Much of the outlook area will remain dry today, but some scattered showers and isolated thunderstorms may advance into north central KS today into tonight. These precipitation chances will continue to spread eastward Sunday into Monday with widespread showers and thunderstorms expected. Additional scattered precipitation will be possible through Thursday, so expect most locations to receive some much-needed rain. In fact, many locations may receive upwards of 1 to 3 inches of rain by mid-week, with the higher amounts more likely across north central KS. High temperatures this weekend into next week will be in the mid 60s to mid 70s.

Tonight: Cloudy. Slight chance of rain showers in the evening… Then chance of rain showers and slight chance of thunderstorms after midnight. Lows in the upper 50s. Southeast winds 10 to 20 mph with gusts to around 30 mph. Chance of precipitation 30 percent.

Sunday: Numerous rain showers and scattered thunderstorms. Highs around 70. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts to around 25 mph. Chance of precipitation 70 percent.

Sunday Night: Rain showers and scattered thunderstorms. Lows in the mid 50s. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

Monday: Rain showers and scattered thunderstorms. Highs in the mid 60s. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph shifting to the southwest 5 to 10 mph in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation 80 percent.

Monday Night: Mostly cloudy with chance of rain showers and slight chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 40s. Chance of precipitation 40 percent.

Tuesday: Mostly sunny with chance of rain showers and slight chance of thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 60s. Chance of precipitation 30 percent.

Tuesday Night: Mostly cloudy with chance of rain showers and slight chance of thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 40s. Chance of precipitation 40 percent.

Wednesday: Partly sunny with a 50 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Highs around 70.

Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Lows around 50.

Thursday: Partly sunny with slight chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 70s.

Thursday Night: Partly cloudy. Lows in the upper 40s.

Friday: Sunny. Highs in the upper 70s.

Fort Riley will serve as a training site for approximately 23,000 National Guard and Reserve troops this year.

Junction City Mayor Mick McCallister said it’s an effort by Major General Wayne Grigsby Jr. to get more capability training out of Fort Riley. “While Fort Riley ( troops ) are deployed we have the greatest training area in the Army sitting vacant. So he’s trying to get these Reserve and National Guard units to come out here and train while Fort Riley is elsewhere.”

McCallister stated that has helped, and a lot of troops will visit the post to do their training. He said the training will be spread out through the entire year. “It’s kind of almost constant. There’ll be a group that comes in, they’ll train for their 10 to 14 days, and then there’ll be another group coming in behind them. So that schedule is kind of ongoing. It’s not like all 23,000 will be here at the same time, but it’s an increase of at least a battalion size company that comes out and trains, so it will be a bump in population throughout the summer.”

McCallister updated the Junction City Military Affairs Advisory Committee on this topic this past week.

The annual auction to raise funds for the Saint Xavier School is Saturday night at the Bradley Gym.

Admission is $40 which includes a buffet and open bar, and opportunity to bid in both silent and live auctions.

School Principal Shawn Augustine said the auction will run from 5-9 p.m. By late Thursday more than 300 seats had been reserved and the Gym was set up for about 360, so anyone walking in Saturday evening can pay and get a ticket. “What’s really awesome right now is the different things that you can see and bid on at the auction. The main things which always go very high for us are our class auction baskets, from chocolate lovers basket to camping baskets, movies, the family picnics, the K-State, Royals, all kinds of things.”

City Cycle Sales will donate an ATV, dinner with Father Gail, house painting by Ben Kitchens, and an autographed KU basketball from Kolhoff Pharmacy.

Augustine said it’s the biggest fundraiser for the Saint Xavier School each year.

Fort Riley Garrison Commander Colonel Andrew Cole paid a visit to the monthly Military Affairs Council meeting in Junction City this week.

He reported thatthe Second Brigade Combat Team will be returning to Fort Riley from the middle east in the near future. The First Brigade Combat Team will be training at the National Training Center at Fort Irwin, California and will then deploy to Korea.

There will be approximately 23,000 National Guard troops that will train at Fort Riley during the course of the year. They will in groups at regular intervals.

It was reported that Major General Wayne Grigsby Jr. has taken up the charge by local leaders to get people with influence to visit Fort Riley.During a recent command post exercise two generals and one retired general visited the post.

The City of Junction City CLEAN Team is celebrating Earth Day by hosting their 8^th annual “Operation Clean Sweep”.  Operation Clean Sweep is a city clean up scheduled for Saturday, April 23, 2016 from 8:00 am to noon.

Volunteers are needed for this event.

If at all possible, please help plan for the event by pre-registering.

Volunteers are asked to pre-register with:

Junction City Police Department

Captain Chuck Leithoff

210 East 9^th Street

Junction City, KS 66441

( 785 ) 762-5912 ext. 3608

Chuck.leithoff@jcks.com

Volunteers should report to Spin City at 915 South Washington Street at 8:00 am on April 23. Bring gloves and drinking water.  Lunch will be provided by the City of Junction City and Armour-Eckrich.

Over the last seven years, volunteers for Operation Clean Sweep have removed over 11.7 TONS of trash from Junction City!

