KANSAS CITY – A Kansas City man was sentenced in federal court this week for possessing a stolen firearm, according to Tom Larson, Acting United States Attorney for the Western District of Missouri.
Timothy R. Day, 49, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Gary A. Fenner to seven years and two months in federal prison without parole.
On Dec. 21, 2016, Day pleaded guilty to possessing a stolen firearm.
On July 30, 2014, Kansas City police officers received information that Day had been driving around and waiving a gun on a daily basis, stating he was going to kill a woman named Sheila.
Day was located in a local motel room with a woman who had registered the room in her name. Officers established a perimeter around the room and contacted Day and the woman. After some negotiation, the woman exited the room.
Day told officers that he had a gun on the bed. After several more minutes of negotiation, Day came out of the room and was arrested. Inside the room, officers found a loaded Hafdasa .45-caliber pistol, which Day admitted he stole from his father a few weeks earlier.
While in federal custody awaiting sentencing, Day mailed a threatening letter to his ex-wife, in which he threatened to sexually assault her upon his release from prison. As a result, the court found Day in breach of his plea agreement because he continued to engage in criminal conduct after his guilty plea. The court today granted the government’s request for a sentence above the advisory sentencing guidelines range.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court is entering its final week of work before a long summer hiatus. Action is expected on the Trump administration’s travel ban and a decision is due in a separation of church and state case that arises from a Missouri church playground.
The biggest news of all, though, would be if Justice Anthony Kennedy were to use the court’s last public session on Monday to announce his retirement.
Kennedy has given no public sign that he will retire now and give President Donald Trump his second high court pick. Kennedy’s departure would allow conservatives to take firm control of the court.
But Kennedy turns 81 next month and several former law clerks have said they think he’s contemplating stepping down in the next year or so.
“This is not the best possible bill, it’s the best bill possible under very difficult circumstances. So, you don’t have any other alternative, I don’t think,” Roberts told reporters minutes after leaving a Thursday morning meeting where the bill, which was drafted in relative secrecy, was explained to Republican senators.
From Senator Roberts’ web site- click to EXPAND
Roberts said even though he has concerns about the bill, “we have to move the process forward.”
“What’s the other alternative? I don’t see anything from the other side except single-payer, and that’s socialized medicine,” he said.
A bipartisan plan to fix the problems that are destabilizing the Affordable Care Act marketplace would be a better option, said David Jordan, director of the Alliance for a Healthy Kansas, a health care advocacy group formed by several Kansas health foundations.
“This bill is bad for Kansas,” Jordan said.
Fewer Kansans will qualify for help purchasing private insurance, he said, and those still able to purchase coverage in the subsidized marketplace will see higher out-of-pocket costs.
That’s because the bill would change how the federal tax credits are set. Under the Affordable Care Act, the credits are based on the cost of the second-lowest cost “silver” marketplace plan, which is supposed to cover about 70 percent of a household’s medical costs. The benchmark plan under the Senate bill would cover about 58 percent of a typical household’s medical costs.
The proposed change would leave people with two basic options: buy the lower-value plan to avoid paying a larger share of their premiums, or pay more in premiums to keep a higher-value plan and avoid higher deductibles.
Bob St. Peter, president and CEO of the Kansas Health Institute, said healthy individuals might benefit from pegging the subsidies to an insurance plan with lower premiums. Pushing customers toward plans with richer benefits may have priced some out of the market, he said.
“For the few people that need a high level of care, they’re going to have problems,” he said. “It sort of is, do you want fewer people with a very high level of coverage, or do you want more people with low-level coverage?”
KanCare concerns
Jordan said the approximately 440,000 Kansans enrolled in KanCare, the state’s privatized Medicaid program, should be the most concerned. He noted that the Senate bill calls for cuts deeper than the $880 billion over 10 years proposed in the House version.
“The people who are going to bear the brunt of the cuts in services are children, people with disabilities and seniors in nursing homes and rural health care providers,” Jordan said.
Jordan questioned how Roberts could support a bill that so closely resembles a measure passed in May by the U.S. House that both he and Kansas’ other senator, Republican Jerry Moran, criticized.
“The Senate didn’t even try to put lipstick on the pig, they made the House bill worse,” Jordan said. “It’s going to be tough for Senator Roberts and Senator Moran to square how they can support a bill that makes deeper cuts to Medicaid than the House bill and puts rural hospitals at even greater risk.”
The Senate bill would end federal funding for Medicaid expansion but more slowly than proposed in the House measure. It would prohibit Kansas and other states still considering expansion from moving forward.
Kansas disability advocates joined counterparts from across the country in denouncing the Senate bill, charging that cuts in Medicaid would force states to reduce support services that help people with physical and developmental disabilities remain in their communities.
“To say that people will die under this law is not an exaggeration,” said Mike Oxford, a Kansas disability rights advocate. “Home and community-based services are what allow us to do our jobs, live our lives and raise our families.”
At a rowdy Lenexa town hall meeting earlier this month, Moran said he wasn’t happy with the secretive process used to craft the health care bill but said he wanted to study it before taking a position.
“I want to see what the health care bill is. I wish it was being addressed in a different way than it is, but let’s see what the outcome is,” Moran said.
He issued a statement Thursday afternoon that said he was “awaiting the Congressional Budget Office score to gain a complete understanding of the impacts and consequences this bill would have on hardworking Kansans. If this bill isn’t good for Kansas, it isn’t good for me.”
Medicaid spending changes
The Senate bill gives states the option of receiving a per-person amount for Medicaid participants or a block grant, St. Peter said. Either option would limit the federal government’s contribution, pushing the states to either cut their Medicaid spending or pay a larger portion themselves, he said.
