Texas pulls away from short-handed Kansas State

MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — It has been feast or famine from the perimeter for Texas this season

Wednesday was a feast night for the Longhorns, who gorged themselves to the tune of 14 3-pointers as they won their Big 12 Conference opener for the 15th time in 23 seasons, pushing past short-handed Kansas State in the second half for a 67-47 victory.

Kansas State was without Kamau Stokes, who averages 11.1 points per game. Stokes missed much of last season with a broken ankle and he reinjured it during a morning shooting session and did not dress for the game. The Wildcats already were without Dean Wade, who is recovering for a foot injury.

Kace Febres hit 8 of 10 shots from the field, including 7 of 9 from 3-point range, and scored 15 of his 23 points in the second half for Texas (9-4, 1-0 Big 12), which won for the fourth time in their last five games. Kerwin Roach II added 10 points in the winning effort.

“Our guys did a really good job of keeping a winning mindset,” Texas coach Shaka Smart said. “We talked about that before this game because Kansas State always does a very good job of making it hard on you.”

The Wildcats (10-3) have struggled offensively, averaging 67 points per game coming into conference play, and losing Stokes further hampered their ability to score.

“I think we could’ve done a little bit better even without (Stokes and Wade) in there,” Barry Brown said. “Just get the ball moving side to side. I think motion worked a little bit for a stretch.”

Makol Mawien had 12 points and was the lone Kansas State scorer to reach double figures.

“We talked about getting it to (Mawien),” Wildcats coach Bruce Weber said. “He struggled a little bit early in the game and maybe tried too much.”

It was a good night for Texas from the 3-point line, shooting 64 percent and going 14-27, with five of those coming in the final five minutes.

Texas used a 33-12 run to end the game after trailing by as many as five in the second half.

With 10 minutes to play, Febres hit back-to-back threes to give Texas a 40-35 lead and the Longhorns never trailed again.

“Shot preparation is everything,” Febres said. “Coach preaches always to stay in my shot and to make sure I am not leaning back. I make sure to keep in my mind every look and the results were pretty good today.”

The Wildcats used a 14-4 run to end the first half and start the second to take a two-point lead with 13 minutes left in the game.

Midway through the first half, Texas switched to a zone defense that stifled the Wildcats. K-State only went to the free throw line once while Texas shot three free throws in the first half.

BIG PICTURE

Kansas State will need to rely on their bench play much more to carry the through this stretch without Wade and Stokes.

Texas picked up a huge road win to start conference play. If they can shoot the ball that well most of the season they will be in great shape.

UP NEXT

K-State will take on No. 11 Texas Tech on Saturday in Lubbock.

Texas hosts West Virginia at 8 p.m. Saturday.

NBA Briefs: Nets hold off Davis, Pelicans

NEW YORK (AP) — D’Angelo Russell had 22 points and 13 assists, and the Brooklyn Nets built up a big enough lead with a 73-point first half to withstand Anthony Davis’ monstrous return to the lineup, beating the New Orleans Pelicans 126-121 on Wednesday night.

Davis finished with 34 points and a career-high 26 rebounds after a one-game absence, but there weren’t enough rebounds to get in the first half, when the Nets opened a 24-point lead during their highest-scoring first half at home in 17 years.

Joe Harris added 21 points for the Nets, who had 105 points through three quarters, then got consecutive baskets by Harris when New Orleans trimmed the down to seven with under 5 minutes remaining.

The Nets made nine of their first 15 3-point attempts during their highest-scoring first half at home since getting 75 against Golden State on Feb. 19, 2002. They finished with seven players in double figures, with DeMarre Carroll (19) and Spencer Dinwiddie (18) leading strong efforts off the bench.

Elfrid Payton scored 25 points for New Orleans in his second game back after missing more than a month with a broken finger. Julius Randle had 21, and Jrue Holiday 20.

THUNDER 107, LAKERS 100

LOS ANGELES (AP) — Paul George scored 37 points while getting booed whenever he touched the ball by Lakers fans still angry he didn’t choose their team in free agency, leading Oklahoma City over Los Angeles.

