Sex slaves document; 'appalling' overtime; using humor to find suspects

SIOUX CITY, Iowa (AP) — Joe Karpuk starts his workday at 9 a.m. each morning and clocks out by 3 p.m. This has been his routine for nearly 66 years, and he doesn't show signs of stopping anytime soon.

Just a few weeks shy of his 94th birthday he continues to call the shots at Baber's Vis-Vita Sales in Sioux City.

"If it wasn't for work, I wouldn't know what to do with myself," he told the Sioux City Journal (http://bit.ly/1ntjbSQ ).

He still holds the first check he received from the company at his desk. Written in 1950, the check paid him a total of $53.58. He is still considered the boss around the company that his family has run for over 30 years, specializing in vitamin concentrate for livestock and poultry.

His son and general manager Fred Karpuk admits his dad is still the boss who keeps an eye on everything.

"Nothing gets by Dad," he said. "He's as sharp as they come."

Joe Karpuk was born the youngest of five children to Polish immigrants from Russia. His parents worked in a meatpacking plant in Sioux City and he said they were the ones who taught him the importance of family and hard work.

During his teenage years, he remembers shining Babe Ruth's shoes when he worked as a clubhouse boy for the Sioux City Cowboys minor league baseball team. He also served about three years in the U.S. Army during World War II.

He said he stays busy keeping track of 28 grandchildren and a growing number of great-grandchildren. If that's not exhausting enough, he frequently attends family sporting events, sings in a church choir, and writes parody lyrics to his favorite songs.

"Too many (senior citizens) stay at home and have nothing to do," he said, shaking his head. "I could never do that. I need to stay active and go to work."

___

Information from: Sioux City Journal, http://www.siouxcityjournal.com

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — The St. Paul Police Department has put an officer on leave while it investigates allegations that he made a post on Facebook urging drivers to run over protesters who rallied Monday against the police killings of two black men in the Twin Cities last year.

The social media message said, "Run them over," and told people how to avoid being charged with a crime if they struck someone during the Martin Luther King Day march and rally on a bridge linking St. Paul and Minneapolis, the St. Paul Pioneer Press reported (http://bit.ly/1n6WByS ).

Mayor Chris Coleman issued a statement saying he was "outraged and disgusted" and had directed officials to investigate.

"There is no room in the St. Paul Police Department for employees who threaten members of the public. If the allegation is true, we will take the strongest possible action allowed under law," Coleman said.

The Pioneer Press posted a preview story about the protest on its Facebook page Friday night. The suspended officer allegedly posted a comment in reply, under a different name, that said: "Run them over. Keep traffic flowing and don't slow down for any of these idiots who try and block the street." The post gave advice for avoiding charges and said anyone hit who sued would probably lose a jury trial.

Andrew Henderson, who runs the Minnesota Cop Block Facebook page, which focuses on police accountability, spotted the comment early Saturday and immediately reported it to police. He then filed an internal affairs complaint Sunday and turned over the evidence he believed showed that post really came from the officer.

The head of the internal affairs unit, Senior Cmdr. Shari Gray, said the department treated the post with "grave concern" because of the scheduled protest.

"If we needed to change tactics or operational security on the event, we needed to do it," Gray said. "And then, two, make sure that if indeed this was one of our officers, that it's addressed quickly."

By BLYTHE BERNHARD

St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS (AP) — One in four children in the U.S. who need lung transplants is on the waiting list at St. Louis Children's Hospital, one of the few hospitals that perform the surgeries. Their waiting time is expected to get shorter after new rules go into effect this year that will expand the geographic range in which donor lungs can be shared.

The rule change is a response to the case of a dying 10-year-old Philadelphia girl who was added to the adult transplant waiting list in 2013 after a federal judge intervened. Sarah Murnaghan went on to receive two lung transplants from adult donors because donor lungs from children are in short supply. The next year, the organizations that oversee organ transplants changed the rules to allow children to be added to waiting lists for adult lungs, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch (bit.ly/209S0uv) reports.

But because implanting adult-sized lungs into children's bodies is not ideal, the groups decided to change the rules again. If a set of lungs from a child become available, doctors will now look for a suitable pediatric transplant candidate throughout an expanded 1,000-mile region.

"Today if a lung is available in Alabama or Florida, I've got to compete with every adult between here and there," said Dr. Stuart Sweet, director of the pediatric lung transplant program at Children's. Under the new rules, "the only competition will be children. It levels the playing field and gives my children that are waiting here a much better chance at transplant."