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) – member of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, Senate Appropriations Defense Committee, and Co-Chair of both the Senate Defense Communities Caucus and Senate Aerospace Caucus – took action during this week’s mark-up of the Fiscal Year 2017 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill. The bill, which passed unanimously, will fund the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) for FY17, and prioritizes funds for various projects and programs carried out by the VA. The full committee supported Sen. Moran’s call for the VA to commit to studying toxic exposure and related health conditions affecting veterans and potentially their children and grandchildren.

“I’m pleased the committee approved critical bill and report language taking important steps to push the VA to resolve systemic problems and toward doing what is in the best interest of veterans, including addressing the impact of toxic exposure on our military members and their families,” Sen. Moran said. “Additionally, the full committee agreed to a two-year extension for Project ARCH to make certain veterans within the program have continuity in their health care.”

The committee unanimously approved Sen. Moran’s amendment to prohibit use of funds for the VA’s Appraised Value Offer (AVO) Program, which assists in relocations of Senior Executive Service (SES) employees and has been abused by several VA employees for personal gain. This language mirrors a prohibition included in the FY16 appropriations bill.

Numerous Sen. Moran priorities in the FY2017 Military Construction, Veterans Affairs and Related Agencies Appropriations Bill and accompanying report include:

• National Academy of Medicine Study on Toxic Exposure
  Requires the VA to enter into a contract with the National Academy of Medicine to conduct a study and assessment on the current research available regarding the health conditions related to exposure to toxic substances, and to provide recommendations for further research opportunities relating to toxic exposures and potential health conditions that result from those exposures.
• Access Received Closer to Home
  A two-year extension for Project ARCH until the VA can consolidate their community care programs into one program.
• Veteran Farming
  Urges the VA to coordinate with USDA and the Department of Defense to promote and provide educational or vocational training in agriculture related fields, behavioral health services on site through licensed providers and a pathway to employment in agriculture related fields.

• Choice Program
  Directs the VA to survey community healthcare providers in rural areas to assess the struggles the face in using the program
• Copayments for Opioid Antagonists and Education on the Use of Opioid Antagonists: Eliminates copayments for opioid healthcare resources and increase education on opioid use and rescue kit use.

• Rural Veterans Health
  Directs the VA to explain how the agency will improve recruitment and retention of healthcare practitioners in rural areas, especially in those who specialize in mental health access.

• Encouraging Public-Private Partnerships
  Encourages the VA to utilize public-private partnerships to fill gaps and solve problems, which are valuable to communities, save taxpayer money and create efficiencies that are otherwise caught in bureaucratic red tape.

• Burn Pits
  Encourages the VA to continue further research and medical trials into the treatment of health conditions resulting from burn pit exposure.
• Curing Hepatitis C Within the Veteran Population
  Directs the VA to continue providing treatment for Hepatitis C aggressively with the objective of treating and curing as many veterans as possible, as soon as possible. The VA requested billions for Hepatitis C medication for veterans and then rationed the medication to veterans in need.

FORT RILEY, Kan. (AP) — Officials at Kansas’ Fort Riley are publicly identifying a soldier chaplain they say died suddenly last week in Manhattan.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that the cause of 45-year-old Capt. Yohan Lee’s death April 9 remains undetermined.

Lee was a chaplain assigned to the Third Assault Helicopter Battalion, First Aviation Regiment, First Combat Aviation Brigade, First Infantry Division.

He arrived at Fort Riley in January 2014 from Virginia.

Col. John Cyrulik says Lee “gave so much of himself to the Soldiers and families of this brigade,” and that “Our hearts are heavy” because of his death.

Conditions will be warm and breezy today, and dry other than a few morning sprinkles in central Kansas. This will lead to very high fire danger this afternoon, especially for areas west of a Emporia to Topeka to Hiawatha line. Rain chances slowly increase from west to east this weekend through the first part of next week, with much of the area still seeing a good chance for accumulating rain during this period.

Tonight: Mostly cloudy. Lows in the upper 50s. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph. Gusts up to 30 mph in the evening.

Saturday: Mostly cloudy with slight chance of rain showers and isolated thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 70s. Southeast winds 10 to 20 mph with gusts to around 30 mph.

Saturday Night: Mostly cloudy with slight chance of rain showers and isolated thunderstorms. Lows in the mid 50s. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph. Gusts up to 25 mph in the evening.

Sunday: Cloudy with chance of rain showers and isolated thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 70s. Southeast winds 10 to 15 mph with gusts to around 25 mph. Chance of precipitation 50 percent.

Sunday Night: Rain showers likely and isolated thunderstorms. Lows in the mid 50s. Chance of precipitation 70 percent.

Monday: Rain showers and thunderstorms likely. Highs in the mid 60s. Chance of precipitation 70 percent.

Monday Night: Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 40s.

Tuesday: Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 60s.

Tuesday Night: Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 40s.

Wednesday: Mostly cloudy with a 50 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the upper 60s.

Wednesday Night: Mostly cloudy with a 40 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Lows in the upper 40s.

Thursday: Partly sunny with a 40 percent chance of rain showers and thunderstorms. Highs in the lower 70s.