Russell Westbrook had 14 points, 16 rebounds and 10 assists despite 3-for-20 shooting, but his fellow Southern California native was the center of attention in the Thunder’s only visit to the Lakers this season.

George scored nine points in the fourth quarter while the Thunder rallied from a five-point deficit and easily held on for their seventh win in 10 games.

Kentavious Caldwell-Pope scored 18 of his 25 points in the first half for the Lakers, who dropped to 1-3 during LeBron James’ absence with a groin injury. Los Angeles has lost six of nine overall after its offense managed just six field goals in the fourth quarter, along with the Lakers’ usual awful free throw shooting.

76ERS 132, SUNS 127

PHOENIX (AP) — Joel Embiid, playing despite a sore left knee, matched his season high with 42 points, 30 in the first half, and grabbed 18 rebounds as Philadelphia held off Phoenix.

Ben Simmons added 29 points and J.J. Redick 27 for the 76ers, who were without Jimmy Butler and Wilson Chandler, both due to an upper respiratory infection. Devin Booker scored 37 points for the Suns. Deandre Ayton added 18 points and 11 boards and Josh Jackson scored 16 points.

Philadelphia led by 23 at halftime and as many as 30 in the third quarter. The Suns cut it to three points before Redick finally sealed the victory with a pair of free throws with 4.3 seconds to play.

CELTICS 115, TIMBERWOLVES 102

BOSTON (AP) — Gordon Hayward came off the bench to score a season-high 35 points in Boston’s victory over Minnesota.

Terry Rozier scored 11 of his 16 points in the first quarter while making his third start of the season because Kyrie Irving scratched both of his eyes in Monday’s game against San Antonio. Hayward took over from there, with 13 in the second quarter and 15 in the third to finish with his highest-scoring game with the Celtics.

Andrew Wiggins scored 31 points, and Karl-Anthony Towns had 20 of his 28 points — and grabbed five of his 12 rebounds — in the third quarter, when Minnesota trimmed a 22-point deficit to six points.

MAVERICKS 122, HORNETS 84

CHARLOTTE, N.C. (AP) — Luka Doncic and Dennis Smith Jr. fueled an early long-range shooting spree and Dallas beat Charlotte to end a nine-game road skid.

Doncic and Smith each had 18 points, and Harrison Barnes added 17. The Mavericks hit 10 first-quarter 3-pointers — three from Doncic and two from Smith — and finished with 18 overall.

Dallas won for the first time on the road since Nov. 28. It entered the game with a NBA-worst 2-16 road record, compared to 15-3 at home.

Dwight Powell scored 15 points, Wesley Matthews had 11, and DeAndre Jordan had eight points and 13 rebounds. Doncic added 10 rebounds and Smith seven assists.

Kemba Walker led Charlotte with 11 points.

HEAT 117, CAVALIERS 92

CLEVELAND (AP) — Josh Richardson scored 24 points and Miami — playing with Dwyane Wade sidelined by an illness — rolled past Cleveland.

Miami hit 16 of 31 3-pointers. Tyler Johnson added 16 points, and Derrick Jones Jr. had 13. The Heat have won seven of nine to reach the .500 mark at 18-18.

Cleveland dropped to 8-30 — the worst record in the NBA — with its seventh straight loss.

Tristan Thompson and Rodney Hood returned from injuries and started for the Cavaliers, but it mattered little in their ninth loss in 10 games. Thompson had 14 points, and Hood added 13.

PISTONS 101, GRIZZLIES 94

MEMPHIS, Tenn. (AP) — Blake Griffin had 26 points, eight rebounds and seven assists and Detroit beat Memphis to snap a three-game skid.

Griffin closed out a 13-0 Detroit run in the fourth quarter to put it out of reach, Reggie Jackson added 16 points, and Reggie Bullock and Luke Kennard had 13 each.

Jaren Jackson Jr. led Memphis with 26 points and 10 rebounds, and Kyle Anderson scored 15 points. Dillon Brooks finished with 14 points off the bench as the Grizzlies dropped their third straight.

KanCare response appreciated

KanCare officials showed a surprising but encouraging willingness to roll back unwelcome changes in mid-December in response to feedback. A new system of codes for formerly bundled services meant that Kansas pediatricians who see children on Medicaid saw a significant reduction in payments starting Nov. 1. Reimbursement for an office visit dropped, in some cases, from $70 to $26 for a 1-month-old child.

