KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City, Missouri, police officer shot and wounded a man Saturday afternoon after pursuing him from a home where police had gone in response to a call about a violent incident that involved a gun, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.

Police went to the home after an injured female called police, said Sgt. Bill Lowe of the Highway Patrol.

The man was driving away from the home as police arrived, and officers pursued. The man subsequently crashed his vehicle and fled on foot.

Officers ran after him between two houses until they reached a fence and couldn't go any further, Lowe said. The man then turned toward the officer and pointed a black object at him.

“That's when the officer, fearing for his life, fired his weapon,” Lowe said.

The officer was not hurt and the suspect was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Kansas City, Missouri, police officer shot and wounded a man Saturday afternoon after pursuing him from a home where police had gone in response to a call about a violent incident that involved a gun, the Missouri State Highway Patrol said.Police went to the home after an injured female called police, said Sgt. Bill Lowe of the Highway Patrol.The man was driving away from the home as police arrived, and officers pursued. The man subsequently crashed his vehicle and fled on foot.Officers ran after him between two houses until they reached a fence and couldn't go any further, Lowe said. The man then turned toward the officer and pointed a black object at him.“That's when the officer, fearing for his life, fired his weapon,” Lowe said.The officer was not hurt and the suspect was taken to a hospital with non-life threatening injuries.A gun was found at the scene, Lowe said.

Kansas City police officer shoots man after pursuit

<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">COVID-19 update for Sept 27: - 1,392 new cases - 11.8%: 7-day positivity rate - 0 deaths added MHA hospitalization data: <a href="https://t.co/mLKnjy3onI">https://t.co/mLKnjy3onI</a> Learn more about Missouri’s COVID-19 response and statistics at <a href="https://t.co/V6es2EUkO0">https://t.co/V6es2EUkO0</a><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/COVID19?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#COVID19</a> | <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ShowMeStrong?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ShowMeStrong</a> <a href="https://t.co/fM2jiehPFX">pic.twitter.com/fM2jiehPFX</a>&mdash; Mo Health &amp; Sr Srvcs (@HealthyLivingMo) <a href="https://twitter.com/HealthyLivingMo/status/1310293169574158336?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 27, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>

Missouri reports nearly 1400 new coronavirus cases

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Claire Reagan was feeling overwhelmed as her oldest child’s first day of kindergarten approached and with a baby on the way. The 5-year-old boy has autism, and she worried he would struggle with juggling in-person and virtual learning, and that she wouldn’t have enough time to give him the help he needs.

So she decided to wait a year before sending him to school.

“I was stressed about everything and then thought ‘Why does he need to start kindergarten?’ And it was like a weight was lifted,” said Reagan, a 36-year-old high school teacher in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Kansas.

Thousands of parents around the U.S. have made similar decisions, having their children delay or skip kindergarten because of the coronavirus pandemic. The opt outs, combined with huge declines in preschool enrollment, are raising worries about the long-term effects of so much lost early education.

“If there is a group for which you would be particularly concerned, it is these very young students who are not having these foundational experiences,” said Nate Schwartz, a professor at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.

Kindergarten isn’t required in most states, and in normal times parents sometimes “red-shirt” children who would be young for their kindergarten class to given them an extra year of developmental readiness. But enrollment numbers have plunged in many places this fall as parents weigh health concerns and the prospect of helping young children to navigate distance learning while also holding onto their jobs.

In Los Angeles’ public schools, kindergarten enrollment is down about 6,000 students, or 14%. In Nashville, Tennessee, public kindergarten enrollment is down about 1,800 students, or 37%, from last year.

According to a University of Oregon survey conducted in early September with 1,000 parents from around the U.S., including 242 with a child who was supposed to start kindergarten this fall, 17% of respondents said they were delaying their children’s schooling. Among those, the most frequent reason cited was safety concerns, followed by concerns about managing virtual schooling and other responsibilities, according to Philip Fisher, a psychology professor at the university who is leading an effort to measure the effect of the pandemic on young children and their families.

Fisher said the vast majority of parents reported that they were making sure their kids were attending all of their virtual lessons and completing their coursework without the assistance of hired help or other adults, making juggling their own work a challenge. He said that parents are overwhelmed, particularly those in low-income communities where schools are more likely to be offering only remote instruction.

“We think young kids are likely getting lost in the shuffle,” he said.

Reagan, who is also keeping her 3-year-old daughter home from preschool, said she held off with kindergarten for many reasons, including her own pregnancy and instructions to quarantine for two weeks before she delivers in the fall. She said her job allows her to work from home and her family has insurance that will continue to pay for some of her son’s therapy.

For many young students, the delayed start of primary school follows a disrupted preschool experience. Among preschool-age children, participation rates plummeted in the spring, as programs closed and children stopped attending, according to a report from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. The group is planning a follow-up report, but all indications are that enrollment hasn’t fully rebounded, said Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the institute.

He said public preschool programs such as Head Start have been “substantial equalizers” for low-income families.

“When that falls apart, parents are not going to be able to fill the gap,” he said. “The people who are dependent on free public education as equalizers can’t make up the difference when left on their own.”

Some parents feel their children may be ready for in-person school but not for virtual school, said Anna Markowitz, an assistant professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles.

“They are thinking I can’t work and monitor my child’s Zoom schooling. Parents are really in an impossible situation,” she said.

Only 17 states and Washington, D.C., require children to attend kindergarten, Markowitz said. Parents elsewhere can bypass kindergarten and just send their children to first grade next fall. In a typical year, only about 4% of children who are eligible to begin kindergarten are held back by their families, said Chloe Gibbs, a Notre Dame economist.

The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine released a report in July focused on younger children. Its advice was to prioritize the reopening of schools for children in kindergarten through fifth grade with well-funded safety measures in place. But since the report was released, high rates of community spread have made in-person learning more risky in many communities, turning young learners into virtual learning guinea pigs.

“When you look at the distance learning research, very little has been carried out on young students, even below middle school,” said Brown University’s Schwartz, who is a member of the committee that wrote the report and is also running a project that provides research to school leaders who are trying to make decisions during the pandemic. “Few people were even considering that it could be considered with kids this young.”

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — Claire Reagan was feeling overwhelmed as her oldest child’s first day of kindergarten approached and with a baby on the way. The 5-year-old boy has autism, and she worried he would struggle with juggling in-person and virtual learning, and that she wouldn’t have enough time to give him the help he needs.So she decided to wait a year before sending him to school.“I was stressed about everything and then thought ‘Why does he need to start kindergarten?’ And it was like a weight was lifted,” said Reagan, a 36-year-old high school teacher in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, Kansas.Thousands of parents around the U.S. have made similar decisions, having their children delay or skip kindergarten because of the coronavirus pandemic. The opt outs, combined with huge declines in preschool enrollment, are raising worries about the long-term effects of so much lost early education.“If there is a group for which you would be particularly concerned, it is these very young students who are not having these foundational experiences,” said Nate Schwartz, a professor at the Annenberg Institute for School Reform at Brown University.Kindergarten isn’t required in most states, and in normal times parents sometimes “red-shirt” children who would be young for their kindergarten class to given them an extra year of developmental readiness. But enrollment numbers have plunged in many places this fall as parents weigh health concerns and the prospect of helping young children to navigate distance learning while also holding onto their jobs.In Los Angeles’ public schools, kindergarten enrollment is down about 6,000 students, or 14%. In Nashville, Tennessee, public kindergarten enrollment is down about 1,800 students, or 37%, from last year.According to a University of Oregon survey conducted in early September with 1,000 parents from around the U.S., including 242 with a child who was supposed to start kindergarten this fall, 17% of respondents said they were delaying their children’s schooling. Among those, the most frequent reason cited was safety concerns, followed by concerns about managing virtual schooling and other responsibilities, according to Philip Fisher, a psychology professor at the university who is leading an effort to measure the effect of the pandemic on young children and their families.Fisher said the vast majority of parents reported that they were making sure their kids were attending all of their virtual lessons and completing their coursework without the assistance of hired help or other adults, making juggling their own work a challenge. He said that parents are overwhelmed, particularly those in low-income communities where schools are more likely to be offering only remote instruction.“We think young kids are likely getting lost in the shuffle,” he said.Reagan, who is also keeping her 3-year-old daughter home from preschool, said she held off with kindergarten for many reasons, including her own pregnancy and instructions to quarantine for two weeks before she delivers in the fall. She said her job allows her to work from home and her family has insurance that will continue to pay for some of her son’s therapy.For many young students, the delayed start of primary school follows a disrupted preschool experience. Among preschool-age children, participation rates plummeted in the spring, as programs closed and children stopped attending, according to a report from the National Institute for Early Education Research at Rutgers University. The group is planning a follow-up report, but all indications are that enrollment hasn’t fully rebounded, said Steven Barnett, senior co-director of the institute.He said public preschool programs such as Head Start have been “substantial equalizers” for low-income families.“When that falls apart, parents are not going to be able to fill the gap,” he said. “The people who are dependent on free public education as equalizers can’t make up the difference when left on their own.”Some parents feel their children may be ready for in-person school but not for virtual school, said Anna Markowitz, an assistant professor of education at the University of California, Los Angeles.“They are thinking I can’t work and monitor my child’s Zoom schooling. Parents are really in an impossible situation,” she said.Only 17 states and Washington, D.C., require children to attend kindergarten, Markowitz said. Parents elsewhere can bypass kindergarten and just send their children to first grade next fall. In a typical year, only about 4% of children who are eligible to begin kindergarten are held back by their families, said Chloe Gibbs, a Notre Dame economist.The National Academies of Science, Engineering, and Medicine released a report in July focused on younger children. Its advice was to prioritize the reopening of schools for children in kindergarten through fifth grade with well-funded safety measures in place. But since the report was released, high rates of community spread have made in-person learning more risky in many communities, turning young learners into virtual learning guinea pigs.“When you look at the distance learning research, very little has been carried out on young students, even below middle school,” said Brown University’s Schwartz, who is a member of the committee that wrote the report and is also running a project that provides research to school leaders who are trying to make decisions during the pandemic. “Few people were even considering that it could be considered with kids this young.”