Organ transplants require one of the most sensitive and complicated equations in all of medicine. The donor organs have to be compatible with the recipient, who can't be either too healthy or too sick to receive them. Transplant surgeries themselves are risky, with about a 50 percent survival rate for lung patients after five years. Most tragically, for a child to receive a chance at life, another child has to die.

Sweet wrestles with those decisions in his role at the hospital and with the United Network for Organ Sharing, the nonprofit group that oversees transplantation in the U.S. Later this year, Sweet will become president of the organization's board of directors.

The rule change for pediatric lung transplants is not expected to have an effect on the waiting times for adults. There are currently 38 children waiting for lung transplants nationwide, compared to about 1,500 adults. Nine of the children are on the waiting list at Children's, where the median wait time for surgery is 10 months.

Heather Gwin, 9, has been on the waiting list for new lungs since August. Like Sarah Murnaghan, Heather has end-stage lung disease caused by cystic fibrosis. Since joining the waiting list she has traveled from her home near Indianapolis to St. Louis to spend two weeks in the hospital every month.

Cystic fibrosis is a chronic genetic condition that causes mucus to build up in the lungs and other organs. Because of the progression of the disease, Heather also will need a liver transplant. The wait has been grueling on the family. Heather's grandparents take turns traveling to St. Louis along with her mother, Jennifer Gwin.

Cystic fibrosis is one of the most common conditions in children that can lead to lung transplants. Treatments for the disease have improved in recent years, reducing the number of children who require transplants. But in cases like Sarah and Heather's, the disease becomes so severe that transplant is the only option. In court arguments that led to Sarah being placed on the adult waiting list, her parents said she was a few weeks from death. The rule changes that resulted from her case were unprecedented in transplant medicine, doctors said.

"There has never been a case like this where the U.S. judicial system has made such a statement that led to an urgent evaluation of policy," said Dr. Kevin Chan of the University of Michigan, chairman of the lung subcommittee.

The priority for the new rules is reducing the number of children who die before receiving a transplant. About 25 percent of children who need new lungs die on the waiting lists, according to the Scientific Registry of Transplant Recipients. Just adding kids to adult waiting lists isn't enough to solve the problem, doctors said. When adult lungs are downsized to fit into children, the procedure is more complicated and the body's natural infection fighting abilities are not preserved.

Using simulation models, the members of the national group's lung transplant and ethics committees plotted out ways to increase opportunities for transplants for children and teenagers, without significantly changing the outcomes for adults. Doctors said they feel like the new rules are a fair way to increase the number of transplants for anyone who needs them.

"One way is to increase broader sharing of organs," Chan said. "We want the organs offered to similar age groups rather than being taken by an adult."

___

Information from: St. Louis Post-Dispatch, http://www.stltoday.com

This is an AP Member Exchange shared by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

LYNDON STATION, Wis. (AP) — A Baraboo woman is accused of her third drunken driving offense and this time sheriff's officials say she was behind the wheel of a stolen squad car.

The Juneau County Sheriff's Department says a deputy and a state trooper were dealing with an intoxicated man and woman at a BP gas station in Lyndon Station Saturday about 4 a.m. The woman left the convenience store and when the deputy looked outside he saw his patrol squad was missing. A witness told the deputy the woman had gotten into the squad car and was heading east on Interstate 90/94.

The deputy and trooper jumped in the trooper's car, caught up with the stolen squad and pulled it over. The 29-year-old woman was arrested and taken to the Juneau County Jail.

LARNED, Kan. (AP) — Employees at one of Kansas' state mental hospitals are racking up significant overtime hours, internal reports show.

The Topeka Capital-Journal (http://bit.ly/1NgOsxe ) obtained four weeks of overtime data for Larned State Hospital's nursing department covering much of December. An analysis by the newspaper showed that more than half of the approximately 400 employees in the west-central Kansas hospital's nursing department worked overtime during those weeks. Each week, at least 50 workers accumulated more than 20 hours of overtime and some more than 40 hours.

"It's absolutely appalling, but it's not anything I haven't heard before," said Rebecca Proctor, director of the Kansas Organization of State Employees, which has legislative proposals to try to improve working conditions at state hospitals. One calls for minimum staffing requirements.