For pediatricians, changes to Medicaid reimbursements have real consequences. Nearly 40 percent of Kansas children are covered by Medicaid or CHIP, a supplemental program. For most pediatricians, Medicaid reimbursements make up a significant percentage of their income. Kansas already pays less for well-child checkups than surrounding states, making any reduction particularly burdensome.

At a KanCare Advisory Council meeting, lawmakers and public officials heard concerns from pediatricians about the new billing structure. Some physicians told the council that they would likely be forced to scale back the number of Medicaid patients they treat, a move that risks cutting off children from health care.

In response, Kansas Medicaid director Jon Hamdorf announced only a few days later that he would reverse the billing change, raise reimbursement rates and make changes retroactive to ensure pediatricians get the compensation they need.

The speed and sensibility of the approach may surprise Kansans accustomed to hearing stories about KanCare application backlogs, confusion from consumers and concerns from service providers statewide. Despite clear challenges, there are hard-working, dedicated professionals working in the KanCare system who are willing to act quickly in the service of Kansans.

Public servants working within KanCare should get the opportunity to share their ideas and suggestions with the Kansas legislature and newly elected governor in the coming year. There is welcome momentum towards reforming KanCare to correct long standing service issues.

Expanding Medicaid, a practical policy decision long endorsed by this newspaper, would also go a long way toward ensuring the system has the resources it needs to function efficiently.

Every child in Kansas deserves the opportunity to grow, learn and succeed, which requires access to quality health care. When any barrier, bureaucratic, financial, or otherwise, stands between our children and the care they need, we must act quickly, as seen last week, to correct the problem.

A look back in time

Seventy years ago

January 1949

Several hundred persons lined up to buy motor car license tags this morning at the courthouse. Some got the numbers they were after, but some were disappointed, and others gave up in the face of a somewhat overwhelming situation. It took two hours or more to go from the end of the line on the first floor of the courthouse to the counter in the treasurer’s office on the second floor.

*****

Dr. G. E. Myers, who has been associated with Dr. J. Russell Nevitt at the emergency hospital, has opened his own office at 14½ South Washington and will engage in the general practice of medicine, he announced this morning.

*****

Yesterday new combination red flashers, bells and flood light signals were put into operation at the Santa Fe Railway crossings on both West Street and North State Street. Motorists using either Highway 54 or 169 will now have little excuse for collisions with trains at these two points. The flood lights illuminate the crossings and both sides of a train brilliantly. A train on the tracks can be readily seen for a distance of several blocks.

*****

Although dairying is now Allen County’s largest industry only a fraction of this area’s potential milk production has been realized. That was the conclusion emphasized last night by John Brazee and A. J. Miller who spoke before the Chamber of Commerce on the growth of the local plant Pet Milk Company during the past 25 years. The plant now has about 2,000 patrons from whom it purchases milk every day, employees 70 to 85 men and has 34 others who operate milk routes throughout the plant’s territory, extending 40 miles from Iola in every direction.

*****

Mayor T. O. Waugh said this afternoon that lights will be turned on at 7:30 at the football stadium in Riverside Park tonight to provide illumination for ice skating. Many students gathered at the park after school yesterday to ice skate. The melting ice will probably be hard enough for skating by nightfall.

Insurance chief taps assistant

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Insurance Commissioner-elect Vicki Schmidt has picked a high-ranking Kansas Department of Transportation official to serve as her top deputy.

Schmidt announced Wednesday that upon taking office, she will appoint Barbara Rankin as assistant insurance commissioner. Schmidt is scheduled to be sworn in Jan. 14.

Rankin has been the Department of Transportation’s chief counsel since 2011. Rankin also has more than 20 years of legal experience in the banking, insurance and securities industries and built what Schmidt called “a wealth of knowledge and experience.”

Trump shares thoughts on his ‘home alone’ holidays

WASHINGTON (AP) — Home alone no more, President Donald Trump had a lot to share when he convened a rambling Cabinet meeting on Day 12 of the government shutdown.