US parents delaying preschool and kindergarten amid pandemic

CASS COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities are&nbsp; investigating an officer involved shooting after two officers with the Peculiar Police Department were shot Saturday night responding to a call of an armed subject on the SE Outer Road near S. Hedgewood Hills Road south of Kansas City, according to a media release from police.

Just after 8:30p.m. Saturday, two officers with the Peculiar Police Department were dispatched to the area and located a male subject armed with a shotgun. 

 During the encounter, the suspect and officers exchanged gunfire.  Both officers were struck and sustained minor injuries.  The suspect was not struck.  Numerous law enforcement from Cass County and Kansas City responded to the scene.

A negotiator with the Cass County Sheriff’s Office talked with the subject while a Kansas City Police Department Helicopter and tactical units contained and monitored the armed subject as he stood on the SE Outer Road for nearly 2 hours.  Around 10:30 pm, KCPD Swat took the subject into custody.

Both officers were treated and released from an area hospital.  The subject arrested was transported to an area hospital for evaluation. His name is not being released until formal charges are filed.

The Cass County Sheriff’s Office Critical Incident Investigation Team is conducting the investigation.

CASS COUNTY – Law enforcement authorities are&nbsp; investigating an officer involved shooting after two officers with the Peculiar Police Department were shot Saturday night responding to a call of an armed subject on the SE Outer Road near S. Hedgewood Hills Road south of Kansas City, according to a media release from police.Just after 8:30p.m. Saturday, two officers with the Peculiar Police Department were dispatched to the area and located a male subject armed with a shotgun. During the encounter, the suspect and officers exchanged gunfire. Both officers were struck and sustained minor injuries. The suspect was not struck. Numerous law enforcement from Cass County and Kansas City responded to the scene.A negotiator with the Cass County Sheriff’s Office talked with the subject while a Kansas City Police Department Helicopter and tactical units contained and monitored the armed subject as he stood on the SE Outer Road for nearly 2 hours. Around 10:30 pm, KCPD Swat took the subject into custody.Both officers were treated and released from an area hospital. The subject arrested was transported to an area hospital for evaluation. His name is not being released until formal charges are filed.The Cass County Sheriff’s Office Critical Incident Investigation Team is conducting the investigation.

2 Missouri police officers shot, suspect in custody

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many American workers applying for unemployment benefits after being thrown out of a job by the coronavirus face a new complication: States’ efforts to prevent fraud have delayed or disrupted their payments.

California has said it will stop processing new applications for two weeks as it seeks to reduce backlogs and stop phony claims. Pennsylvania has found that up to 10,000 inmates are improperly collecting aid.

The biggest threat is posed by sophisticated international fraud rings that often use stolen identities to apply for benefits, filling out the forms with a wealth of accurate information that enables their applications to “sail through the system,” said Michele Evermore, an expert on jobless aid at the National Employment Law Project.

The bogus applications have combined with large backlogs and miscounts to make unemployment benefit data, a key economic indicator, a less-reliable measure of the nation’s job market.

On Thursday, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf" target="_blank">Labor Department said</a>&nbsp;the number of people applying for unemployment rose slightly last week to 870,000, a historically high figure that shows the outbreak is still forcing many companies to cut jobs, six months into the crisis that has killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S.

The overall number of people collecting jobless aid in the U.S. fell slightly to 12.6 million. The steady decline in recent weeks indicates some of the unemployed are getting re-hired. Yet it also means others have exhausted their benefits, which last six months in most states.

About 105,000 people who have used up their regular aid were added to an extended jobless benefit program, created in the economic relief package approved by Congress this spring. That program is now paying benefits to 1.6 million people.

Applications for jobless aid soared in March after the outbreak suddenly shut down businesses across the U.S., throwing tens of millions out of work and triggering a deep recession. Since then, as states have slowly reopened their economies, about half the jobs that were initially lost have been recovered.

Yet job growth&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/3b986be61c960c484a274837c5791909">has been slowing</a>, and unemployment remains elevated at 8.4%. Many employers appear reluctant to hire in the face of deep uncertainty about the course of the virus.

Most economists say it will be hard for the job market or the economy to sustain a recovery unless Congress enacts another rescue package. The economy may not fully recover until a vaccine becomes available.

The concerns about fraud have focused mainly on a new program, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which made self-employed people, gig workers and contractors eligible for jobless aid for the first time.

The program has been targeted for fraud in many states and has also double-counted beneficiaries. Last week, California cut nearly in half the number of people receiving benefits under PUA, apparently after purging double-counts. It now says 3.4 million people are collecting the aid.

Sharon Hilliard, director of California’s Employment Development Department, said her agency has stopped accepting applications for aid for two weeks while it adopts reforms. The department will try to clear a backlog of nearly 600,000 first-time applications and review about 1 million people who have received benefits but whose cases have come under scrutiny.

Kimberly Maldonado, a 31-year-old out-of-work music instructor, is among the thousands of Californians whose benefits are tied up by bureaucratic snags and the suspension.

Maldonado applied four weeks ago. She said she calls daily to check on the status yet reaches only a recording that says the department is overwhelmed. For her, the wait is growing critical.

“It’s literally the difference between food on my table or not,” says Maldonado, who lives in Placentia. “I’ve got a 2-year-old, and I’m not really sure how I pay for anything in the coming weeks.”

Christopher Thornberg, a founder of Beacon Economics, an economic consulting firm, said all the new programs have taxed most states’ unemployment agencies and made the economic data less reliable.

“It’s kind of the Wild West,” Thornberg said. “I have just largely dismissed this data.”

Other state unemployment agencies have been bedeviled by fraud during the crisis.

Washington was the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/0527a08454bf406e56805c55a5f208c0">first state to be hit</a>&nbsp;as an international fraud ring based in Nigeria managed to steal up to $650 million in benefit payments, though at least half that money has been recovered. Texas, Florida and Oklahoma have also been affected.

On Wednesday, Pennsylvania officials announced that 18 inmates and two girlfriends on the outside were charged in a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/e144440159e3268c6821b7c0ff245325">scheme to fraudulently obtain</a>&nbsp;jobless benefits. The 20 defendants were accused of seeking a combined $300,00 from PUA.

Pennsylvania this summer began requiring applicants to upload two forms of identification, a challenge for poor people and immigrants who may not have a driver’s license or passport.

“Any time you try to do fraud prevention or fraud detection, it is often over-inclusive, and the people who are hurt are often the most vulnerable workers,” said Julia Simon-Mishel, supervising attorney at Philadelphia Legal Assistance. “I don’t have a single client who hasn’t had a benefit interrupted at some point.”

The new requirements have halted benefit payments for Angela Grimley, 38, who lives in Voorhees, New Jersey, but worked in Pennsylvania as a hotel events planner. She hasn’t received money for nearly six weeks, despite regular calls and emails to Pennsylvania’s unemployment agency.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Many American workers applying for unemployment benefits after being thrown out of a job by the coronavirus face a new complication: States’ efforts to prevent fraud have delayed or disrupted their payments.California has said it will stop processing new applications for two weeks as it seeks to reduce backlogs and stop phony claims. Pennsylvania has found that up to 10,000 inmates are improperly collecting aid.The biggest threat is posed by sophisticated international fraud rings that often use stolen identities to apply for benefits, filling out the forms with a wealth of accurate information that enables their applications to “sail through the system,” said Michele Evermore, an expert on jobless aid at the National Employment Law Project.The bogus applications have combined with large backlogs and miscounts to make unemployment benefit data, a key economic indicator, a less-reliable measure of the nation’s job market.On Thursday, the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.dol.gov/ui/data.pdf" target="_blank">Labor Department said</a>&nbsp;the number of people applying for unemployment rose slightly last week to 870,000, a historically high figure that shows the outbreak is still forcing many companies to cut jobs, six months into the crisis that has killed more than 200,000 people in the U.S.The overall number of people collecting jobless aid in the U.S. fell slightly to 12.6 million. The steady decline in recent weeks indicates some of the unemployed are getting re-hired. Yet it also means others have exhausted their benefits, which last six months in most states.About 105,000 people who have used up their regular aid were added to an extended jobless benefit program, created in the economic relief package approved by Congress this spring. That program is now paying benefits to 1.6 million people.Applications for jobless aid soared in March after the outbreak suddenly shut down businesses across the U.S., throwing tens of millions out of work and triggering a deep recession. Since then, as states have slowly reopened their economies, about half the jobs that were initially lost have been recovered.Yet job growth&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/3b986be61c960c484a274837c5791909">has been slowing</a>, and unemployment remains elevated at 8.4%. Many employers appear reluctant to hire in the face of deep uncertainty about the course of the virus.Most economists say it will be hard for the job market or the economy to sustain a recovery unless Congress enacts another rescue package. The economy may not fully recover until a vaccine becomes available.The concerns about fraud have focused mainly on a new program, Pandemic Unemployment Assistance, which made self-employed people, gig workers and contractors eligible for jobless aid for the first time.The program has been targeted for fraud in many states and has also double-counted beneficiaries. Last week, California cut nearly in half the number of people receiving benefits under PUA, apparently after purging double-counts. It now says 3.4 million people are collecting the aid.Sharon Hilliard, director of California’s Employment Development Department, said her agency has stopped accepting applications for aid for two weeks while it adopts reforms. The department will try to clear a backlog of nearly 600,000 first-time applications and review about 1 million people who have received benefits but whose cases have come under scrutiny.Kimberly Maldonado, a 31-year-old out-of-work music instructor, is among the thousands of Californians whose benefits are tied up by bureaucratic snags and the suspension.Maldonado applied four weeks ago. She said she calls daily to check on the status yet reaches only a recording that says the department is overwhelmed. For her, the wait is growing critical.“It’s literally the difference between food on my table or not,” says Maldonado, who lives in Placentia. “I’ve got a 2-year-old, and I’m not really sure how I pay for anything in the coming weeks.”Christopher Thornberg, a founder of Beacon Economics, an economic consulting firm, said all the new programs have taxed most states’ unemployment agencies and made the economic data less reliable.“It’s kind of the Wild West,” Thornberg said. “I have just largely dismissed this data.”Other state unemployment agencies have been bedeviled by fraud during the crisis.Washington was the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/0527a08454bf406e56805c55a5f208c0">first state to be hit</a>&nbsp;as an international fraud ring based in Nigeria managed to steal up to $650 million in benefit payments, though at least half that money has been recovered. Texas, Florida and Oklahoma have also been affected.On Wednesday, Pennsylvania officials announced that 18 inmates and two girlfriends on the outside were charged in a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/e144440159e3268c6821b7c0ff245325">scheme to fraudulently obtain</a>&nbsp;jobless benefits. The 20 defendants were accused of seeking a combined $300,00 from PUA.Pennsylvania this summer began requiring applicants to upload two forms of identification, a challenge for poor people and immigrants who may not have a driver’s license or passport.“Any time you try to do fraud prevention or fraud detection, it is often over-inclusive, and the people who are hurt are often the most vulnerable workers,” said Julia Simon-Mishel, supervising attorney at Philadelphia Legal Assistance. “I don’t have a single client who hasn’t had a benefit interrupted at some point.”The new requirements have halted benefit payments for Angela Grimley, 38, who lives in Voorhees, New Jersey, but worked in Pennsylvania as a hotel events planner. She hasn’t received money for nearly six weeks, despite regular calls and emails to Pennsylvania’s unemployment agency.“It’s a hot mess,” she said.

