Month: February 2015
Halstead Girls 42 Larned 34 — Larned Boys 55 Halstead 33
Obama: Scaling back college savings benefits wasn’t worth it
NEDRA PICKLER, Associated Press
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — President Barack Obama says he dropped a plan to scale back tax benefits for college savings accounts because it wasn’t worth it.
He says he looked at reducing the tax savings because the accounts tended to be used by “folks a little more on the high end.” He says lower-income taxpayers struggled to save enough to participate.
A grandmother attending an Obama town hall at Ivy Tech Community College in Indianapolis asked him if the accounts would change.
Obama says he has 529 accounts for his own daughters, Malia and Sasha.
He says after opposition arose, he concluded the change wouldn’t save enough money to keep pursuing.
The White House says the proposal would have raised about $1 billion over 10 years.
2 Kansas men hospitalized after car hits a trailer
MONTGOMERY COUNTY- Two Kansas men were injured in an accident just before 6:30 p.m. on Friday in Montgomery County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2009 Suzuki SX4 driven by John Warring, 53, Sedan, was southbound on U.S. 75 at the Oklahoma border and struck a 13 foot utility trailer pulled by a 2000 Dodge pickup.
The pickup was stopped in traffic waiting to make left turn and the trailer did not have lights.
A private vehicle transported Warring and a passenger Kirk Duckers, 40, Topeka, to Jane Phillips Medical Center in Bartlesville.
The pickup driver Fred Robert Hinkle, 71, Copan, OK., was not injured.
The KHP reported all were properly restrained at the time of the accident.
Senators call for investigation into Verizon ‘supercookies’
ANNE FLAHERTY, Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic senators are calling on federal regulators to investigate Verizon Wireless, the country’s biggest mobile provider, for secretly inserting unique tracking codes into the Web traffic of its estimated 100 million customers.
Data privacy experts have accused Verizon of violating consumer privacy by using these “supercookies,” an identifying string of letters and numbers that become attached to each site visited on a person’s mobile device. Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, the top Democrat on the Senate Commerce Committee, said he wants to know whether the company violated any laws and whether legislation is needed.
Verizon Wireless spokeswoman Debra Lewis said the company takes customer privacy seriously and will respond to Nelson’s letter. The company had announced last week it would allow customers to opt out of the tracking program.
TurboTax stops processing state tax returns on fraud reports
NEW YORK (AP) — TurboTax says it has temporarily stopped processing state tax returns due to an increase in fraudulent fillings.
Intuit Inc., the company behind popular tax preparation software TurboTax, says state agencies have reported a rise in fillings that are using stolen personal information.
The company is working with security company Palantir to investigate the problem. So far, Intuit says there was no security breach of its systems. Instead, it believes personal information was taken elsewhere and used to file returns on TurboTax.
Intuit says state tax returns already filed since Thursday will be transmitted as soon as possible. Users can still submit their federal income tax returns.
Radio Shack announces store closings
NEW YORK (AP) — Struggling electronics retailer RadioShack has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection and says it will sell up to 2,400 stores
Those closings include the store in Great Bend, five locations in Wichita, one in Newton, Hutchinson, Emporia, Pittsburg and seven in the Kansas City area.
Click HERE for a look at the complete list of stores being closed
Phil Miller
Dateline: Great Bend, Kansas
Phil Miller, 67, went to his forever home to be with his Lord on February 5, 2015. He was born August 16, 1947, in Great Bend, the son of Carlos M. and Mary E. (Downey) Miller. He graduated in 1965 from Great Bend High School and attended Fort Hays State University. Phil served in the U.S. Army Reserves and then headed west to southern California where he settled in the beach area. He met and married Karon Converse and they later divorced. He worked as a realtor, but when the real estate market started failing, he moved to the Palm Springs area. There he made a career of selling insurance, co-owning an insurance agency, and owning and managing rental properties. He met and married Maribeth Vandervort in 1988.
In 1995, they moved to Great Bend where he became co-owner and operator of Miller Printers with his father. Phil was a member of Grace Community Church where he served on the finance committee, a member of the Great Bend Kiwanis serving on its board, and a member of American Legion Argonne Post 180. After returning to Great Bend, he became reacquainted with his fellow classmates from the class of 1965 and served on the reunion committee. He was a man who could figure out most anything mechanical or technical, always preferring to fix it himself if he could. Phil and Maribeth loved to travel, having visited many American states, with a highlight of his life being a trip to Israel. His favorite pastime was riding his bicycle along the beaches of California.
Phil is survived by his wife, his father Carlos Miller, two daughters, Angie England of Holt, Mich. and Alicia Courtright and husband Steve of Leslie, Mich., three sisters, Jill Pletcher and husband Tom of Wichita, Lisa Edgett and husband Ken of Great Bend, and Lorrie Kromka and husband Shane of Denver, Colo., three grandchildren, Cody, Sara and Samantha, extended family and in-laws. He was preceded in death by his mother and his brother Douglas Miller.