The president, eager for company after a lonely stretch in a near-empty White House, zigzagged for more than 90 minutes from his demands for a southern border wall to his thoughts on Kanye West and his decision to pull troops out of Syria — all while a mock movie poster with his photograph and the words “SANCTIONS ARE COMING, NOVEMBER 4” sat, without explanation, in the middle of the grand Cabinet Room table.

It was Trump’s first public appearance in nearly a week, after being holed up in the White House for Christmas and New Year’s. Trump had been scheduled to spend the holidays with his family at his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach, Florida, but canceled the trip to wait out the partial government shutdown that began Dec. 22.

“You know, I was in the White House all by myself for six, seven days. It was very lonely. My family was down in Florida,” Trump recounted. He described channel-flipping and watching a different network — PBS — to fill the time.

“I felt I should be here just in case people wanted to come and negotiate the border security,” Trump explained.

Later, he talked about his Christmas “all alone,” with no one around except for the “machine gunners.”

“I was all by myself in the White House — it’s a big, big house — except for all the guys out on the lawn with machine guns,” Trump said, referencing the Secret Service and military personnel who guard the White House year-round.

“I was waving to them. … These are great people. And they don’t play games. They don’t, like, wave. They don’t even smile,” he said. “I was hoping that maybe somebody would come back and negotiate. But they didn’t do that.”

It had indeed been a slow holiday stretch, minus a flurry of presidential tweets. The White House did not send out a formal public schedule; the doors to the White House press shop were often locked; and West Wing offices sat dark as Christmas and New Year’s ticked by.

According to the plan filed by the deputy White House chief of staff for operations with the budget office before the shutdown, more than 1,000 of 1,759 staff members in the Executive Office of the President were expected to be placed on furlough. That includes 156 of 359 White House Office staff, 18 of 19 of those who work in the Office of the Vice President, and all 58 National Security Council staffers.

But senior aides, as well as many Cabinet members, were back at work Wednesday and in the room as the president held court on the shutdown and much, much more. The shutdown, he said, will last “as long as it takes.” On his decision to pull out of Syria, he explained, “We’re talking about sand and death.” And as for his favorite rapper, Trump enthused: “Even Kanye West came out today and said great things about Trump.”

He also took a shot at his former defense secretary Jim Mattis, who resigned last month, saying he wasn’t happy with the job Mattis had done in Afghanistan.

“I mean, I wish him well,” said Trump, “But, as you know, President Obama fired him and, essentially, so did I. I want results.”

As the meeting stretched past the hour mark, Cabinet secretaries shifted in their seats as they took their turns speaking. At one point, Energy Secretary Rick Perry appeared to be playing mock piano on the arm of Small Business Administrator Linda McMahon’s chair.

“It’s going to be a very exciting year. I think it’s going to be a very good year. Some people think it’ll be controversial and tough and it probably will, but we’re going to get it done,” Trump said.

iPhone demand wanes as Chinese tighten belts

BEIJING (AP) — Apple Inc.’s $1,000 iPhone is a tough sell to consumers in China unnerved by an economic slump and the trade war with the U.S.

CEO Tim Cook said in a letter to shareholders released Wednesday that demand for iPhones is waning and revenue for the last quarter of 2018 will fall well below projections, a decrease he traced mainly to China.

The tech giant is just the latest global company grappling with increasing Chinese consumer anxiety. Other brand names such as Ford Motor Co. and jeweler Tiffany & Co. already have reported abrupt declines in sales to Chinese buyers.

China still is one of the fastest-growing economies, with 2018’s expansion forecast at about 6.5 percent. But China’s tariff fight with the U.S. and an avalanche of bad news about tumbling auto and real estate sales are undermining consumer confidence after two decades of almost unbroken rapid growth.

“People are worried about losing jobs,” said Emily Li, a 37-year-old advertising designer in Beijing. She said she is putting off replacing her car or making other major purchases.

Weakness in Chinese demand is especially painful for Apple and other smartphone makers. China accounts for one-third of the industry’s global handset shipments.

Shipments in China fell 10 percent from a year earlier to 103 million handsets in the quarter ending in September, according to research firm IDC. It expects last year’s total Chinese purchases to shrink by 8 to 9 percent compared with 2016.

