ANTHONY, Kan. (AP) — Harper County officials say frequent earthquakes are adding to the cost of repairing the century-old county courthouse, which was already deteriorating because of age.

The Hutchinson News reports the county was considering spending $400,000 to fix cracks in the courthouse’s staircases. Then a sharp increase in earthquakes began hitting south-central Kansas, causing more damage. The latest estimate is that it will cost $1.1 million just to fix the staircases. Other damage includes cracks in interior walls of the courthouse.

County commissioners say photos show the quakes have worsened the damage in the courthouse.

The Kansas Geological Survey has recorded more than 200 earthquakes in Kansas since Jan. 1, 2013, with most in south-central area. There had been five earthquakes detected in the state in the previous 10 years.

MANHATTAN – KSU Athletic Director John Currie issued a statement on Tuesday apologizing to KU officials for students storming the court following the Sunflower Showdown basketball game.

In a media release Currie said : On behalf of President Schulz and K-State Athletics, I apologize to Athletics Director Sheahon Zenger,
Coach Bill Self and the KU basketball team for the unfortunate situation in which they were placed last night at the conclusion of our basketball game.
Our security staff, which in similar past postgame celebrations has, according to our procedures and rehearsals, provided a solid human barrier to allow the teams to conduct a postgame handshake and safely leave the court, was unable to get into proper position quickly enough last night and was overwhelmed by the fans rushing the floor.

K-State prides itself on providing a great game atmosphere in a safe environment and did successfully execute our security plan when we defeated KU last year in Bramlage as well as in 2011. Although no one was hurt last night, we fell short of our expectations for securing the court and escorting KU to its locker room without incident. We are disappointed that we did not do better for the KU team.

We are reviewing our procedures internally and consulting with our law enforcement partners to determine any steps necessary to improve our gameday security.

Additionally, we are actively reviewing video and working in concert with law enforcement to identify any fan who intentionally touched visiting players or personnel. We will take appropriate action with such identified persons, including turning over all evidence to law enforcement so that any applicable charges can be filed.

Early this morning I met with Student Governing Association President Reagan Kays and Vice-President for Student Life Pat Bosco who are supportive of these steps. While we are proud of the incredible atmosphere of Bramlage Coliseum and the passion of K-State students and fans, we are saddened by the insistence of some fans to sully the image of our great institution with audible profane chants. We will continue to work with our student leadership to provide a better example of sportsmanship for our audiences.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court says Nebraska should pay $3.7 million in damages to Kansas in a long-running legal dispute over use of water from the Republican River.

The justices on Tuesday also agreed with the recommendations of a special master who found that Nebraska should pay $1.8 million on top of actual damages for using more than its legal share of the river’s water in 2005 and 2006.

The dispute centers on a 1943 compact allocating 49 percent of the river’s water to Nebraska, 40 percent to Kansas and 11 percent to Colorado.

Since 1999, Kansas has complained that Nebraska uses more than its fair share of water from the river, which originates in Colorado and runs mostly through Nebraska before ending in Kansas.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The attorney for a Kansas airman says a ruling by the nation’s highest military court that reversed his client’s conviction for exposing multiple sex partners to HIV will effectively end such prosecutions in the armed forces.

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Armed Forces on Monday unanimously ruled that prosecutors failed to prove that any of David Gutierrez’s acts at swinger parties in Wichita were likely to transmit HIV to his partners.

Defense attorney Kevin McDermott says the ruling overturns a 25-year precedent that allowed military personnel to be convicted of aggravated assault solely on the basis of a positive HIV test.

However, the court upheld Gutierrez’s lesser conviction of assault by battery for offensive touching to which partners did not provide meaningful informed consent.

By ANDY MARSO
Public health advocates are cheering proposed changes to the state tax code that would encourage healthy behaviors. But Gov. Sam Brownback and the legislators who pitched them face challenges in getting them passed.

As part of a larger effort to fill a gaping budget hole, Brownback called for increasing taxes on tobacco and alcohol. The tobacco tax in particular has gathered support from the state’s health community.

But the pushback from industry and business groups — including convenience and retail liquor stores — has been swift, and legislative leaders who campaigned on their conservative credentials have objected to the tax increases.

Meanwhile, two legislators have introduced a bill to exempt fresh fruit and vegetables from the state sales tax, but that proposal is likely to run into the opposite problem: The state desperately needs the tax money.

“We’re not under any illusions it will be easy,” said Sen. Michael O’Donnell, a Republican from Wichita.

O’Donnell introduced the produce tax exemption with Sen. Oletha Faust-Goudeau, a Democrat from Wichita, as a beacon of bipartisanship. He said the timing might be right in that the budget crisis will force legislators to delve into the state tax code and crack the door for his bill.

It’s projected to cost the state about $43 million in tax revenue each year, but Faust-Goudeau said in the long term it actually could save the state more in health care costs if it encourages Kansans to eat healthier.

Weight problems are a significant factor in the state’s health care costs.

A report released last year by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment found that as of 2011, 64.4 percent of Kansas adults were overweight, including almost 30 percent classified as obese.

In 2000, only about 21 percent of Kansas adults were obese.

