945, in Tokyo Bay.
Image courtesy USPS
The Postal Service says that the commemorative Forever stamp will be issued on June 11 to commemorate the 75th anniversary of her commissioning. A first-day-of-issue ceremony will be held that day at the Pearl Harbor memorial, where a section of the ship is being repaired as part of a $3 million restoration project to address rust and other deterioration.
The stamp shows the battleship, which was affectionately nicknamed “Mighty Mo,” cutting through the water with clouds looming in the background. Designed by art director Greg Breeding, the stamp features a digital illustration created by Dan Cosgrove.
SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A jury on Monday ordered agribusiness giant Monsanto Co. to pay a combined $2.055 billion to a couple claiming that the company’s popular weed killer Roundup Ready caused their cancers.
Roundup, the Monsanto brand name pesticide built on the chemical glyphosate, is used on farm fields and on lawns and gardens. FILE: by GRANT GERLOCK / courtesy HARVEST PUBLIC MEDIA
The jury’s verdict is the third such courtroom loss for Monsanto in California since August, but a San Francisco law professor said it’s likely a trial judge or appellate court will significantly reduce the punitive damage award.
The state court jury in Oakland concluded that Monsanto’s weed killer caused the non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma Alva Pilliod and Alberta Pilliod each contracted. Jurors awarded them each $1 billion in punitive damages in addition to a combined $55 million in compensatory damages.
A federal jury in San Francisco ordered the weed killer maker in March to pay a Sonoma County man $80 million. A San Francisco jury last August awarded $289 million to a former golf course greens keeper who blamed his cancer on Monsanto’s Roundup Ready herbicide. A judge later reduced the award by $200 million.
The three California trials were the first of an estimated 13,000 plaintiffs with pending lawsuits against Monsanto across the country to go to trial. St. Louis-based Monsanto is owned by the German chemical giant Bayer A.G.
Bayer said Monday that it would appeal the verdict.
“The verdict in this trial has no impact on future cases and trials, as each one has its own factual and legal circumstances,” the company said.
The company noted that none of the California verdicts has been considered by an appeals court and that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency considers the weed killer safe.
The EPA reaffirmed its position in April, saying that the active ingredient glyphosate found in the weed killer posed “no risks of concern” for people exposed to it by any means — on farms, in yards and along roadsides, or as residue left on food crops.
“There is zero chance it will stand,” said University of California, Hastings School of Law professor David Levine. He said the ratio between the $2 billion in punitive damages and $55 million in compensatory damages is too high. He said judges rarely allow punitive damages to exceed four times actual damages awarded.
The California Supreme Court ruled in 2016 that any punitive damages exceeding 10 times the compensatory damages are likely unconstitutionally high. The court didn’t propose a ratio it felt correct, but said punitive damages should almost never exceed nine times actual damages, it said.
The punitive damages awarded Monday are 36 times the actual damages.
The lawsuits have battered Bayer’s stock since it purchased Monsanto for $63 billion last year and Bayer’s top managers are facing shareholder discontent.
Chairman Werner Wenning told shareholders at Bayer’s annual general meeting in Bonn last month that company leaders “very much regret” falls in its share price. At the same time, CEO Werner Baumann insisted that “the acquisition of Monsanto was and remains the right move for Bayer.”
Bayer’s stock price closed Monday at $15.91 a share, down 45 cents or 2.76 percent per share, in trading on the New York Stock Exchange. The verdict was announced after the trading session closed.
Bayer’s share price has lost half its value since it reached s 52-week high of $32.80 a share.
SUNNY ISLES BEACH, Fla. (AP) — The Latest on a series of arrests connected to a South Florida hip-hop festival.
Josh Jackson photo Miami Dade Police Dept.
Authorities say Phoenix Suns forward and former University of Kansas basketball player Josh Jackson was arrested after refusing to leave a VIP area at a South Florida hip-hop festival.
A Miami-Dade police report says Jackson was arrested Friday night and charged with resisting arrest and escape at the Rolling Loud Festival, which was held Friday through Sunday at the Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens. Police are investigating connections between the festival and a series of shooting that killed a Chicago rapper, wounded another rapper’s girlfriend, left a bystander dead and injured a little boy.
An officer says Jackson was told to leave a VIP because he didn’t have a pass. The report says Jackson left, returned and then refused to leave, prompting the officer to handcuff Jackson and remove him from the area.
The report says Jackson was told to sit on a golf cart but ran away when the officer wasn’t looking. Jackson was located a short time later and taken to jail.
Jackson was released Saturday on $1,000 bail. His next hearing in June 10.
Jackson played the 2016-17 season for the Kansas Jayhawks before he was selected as the fourth overall pick in the 2017 NBA draft.
Brock Robinson was sentenced Monday for second-degree murder, first-degree robbery and first-degree assault. He is the second of three men from Columbus, Kansas, sentenced in the fatal shooting of 21-year-old Taven Williams and the wounding of another man.
A sentencing hearing for 21-year-old Azaiah Forester is scheduled for June 10. The third defendant, 23-year-old Erik Jones, was sentenced in November to 15 years in prison.
Police say Williams was killed in January 2017 when he tried to stop the three men from robbing another man of a large amount of marijuana. The target of the robbery was wounded.
