WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected challenges to assault weapons bans in Connecticut and New York, in the aftermath of the shooting attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 50 people dead.
The justices on Monday left in place a lower court ruling that upheld laws that were passed in response to another mass shooting involving a semi-automatic weapon, the elementary school attack in Newtown, Connecticut.
The Supreme Court has repeatedly turned away challenges to gun restrictions since two landmark decisions that spelled out the right to a handgun to defend one’s own home.
HUTCHINSON -A Kansas woman entered a guilty plea to intentional second-degree murder on Friday in the strangulation death of 38-year-old Mary Ann Arnett in June of last year.
Jamie Hatfield, 27, Hutchinson, enter the plea to the single count while all other charges were dismissed by the District Attorney.
Arnett’s body was found in a dry creek bed near Nickerson.
An autopsy showed she had been strangled by a cell phone cord and extension cord.
Prosecutors say Hatfield and Jonathan Perser-Wilson were involved in Arnett’s death.
PerserWilson was shot and killed by police during a confrontation the day after Arnett’s body was found.
Arnett and Hatfield had previously dated but when Arnett’s body was found, Hatfield was in a relationship with Wilson.
ABILENE -Authorities are searching for a missing Abilene woman.
Joanna Cramer37, was last seen in Abilene on May, according to family and friends.
It is believed that she may still be in Abilene or the Salina area. Her purse was located in Salina and turned into the Salina Police Department shortly after her disappearance.
Cramer is 5’5″ tall and weighs 150 lbs. She has shoulder length brown hair with blonde highlights and brown eyes. She may be missing a front tooth. She has a tattoo of a Chinese symbol on the back of her neck and a tattoo of a tribal cross on her upper right shoulder. She is known to wear several pieces of jewelry, including necklaces and bracelets, on a regular basis.
Anyone with information regarding Joanna Cramer’s disappearance is asked to call the Salina Police Department at 785-826-7210 or the Dickinson County Sheriff’s Department at 785-263-4041.
Photo by courtesy Pat Hook Pat Hook, a retired nurse who lives in Mayfield, says she can’t afford all of her diabetes medications even though she has Medicare coverage. Hook was among about a thousand Kansans who participated in a survey last year about their perceptions of health care.
By BRYAN THOMPSON
Harvard University, NPR and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation partnered to survey Americans last year about their perceptions of health care.
Kansas was one of seven states — Florida, New Jersey, Ohio, Oregon, Texas and Wisconsin were the others — singled out for a closer look. And the thing that stood out about Kansans was the degree of concern they expressed about the cost of health care.
As a retired nurse, Pat Hook knows all too well the potentially catastrophic consequences of not following her diabetic treatment plan to the letter.
“I got a good lecture from my doctor the last time I went,” said Hook, who was one of about a thousand Kansans who answered the telephone survey. “Told me that if I didn’t get on my insulin and stay on it, that my kidneys were gonna fail, I was gonna go blind — everything I already knew. But that doesn’t change anything.”
Hook, who lives in the tiny town of Mayfield, 40 miles southwest of Wichita, said she has no choice but to triage her own care. Even though she’s covered by Medicare, she can’t afford the insulin and other drugs she needs to control her diabetes.
“Last month I went to get my medicine, and it was $708, and I couldn’t get it,” Hook said. “That’s just my copay, because I’m in the doughnut hole. I couldn’t have afforded that if I was working.” The “doughnut hole”
Hook referred to is a gap in Medicare’s prescription drug coverage. Once a person’s drug costs reach a certain level, their coverage is reduced until their drug spending hits an upper threshold. The Affordable Care Act — also called Obamacare — includes provisions to close the “doughnut hole” over time, but in the meantime people like Hook struggle to balance their finances and their health. “
I stretch my insulin a lot. I may take one shot a day versus four,” she said “Pills, I skip ’em to once every three days.”
The scrimping isn’t limited to medication. Hook said she buys only the most basic groceries: milk, bread, cheese, potatoes. To save on gas, she and her husband limit their trips to Wellington, the county seat 10 miles away. They haven’t taken a trip or vacation since she retired five years ago.
And still, they’ve spent all of their savings. “Between taxes and health care, medication … yeah, it’s gone,” Hook said.
Harvard’s Robert Blendon, who led the polling effort, said Kansans were more likely than the national sample — and those in the other six states singled out in the poll — to report serious financial difficulties caused by health care costs.