A survey released in 2010 by the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention found that less than 25 percent of Kansans reported eating the recommended five combined servings of fruits and vegetables per day.

Healthy encouragement?

Lawrence Gostin, a Georgetown University professor who has studied how changes to the tax code can encourage or deter healthy behaviors, said he had not heard of any other state exempting only fruits and vegetables from its sales tax. But Gostin said he thinks it’s “an excellent idea.”

“Why should states tax healthy behavior, such as eating fruits and vegetables?” he asked. “Government encourages the population to eat healthily, so it shouldn’t tax individuals who comply with these health recommendations.”

Most states exempt all groceries from sales tax. Kansas is one of 14 states that include groceries in their sales tax and, at 6.15 percent, the Kansas tax on food is second highest in the nation, trailing only Mississippi at 7 percent.

Add in sales taxes levied by local governments, and Kansans in many cities and counties pay almost $10 in tax on every $100 grocery bill.

The last time the Kansas Legislature examined the sales tax on food, in 2013, a plan to lower taxes on all groceries to 4.95 percent passed the Senate but faltered in the House.

Sen. Jeff Melcher, a Republican from Leawood, eventually voted for the tax reduction but expressed some concern that it would exacerbate the obesity problem by encouraging people to buy and eat more food.

Gostin said there’s no evidence that’s the case in states with no grocery sales tax.

“But if government subsidizes unhealthy foods such as through corn subsidies, it makes unhealthy foods more affordable and attractive,” he said.

Gostin said that might be one shortcoming of the proposed fruits and vegetables tax exemption: If processed foods remain cheaper even with sales tax included, then the exemption primarily will benefit middle- and upper-class Kansans who already buy more fruits and vegetables.

Increasing the tobacco tax is more likely to benefit overall public health, he said.

Gostin called tobacco taxes “the single most important strategy for reducing smoking, especially among young people.”

He said there is “something psychological” about a tax increase that makes it even more effective in deterring behavior than a tax exemption is at encouraging that behavior.

Bipartisan opposition to tobacco tax

Lobbying groups representing the state’s doctors, dentists and hospitals all lined up to support Brownback’s proposed tobacco tax in a hearing last week. So did Roy Jensen, the director of the University of Kansas Cancer Center, and public health groups like the American Lung Association and the Kansas Health Foundation.

Jeffrey Willett, the foundation’s vice president for programs, said the proposed $1.50 per pack cigarette tax increase is projected to reduce youth smoking in Kansas by 20 percent and encourage about 25,000 Kansas adults to quit.

That would make a dent in the state’s estimated $1 billion a year in tobacco-related health care costs, Willett said, and keep Kansas from sliding further in its efforts to curb smoking.

“In 1991, Kansas had the eighth-lowest adult smoking rate in the nation,” Willett said. “Today, we have dropped all the way to 31st. We believe Kansas can do better.”

Business interests led by the powerful Kansas Chamber of Commerce lined up in opposition to the bill, saying it would only increase cigarette smuggling and black market sales or drive cigarette buyers across the state line to places like Missouri, which has one of the nation’s lowest tobacco taxes.

The Kansas Chamber, in written testimony from CEO Mike O’Neal, declined to address the possible public health benefits.

“Taxing cigarettes and alcohol may be a way to socially engineer behavior, but that is not the expressed intent of this bill,” O’Neal said. “A $107 million price tag has been affixed to this proposal to help plug a hole in the a budget that can be plugged with reductions in spending.”

In the end, there may be bipartisan support for killing the proposed cigarette tax increase.

Republican leaders who, like O’Neal, prefer spending cuts as a budget fix already have voiced opposition. And Democrats who have railed against the income tax cuts that preceded the budget crisis have said they’re loath to use tobacco taxes to fill the hole because they fall disproportionately on poor Kansans — a shortcoming Gostin outlined in a paper published in the journal Promoting Health: Intervention Strategies from Social and Behavioral Research.

Gostin wrote that the cigarette tax, while effective in promoting public health, is “burdensome” on smokers with lower incomes.

“It may compel individuals to pay a ‘health tax’ on a behavior that is addictive and, to a certain extent, beyond the person’s control,” he wrote. “More importantly, the tax is highly regressive because most adults who smoke are in lower socioeconomic classes.”

Editor’s Note: The Kansas Health Foundation is the primary funder of the Kansas Health Institute, which is the parent organization of the editorially independent KHI News Service.

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

PITTSBURG, Kan. (AP) — Pittsburg State University will unveil a donated Andy Warhol artwork this week that will be on display at the university’s new arts center.

A ceremony to unveil the donation from Robert and Gwendolyn Tyler will be held Wednesday morning in the Bicknell Family Center for the Arts.

Rhona McBain, chairwoman of Pittsburg State’s art department, said in a statement Monday that the Warhol piece will be inspiration to those who perform and visit the new arts center.

Robert Tyler, president of Winfield Consumer Products, is a 1975 graduate of Pittsburg State. The Joplin Globe reports the Robert and Gwendolyn Tyler Charitable Foundation has provided funding for the Tyler Research Center and established the Dr. George Graham Plastics Engineering Technology Scholarship.