Fraud, backlogs disrupt US unemployment benefit payments

By TIM CARPENTER <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2020/09/22/heartbroken-grandparents-make-emotional-appeals-for-kansas-foster-care-reform/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA — Kathy Winters had
 responsibility for care of two of her grandchildren for 16 months, but 
eventually learned from caseworkers, child advocates and her attorney 
that adoption of the boys would be impossible unless she offered court 
testimony denouncing her daughter.

Winters, who is now 
retired from the Lenexa Police Department, said Monday she refused to 
play along with the people who advised her to offer false testimony 
against the boys’ mother.

“If I did not say bad 
things about my daughter in court, which I did not believe, I would lose
 my grandsons and not be allowed to adopt them,” Winters told a 
committee of the Kansas Legislature studying foster care. “I told them I
 could not lie under oath and under God.”

She said the boys were 
subsequently ordered into foster care. They were transferred to a home 
that within one month became the subject of a substantiated allegation 
of child abuse. Her supervised visits with the two children were limited
 to one hour each month.

“They would scream for me 
not to leave them,” Winters said. “I still have nightmares of this and 
cannot bear to hear a child cry.”

Winters, who co-founded Kansas Family Rights Coalition in 2008, said she had not seen her grandsons in 12 years.

Cindy Poe, who lived in 
Topeka when her three grandchildren were placed in foster care, shared 
another perspective with lawmakers. The maternal grandmother said her 
anxiety about being separated from the children was transformed into 
heartbreak in 2014 when one of them, 10-month-old Kadillak Marie, died 
after left in a sweltering vehicle by her foster parents in Wichita.

She alleged the couple 
caring for the girl were in the house eating pizza and smoking marijuana
 while the infant was perished in a car amid 90-degree heat.

“I want to know why this 
foster system is so poorly (managed),” she said. “That’s all it took, a 
child’s death, to get peoples’ attention. The foster parents got crap on
 jail time.”

The Legislature’s foster 
care oversight committee opened two days of meetings by inviting Kansans
 and organizations with an interest in foster care to share insight into
 the state’s privatized system responsible for more than 7,000 children.
 Their testimony came before comments by officials of the Kansas 
Department for Children and Families.

Kansas has a history of 
struggle regarding children in state custody. They are legally removed 
from homes due to neglect and abuse. The children know what it feels 
like to be rejected, traumatized and marginalized. In recent years, DCF 
has allowed foster children to be bounced among temporary homes and 
compelled to sleep in office buildings. DCF has been criticized for 
losing track of dozens of children in foster care and for death of 
children in the system.

Jason Drahota, a former 
foster parent, told legislators that he and his wife welcomed a 
2-year-old boy into their home in 2015. The child’s parental rights were
 terminated in 2016 and the boy “was dearly loved and he absolutely knew
 it,” Drahota said.

Eventually, one of the 
child’s half-brothers turned 17 and sought custody. The initial decision
 in 2018 was to allow the boy to remain with the Drahotas and for the 
family to proceed with adoption.

On appeal to DCF, the boy was ordered into his step-brother’s custody.

“We asked for clarity on 
why this was reversed,” Drahota said. “Why was this in the child’s best 
interest now? We received absolutely no clarity.”

He said the 5-year-old boy
 became hysterical when informed of DCF’s decision. His wailing carried 
through office walls to the waiting room where his foster parents were 
seated.

“It was a sound that still plays in our head and hurts us to this day,” he said. “The little boy never got to see us again.”

Abbey Dohm, a foster 
parent for 10 years and volunteer director of foster care at City Life 
Church in Wichita, said Kansas children would be better served if state 
officials, private contractors and the legal system took seriously input
 from foster parents.

“Foster parents are with 
the children 24/7. We see the children at their best and at their 
worst,” Dohm said. “We interact with schools and churches and sports. 
Foster parents are advocates for the children in their home. They are 
family.”

She said Kansas’ system of
 foster care had been in crisis for a long time. The number of children 
in foster care vastly exceeds availability of foster homes, she said.

“In some cases,” she said,
 “it is in the best interest of children to return home to family. But 
there are also cases where this is not appropriate. Foster parents 
deserve and need a bigger voice within the system.”

Gordon Hibbard, a 
Manhattan resident and former president of the Kansas 4-H Foundation, 
said he was drawn into the foster care issue after his son and 
daughter-in-law committed to become foster parents.

He said the Legislature 
and Gov. Laura Kelly lacked the “money or the will” to implement changes
 to address the state’s ill-equipped, underfunded system.

He said legislators ought 
to remove all incentives, quotas or financial awards available to 
private agencies that could cloud decisions regarding what was best for a
 foster child. Kansas should appoint an ombudsman — someone outside DCF —
 to investigate violation or inconsistent application of policy on 
foster care. Compensation and training of caseworkers must be increased,
 he said.

“We need psychiatric 
residential treatment facilities to help build a framework for healing 
and restoration,” Hibbard said. “I have been told currently that we have
 more than 80 children on the wait list to receive these services.”

Jared Broyles, executive 
director of Foster the Cause, said the organization has focused in the 
Topeka area on recruiting, training and supporting new Christian foster 
and adoptive families through collaborations with churches.

“Let me say how very sorry
 I am that we as the church in Kansas have left the state to do the work
 alone for far too long. We were wrong. But we are here now,” Broyles 
said.