Tim Keck, the newly named interim secretary of the Kansas Department of Aging and Disability Services, which oversees state hospitals, acknowledged the problem during a meeting this past week with workers. According to an audio recording obtained by The Capital-Journal, Keck unveiled a preliminary plan to cut the nursing vacancy rate, which he said is 40 percent, to 18 percent.

Cutting the rate by that percentage would involve hiring 89 new workers, Keck told employees. The department confirmed the meeting took place and that Keck intends to reduce the vacancy rate.

Staffing troubles aren't new to Larned, which houses the Sexual Predator Treatment Program. State auditors in 2013 found staffing problems with the program. A subsequent audit found the situation had gotten worse, with vacancies increasing 8 percent from April 2013 to February 2015.

The Department of Aging and Disability Services said workers can be mandated to work overtime during each shift they are scheduled. No maximum number of hours exists, the agency said, but the hospital attempts not to force employees to work more than a double shift, or 16 hours.

The hospital first asks for volunteers to work overtime before mandates, the agency said. Department spokeswoman Angela de Rocha said most people with overtime of more than 40 or 50 hours are those who volunteer.

She said the hospital had already taken some steps to address employees' most urgent concerns.

"The agency has been painfully aware of these staffing challenges, and it has become increasingly difficult to retain as well as to recruit staff," de Rocha said in a statement.

___

Information from: The Topeka (Kan.) Capital-Journal, http://www.cjonline.com

ALLOUEZ, Wis. (AP) — Two English Springer Spaniels have settled into a temporary home in the Green Bay area while their owner completes five months of training in the U.S. Army National Guard.

Leigh Neville-Neil said a kennel cage for her dogs, Hollie and Thunder, wasn't the right fit for an extended period of time while she trained.

"My dogs are like my babies," Neville-Neil told the Press-Gazette Media (http://gbpg.net/1JV0P7a ). "So, the thought of them sitting in a cage for five months was just pretty overwhelming."

Neville-Neil, a 34-year-old assistant public defender in Green Bay, has boarded her dogs in the past for her one-weekend-a-month training commitment with the Wisconsin Army National Guard. With an extended training assignment, a local veterinarian directed her to a national foster program for pets of military personnel called Dogs on Deployment.

"I know of several soldiers when I deployed that had to get rid of their dogs," said Neville-Neil, who served an 18-month tour of duty in Iraq in the early 2000s. "They had to sell them or have them adopted or bring them to the humane society because, the spur of the moment, you need to leave, you don't have someone to take care of them.

"On a deployment, you don't have the choice to push (the assignment) back."

Neville-Neil found Pete Green and Deb Zuhse-Green through the online network that connects military members with in-home foster care. The couple lives near Greenleaf and has fostered animals in the past. They recently became involved in Dogs on Deployment and will care for Hollie and Thunder until next month when Neville-Neil returns from training.

___

Information from: Press-Gazette Media, http://www.greenbaypressgazette.com

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — An 18-month-old Missouri law that allows casinos to issue credit to well-heeled patrons is working as intended, casino operators say, but a few tweaks could make it even more useful.

Under provisions that went into effect in July 2014, seven of the state's 13 casinos now offer lines of credit to customers who qualify to borrow at least $10,000 and have the ability to pay it back within 30 days.

The current threshold can turn off some credit-worthy gamblers who might want only a few thousand dollars and don't want to jump through hoops to prove they're qualified for $10,000, said Troy Stremming, vice president of government relations and public affairs for Pinnacle Entertainment.

"It's something we're going to be speaking to legislators about," Stremming said. "I can't speak for other gaming companies, but it is certainly something Pinnacle properties will be pursuing."

Pinnacle owns Ameristar casinos in Kansas City and the St. Louis suburb of St. Charles, along with River City Casino in St. Louis, the state's three highest-grossing gambling venues.

Stremming declined to say how many people have taken advantage of the offering or how much has been borrowed, calling that proprietary information.

The credit measure was aimed at affluent patrons who don't want to carry large sums of cash or dip into their bank accounts for gambling money. The seven casinos that offer credit are in Kansas City or St. Louis, where professional sports teams and entertainment venues pull people from across the country.

Stremming said most customers who take out lines of credit at Pinnacle's Missouri properties are high rollers who also have a relationship with the company's casinos in other states.

"It allows us to bring some of our best guests from other casino markets into Missouri so they can experience some of those rare events — the World Series, NFL playoff games, a big SEC football game," he said. "They stay in our casino and enjoy our amenities. The last thing they want to do is carry a lot of cash in their pockets."