The belt-tightening in the world’s second-largest economy is bedeviling global industries, including autos and designer clothing, that count on China to drive sales growth.

The trade war with Washington has shaken a “sense of China’s invincibility,” said Mark Natkin, managing director of Marbridge Consulting, a research firm in Beijing. Chinese are waking up to the fact that their economy is vulnerable to the uncertainties of the global economy, he said.

The slump is a setback for the ruling Communist Party’s efforts to nurture self-sustaining, consumer-driven economic growth and wean China from its reliance on exports and investment.

China’s third-quarter economic growth of 6.5 percent was stronger than most other major economies, but the country’s lowest since the 2008 global crisis.

Beijing has propped up growth with higher government spending, helping to offset painful contractions in some areas.

Still, auto sales in the biggest global market are on track for their first annual decline in three decades after plunging 16 percent in November. Soft real estate sales have forced developers to cut prices.

Overall, export growth decelerated to 5.4 percent over a year earlier, less than half October’s 12.6 percent rate.

Sales to the U.S. market have held up despite Trump’s punitive tariffs on $250 billion of Chinese goods, rising 12.9 percent in November over a year earlier. But that was thanks partly to exporters rushing to beat further American duty increases — a trend that is starting to fade.

Apple’s setback also highlights another challenge: increasingly capable Chinese competitors whose products cost less.

Shutdown sitdown: White House plans briefing

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are expected to attend a briefing on border security at the White House as the government remains partially shut down and President Donald Trump asks in a tweet, “Let’s make a deal?”

The partial government shutdown began on Dec. 22. Funding for Trump’s pet project, a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, has been the sticking point in passing budgets for several government departments.

The briefing is scheduled for this afternoon, the day before Democrats are to assume control of the House and end the Republican monopoly on government.

The exact agenda, however, was not immediately clear, according to a person with knowledge of the briefing who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the top incoming House Republicans — Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana — planned to attend, according to aides. The departing House speaker, Paul Ryan, was not expected.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to become speaker on Thursday, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer planned to attend. Pelosi said Tuesday that Democrats would take action to “end the Trump Shutdown” by passing legislation Thursday to reopen government.

“We are giving the Republicans the opportunity to take yes for an answer,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues. “Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the President’s third shutdown of his term.”

The White House invitation came Tuesday after House Democrats released their plan to re-open the government without approving money for a border wall — unveiling two bills to fund shuttered government agencies and put hundreds of thousands of federal workers back on the job. They planned to pass them as soon as the new Congress convenes Thursday.

Responding to the Democratic plan, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders late Tuesday night called it a “non-starter” and said it won’t re-open the government “because it fails to secure the border and puts the needs of other countries above the needs of our own citizens.”

Trump spent the weekend saying Democrats should return to Washington to negotiate, firing off Twitter taunts. After aides suggested there would not necessarily be a traditional wall as Trump had described since his presidential campaign, Trump stated that he really still wanted to build a border wall.

On Tuesday morning, after tweeting a New Year’s message to “EVERYONE INCLUDING THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA,” Trump tweeted: “The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall. So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security.”

But he seemed to shift tactics later in the day, appealing to Pelosi. “Border Security and the Wall ‘thing’ and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let’s make a deal?” he tweeted.

Whether the Republican-led Senate would consider the Democratic bills — or if Trump would sign either into law — was unclear. McConnell spokesman Donald Stewart said Senate Republicans would not take action without Trump’s backing.

“It’s simple: The Senate is not going to send something to the president that he won’t sign,” Stewart said.

Even if only symbolic, the passage of the bills in the House would put fresh pressure on the president. At the same time, administration officials said Trump was in no rush for a resolution to the impasse.

Trump believes he has public opinion on his side and, at very least, his base of supporters behind him, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Democratic package to end the shutdown would include one bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels — with $1.3 billion for border security, far less than the $5 billion Trump has said he wants for the wall — through Feb. 8 as talks continued.

It would also include another measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown. It would provide money through the remainder of the fiscal year, to Sept. 30.

