No more 'Welkom'; fake 'cards' scheme; cannibal killer denied parole

INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — An Indianapolis Public Schools guidance counselor faces child seduction charges for allegedly engaging in sexual conduct with two teenage students.

Thirty-seven-year-old Shana Taylor was charged Wednesday. She allegedly engaged in sexual conduct with one male student between October and February, starting when he was 16.

Taylor also allegedly had a sexual encounter with a second 16-year-old student.

Her attorney, Brian Newcomb, says Taylor plans to take responsibility for her alleged actions.

The Indianapolis Star reports (http://indy.st/1Qnc08I ) court records indicate school officials waited six days to report the allegations to state child-welfare officials. Indiana law requires certain school officials to immediately report suspected child abuse.

IPS spokeswoman Kristin Cutler says she cannot comment beyond a statement saying the district immediately suspended Taylor and "launched an internal investigation."

___

Information from: The Indianapolis Star, http://www.indystar.com

By DYLAN LYSEN

The Manhattan Mercury

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — When a Manhattan student and his teacher were both diagnosed with cancer, technology allowed them to continue to be present in class as if they never left.

The Manhattan Mercury (http://bit.ly/1nckKUs ) reports that Tate Reid, an 8-year-old third-grader at Woodrow Wilson Elementary, was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL, in September, said Amy Reid, Tate's mother. He is six months into a three-year chemotherapy treatment cycle.

Tate has been in and out of the hospital for treatment and is only in class sparingly, but technology provided by the school district helps him get back to the classroom. Tate uses a "double robot" that carries an iPad using video chat software to allow him to see and hear the lesson in his classroom.

"It's been so helpful, not just keeping up with his education, but when he comes back he keeps up his relationship with his classmates," Amy said.

He can move the robot around the room and participate in class as if he were there.

"It's awesome," Tate said. "Logging in from home is better than no school."

Tate is in his first year in Manhattan, and being able to use the robot to get to class allows him to see his friends.

"I like seeing my classmates," Tate said. "(I like) seeing them instead of being alone and staying at home with my mom all day."

When Tate was diagnosed with cancer, his teacher, Molly Holderness, couldn't understand why a young student had to deal with such a large problem, said Deb Nauerth, Woodrow Wilson principal.

"She said, 'I don't know why this is happening to him, and some way I'll be a stronger person because of Tate,'" Nauerth said.

But in a cruel twist of fate, Holderness was diagnosed with cancer in her toe in December. Holderness, who is in her fourth year at Woodrow Wilson, was worried she would miss class time, Nauerth said.

"She said, 'How am I going to communicate with the kids? I can't be gone that long,'" Nauerth said. "I said, 'You'll double in with them."

When Holderness can, she doubles in with the same technology to teach, while a substitute teacher watches over the classroom.

To deal with the cancer, doctors removed one of Holderness' toes. Recently they told her she has no has traces of cancer, she said.

"Cancer comes in so many different variations and forms," Holderness said. "Some cancers can be so much more invasive with your body, and some can be removed with how they removed my toe."

The seriousness of the news of the teacher and a classmate diagnosed with cancer was not lost on the students, she said.

"My whole class has learned a lot about cancer this year, and they've been strong," Holderness said. "They've learned how to sort through emotions and feelings, and how to be compassionate and sympathetic for others."

The first time Holderness doubled into class using the robot, the school's fire alarm went off. Tate and Holderness were both logged into the double robots for class when everyone was evacuating the building.

"We just logged off," Tate said. "We were just looking at each other and were like, 'uhhhh.'" Although the episode is funny to Tate, Nauerth said she can't mention the importance of the technology enough. The school district owns five double robots to be used in different ways, said Duke Harmon, STEM instructional technology coordinator. The technology was purchased through a U.S. Department of Defense grant, he said. Tate and Holderness's use of the robots is one of the many ways the district hoped to use the robots. Harmon said the district is currently working on a program to allow deployed parents to use the robots to double in and surprise their children in school.

"This was part of the plan, but there are other uses for them," Harmon said. "I have had classes connect with other classrooms on the east coast, and we've had a high school in Kansas City connect with classrooms and deliver science lessons to our students with the double robot."

With her own experience with cancer, Holderness said she values the technology and hopes the district will always be able to provide for the students and teachers of the district.