Under the current law, credit offered at the casinos is interest-free and can't be extended to intoxicated patrons. Though they must qualify for at least $10,000, they aren't required to borrow that much.

LeAnn McCarthy, a spokeswoman for the Missouri Gaming Commission, which regulates gambling in the state, said the agency doesn't keep track of how much credit is offered to casino patrons, nor does it have a position on whether any of the requirements should be changed.

Tom Teesdale, vice president of marketing for Argosy Casino in the Kansas City suburb of Riverside, said the 2014 law helped Missouri's casinos compete with those in other markets in luring high-end gamblers.

"The more competitive we are, the more jobs we can create," he said.

Casinos in Oklahoma and Illinois are allowed under their state laws to offer lines of credit, while those in Kansas and Iowa are not.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — Beatrice police have deployed a new weapon in their search for suspects: humor.

Officer Kris Gill has provided pithy, sometimes wry comments to accompany security images on Facebook posts used to help officers find possible criminals.

In one posting, a man is shown looking in car windows. The posting said he seemed to be looking for something he lost.

"I can't think of any other reason why someone would park next to several different cars, get out, and look inside several different cars. Can you?" the Facebook post asked.

The man eventually took from a car items that didn't belong to him. Someone recognized him and called police.

Gill said all of the individuals pictured in the posts have been identified, a vast improvement from the limited results gained from previous postings that some people described as "just boring."

Police Chief Bruce Lang told the Beatrice Daily Sun that (http://bit.ly/239Rz5H ) he was amazed at how fast some of the crimes were solved following the posts. But finding the right balance of humor and seriousness when dealing with possible crimes is tricky, he said.

"It's clearly been productive, and I hope we're able to continue to find that balance of keeping things interesting on minor offenses," the chief said.

The photos don't always show someone caught in the act. In one instance, Gill said, the person just forgot to pay for items at a store and the issue was resolved without criminal charges.

___

Information from: Beatrice Sun, http://www.beatricedailysun.com

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A longtime University of Kansas professor's report that played a role in Japan acknowledging the government-controlled brothels that operated during World War II has been added to a campus research library.

Grant Goodman, who died in 2014, was a 20-year-old second lieutenant in the Army's Military Intelligence Service when he translated the report about the brothels — some featuring enslaved "comfort girls" from across Asia, the Lawrence Journal-World (http://bit.ly/1KnCXnO ) reports.

Decades later, Goodman shared the document with a reporter and contributed a chapter to the book "Legacies of the Comfort Women of World War II" about his wartime translation work. His actions are credited with contributing to Japan's 1993 formal apology to former prostitutes now known as "comfort women." Just last month, Japan for the first time pledged government money — $8.3 million — to a foundation supporting the few remaining sex slaves from Korea, now in their 80s and 90s.

According to the report, now archived at the Spencer Research Library, a booklet outlining rules and regulations for brothels in Manila, issued by a Japanese lieutenant colonel, made clear that such "houses of relaxation" were strictly for soldiers and army civilian employees. Permission from the army was required for everything from hiring new employees to setting prices, and prostitutes were forbidden to leave without army permission.

At the time he translated it, the material didn't arouse any special interest since the U.S. military "knew well" the Japanese were operating brothels for their armed forces, Goodman wrote.

"Speaking personally, however, at the then tender age of 20 and being a very innocent youth from a middle-class American family in Ohio, I found these data very informative," he wrote. "Accordingly, after our report was published for circulation at GHQ, I managed to keep a copy and mailed it home with a request that my parents keep it for me until my return from overseas."

Goodman didn't dig it out again until 1992, when he read a story from The Associated Press about a Japanese university professor who had found documents in Defense Agency archives showing the Japanese government's direct involvement in the wartime brothels. However, Goodman wrote, the Japanese government questioned the authenticity of the documents.

Goodman sent a copy of his report to a Japanese journalist. In February 1992, a story on the report's contents broke on the front page of nearly every Japanese newspaper and TV news program.

Goodman wrote that he was "proud" of his role in "bringing about the Japanese prime minister's acceptance of responsibility for the so-called 'comfort women.'"

___

Information from: Lawrence (Kan.) Journal-World, http://www.ljworld.com

FERGUS FALLS, Minn. (AP) — A father who said he was wrongfully detained by police and missed the birth of his child has lost his lawsuit against the City of Fergus Falls and two officers.