Tim Carpenter has reported on Kansas for 35 years. He covered the Capitol for 16 years at the Topeka Capital-Journal and previously worked for the Lawrence Journal-World and United Press International.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1600877254585.png" alt="Kathy Winters, right, comforts Cindy Poe following Poe's testimony Tuesday about the death of her grandchild within the foster care system. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) " />
 <figcaption>Kathy Winters, right, comforts Cindy Poe following Poe's testimony Tuesday about the death of her grandchild within the foster care system. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) </figcaption>
 </figure>By TIM CARPENTER <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/2020/09/22/heartbroken-grandparents-make-emotional-appeals-for-kansas-foster-care-reform/">Kansas Reflector</a>TOPEKA — Kathy Winters had
 responsibility for care of two of her grandchildren for 16 months, but 
eventually learned from caseworkers, child advocates and her attorney 
that adoption of the boys would be impossible unless she offered court 
testimony denouncing her daughter.Winters, who is now 
retired from the Lenexa Police Department, said Monday she refused to 
play along with the people who advised her to offer false testimony 
against the boys’ mother.“If I did not say bad 
things about my daughter in court, which I did not believe, I would lose
 my grandsons and not be allowed to adopt them,” Winters told a 
committee of the Kansas Legislature studying foster care. “I told them I
 could not lie under oath and under God.”She said the boys were 
subsequently ordered into foster care. They were transferred to a home 
that within one month became the subject of a substantiated allegation 
of child abuse. Her supervised visits with the two children were limited
 to one hour each month.“They would scream for me 
not to leave them,” Winters said. “I still have nightmares of this and 
cannot bear to hear a child cry.”Winters, who co-founded Kansas Family Rights Coalition in 2008, said she had not seen her grandsons in 12 years.<h2>A child’s death</h2>Cindy Poe, who lived in 
Topeka when her three grandchildren were placed in foster care, shared 
another perspective with lawmakers. The maternal grandmother said her 
anxiety about being separated from the children was transformed into 
heartbreak in 2014 when one of them, 10-month-old Kadillak Marie, died 
after left in a sweltering vehicle by her foster parents in Wichita.She alleged the couple 
caring for the girl were in the house eating pizza and smoking marijuana
 while the infant was perished in a car amid 90-degree heat.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1600877319793.png" alt="Cindy Poe shared with a Kansas legislative committee with oversight of the foster care the agony of having three grandchildren removed from her after declining to make disparaging remarks about her daughter in court. One of those grandchildren, a girl, died when left unattended in a vehicle by her new foster family. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Cindy Poe shared with a Kansas legislative committee with oversight of the foster care the agony of having three grandchildren removed from her after declining to make disparaging remarks about her daughter in court. One of those grandchildren, a girl, died when left unattended in a vehicle by her new foster family. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>“I want to know why this 
foster system is so poorly (managed),” she said. “That’s all it took, a 
child’s death, to get peoples’ attention. The foster parents got crap on
 jail time.”The Legislature’s foster 
care oversight committee opened two days of meetings by inviting Kansans
 and organizations with an interest in foster care to share insight into
 the state’s privatized system responsible for more than 7,000 children.
 Their testimony came before comments by officials of the Kansas 
Department for Children and Families.Kansas has a history of 
struggle regarding children in state custody. They are legally removed 
from homes due to neglect and abuse. The children know what it feels 
like to be rejected, traumatized and marginalized. In recent years, DCF 
has allowed foster children to be bounced among temporary homes and 
compelled to sleep in office buildings. DCF has been criticized for 
losing track of dozens of children in foster care and for death of 
children in the system.<h2>Hysterical wailing</h2>Jason Drahota, a former 
foster parent, told legislators that he and his wife welcomed a 
2-year-old boy into their home in 2015. The child’s parental rights were
 terminated in 2016 and the boy “was dearly loved and he absolutely knew
 it,” Drahota said.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1600877352383.png" alt="Jason Drahota outlined in testimony to a committee of the Kansas Legislature the decision by a state agency to overturn a decision to allow a 5-year-old boy to remain with his family for purposes of adoption. Taking the boy from them after nearly three years was traumatizing. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Jason Drahota outlined in testimony to a committee of the Kansas Legislature the decision by a state agency to overturn a decision to allow a 5-year-old boy to remain with his family for purposes of adoption. Taking the boy from them after nearly three years was traumatizing. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>Eventually, one of the 
child’s half-brothers turned 17 and sought custody. The initial decision
 in 2018 was to allow the boy to remain with the Drahotas and for the 
family to proceed with adoption.On appeal to DCF, the boy was ordered into his step-brother’s custody.“We asked for clarity on 
why this was reversed,” Drahota said. “Why was this in the child’s best 
interest now? We received absolutely no clarity.”He said the 5-year-old boy
 became hysterical when informed of DCF’s decision. His wailing carried 
through office walls to the waiting room where his foster parents were 
seated.“It was a sound that still plays in our head and hurts us to this day,” he said. “The little boy never got to see us again.”<h2>Listening</h2>Abbey Dohm, a foster 
parent for 10 years and volunteer director of foster care at City Life 
Church in Wichita, said Kansas children would be better served if state 
officials, private contractors and the legal system took seriously input
 from foster parents.“Foster parents are with 
the children 24/7. We see the children at their best and at their 
worst,” Dohm said. “We interact with schools and churches and sports. 
Foster parents are advocates for the children in their home. They are 
family.”She said Kansas’ system of
 foster care had been in crisis for a long time. The number of children 
in foster care vastly exceeds availability of foster homes, she said.“In some cases,” she said,
 “it is in the best interest of children to return home to family. But 
there are also cases where this is not appropriate. Foster parents 
deserve and need a bigger voice within the system.”<h2>Reform ideas</h2>Gordon Hibbard, a 
Manhattan resident and former president of the Kansas 4-H Foundation, 
said he was drawn into the foster care issue after his son and 
daughter-in-law committed to become foster parents.He said the Legislature 
and Gov. Laura Kelly lacked the “money or the will” to implement changes
 to address the state’s ill-equipped, underfunded system.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1600877386402.png" alt="Jared Broyles, executive director of Foster the Cause, says he’s leading an organization based in Topeka that recruits and trains Christians to serve as foster parents. He apologized for past indifference of some churches to the state’s foster care crisis. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Jared Broyles, executive director of Foster the Cause, says he’s leading an organization based in Topeka that recruits and trains Christians to serve as foster parents. He apologized for past indifference of some churches to the state’s foster care crisis. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>He said legislators ought 
to remove all incentives, quotas or financial awards available to 
private agencies that could cloud decisions regarding what was best for a
 foster child. Kansas should appoint an ombudsman — someone outside DCF —
 to investigate violation or inconsistent application of policy on 
foster care. Compensation and training of caseworkers must be increased,
 he said.“We need psychiatric 
residential treatment facilities to help build a framework for healing 
and restoration,” Hibbard said. “I have been told currently that we have
 more than 80 children on the wait list to receive these services.”Jared Broyles, executive 
director of Foster the Cause, said the organization has focused in the 
Topeka area on recruiting, training and supporting new Christian foster 
and adoptive families through collaborations with churches.“Let me say how very sorry
 I am that we as the church in Kansas have left the state to do the work
 alone for far too long. We were wrong. But we are here now,” Broyles 
said.Tim Carpenter has reported on Kansas for 35 years. He covered the Capitol for 16 years at the Topeka Capital-Journal and previously worked for the Lawrence Journal-World and United Press International.&nbsp;

Heartbroken grandparents plead for Kan. foster care reform

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Saturday, capping a dramatic reshaping of the federal judiciary that will resonate for a generation and that he hopes will provide a needed boost to his reelection effort.

<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/">Click here to&nbsp;</a>watch a replay of the announcement

Barrett, a former clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, said she was “truly humbled” by the nomination and quickly aligned herself with Scalia’s conservative approach to the law, saying his “judicial philosophy is mine, too.”

Barrett, 48, was joined in the Rose Garden by her husband and seven children. If confirmed by the Senate, she would fill the seat vacated by liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It would be the sharpest ideological swing since Clarence Thomas replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall nearly three decades ago.

She would be the sixth justice on the nine-member court to be appointed by a Republican president, and the third of Trump’s first term in office.

Trump hailed Barrett as “a woman of remarkable intellect and character,” saying he had studied her record closely before making the pick.

Republican senators are lining up for a swift confirmation of Barrett ahead of the Nov. 3 election, as they aim to lock in conservative gains in the federal judiciary before a potential transition of power. Trump, meanwhile, is hoping the nomination will galvanize his supporters as he looks to fend off Democrat Joe Biden.

For Trump, whose 2016 victory hinged in large part on reluctant support from white evangelicals on the promise of filling Scalia’s seat with a conservative, the latest nomination in some ways brings his first term full circle. Even before Ginsburg’s death, Trump was running on having confirmed in excess of 200 federal judges, fulfilling a generational aim of conservative legal activists.

Trump joked that the confirmation process ahead “should be easy” and “extremely noncontroversial,” though it is likely to be anything but. No court nominee has been considered so close to a presidential election before, with early voting already underway. He encouraged legislators to take up her nomination swiftly and asked Democrats to “refrain from personal and partisan attacks.”

In 2016, Republicans blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court to fill the election-year vacancy, saying voters should have a say in the lifetime appointment. Senate Republicans say they will move ahead this time, arguing the circumstances are different now that the White House and Senate are controlled by the same party.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will vote “in the weeks ahead” on Barrett’s confirmation. Barrett is expected to make her first appearance Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where she will meet with McConnell; Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chair of the Judiciary Committee; and others. Hearings are set to begin Oct. 12, and Graham said he hoped to have Barrett’s nomination out of the committee by Oct. 26.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that a vote to confirm Barrett to the high court would be a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act. Schumer added that the president was once again putting “Americans’ healthcare in the crosshairs” even while the coronavirus pandemic rages.

Biden took that route of criticism, as well, framing Trump’s choice as another move in Republicans’ effort to scrap the 2010 health care law passed by his former boss, President Barack Obama. The court is expected to take up a case against it this fall.

The set design at the Rose Garden, with large American flags hung between the colonnades, appeared to be modeled on the way the White House was decorated when President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg in 1993.

Barrett, recognizing that flags were still lowered in recognition of Ginsburg’s death, said she would be “mindful of who came before me.” Although they have different judicial philosophies, Barrett praised Ginsburg as a trailblazer for women and for her friendship with Scalia, saying, “She has won the admiration of women across the country and indeed all across the world.”

Within hours of Ginsburg’s death, Trump made clear he would nominate a woman for the seat. Barrett was the early favorite and the only one to meet with Trump.

Barrett has been a judge since 2017, when Trump nominated her to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But as a longtime University of Notre Dame law professor, she had already established herself as a reliable conservative in the mold of Scalia, for whom she clerked in the late 1990s.

She would be the only justice on the current court not to have received her law degree from an Ivy League school. The eight current justices all attended either Harvard or Yale.

The staunch conservative had become known to Trump in large part after her bitter 2017 appeals court confirmation included allegations that Democrats were attacking her Catholic faith. The president also interviewed her in 2018 for the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, but Trump ultimately chose Brett Kavanaugh.

Trump and his political allies are itching for another fight over Barrett’s faith, seeing it as a political windfall that would backfire on Democrats. Catholic voters in Pennsylvania, in particular, are viewed as a pivotal demographic in the swing state that Biden, also Catholic, is trying to recapture.

While Democrats appear powerless to stop Barrett’s confirmation in the GOP-controlled Senate, they are seeking to use the process to weaken Trump’s reelection chances.