"My next dream is every student who is battling cancer gets to use a double robot," Holderness said. "It's not just for educational reasons, it's for making friendships and taking pride in their education."

On Wednesday, Woodrow Wilson Elementary School was lined with teachers and students wearing purple shirts for "favorite team" day.

But while some — including Tate — were wearing the shirts and jerseys of their beloved K-State Wildcats, many were showing support with a purple shirt donning a yellow ribbon that proudly supported the best team in Manhattan: Team Tate.

"I feel good because they are supporting me and they are doing everything they can for me to go to school," Tate said of seeing his teachers and classmates wearing the shirts.

After school on Wednesday, the teachers supporting Tate gathered in the gym to take a photo, including Holderness on crutches, who was making her first in-person appearance in school since her diagnosis.

"Who would have ever missed a gym-lunchroom combination so much," Holderness said, hugging Nauerth and holding back tears.

She thanked Nauerth for helping her and Tate during the tough time.

"We have a kid who's so eager to learn and be back in the classroom," she said of Tate.

But without a teacher like Holderness and a student like Tate, it wouldn't be possible, Nauerth said.

"This is education at its finest," Nauerth said. "You have a fabulous teacher who goes so far, above and beyond, to make education happen.

"That's the power of education, when you have the technology you need, that's the impact."

___

Information from: The Manhattan (Kan.) Mercury, http://www.themercury.com

An AP Member Exchange by The Manhattan Mercury.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A former tribal casino employee has pleaded guilty to embezzlement in a scheme involving fake "players cards" at a northeast Kansas casino.

The U.S. attorney's office says 32-year-old Donald M. Collins, of Wetmore, entered the guilty plea Wednesday.

The embezzlement occurred while Collins worked as players club manager at the Sac and Fox Casino, which is owned by the Sac and Fox Nation of Kansas and Nebraska.

Collins is accused of making counterfeit cards valued at about $13,326. The cards allow bearers to play various casino games.

Prosecutors allege that about $17,443 was fraudulently won by people using them.

Sentencing is set for July 7. He faces up to five years in federal prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

CHICAGO (AP) — Northwestern University is joining a growing list of colleges and universities opting to give students who qualify for financial aid a combination of grants and scholarships to prevent them from being saddled with debt.

Northwestern announced Thursday that starting next fall, freshmen who would likely take out loans will instead receive grants and scholarship, along with work-study and summer job income to cover expenses.

Spokesman Alan Cubbage told the Chicago Tribune (http://trib.in/1p2B8su) current undergraduate students who already have $20,000 or more in loans will have that debt capped starting next fall, and given a scholarship.

According to Cubbage, about half of Northwestern's approximately 8,500 students qualify for financial aid.

The no-loans trend started with Princeton University in 1998 and has since been adopted by about 70 colleges and universities nationwide.

HOLLAND, Mich. (AP) — A Michigan city that's known for its Dutch heritage is removing signs that greeted visitors with a "welkom."

The Holland Sentinel reports (http://bit.ly/1QVeHl6 ) four new, more modern gateway signs are part of a rebranding campaign for the city of Holland. The Holland Parks and Recreation Department is in the process of removing gateway signs that used the Dutch spelling of "welcome."

The new gateway signs will stand nearly 13-feet tall, featuring crisscrossed lines that symbolize lines of tulip fields and windmill blades.

Holland Community and Neighborhood Services Director Joel Dye says: "The goal was to still celebrate our heritage, but not be 1860."

The newspaper says some of the old gateway signs are 30 years old. Over the next several years, about 125 new signs will be installed in Holland.

___

Information from: The Holland Sentinel, http://www.thehollandsentinel.com

CHICAGO (AP) — A judge has sentenced a woman with a history of sneaking aboard airplanes to six months house arrest and placed her on two years' mental health probation.

At a hearing on Thursday Cook County Circuit Judge William Raines ordered that 64-year-old Marilyn Hartman serve her house arrest at a mental health facility where she now lives. And under the terms of her probation, she can't go to any airports, train stations or bus stops.

Hartman has attempted several times to board planes without a ticket and was arrested twice last summer at Chicago's O'Hare International Airport and Midway International Airport. Last month, she was arrested at an airport bus shelter center at O'Hare and charged with a felony probation violation and misdemeanor criminal trespassing.