“It clearly puts the states at a greater risk of cost overruns,” St. Peter said.
Political watchers can expect a battle in the Senate about how to structure a proposed block grant, St. Peter said. Certain structures could penalize states like Kansas that have kept their Medicaid costs lower, he said.
Currently, the federal government pays a set percentage of Medicaid costs that increases as spending grows. If the bill passes, it would increase spending based not on states’ actual costs but on a measure of inflation — the consumer price index.
According to Bureau of Labor Statistics, the medical portion of the consumer price index includes prescription drugs, medical supplies, physicians’ services, eye care and hospital services. That measure showed the cost of medical care growingbetween 2.4 percent and 4.4 percent annually since 2007.
In Kansas, spending on Medicaid grew by an average of 4.5 percent per year from 2007 to 2010, and 3.2 percent per year from 2010 to 2014. If the federal Medicaid spending growth rate had been tied to the consumer price index during that time, Kansas would have had to reduce its spending or increase its contribution in multiple years.
Jim McLean and Meg Wingerter are reporters for the Kansas News Service, a collaboration of kcur.org, Kansas Public Radio and KMUW covering health, education and politics.
PATTAWATOMIE COUNTY – A Kansas man died in an accident just before 7pm Saturday in Pattawatomie County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1995 Polaris ATV driven by Alex D. Blow, 49, Havensville, was westbound on Havensville Road just west of Angus Road.
The ATV entered the south ditch and hit a power pole.
Blow was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to Chapel Oaks.
WASHINGTON (AP) — U.S. military chiefs plan to seek a six-month delay before allowing transgender people to enlist in the services.
Officials tell The Associated Press that service leaders hammered out an agreement that rejects Army and Air Force requests for a two-year wait.
The request for a delay is expected to go to Defense Secretary Jim Mattis for a final decision.
Transgender service members have been able to serve openly in the military since last year when the defense secretary at the time, Ash Carter, ended the ban.
Carter gave the services until July 1 to develop policies to allow people already identifying as transgender to newly join the military. The military chiefs have said they need time to study the issue and its impact.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The northeast Kansas town of Holton will be torn again next week as the second in a series of trials starts for a well-known local man accused of sexually assaulting several women.
The polarizing accusations against 22-year-old Jacob Ewing in this community of some 3,300 people have prompted his supporters to put up signs in their yards and to pack court proceedings wearing T-shirts emblazoned with messages of support and start a social media campaign.
An advocacy group for the women called “I Support the Victims of Jacob Ewing” is organizing volunteers to sit in the courtroom.
Ewing was acquitted in May of sexually assaulting a 13-year-old girl, but faces trials on rape
Image from the group’s Facebook page
accusations levied by five adult women.
The trial that begins Monday is on charges of rape and aggravated criminal sodomy involving two women.
CLARK COUNTY –Law enforcement authorities and railroad officials are investigating an incident that injured a Kansas man.
Just after 11:45 a.m. Saturday, Clark County 911 Dispatch received a call from Union Pacific Railroad advising that their train had struck a pedestrian on the railway on the north side of U.S. 54 East of Minneola between County Road 7 and County Road 8, according to a media release.
The injured pedestrian identified as Marcus Minor, 22, Minneola, was transported by Clark County Ems to the Minneola District Hospital for treatment.
He was later transferred due to serious injuries to Wesley Medical Center in Wichita for further treatment.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A southern Kansas man has pleaded not guilty to charges that he sexually attacked a mother of four before fatally setting her on fire.
KWCH-TV reports that an attorney for 28-year-old Cornell McNeal of Wichita entered the pleas Friday on McNeal’s behalf during a Sedgwick County arraignment.
He’s charged with capital murder in the November 2014 death of 36-year-old Letitia “Tish” Davis. She was found at Fairmount Park near Wichita State University by a neighbor who heard her screaming and discovered her on fire. Davis sustained burns on more than half of her body and died eight days later.
A judge on Wednesday found McNeal mentally competent to stand trial.
RENO COUNTY – Officials are working to determine the cause of a Friday evening house fire.
Just after 6 p.m. the Hutchinson Fire Department responded to 3118 North Hendricks Street for a report of a home on fire, according to a media release.
On arrival, first in units reported heavy fire and heavy smoke conditions on a single-story ranch home.
Crews battled heavy fire conditions that spread into the basement, first floor, and attic space from a rear wood patio deck on the house.
It took crews approximately 45 minutes to contain the fire, but not before it caused extensive damage to the home.
During the fire operations, one firefighter sustained non-life threating injuries from an interior ceiling collapse.
The firefighter was able to exit the structure under his own power after the collapse happened. A section of drywall fell from an interior ceiling of the home and landed on the firefighter knocking him down to the floor.
Reno County EMS evaluated the firefighter and was released at the scene.
“This is a reminder of how dangerous our profession can be. The fire had a head start prior to our arrival, and this made it difficult to contain to the area of origin,” according to Battalion Chief Jeremy Unruh.
No one was home at the time of the fire and the home is deemed uninhabitable.
RENO COUNTY –Law enforcement authorities in are investigating a fatal shooting and asking the public for help to locate a person-of-interest.
Just before 3:30 Saturday, officers of the Hutchinson Police Department were dispatched to the 100 block South Elm Street in reference to a shooting, according to a media release.
Officers located the victim Kenneth Thompson, 24, lying in the street with a gunshot wound.
Emergency crews transported him to the Hutchinson Regional Medical Center where he died.
Police say 19-year-old Leo Lamont Wells is a person of interest in the case.
Anyone with information is asked to Reno County Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS, the Hutchinson Police Department at 620-694-2816, or Detective Loepp at 620-694-2829. This case is still under investigation. Any further inquiries need to be made to the District Attorney’s Office.