Barrett’s nomination could become a reckoning over abortion, an issue that has divided many Americans so bitterly for almost half a century. The idea of overturning or gutting Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion, has animated activists in both parties for decades. Now, with the seemingly decisive shift in the court’s ideological makeup, Democrats hope their voters will turn out in droves because of their frustration with the Barrett pick.

“Justice Ginsburg must be turning over in her grave up in heaven, to see that the person they chose seems to be intent on undoing all the things that Ginsburg did,” Schumer said.

Trump has also increasingly embraced the high court — on which he will have had an outsize hand in reshaping -– as an insurance policy in a close election.

“We don’t have to do it before, but I think this will be done before the election,” Trump told reporters Saturday. “I think it’ll send a great signal to a lot of people.”

Increases in mail, absentee and early voting brought about by the coronavirus pandemic have already led to a flurry of election litigation, and both Trump and Biden have assembled armies of lawyers to continue the fight once vote-counting begins. Trump has been open about tying his push to name a third justice to the court to a potentially drawn-out court fight to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021.

“I think this will end up in the Supreme Court,” Trump said Wednesday of the election. “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices.”

No Democratic senators are expected to vote to confirm Barrett before the election, even though some did support her in 2017.

Two Democrats still serving in the Senate who voted to confirm Barrett in 2017, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, now say it’s too close to the election to consider her nomination.

Meanwhile, outside conservative groups are planning to spend more than $25 million to support Trump and his nominee. The Judicial Crisis Network has organized a coalition that includes American First Policies, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Club for Growth and the group Catholic Vote to help confirm Barrett. The Republican National Committee has launched a $10 million digital campaign of its own, in conjunction with Trump’s reelection campaign.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Although Amy Coney Barrett is the president’s choice to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she is more aptly described as heir to another departed Supreme Court justice: conservative hero Antonin Scalia.

Like Scalia, for whom she once clerked, she is a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-ruth-bader-ginsburg-archive-courts-donald-trump-987e5fb6de8a1a29d1cbb00bf1f1948c">committed Roman Catholic</a>&nbsp;as well as a firm devotee of his favored interpretation of the Constitution known as originalism. Those qualifications delight many on the right but dismay liberals and others who fear her votes could result in the chipping away of some laws, especially the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

President Donald Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-michael-pence-archive-courts-donald-trump-e2678a13cf3d2383300db6f1416664d6">announced his choice</a>&nbsp;of the 48-year-old Indiana judge on Saturday afternoon at the White House, setting Barrett on the path to help conservatives hold sway over the court for decades to come.

Her selection is as sure to energize the president’s political base as it is to galvanize his foes with only weeks left to Election Day. Republican leaders in the Senate have already said they have the votes to confirm her nomination this year, likely before the election.

But beyond the 2020 election, the Barrett elevation could bring a national reckoning over abortion, an issue that has divided many Americans bitterly for almost half a century. The idea of overturning or gutting Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision, has been an animating political issue exploited by both sides.

Her legal writings and speeches show a commitment to originalism, a concept that involves justices endeavoring to decipher original meanings of texts in assessing whether someone’s rights have been violated. Many liberals say that approach is too rigid and doesn’t allow the Constitution’s consequences to adjust to vastly changing times.

Barrett has been a federal judge since 2017, when Trump nominated her to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But as a longtime University of Notre Dame law professor, she had already established herself as a reliable conservative in the mold of Scalia.

On abortion, questions have arisen about Barrett’s involvement in organizations that vigorously oppose it. But she has not said publicly she would, if given the chance, seek to scale back rights affirmed by the high court.

She gained a reputation as a Scalia clerk in the late 1990s as bright and adept at picking apart poorly reasoned arguments. Ara Lovitt, who clerked with her at the time, recalls that at her investiture ceremony for the 7th Circuit, Scalia had high praise for her.

“‘Isn’t Amy great,’” Lovitt remembers Scalia saying.

Before becoming a judge, she discussed how court precedents provide welcome stability in the law. But she also seemed to leave the door open to the possibility of reversing ones about which there remained sharp disagreement.

“Once a precedent is deeply rooted,” a 2017 article in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, which Barrett co-wrote, said, “the Court is no longer required to deal with the question of the precedent’s correctness.” But it added: “None of this is to say that a Justice cannot attempt to overturn long-established precedent. While institutional features may hinder that effort, a Justice is free to try.”

Barrett and her husband, Jesse Barrett, a former federal prosecutor, both graduated from Notre Dame Law School. They have seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and one with special needs.

How her religious beliefs might guide her legal views became a focus for some Democrats during bruising confirmation hearings after Barrett’s nomination for the 7th Circuit. That prompted Republicans to accuse Democrats of seeking to impose a religious test on Barrett’s fitness for the job.

At Notre Dame, where Barrett began teaching at 30, she often invoked God in articles and speeches. In a 2006 address, she encouraged graduating law students to see their careers as a means to “building the kingdom of God.”

She was considered a finalist in 2018 for the high court before Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the seat that opened when Justice Anthony Kennedy retired. Even some conservatives worried her sparse judicial record made it too hard to predict how she might rule, concerned she could end up like other seemingly conservatives who wound up more moderate.

Three years on, her record now includes around 100 opinions and dissents, in which she often illustrated Scalia’s influence by delving deep into historical minutiae to glean the meaning of original texts.

A 2019 dissent in a gun-rights case argued a person convicted of a nonviolent felony shouldn’t be automatically barred from owning a gun. All but a few pages of her 37-page dissent were devoted to the history of gun rules for convicted criminals in the 18th and 19th centuries.

Barrett has twice joined dissenting opinions asking for abortion-related decisions to be thrown out and reheard by the full appeals court. Last year, after a three-judge panel blocked an Indiana law that would make it harder for a minor to have an abortion without her parents being notified, Barrett voted to have the case reheard by the full court.

She wrote a unanimous three-judge panel decision in 2019 making it easier for men alleged to have committed sexual assaults on campus to challenge the proceedings against them. And she was in dissent in June when her two colleagues on a 7th Circuit panel put on hold, just in Chicago, the Trump administration policy that could jeopardize permanent resident status for immigrants who use food stamps, Medicaid and housing vouchers.

Barrett would assume the court seat with already substantial wealth, and her financial disclosures show close ties to a number of conservative groups. Barrett and her husband have investments worth between $845,000 and $2.8 million, according to her 2019 financial disclosure report. Judges report the value of their investments in ranges. Their money is invested mostly in mutual funds, some of which are for retirement and their children’s education.

When she was nominated to the appeals court in 2017, Barrett reported assets of just over $2 million, including her home in Indiana worth nearly $425,000, and a mortgage on the property with a balance of $175,000.

In the two previous years, Barrett received $4,200 in two equal payments from Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm, her financial report shows. In 2018 and 2019, she participated in 10 events sponsored by the Federalist Society, which paid for her transportation, meals and lodging in New York, New Orleans, Washington and other cities. Several events took place at leading law schools.

Barrett was raised in New Orleans and was the eldest child of a lawyer for Shell Oil Co. She earned her undergraduate degree in English literature in 1994 at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.

She also served as a law clerk for Laurence Silberman for a year at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Between clerkships and entering academia, she worked from 1999 to 2001 at a law firm in Washington, Miller, Cassidy, Larroca &amp; Lewin.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. 

The move on Saturday caps a dramatic reshaping of the federal judiciary that will resonate for a generation. He also hopes it will provide boost his reelection effort as he looks to fend off Democrat Joe Biden. Republican senators are lining up for a swift confirmation of Barrett before the Nov. 3 election, as they aim to lock in conservative gains in the federal judiciary before a potential transition of power. She would be the sixth justice on the nine-member court to be appointed by a Republican president, and the third of Trump’s first term in office.

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, a 48-year-old who would be among the youngest justices to assume a high-court seat and hence potentially one of the longest-serving.

<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/">Click here to </a>watch the announcement 4p.m. CDT

An airplane believed to be carrying Barrett and her family arrived at Joint Base Andrews Saturday afternoon.

&nbsp;The plane left from South Bend, Indiana, where Barrett and her family live.

The seat on the court was made vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week at the age of 87.

Barrett is a justice on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She was previously a law professor at Notre Dame and has been hailed as the heir to the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.