“They think they’re going up,” he said. “They’re more concerned about the future. They’re worried about their insurance premiums. They’re more likely to say their own health care costs are unreasonable.”
So are health care costs really a bigger problem in Kansas than elsewhere? Paul Hughes-Cromwick, co-director of the Center for Sustainable Health Spending at the nonprofit Altarum Institute, said a lack of timely state-level information makes valid comparisons difficult.
“The last time the government updated the state-level spending data was 2009, and they’re about to issue it again, but not until next year,” he said. Hughes-Cromwick said overall health care spending growth has seen a historic slowdown during the last few years.
He thinks what’s really hurting Kansans is that their incomes are growing at an even slower pace, and insurance changes are requiring consumers to shoulder more of the cost for health care.
“Health care costs have been rising faster than our incomes for about as long as I’ve been alive — and I’m not a young guy,” Hughes-Cromwick said. “Now we’re in an era where copays, deductibles, out-of-pocket cost sharing is increasing.”
Those out-of-pocket costs often are related to prescription drugs, according to Cynthia Cox, an associate director with the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.
“When we poll people and ask them what their top health care concerns or priorities are, prescription drug costs always have been coming to the top,” she said. From 2013 to 2014, the average out-of-pocket cost for hospital stays dropped, she said. “That’s in large part because of the Affordable Care Act expanding coverage to more people,” Cox said.
“But at the same time, out-of-pocket costs for prescription drugs actually increased from 2013 to 2014.”
And that’s an issue for aging Americans like Hook who have chronic conditions such as diabetes, heart disease or stroke. Troy Ross, who heads the Overland Park-based Mid-America Coalition on Health Care, said the drugs needed to treat those conditions play a key role in escalating health care costs.
“Year in and year out, if you look at the drivers of health care costs, almost exclusively you’re going to see what is the ongoing progression of chronic disease across our state that is driving health care costs,” he said. “All too often that bubbles up and surfaces in the form of folks having to go to hospitals … going to more urgent care centers and ERs.”
Ross said that as employers continue to shift more health insurance costs to their workers, employees may try to save money by cutting back on their use of health care services.
“Folks will simply stop going to see their primary doctor for a preventive health visit,” he said, and that may lead to larger health costs down the line.
Ross wants to see the health care system shift from paying on the basis of the number and type of services delivered to the value of those services in maintaining a patient’s long-term health.
Helping people better manage their chronic diseases — or even prevent them altogether through healthier lifestyles — is the ultimate answer to rising health care costs, he said.
Bryan Thompson is a reporter for KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.
Geary USD 475 and Saint Xavier School third-grade students participated in Agriculture Day at the 4-H Center in Junction City on Friday.
Students learned about growing food products, where wheat comes from and livestock.
Ten year old Destiny Neal of Ware Elementary School liked learning about chickens. “I learned that chickens aren’t scary because when you get to know them they’re really not scary at all.”
Nine year old Dndrea Griffin of Ware Elementary School stated that they learned most of what they have comes from farmers. And without farmers we wouldn’t have clothes, food and also we’ll have nothing to drink like milk. You can’t eat cereal without milk.” Griffin added they also learned that most of their food and clothing comes from trees and plants.
Approximately 800 third grade students participated in the activities.
One of the teachers was high school student Samantha Shefelton. “I told them that a baby goat is called a kid and a mama goat is called a doe, and a male goat is called a billy. Same thing with the sheep. A baby sheep is called a lamb, a mama sheep a ewe, and a male sheep is called a ram.” Other topics dealt with the uses of dairly gat milk including milk and cheese.
Extension Agent Ginger Kopfer said the event was an attempt to try and teach the students where their food comes from.
The Brigadier General John Andy Seitz Golf Scramble has been scheduled on Saturday, May 14 at the Custer Hill Golf Course at Fort Riley.
Registration begins at 8 a.m. with tee time at 9 a.m.
This golf scramble will include four-person teams with a maximum of 25 teams or 100 players. Walk-ins will be welcome.
The event is being sponsored by the American Cancer Society, Relay for Life of Geary County, KS and will be called “Scramblin’ for Life.” The cost is $7
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court has rejected challenges to assault weapons bans in Connecticut and New York, in the aftermath of the shooting attack on a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that left 50 people dead.