By JOHN HULT

Argus Leader

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — A surge in low-level drug offenders has forced the South Dakota Women's Prison to place 20 inmates in a family style house designed to help women connect with their families near the end of their prison terms.

The inmates were moved into the "Parents and Children Together" house on Tuesday, Department of Corrections Secretary Denny Kaemingk said, after the Pierre campus' two minimum-security units reached beyond capacity.

The spike in drug offenders and probation violators has put the total female inmate population at 442 — higher than projected after the passage of 2013's criminal justice reform act.

"If you look at our numbers from last fall, we were right at 382, so we've been steadily growing," Kaemingk told the Argus Leader (http://argusne.ws/1njwV1P ).

Of the new offenders who arrived between July and December, 93 percent were convicted of non-violent offenses, Kaemingk said. About 64 percent were initially charged with class five or class six felonies, both of which now carry a presumption of probation.

Many of the inmates were admitted for probation violations, he said, but others were sentenced to prison directly.

The numbers are a sign that too many people who could get help in their own communities are being sent to prison instead, Kaemingk said.

"We're getting female inmates that we're mad at, not inmates we're scared of," Kaemingk said. "They're using prison as a default."

Another factor is South Dakota's ingestion statute, which allows prosecutors to charge someone who tests positive for methamphetamine, cocaine or any other scheduled drug with felony drug possession.

Some lawmakers debated removing the ingestion statute during their debate on SB 70, the 2013 law designed to direct non-violent offenders away from prison and into treatment and monitoring programs, but the ingestion remains on the books.

"We're the only state that has a felony ingestion law on the first offense," Kaemingk said. "The ingestion law is having a real impact on our prison population."

The addition of bunk beds to the Parents and Children Together, or PACT house, was a last resort, according to Kaemingk, Assistant Secretary Laurie Feiler and Women's Prison Warden Steve Allard.

The DOC's full capacity for female inmates is 480, but that accounts for all the possible housing options.

Maximum and high-medium security female inmates live inside the women's prison's four main secure cell blocks, which are not at capacity. Minimum security inmates in Pierre live in two open blocks filled with bunk beds, located in separate buildings on the prison grounds.

DOC wards also live in halfway houses and treatment centers in Sioux Falls and Rapid City. Feiler sees those outside options as possible ways to deal with the swelling population of non-violent inmates.

"We have been able to expand our capacity out in the community," Feiler said.

For now, 20 of those nonviolent inmates will bunk in another building on campus that was never designed to house more than an offender or two at a time.

The "PACT" house is used to let well-behaved inmates the opportunity to spend a weekend with their family in a home-like environment. The idea is to help preserve the family connections necessary for an inmate to succeed upon release.

The walls of each bedroom are adorned with cartoon characters, there is a television and a selection of family-friendly DVDs, along with books, board games and a functional kitchen and dinner table.

Women's Prison Associate Warden Stephen Allard said he expects that the addition of inmate bunk beds to the "PACT" house will be temporary as the DOC weighs its options.

"We see it as a very temporary situation, we don't see it as long-term to where it will impact the program itself," Allard said.

Kaemingk said the DOC will crunch the numbers over the next few weeks to determine if any patterns emerge. The prison has seen steady growth in inmate numbers, but only recently went over the projections prepared through the criminal justice reform act's provisions.

"We have been a little bit surprised these last few months, too," Kaemingk said. "We're trying to work through some of our data and see what we can do going forward."

SB 70 was backed by Gov. Daugaard as a way to keep the public safe while avoiding the cost of building two new prisons by 2020. Had the bill failed, a new women's prison would have been necessary by 2015.

___

Information from: Argus Leader, http://www.argusleader.com

MILWAUKEE (AP) — The source of a bacterial bloodstream infection linked to 18 deaths in Wisconsin remains a mystery, health officials said Thursday as a team of federal and state investigators worked to find a common thread among those sickened.

The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention sent five employees to Wisconsin to help the Department of Health Services pinpoint a link to those that have been infected by the bacteria, Elizabethkingia.

Forty-four people in southern and southeastern Wisconsin have tested positive for the infection, and all have serious underlying health conditions, state health officer Karen McKeown said. The majority of those sickened are over age 65 and none are children, she said.

At this point, the source of the infection remains elusive.