She met with Trump at the White House earlier this week.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1601155781752.png" alt="If confirmed, Amy Coney Barrett will be the first mom of young children to serve on the Supreme Court.&nbsp; President Trump introduced Barrett, her husband and their children during Saturday's Rose Garden ceremony -photo courtesy White House" />
 <figcaption>If confirmed, Amy Coney Barrett will be the first mom of young children to serve on the Supreme Court.&nbsp; President Trump introduced Barrett, her husband and their children during Saturday's Rose Garden ceremony -photo courtesy White House</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court on Saturday, capping a dramatic reshaping of the federal judiciary that will resonate for a generation and that he hopes will provide a needed boost to his reelection effort.<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/">Click here to&nbsp;</a>watch a replay of the announcementBarrett, a former clerk to the late Justice Antonin Scalia, said she was “truly humbled” by the nomination and quickly aligned herself with Scalia’s conservative approach to the law, saying his “judicial philosophy is mine, too.”Barrett, 48, was joined in the Rose Garden by her husband and seven children. If confirmed by the Senate, she would fill the seat vacated by liberal icon Ruth Bader Ginsburg. It would be the sharpest ideological swing since Clarence Thomas replaced Justice Thurgood Marshall nearly three decades ago.She would be the sixth justice on the nine-member court to be appointed by a Republican president, and the third of Trump’s first term in office.Trump hailed Barrett as “a woman of remarkable intellect and character,” saying he had studied her record closely before making the pick.Republican senators are lining up for a swift confirmation of Barrett ahead of the Nov. 3 election, as they aim to lock in conservative gains in the federal judiciary before a potential transition of power. Trump, meanwhile, is hoping the nomination will galvanize his supporters as he looks to fend off Democrat Joe Biden.For Trump, whose 2016 victory hinged in large part on reluctant support from white evangelicals on the promise of filling Scalia’s seat with a conservative, the latest nomination in some ways brings his first term full circle. Even before Ginsburg’s death, Trump was running on having confirmed in excess of 200 federal judges, fulfilling a generational aim of conservative legal activists.Trump joked that the confirmation process ahead “should be easy” and “extremely noncontroversial,” though it is likely to be anything but. No court nominee has been considered so close to a presidential election before, with early voting already underway. He encouraged legislators to take up her nomination swiftly and asked Democrats to “refrain from personal and partisan attacks.”In 2016, Republicans blocked Obama’s nomination of Merrick Garland to the Supreme Court to fill the election-year vacancy, saying voters should have a say in the lifetime appointment. Senate Republicans say they will move ahead this time, arguing the circumstances are different now that the White House and Senate are controlled by the same party.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said the Senate will vote “in the weeks ahead” on Barrett’s confirmation. Barrett is expected to make her first appearance Tuesday on Capitol Hill, where she will meet with McConnell; Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham, the chair of the Judiciary Committee; and others. Hearings are set to begin Oct. 12, and Graham said he hoped to have Barrett’s nomination out of the committee by Oct. 26.Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi warned that a vote to confirm Barrett to the high court would be a vote to strike down the Affordable Care Act. Schumer added that the president was once again putting “Americans’ healthcare in the crosshairs” even while the coronavirus pandemic rages.Biden took that route of criticism, as well, framing Trump’s choice as another move in Republicans’ effort to scrap the 2010 health care law passed by his former boss, President Barack Obama. The court is expected to take up a case against it this fall.The set design at the Rose Garden, with large American flags hung between the colonnades, appeared to be modeled on the way the White House was decorated when President Bill Clinton nominated Ginsburg in 1993.Barrett, recognizing that flags were still lowered in recognition of Ginsburg’s death, said she would be “mindful of who came before me.” Although they have different judicial philosophies, Barrett praised Ginsburg as a trailblazer for women and for her friendship with Scalia, saying, “She has won the admiration of women across the country and indeed all across the world.”Within hours of Ginsburg’s death, Trump made clear he would nominate a woman for the seat. Barrett was the early favorite and the only one to meet with Trump.Barrett has been a judge since 2017, when Trump nominated her to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But as a longtime University of Notre Dame law professor, she had already established herself as a reliable conservative in the mold of Scalia, for whom she clerked in the late 1990s.She would be the only justice on the current court not to have received her law degree from an Ivy League school. The eight current justices all attended either Harvard or Yale.The staunch conservative had become known to Trump in large part after her bitter 2017 appeals court confirmation included allegations that Democrats were attacking her Catholic faith. The president also interviewed her in 2018 for the vacancy created by the retirement of Justice Anthony Kennedy, but Trump ultimately chose Brett Kavanaugh.Trump and his political allies are itching for another fight over Barrett’s faith, seeing it as a political windfall that would backfire on Democrats. Catholic voters in Pennsylvania, in particular, are viewed as a pivotal demographic in the swing state that Biden, also Catholic, is trying to recapture.While Democrats appear powerless to stop Barrett’s confirmation in the GOP-controlled Senate, they are seeking to use the process to weaken Trump’s reelection chances.Barrett’s nomination could become a reckoning over abortion, an issue that has divided many Americans so bitterly for almost half a century. The idea of overturning or gutting Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision that legalized abortion, has animated activists in both parties for decades. Now, with the seemingly decisive shift in the court’s ideological makeup, Democrats hope their voters will turn out in droves because of their frustration with the Barrett pick.“Justice Ginsburg must be turning over in her grave up in heaven, to see that the person they chose seems to be intent on undoing all the things that Ginsburg did,” Schumer said.Trump has also increasingly embraced the high court — on which he will have had an outsize hand in reshaping -– as an insurance policy in a close election.“We don’t have to do it before, but I think this will be done before the election,” Trump told reporters Saturday. “I think it’ll send a great signal to a lot of people.”Increases in mail, absentee and early voting brought about by the coronavirus pandemic have already led to a flurry of election litigation, and both Trump and Biden have assembled armies of lawyers to continue the fight once vote-counting begins. Trump has been open about tying his push to name a third justice to the court to a potentially drawn-out court fight to determine who will be sworn in on Jan. 20, 2021.“I think this will end up in the Supreme Court,” Trump said Wednesday of the election. “And I think it’s very important that we have nine justices.”No Democratic senators are expected to vote to confirm Barrett before the election, even though some did support her in 2017.Two Democrats still serving in the Senate who voted to confirm Barrett in 2017, Sen. Tim Kaine of Virginia and Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia, now say it’s too close to the election to consider her nomination.Meanwhile, outside conservative groups are planning to spend more than $25 million to support Trump and his nominee. The Judicial Crisis Network has organized a coalition that includes American First Policies, the Susan B. Anthony List, the Club for Growth and the group Catholic Vote to help confirm Barrett. The Republican National Committee has launched a $10 million digital campaign of its own, in conjunction with Trump’s reelection campaign.-----WASHINGTON (AP) — Although Amy Coney Barrett is the president’s choice to replace Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg, she is more aptly described as heir to another departed Supreme Court justice: conservative hero Antonin Scalia.Like Scalia, for whom she once clerked, she is a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-ruth-bader-ginsburg-archive-courts-donald-trump-987e5fb6de8a1a29d1cbb00bf1f1948c">committed Roman Catholic</a>&nbsp;as well as a firm devotee of his favored interpretation of the Constitution known as originalism. Those qualifications delight many on the right but dismay liberals and others who fear her votes could result in the chipping away of some laws, especially the Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1601154987562.png" alt="President Trump introduced Amy Coney Barrett as his nomination to serve on the Supreme Court&nbsp; during a Rose Garden ceremony Saturday -photo courtesy White House" />
 <figcaption>President Trump introduced Amy Coney Barrett as his nomination to serve on the Supreme Court&nbsp; during a Rose Garden ceremony Saturday -photo courtesy White House</figcaption>
 </figure>President Donald Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/us-supreme-court-michael-pence-archive-courts-donald-trump-e2678a13cf3d2383300db6f1416664d6">announced his choice</a>&nbsp;of the 48-year-old Indiana judge on Saturday afternoon at the White House, setting Barrett on the path to help conservatives hold sway over the court for decades to come.Her selection is as sure to energize the president’s political base as it is to galvanize his foes with only weeks left to Election Day. Republican leaders in the Senate have already said they have the votes to confirm her nomination this year, likely before the election.But beyond the 2020 election, the Barrett elevation could bring a national reckoning over abortion, an issue that has divided many Americans bitterly for almost half a century. The idea of overturning or gutting Roe v. Wade, the landmark 1973 decision, has been an animating political issue exploited by both sides.Her legal writings and speeches show a commitment to originalism, a concept that involves justices endeavoring to decipher original meanings of texts in assessing whether someone’s rights have been violated. Many liberals say that approach is too rigid and doesn’t allow the Constitution’s consequences to adjust to vastly changing times.Barrett has been a federal judge since 2017, when Trump nominated her to the Chicago-based 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. But as a longtime University of Notre Dame law professor, she had already established herself as a reliable conservative in the mold of Scalia.On abortion, questions have arisen about Barrett’s involvement in organizations that vigorously oppose it. But she has not said publicly she would, if given the chance, seek to scale back rights affirmed by the high court.She gained a reputation as a Scalia clerk in the late 1990s as bright and adept at picking apart poorly reasoned arguments. Ara Lovitt, who clerked with her at the time, recalls that at her investiture ceremony for the 7th Circuit, Scalia had high praise for her.“‘Isn’t Amy great,’” Lovitt remembers Scalia saying.Before becoming a judge, she discussed how court precedents provide welcome stability in the law. But she also seemed to leave the door open to the possibility of reversing ones about which there remained sharp disagreement.“Once a precedent is deeply rooted,” a 2017 article in the University of Pennsylvania Journal of Constitutional Law, which Barrett co-wrote, said, “the Court is no longer required to deal with the question of the precedent’s correctness.” But it added: “None of this is to say that a Justice cannot attempt to overturn long-established precedent. While institutional features may hinder that effort, a Justice is free to try.”Barrett and her husband, Jesse Barrett, a former federal prosecutor, both graduated from Notre Dame Law School. They have seven children, including two adopted from Haiti and one with special needs.She would be the only justice on the current court not to have received her law degree from an Ivy League school. The eight current justices all attended either Harvard or Yale.How her religious beliefs might guide her legal views became a focus for some Democrats during bruising confirmation hearings after Barrett’s nomination for the 7th Circuit. That prompted Republicans to accuse Democrats of seeking to impose a religious test on Barrett’s fitness for the job.At Notre Dame, where Barrett began teaching at 30, she often invoked God in articles and speeches. In a 2006 address, she encouraged graduating law students to see their careers as a means to “building the kingdom of God.”She was considered a finalist in 2018 for the high court before Trump nominated Brett Kavanaugh for the seat that opened when Justice Anthony Kennedy retired. Even some conservatives worried her sparse judicial record made it too hard to predict how she might rule, concerned she could end up like other seemingly conservatives who wound up more moderate.Three years on, her record now includes around 100 opinions and dissents, in which she often illustrated Scalia’s influence by delving deep into historical minutiae to glean the meaning of original texts.A 2019 dissent in a gun-rights case argued a person convicted of a nonviolent felony shouldn’t be automatically barred from owning a gun. All but a few pages of her 37-page dissent were devoted to the history of gun rules for convicted criminals in the 18th and 19th centuries.Barrett has twice joined dissenting opinions asking for abortion-related decisions to be thrown out and reheard by the full appeals court. Last year, after a three-judge panel blocked an Indiana law that would make it harder for a minor to have an abortion without her parents being notified, Barrett voted to have the case reheard by the full court.She wrote a unanimous three-judge panel decision in 2019 making it easier for men alleged to have committed sexual assaults on campus to challenge the proceedings against them. And she was in dissent in June when her two colleagues on a 7th Circuit panel put on hold, just in Chicago, the Trump administration policy that could jeopardize permanent resident status for immigrants who use food stamps, Medicaid and housing vouchers.Barrett would assume the court seat with already substantial wealth, and her financial disclosures show close ties to a number of conservative groups. Barrett and her husband have investments worth between $845,000 and $2.8 million, according to her 2019 financial disclosure report. Judges report the value of their investments in ranges. Their money is invested mostly in mutual funds, some of which are for retirement and their children’s education.When she was nominated to the appeals court in 2017, Barrett reported assets of just over $2 million, including her home in Indiana worth nearly $425,000, and a mortgage on the property with a balance of $175,000.In the two previous years, Barrett received $4,200 in two equal payments from Alliance Defending Freedom, a conservative Christian law firm, her financial report shows. In 2018 and 2019, she participated in 10 events sponsored by the Federalist Society, which paid for her transportation, meals and lodging in New York, New Orleans, Washington and other cities. Several events took place at leading law schools.Barrett was raised in New Orleans and was the eldest child of a lawyer for Shell Oil Co. She earned her undergraduate degree in English literature in 1994 at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tennessee.She also served as a law clerk for Laurence Silberman for a year at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit. Between clerkships and entering academia, she worked from 1999 to 2001 at a law firm in Washington, Miller, Cassidy, Larroca &amp; Lewin.--------WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump has nominated Judge Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. The move on Saturday caps a dramatic reshaping of the federal judiciary that will resonate for a generation. He also hopes it will provide boost his reelection effort as he looks to fend off Democrat Joe Biden. Republican senators are lining up for a swift confirmation of Barrett before the Nov. 3 election, as they aim to lock in conservative gains in the federal judiciary before a potential transition of power. She would be the sixth justice on the nine-member court to be appointed by a Republican president, and the third of Trump’s first term in office.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1601154775530.png" alt="In the White House Rose Garden, President Trump announced&nbsp; Amy Coney Barrett&nbsp; as his pick to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg." />
 <figcaption>In the White House Rose Garden, President Trump announced&nbsp; Amy Coney Barrett&nbsp; as his pick to fill a vacancy on the Supreme Court following the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump announced the nomination of Amy Coney Barrett, a 48-year-old who would be among the youngest justices to assume a high-court seat and hence potentially one of the longest-serving.<a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/live/">Click here to </a>watch the announcement 4p.m. CDTAn airplane believed to be carrying Barrett and her family arrived at Joint Base Andrews Saturday afternoon.&nbsp;The plane left from South Bend, Indiana, where Barrett and her family live.The seat on the court was made vacant by the death of Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg last week at the age of 87.Barrett is a justice on the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. She was previously a law professor at Notre Dame and has been hailed as the heir to the late conservative Justice Antonin Scalia.She met with Trump at the White House earlier this week.