Otter Tail County District Court Judge Vicki Landwehr has approved a motion by the defendants for a summary judgment and ruled in favor of Fergus Falls and the officers. Landwehr said the officers' actions didn't rise to the level of malice.

"Whether or not there was a brief unlawful detention, defendants are entitled to qualified and official immunity," Landwehr wrote in her recent ruling.

Dennis Fronning of Battle Lake was rushing his pregnant wife to Lake Region Healthcare hospital when he was stopped by the officers. His wife was taken the rest of the way by ambulance.

Fronning sued for damages greater than $50,000 in 2014, claiming mental pain and anguish, severe emotional trauma, embarrassment and humiliation, according to the Fergus Falls Journal (http://bit.ly/1Zw9Zcp ).

The lawsuit also claimed officers also detained him at the hospital and he was denied a chance to see the birth of his baby boy.

The defendants argued the officers acted lawfully and that any injuries or damages sustained by Fronning were the result of his own careless, negligent conduct.

___

Information from: The Daily Journal, http://www.fergusfallsjournal.com/

By JULIA EVELSIZER

The Pantagraph

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. (AP) — After getting home from Evans Junior High School, 10-year-old Vivek Abraham completes his 6th grade math homework, then studies for his online astrophysics class at Northwestern University in Evanston.

"Sometimes I get bored with my sixth-grade homework," said Vivek, fiddling with a chessboard in his Bloomington home.

His 9-month-old sister, Aradhya, eyed the chess pieces and tried to snatch a rook to chew on. On top of caring for the baby, parents Anupama Chandrappa and Antony Abraham have a genius son to support.

Vivek is considered a child genius with an IQ score of more than 160; the average is between 85 and 114.

He aced the ACT Explore exam twice, won a first ranking in Northwestern's Midwest Academic Talent Search and, at 7 p.m. Thursday, will appear on Lifetime's second season of "Child Genius."

"We don't know where all this knowledge came from," said his mom.

Vivek's parents said they didn't use any unique techniques to teach their son when he was younger.

"When he was less than 6 months old, we had an alphabet fridge magnet set and I would say a letter and he would hand it to me," said Chandrappa. "We just knew he was different."

"Around the age of 5 or 6, I discovered a deep love for astronomy," said Vivek, whose bookshelf is stacked with publications by Stephen Hawking and Elon Musk. "I also love physics. So when I found out there was a subject called astrophysics, I knew it would be my favorite. I want to be an astrophysicist."

Vivek loves working with robotics and builds LEGO Mindstorm robots. He enjoys watching YouTube and reading. During winter break, he spent time studying for an upcoming geography bee.

Because Vivek is a member of Mensa — the high IQ society — he was contacted by the producers of "Child Genius" and asked to apply to join 11 other gifted children from around the United States.

After interviews, tests and elimination rounds, Vivek was one of the 12 children selected. His family headed to Los Angeles to compete and record the show.

"When I found out, I said, 'Hooray!' I was surprised and wasn't expecting to make it into a show this big," he said with a grin.

The episodes have been recorded; Vivek and his family signed a contract to keep the outcome under wraps.

"I was nervous. Every other test and competition I've been in has been written. This was all on stage, being recorded," he said.

Vivek was the second youngest of the contestants, who competed against each other in game show-style quizzes. With each round, the contestant with the lowest score was eliminated. The grand champion wins a $100,000 college scholarship.

"I didn't really have any strategy in the competition, but I did some exercises to relax," said Vivek. "It was intense, because I knew I could either win $100,000 or leave with nothing."

His father said it was challenging to give full attention to Vivek's studies during the competition because Aradhya was just 2 months old at the time.

"Sometimes it's hard to understand the things he studies. It can be a struggle to be the parent of a gifted kid," said Abraham. "We always wondered if we were doing the right thing for him. So we were able to form this support group with these other parents on the show because we're all going through the same challenges."

After putting away his chess set, Vivek walked to the stair case. With bare feet, he balanced on the lower lip of the banister and swiveled around the newel post; proving that even with his IQ, there's still time to play.

"When the kids got off the stage during the competitions, they ran around and played games together," said Abraham. "Vivek is still a child."

___

Source: The (Bloomington) Pantagraph, http://bit.ly/1OPEeoH

___

Information from: The Pantagraph, http://www.pantagraph.com

This is an AP-Illinois Exchange story offered by The (Bloomington) Pantagraph.