Memorial service will be at 2:00 p.m., Tuesday, February 10, 2015 at Grace Community Church, Great Bend, with Pastor Jay Beuoy officiating. Cremation has taken place. Friends may sign the register book from 9:00 a.m. to 9:00 p.m., with the family receiving friends from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m., Monday, February 9, 2015 at Bryant Funeral Home. Memorials are requested to Grace Community Church Missions or Golden Belt Humane Society, in care of Bryant Funeral Home. Condolences may be sent and notice viewed at www.bryantfh.net
Kansas bill would make it easier for cities to take abandoned property
By Kelsie Jennings
KU Statehouse Wire Service
TOPEKA — Abandoned houses are causing problems for their communities, some city officials and legislators say. A Senate committee is working on a bill that would redefine what counts as abandoned and would make it easier for these properties to be re-homed.
Kansas law states that “abandoned property” is any residential real estate that has had delinquent taxes for two years and has been continuously unoccupied by its owners for 90 days. Senate Bill 84 would change this definition to residential real estate being unoccupied for 180 days and that has a “blighting influence on surrounding properties.”
According to proponents who testified for the bill on Thursday before the Senate Commerce Committee, abandoned properties are more than just an eyesore; they cause problems for law enforcement, neighbors and the cities by becoming potential fire hazards, targets for criminal activity, places for squatters to stay, as well as bringing down the value of surrounding homes.
Sen. Mitch Holmes (R-St.John) outlined these problems by saying when a property becomes abandoned, the city is responsible for up keep of the lawn to stay within city code. Law enforcement can’t arrest the trespassers because “no trespassing” signs haven’t been put up by the legal owners, and neighbors might feel unsafe if squatters take over the property.
Whitney Damron, an attorney representing the City of Topeka, added to Holmes’ testimony by making similar points on how a property becomes abandoned and the problems it creates.
“The tools are not in existence to deal with those kinds of situations,” Damron said.
Damron said that proponents are asking legislators to give the cities or non-profit organizations the “tools” to clean up these abandoned properties and re-home them so that they don’t sit there and go to waste. He said it is difficult to deal with these situations because the owners may be deceased, heirs are unresponsive and live far away, or the property might be under the control of the bank and can’t be foreclosed.
“So often we get no response. No response from the bank, no response from the in-state or out-of-state property owners,” Damron said.
Sen. Jeff Longbine (R-Emporia) expressed concern over the problem of abandoned property in his hometown of Emporia and said that the committee needs to take some time going over this bill.
“This is an important issue and has been an important issue for a long time,” Longbine said. “Hopefully we can find a way to do something to relieve the cities and the counties and problems that they’ve got.”
The committee will leave the bill open and continue the hearing on Monday.
Kelsie Jennings is a University of Kansas senior from Olathe, Kan., studying journalism.
Sandra L. Gray
LARNED — Sandra L. Gray, 67, died on February 4, 2015, at Hays Medical Center after a long illness. She was born to Roberta (Wills) and Roger Allen in Olympia, Washington, on March 21, 1947. Throughout most of her adult life, she was a social worker, employed by Kansas SRS, Larned State Hospital, and similar facilities in Washington State. She graduated from Olympia High School in 1965 and then attended Hutchinson Junior College and Fort Hays Kansas State College, earning her Bachelor’s Degree in History in 1969. In 1980, she graduated from the University of Kansas in Lawrence with a Master’s Degree in Social Work. She retired from the Larned State Hospital staff in 2013. Since September of 2014, she had been a resident of DiversaCare in Larned.
In 1970, she married Mike Westerman in Hays. They were separated in 1989 and divorced in 1993. In Washington, she married Dr. Carroll Gray in 1993; he died in 2000. She was preceded in death by her parents; she is survived by her daughter Stephanie (Westerman) Helms (and fiancé Chris Cooley of Larned); two grandchildren: Cassie Williams (and fiancé Tony Chesney) of Larned and Michael Tiede of Manhattan; and one great-granddaughter, Annabelle Chesney. Other survivors include sisters Linda Ogden of Tumwater, Washington, Donna (and husband Kurt) Salvatori of Burren, Washington, and Barbara (and husband Billy) Pruett of Olympia (WA).
Sandra is remembered for her love of reading, English comedies on PBS, jewelry, and her two dogs, Mack and Katie.
Memorial Service will be 1:30 p.m. Monday at the Beckwith Mortuary Chapel with Rev. Bethann Black presiding. Friends may sign the register 9:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. Saturday and 1:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. Sunday with family present from 2:00 – 3:00 p.m. Sunday at the Mortuary. Cremation has taken place.
Memorials are suggested to the Pawnee County Humane Society in care of the Beckwith Mortuary, P.O. Box 477, Larned, KS 67550. Personal condolences may be left at www.beckwithmortuary.com.