 🎥  Trump taps 'eminently qualified' Barrett for Supreme Court

TOPEKA, KAN. – A Kansas woman was sentenced to 38 months in federal prison this week for identity theft, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister. In addition, she was ordered to pay approximately $47,668 in in restitution.

Danielle Hutchens, 47, Topeka, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. 

In her plea, she admitted she and a co-defendant stole mail and used the information to create counterfeit checks and counterfeit identity cards. They passed counterfeit checks at retailers including Walmart stores in Overland Park, Kan., and Olathe, Kan.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1597697804068.png" alt="Hutchens" />
 <figcaption>Hutchens</figcaption>
 </figure>TOPEKA, KAN. – A Kansas woman was sentenced to 38 months in federal prison this week for identity theft, according to U.S. Attorney Stephen McAllister. In addition, she was ordered to pay approximately $47,668 in in restitution.Danielle Hutchens, 47, Topeka, pleaded guilty to one count of aggravated identity theft and one count of conspiracy to commit bank and wire fraud. In her plea, she admitted she and a co-defendant stole mail and used the information to create counterfeit checks and counterfeit identity cards. They passed counterfeit checks at retailers including Walmart stores in Overland Park, Kan., and Olathe, Kan.

Kan. woman gets prison for stealing mail, making fake IDs

JEFFERSON CITY — The Section for Medical Marijuana Regulation at the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) announced Saturday a medical marijuana testing facility has passed its commencement inspection, according to a media release.

With cultivation, dispensary, and testing facilities now operational, medical marijuana will soon be available to Missouri patients.&nbsp;

Director of the Section for Medical Marijuana Regulation Lyndall Fraker said, “We appreciate how hard these businesses have worked to become operational. These facilities have made it through a demanding review, and we look forward to their success in providing safe access to medical marijuana in Missouri.”

Article XIV established that implementation of a medical marijuana program should be accomplished efficiently, requiring that DHSS publicly report each year on the efficient discharge of its duties. Missouri’s implementation of its medical marijuana program has been one of the most efficient implementations in the nation, with implementation time coming in well below average, despite a pandemic.

This is particularly evident when considering Missouri has more facilities to usher through implementation than any other state except Oklahoma, which did not require some of the key safety measures required in Missouri, such as testing and tracking medical marijuana.

“The implementation of this program has been efficient yet thorough,” said Dr. Randall Williams, director of DHSS. “Much has been said in recent months of how rigorous our compliance processes are, and Missourians should be assured that this industry will be well-regulated, just as Article XIV and Missouri voters envisioned.”

The medical marijuana program’s annual report for its first year of operation was released in June and&nbsp;<a href="https://health.mo.gov/news/newsitem/uuid/00e1073b-19fd-4df8-b425-f3509693f059/missouri-s-medical-marijuana-program-publishes-first-annual-report">can be found here</a>. Additional reporting on&nbsp;<a href="https://health.mo.gov/safety/medical-marijuana/stats.php">medical marijuana facilities’ progress</a>&nbsp;can be found here.

JEFFERSON CITY — The Section for Medical Marijuana Regulation at the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) announced Saturday a medical marijuana testing facility has passed its commencement inspection, according to a media release.With cultivation, dispensary, and testing facilities now operational, medical marijuana will soon be available to Missouri patients.&nbsp;Director of the Section for Medical Marijuana Regulation Lyndall Fraker said, “We appreciate how hard these businesses have worked to become operational. These facilities have made it through a demanding review, and we look forward to their success in providing safe access to medical marijuana in Missouri.”Article XIV established that implementation of a medical marijuana program should be accomplished efficiently, requiring that DHSS publicly report each year on the efficient discharge of its duties. Missouri’s implementation of its medical marijuana program has been one of the most efficient implementations in the nation, with implementation time coming in well below average, despite a pandemic.This is particularly evident when considering Missouri has more facilities to usher through implementation than any other state except Oklahoma, which did not require some of the key safety measures required in Missouri, such as testing and tracking medical marijuana.“The implementation of this program has been efficient yet thorough,” said Dr. Randall Williams, director of DHSS. “Much has been said in recent months of how rigorous our compliance processes are, and Missourians should be assured that this industry will be well-regulated, just as Article XIV and Missouri voters envisioned.”The medical marijuana program’s annual report for its first year of operation was released in June and&nbsp;<a href="https://health.mo.gov/news/newsitem/uuid/00e1073b-19fd-4df8-b425-f3509693f059/missouri-s-medical-marijuana-program-publishes-first-annual-report">can be found here</a>. Additional reporting on&nbsp;<a href="https://health.mo.gov/safety/medical-marijuana/stats.php">medical marijuana facilities’ progress</a>&nbsp;can be found here.

DHSS: Medical marijuana a step closer to patients in Missouri

The Missouri Department of Health reported 69 more coronavirus death Saturday. As is true with each daily update, this number is not always indicative of deaths that occurred in the past 24 hours. This is based on when information was received and/or entered in our system. The daily deaths graph on the statewide dashboard represents deaths by the date the death occurred, not when they are recorded.

<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">COVID-19 update for Sept 26: - 1,716 new cases - 11.8%: 7-day positivity rate - 69 deaths added (Not all from the past 24 hrs. For more: <a href="https://t.co/Y0dX9GcWtR">https://t.co/Y0dX9GcWtR</a>) Learn more about Missouri’s COVID-19 response and statistics at <a href="https://t.co/V6es2EUkO0">https://t.co/V6es2EUkO0</a> <a href="https://t.co/cAIGBKN9FE">pic.twitter.com/cAIGBKN9FE</a>&mdash; Mo Health &amp; Sr Srvcs (@HealthyLivingMo) <a href="https://twitter.com/HealthyLivingMo/status/1309930783394672641?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">September 26, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>The Missouri Department of Health reported 69 more coronavirus death Saturday. As is true with each daily update, this number is not always indicative of deaths that occurred in the past 24 hours. This is based on when information was received and/or entered in our system. The daily deaths graph on the statewide dashboard represents deaths by the date the death occurred, not when they are recorded.

Missouri reports 69 more deaths from coronavirus

MISSION, Kan. (AP) — It began with devastation in the New York City area, followed by a summertime crisis in the Sun Belt. Now the coronavirus outbreak is heating up fast in smaller cities in the heartland, often in conservative corners of America where anti-mask sentiment runs high.