"We are keeping every possibility on the table," McKeown said. "But, it does not seem to be from person to person" contact.

Interviews with those infected were being done by CDC and state investigators.

"What does their lives look like that could give us a clue as to where they came in contact with the bacteria?" McKeown asked out loud. Family members of those who died were also interviewed.

"Even as they're grieving, they are providing information to help," she said.

State health officials were first notified of six cases between Dec. 29, 2015 and Jan. 4, 2016, and alerted health care providers and laboratories statewide of the presence of the bacteria.

After the initial cases were reported and state health officials notified local partners, the number of cases began to grow steadily with one dating back to November 2015.

"We've seen an uptick because people are specifically looking for this," McKeown said. Symptoms include fever, shortness of breath, chills or skin rash, health officials said.

Illness associated with Elizabethkingia typically affects people with compromised immune systems or serious underlying health conditions.

The CDC said that although Elizabethkingia is a common organism in the environment, including water and soil, it rarely causes infections. A variety of potential sources, including healthcare products, water sources and the environment, was being tested, the CDC said, but none of these have been found to be a source of the bacteria.

Melissa Brower, a spokeswoman with the CDC, said in general, each state sees about five to 10 cases of the bacteria per year. A number of small, localized outbreaks have also been reported.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — The South Dakota House failed on Thursday to override the governor's veto of a bill that would have required transgender students to use bathrooms and locker rooms corresponding with their birth gender, but the bill's main sponsor said supporters should re-group to come back with a "better, stronger bill."

The override attempt needed two-thirds support in the chamber, but supporters didn't get enough votes.

The attempt came two days after Daugaard vetoed the bill, saying it didn't address any pressing issue and the matter was best left to school districts. The governor had also warned that such a law could invite litigation against both the state and its schools.

The bill originally passed the House by a 58-10 margin, and an override would have needed just 47 votes in the House to proceed to the Senate. But the legislation only narrowly passed the Senate on a 20-15 vote, which would not meet the override threshold. Senate Majority Leader Corey Brown, a Republican, said ahead of the House vote that overriding a veto is usually an uphill fight, "especially if you are short the votes the first time around."

Bill opponent Terri Bruce, a transgender man who watched Thursday's vote from the House gallery, said he was "ecstatic" after the failed veto override, which he called "an absolute relief."

In his veto message on Tuesday, Daugaard said the bill "does not address any pressing issue" and that such decisions were best left to local school officials. Republican Rep. Fred Deutsch, the primary sponsor of the bill in the House, asked lawmakers Thursday not to override the veto, saying it should "die a dignified death" in the House, rather than send it on to the Senate.

Before the failed override, Heather Smith, executive director of the ACLU of South Dakota, said she hoped that the governor's local control argument would resonate with legislators who originally supported the measure.

"I think this is a last-ditch effort to push something through that people know shouldn't be moving forward," Smith said.

Opponents have said the legislation was an attack on vulnerable transgender students that would further marginalize them at school.

Transgender rights have become a new flashpoint in the nation's cultural clashes following the landmark U.S. Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage last year. The high court victory encouraged advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender rights to push harder, prompting backlash from conservatives.

Caitlyn Jenner, the transgender activist and former Olympic decathlon gold medalist, had called on Daugaard to veto the bill. Opponents also used the South Dakota Tourism Department's Twitter hashtag to take aim at the state's roughly $3.8 billion tourism industry.

Daugaard initially offered a positive reaction to South Dakota's proposal, but said he wanted to research the issue before making a decision. Last week, he met with three transgender individuals and heard their personal stories; before the meeting, he said he had never knowingly met a transgender person.

Deutsch said Tuesday that the bill was meant to be a practical solution to "our evolving social values on gender issues." Deutsch said he still believed the bill was a good piece of legislation, but said national focus on South Dakota should be on the state's business environment and the excellent work being done it the state's schools.

___

Lammers reported from Sioux Falls.

CINCINNATI (AP) — The arrest of a man found asleep Thursday morning in his car with guns and ammunition added anxiety in an Ohio school district where two students were shot in the cafeteria earlier this week.

Authorities said the man had been drinking and there was no evidence of any threat to Madison Local Schools. School officials were flooded with calls and social media queries from anxious parents after the new arrest about a quarter-mile from the campus, where nearly 1,600 students from pre-K through 12th grade attend.