Elsewhere around the country, Florida’s Republican governor lifted all restrictions on restaurants and other businesses Friday and all but set aside local mask ordinances in the political battleground state, in a move attacked by Democrats as hasty.

Meanwhile, confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S. hit another milestone — 7 million — according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University, though the real number of infections is believed to be much higher.

The spike across the Midwest as well as parts of the West has set off alarms at hospitals, schools and colleges.

Wisconsin is averaging more than 2,000 new cases a day over the last week, compared with 675 three weeks earlier. Hospitalizations in the state are at their highest level since the outbreak took hold in the U.S. in March.

Utah has seen its average daily case count more than double from three weeks earlier. Oklahoma and Missouri are regularly recording 1,000 new cases a day, and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a staunch opponent of mask rules, tested positive this week. Kansas and Iowa are also witnessing a spike in cases. And South Dakota and Idaho are seeing sky-high rates of tests coming back positive.

“What we’re seeing is the newer hot spots rise over the course of the last several weeks, predominantly in the Upper Midwest,” said Thomas Tsai, a professor at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health.

The U.S. is averaging more than 40,000 new confirmed cases a day. While that number is dramatically lower than the peak of nearly 70,000 over the summer, the numbers are worrisome nonetheless. The nation’s death toll eclipsed 200,000 this week, the highest in the world.

In the Midwest, the virus is now landing squarely in places where there is strong resistance to masks and governors have been reluctant to require face coverings.

In Springfield, Missouri, hospitals are starting to fill up with COVID-19 patients and the city has seen a big spike in deaths over the past month.

Amelia Montgomery, a nurse working in the COVID unit at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, describes a maddening routine where family members of sick patients call up medical staff on the phone on a daily basis and question whether their loved ones truly have the virus and and the veracity of positive test results.

“We know what COVID looks like now after six months of dealing with it,” Montgomery said. “It is like beating your head against a brick wall when you are constantly having patients, family members of these patients and the community argue so intensely that it is not real or we are treating it in the wrong way.”

The skepticism about the virus coincides with deep frustration over mask requirements in the Midwestern cities that actually have them.

Mike Cooper, a 59-year-old and sign shop owner from the Branson, Missouri, area, is among those who have grown weary of virus restrictions that he sees as out-of-control government overreach. He has no doubts about the seriousness of the virus, but says the financial toll of business and school shutdowns creates its own set of health problems, such as alcoholism, suicide and depression. “Financial ruin kills people too,” he said.

“To me, flatten the curve means extend the plague. Flatten the curve means you are just going to kill the same number of people over a longer period of time, so they are going to extend the plague,” Cooper said.

In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a major ally of President Donald Trump, gave businesses the OK to reopen, declaring, “We’re not closing anything going forward.”

The governor, who has resisted making mask-wearing mandatory statewide, also said he will stop cities and counties from collecting fines from people who don’t cover their faces, virtually nullifying local mask ordinances.

Florida was a major hot spot over the summer, and the death toll there stands at nearly 14,000. Deaths are running at over 100 a day, and newly confirmed infections at about 2,700 a day.

Like Trump, DeSantis has questioned the effectiveness of closing down businesses, arguing that states that more aggressively shut down, including California, have fared no better.

“The state of Florida is probably the most open big state in the country,” he boasted Friday.

Florida Democrats have bemoaned the governor’s push to reopen.

“No one is advocating for a full-scale lockdown in Florida. But we have been and continue to ask for common-sense prevention measures such as face masks, which are essential to preventing further spread,” state Sen. Audrey Gibson said Thursday.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1599689971178.png" alt="Kansas Department of Health Secretary Dr. Lee Norman listens to questions during his press conference Wednesday" />
 <figcaption>Kansas Department of Health Secretary Dr. Lee Norman listens to questions during his press conference Wednesday</figcaption>
 </figure>MISSION, Kan. (AP) — It began with devastation in the New York City area, followed by a summertime crisis in the Sun Belt. Now the coronavirus outbreak is heating up fast in smaller cities in the heartland, often in conservative corners of America where anti-mask sentiment runs high.Elsewhere around the country, Florida’s Republican governor lifted all restrictions on restaurants and other businesses Friday and all but set aside local mask ordinances in the political battleground state, in a move attacked by Democrats as hasty.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/9/1601054548620.png" alt="Friday Sept. 25, 2020 KDHE image" />
 <figcaption>Friday Sept. 25, 2020 KDHE image</figcaption>
 </figure>Meanwhile, confirmed cases of the virus in the U.S. hit another milestone — 7 million — according to the count kept by Johns Hopkins University, though the real number of infections is believed to be much higher.The spike across the Midwest as well as parts of the West has set off alarms at hospitals, schools and colleges.Wisconsin is averaging more than 2,000 new cases a day over the last week, compared with 675 three weeks earlier. Hospitalizations in the state are at their highest level since the outbreak took hold in the U.S. in March.Utah has seen its average daily case count more than double from three weeks earlier. Oklahoma and Missouri are regularly recording 1,000 new cases a day, and Missouri Gov. Mike Parson, a staunch opponent of mask rules, tested positive this week. Kansas and Iowa are also witnessing a spike in cases. And South Dakota and Idaho are seeing sky-high rates of tests coming back positive.“What we’re seeing is the newer hot spots rise over the course of the last several weeks, predominantly in the Upper Midwest,” said Thomas Tsai, a professor at Harvard’s Chan School of Public Health.The U.S. is averaging more than 40,000 new confirmed cases a day. While that number is dramatically lower than the peak of nearly 70,000 over the summer, the numbers are worrisome nonetheless. The nation’s death toll eclipsed 200,000 this week, the highest in the world.In the Midwest, the virus is now landing squarely in places where there is strong resistance to masks and governors have been reluctant to require face coverings.In Springfield, Missouri, hospitals are starting to fill up with COVID-19 patients and the city has seen a big spike in deaths over the past month.Amelia Montgomery, a nurse working in the COVID unit at Cox South Hospital in Springfield, describes a maddening routine where family members of sick patients call up medical staff on the phone on a daily basis and question whether their loved ones truly have the virus and and the veracity of positive test results.“We know what COVID looks like now after six months of dealing with it,” Montgomery said. “It is like beating your head against a brick wall when you are constantly having patients, family members of these patients and the community argue so intensely that it is not real or we are treating it in the wrong way.”The skepticism about the virus coincides with deep frustration over mask requirements in the Midwestern cities that actually have them.Mike Cooper, a 59-year-old and sign shop owner from the Branson, Missouri, area, is among those who have grown weary of virus restrictions that he sees as out-of-control government overreach. He has no doubts about the seriousness of the virus, but says the financial toll of business and school shutdowns creates its own set of health problems, such as alcoholism, suicide and depression. “Financial ruin kills people too,” he said.“To me, flatten the curve means extend the plague. Flatten the curve means you are just going to kill the same number of people over a longer period of time, so they are going to extend the plague,” Cooper said.In Florida, Gov. Ron DeSantis, a major ally of President Donald Trump, gave businesses the OK to reopen, declaring, “We’re not closing anything going forward.”The governor, who has resisted making mask-wearing mandatory statewide, also said he will stop cities and counties from collecting fines from people who don’t cover their faces, virtually nullifying local mask ordinances.Florida was a major hot spot over the summer, and the death toll there stands at nearly 14,000. Deaths are running at over 100 a day, and newly confirmed infections at about 2,700 a day.Like Trump, DeSantis has questioned the effectiveness of closing down businesses, arguing that states that more aggressively shut down, including California, have fared no better.“The state of Florida is probably the most open big state in the country,” he boasted Friday.Florida Democrats have bemoaned the governor’s push to reopen.“No one is advocating for a full-scale lockdown in Florida. But we have been and continue to ask for common-sense prevention measures such as face masks, which are essential to preventing further spread,” state Sen. Audrey Gibson said Thursday.In other developments:— Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam announced he and his wife have tested positive, though he said he has no symptoms. Northam, a Democrat who is also a doctor and usually wears a mask in public, has been criticized by Republicans who say his restrictions aimed at slowing the spread of the virus are too stringent.— Two former administrators of a Massachusetts veterans home where nearly 80 people died were charged with neglect over their handling of the outbreak. They could go to prison if convicted. It is believed to be the nation’s first criminal case brought against nursing home officials for actions during the crisis.— In New York City, which beat back the virus after a disastrous spring, four Orthodox Jewish schools were closed for violating social-distancing rules. Health officials said if virus cases in these neighborhoods continue to build, the city might roll back the reopening in some places and require businesses to close back down.Mask and social distancing rules are starting to cause fatigue in some areas of the Midwest and West.In Joplin, Missouri, a mask ordinance was allowed to expire in mid-August as virus fatigue grew. Since then, the number of positive cases there and in surrounding Jasper County — a deeply conservative county that Trump won by more than 50 percentage points over Hillary Clinton in 2016 — has risen about 80%.“I am getting sick and tired of telling people to wear their masks, and I know they are sick and tired of me saying it,” said Tony Moehr, chief of the Jasper County Health Department. “And it just seems like people have heard it so many times, I’m not sure if they really even hear it anymore when we say it.”At the home of the University of Oklahoma, the Norman City Council voted 5-3 this week to require that masks be worn indoors at house parties if more than 25 people are present. The ordinance passed over objections from members of the public.“You can make any law that you want to. You come into my house telling me that I got to wear this stupid thing and you’re going to have a firefight on your hands,” said Josh Danforth, holding a mask, who identified himself as an Iraq war veteran.