Sheriff Richard Jones said two handguns and a box of ammunition were found in Bryan Miller's car less than an hour before the scheduled start of classes. Jones said Miller was charged with operating a vehicle while intoxicated and improper handling of a firearm in a car, both misdemeanors. No attorney information was available for Miller.

"We do not know what his intentions were at his time, but we are not taking any chances whatsoever," Jones said in a statement. He said police have seized the guns and ammunition.

Chief Deputy Anthony Dwyer said Miller, 23, was apparently visiting acquaintances in the area, but added that Miller said during questioning that he was aware of the school shooting Monday.

"It gives us cause for concern," Dwyer said. "In our line of work, coincidences aren't favored very well."

Extra deputies who have been stationed on school property in the shooting aftermath responded quickly after a caller reported a man sleeping in his vehicle near the campus, Dwyer said.

A 14-year-old student arrested in Monday's shooting is in juvenile detention on charges including attempted murder. James Austin Hancock denied the charges through his attorney in a court appearance Tuesday. Authorities said two students were shot and two more were hurt Monday, with all expected to recover.

The nearby Middletown City School District sent out an alert Thursday morning saying Madison Schools "unfortunately has had another incident," but that the situation was under control and everyone was safe. That spread quickly to Madison families, who called and messaged officials, who posted on the district's Facebook page that the arrest was unrelated to the schools.

"We're already under heightened security," Superintendent Curtis Philpot said, adding that a new cause for alarm was unwelcome.

Middletown schools spokeswoman Destini Burns said the schools try to share information as quickly as possible, especially at a time when "everyone is on edge." A juvenile was arrested there Monday for having a gun in school.

___

Follow Dan Sewell at http://www.twitter.com/dansewell

To see other recent stories: http://bigstory.ap.org/content/dan-sewell

BEMIDJI, Minn. (AP) — Unsolicited offers to subscribe to solar gardens are prompting an increasing number of people across the state to send complaints to the Minnesota attorney general's office, according to an official.

Some of the complaints fielded by the office are from residents who say they're getting too many calls, while some are from residents who have subscribed to solar gardens and fear they're being ripped off. Many people are confused about whether the offers they're receiving in the mail or via social media make sense for them.

The confusion is justified, because the solar garden business is new, Deputy Attorney General James Canaday told Minnesota Public Radio News (http://bit.ly/1p1wtqI ).

"Many people have the desire to go green," he said. "Companies and marketers are aware of that. We've seen consumer fraud in the past that targeted consumers with a message of going green. Consumers need to keep that in mind and do their homework."

Solar gardens are a way for consumers to buy solar power from an energy company without installing panels on their homes.

A major solar garden expansion is beginning in Minnesota, where the number of functioning gardens is expected to grow from 17 to 200 by the end of the year. Many of those new projects are under the control of Xcel Energy, but some other utilities around the state will offer their own programs.

Some of Minnesota's solar gardens require large payments upfront, while others send monthly bills to customers. Most of the gardens promise long-term savings, and almost all of them ask subscribers to sign 20- to 25-year contracts.

The length of the contracts raises some red flags, Canaday said, because few purchases require such a long commitment.

In 2013, when lawmakers were drafting a state law requiring utilities to get 1.5 percent of their electricity from solar power by 2020 and calling on Xcel to create a community solar garden program, the attorney general's office asked the Public Utilities Commission to vet all solar garden contracts and marketing materials before approving projects.

But the commission declined to enact those safeguards, Canaday said.

That means the cost-saving claims or contract terms on the marketing materials sent to many Minnesota residents haven't been vetted by any government agency.

Xcel strategy director Lee Gabler said marketing and subscriptions are handled by the outside contractors that the utility works with to build and maintain solar gardens.

___

Information from: Minnesota Public Radio News, http://www.mprnews.org

MADISON, Wis. (AP) — The estate of a man who died after an ambulance transporting him to the hospital crashed can't sue the rescuers, a state appeals court ruled Thursday.

According to court documents, 72-year-old Clarence Collis suffered a heart attack at his home in the Town of Jamestown in Grant County in 2012. The Hazel Green Rescue Squad responded and loaded Collis into an ambulance.

The ambulance driver lost control of the vehicle about a half-mile from Collis' home. The ambulance rolled and Collis was thrown into a ditch. He was pronounced dead at the hospital.

Collis' estate filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the rescue squad in 2014. Grant County Circuit Judge Robert Van De Hey decided the case in favor of the rescue squad last year, finding that the estate failed to properly serve notice of the claim.

Wisconsin law mandates that anyone who makes a claim against a municipality based on the negligent use of a vehicle must provide notice to the municipality. The estate argued it didn't need to provide notice because the rescue squad isn't a government subdivision.

The 4th District Court of Appeals disagreed, upholding Van De Hey's ruling. The towns and villages that jointly operate the rescue squad are municipalities, making the squad a municipality for the purposes of negligence actions, the court said. That mean it was entitled to notice, the court concluded.

The estate's attorney, listed in court documents as Colista Anglese, didn't' immediately return a voicemail left at her office on Thursday morning.

FALLS CITY, Neb. (AP) — Federal regulators want to punish a southeast Nebraska company that the regulators say wrongfully fired a driver who refused to operate a truck that violated Iowa law.

The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration said in a news release Thursday that Jake Rieger Farms LLC violated federal whistleblower law. OSHA says Rieger should not have retaliated against an employee who wouldn't drive a truck that Iowa law enforcement had deemed unsafe.

A Falls City phone listed for Rieger rang unanswered Thursday.

OSHA proposes that Rieger Farms pay the driver $25,000 in punitive damages and $30,000 in compensatory damages, which includes back wages.

The incident occurred in January 2015.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Topeka man has been sentenced to more than seven years in prison for luring a carjacking victim to a motel with an online advertisement and robbing a store.

The U.S. attorney's office says 26-year-old Wesley Lavern Harris was sentenced Wednesday for carjacking and robbery. He admitted to leaving the victim in the Topeka motel's bathtub after taking the man's keys, money and car. Harris and others had lured the victim to the motel in June by advertising sexual services online.

Harris also admitted that the next day, he robbed a Lawrence store and threatened to kill an employee.

PARMA, Ohio (AP) — A suburban Cleveland police department is warning residents about a fake Facebook page purporting to be the department's actual page.

The Parma Police Department said Wednesday detectives were working with Facebook to have the fake account removed.

The agency says its Facebook page is titled "City of Parma Police Department" while the fake account uses the same name with the word "the" at the beginning.

The fake page posted items about ways sex offenders could have their names taken off the state sex offender database. The page also posted an item saying it would be illegal to help the homeless for three months.

Several people posted outraged comments at proposals on the page without realizing it was fake.

LANSING, Mich. (AP) — State health officials say they have identified a cluster of tampon-associated cases of toxic shock syndrome in Michigan.

The Michigan Department of Health and Human Services said Wednesday that five cases have been reported since December. None were fatal. The past 10 years averaged fewer than four reported cases annually.

The agency says toxic shock is a rare but serious syndrome caused by bacterial infection. Symptoms include sudden fever, vomiting, diarrhea, dizziness and shock with multi-organ dysfunction.

According to the agency, tampon-associated toxic shock has historically been attributed to improper use, such as leaving a tampon in too long. The agency says tampons shouldn't be left in longer than six to eight hours.

The agency says the only commonalities found between the five cases involve product selection, with four out of five using super-absorbency tampons.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas Senate committee has considered legislation to make permanent a provision that would create a tiered system for family planning funds.

The Topeka Capital-Journal (http://bit.ly/1njzyAU ) reports that the bill would prioritize federal funds for family planning services, sending them to state, county and local health departments before abortion providers such as Planned Parenthood.

The legislation was introduced by 27 Republican senators, a majority of the Senate. All Republicans on the Ways and Means Committee have signed on as bill sponsors.

The tiered system in the bill has been in place for several years. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri has blamed it for the closure of Ellis and Ford County clinics.

The Planned Parenthood Elise Higgins, a lobbyist for the regional organization, said the bill hurts low-income women and families in Kansas to push a political agenda.

Under the bill, any grants handled by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment and financed partly by Title X, the federal program for family planning services, would be subject to the tiered system. The grants would first be made to public entities, such as health clinic and health departments, and any remaining money would be sent to private health services and hospitals that provide "comprehensive primary and preventative care" in addition to family planning.

The committee didn't take action on the legislation Wednesday.

___

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