New laws affect birth to death — and, of course, taxes

The new year marks the start of numerous new state laws affecting a broad swath of life — from birth to marriage to death and, of course, taxes. Most take effect Tuesday. A look at some of them:

ABORTION

States continue to move in different directions. A new Washington law will require contraception coverage in health insurance and, if a policy covers maternity care, also will require it to cover abortions.

In Tennessee, a new law says if an ultrasound is performed before an abortion, the woman must be given the opportunity to learn the results.

Arizona will require increased state reporting about abortions, and providers must ask women if they were coerced into seeking the procedure or are victims of sex trafficking or sexual assault.

ASSISTED SUICIDE

Hawaii will become the sixth state, along with Washington D.C., to legalize medically assisted suicide. The law will allow doctors to fulfill requests from terminally ill patients for fatal prescription medication. Two health care providers must confirm a patient’s diagnosis, prognosis and ability to make decisions about the prescription.

CRIMINAL JUSTICE

A Louisiana constitutional amendment, approved by voters, will require unanimous juries in order to convict people of serious felony crimes. It reverses a Jim Crow-era practice that had allowed as few as 10 members of a 12-person jury to convict defendants in cases not involving death sentences. Oregon will now be the only state to allow convictions under split juror verdicts.

A California law will prohibit people age 15 and younger from being tried as adults for crimes.

DRUNKEN DRIVING

Utah is adopting the nation’s strictest drunken driving threshold — 0.05 percent blood alcohol content. The state’s hospitality and ski industries have expressed concern that the new law will exacerbate Utah’s reputation as a Mormon-dominated state where it’s tough to get a drink. But proponents include the National Transportation Safety Board, which says people start to become impaired with a first drink.

An Idaho law will require first-time convicted drunken drivers to have an ignition interlock device installed on their vehicles for one year.

EQUALITY

A new Oregon law will expand equal pay requirements. The law extends an existing prohibition on sex-based pay discrimination to also include race, color, religion, sexual orientation, national origin, marital status, veteran status, disability and age. Pay differences must be based on seniority, merit, experience and other factors. Employees who prevail in complaints with the state Bureau of Labor and Industries can recover back pay for up to two years.

California will require corporate boards of publicly traded companies to include women by the end of 2019.

GUNS

One new Illinois law will extend the current 72-hour waiting period for purchasing handguns to all firearms; another will allow relatives or law officers to ask courts to remove guns from people believed to be a danger to themselves or others.

California, which already bars people younger than 21 from buying handguns, will extend that to long guns with a few exceptions for military members and licensed hunters. The state also will ban guns for people with certain domestic violence misdemeanors and require eight hours of training and live-fire exercises to carry concealed weapons.

IMMIGRANTS

A Tennessee law will ban local governments from having “sanctuary” policies for people living in the country illegally. It bans local government policies that restrict compliance with federal immigration detainers. The law threatens to withhold future state economic development money from those that don’t comply.

Colorado will make it easier for immigrants living in the country illegally to renew state driver’s licenses. The state has been issuing such licenses since 2014, but they had to be renewed in person every three years at one of just three state offices devoted to that purpose. The law’s Republican sponsors argued the economies of their rural districts were at stake.

MARRIAGE

The minimum marriage age in New Hampshire will rise to 16 — up from 13 for girls and 14 for boys. The new law was championed by Cassie Levesque, who was a senior in high school in 2017 when she began her two-year push to raise the marriage age as part of a Girl Scouts project. The experience led her to run for a state House seat, which she won in November. Another new law prohibits judges from signing off on marriages involving a person under the age of consent unless there is clear and convincing evidence the marriage is in the child’s best interest.

SEXUAL
HARASSMENT

A new Delaware law will require employers with 50 or more employees to provide sexual harassment training to current workers within the next year, or within one year of hiring new employees. Training must be offered every two years thereafter.

California employers with at least five employees will have to provide at least two hours of sexual harassment prevention training to supervisors and at least one hour of training to all other employees, conducted this coming year and every two years thereafter.

Another new California law will bar confidential settlements to resolve claims of sexual assault or harassment, gender discrimination or retaliation, although it still will allow the identity of the accuser and amount paid to remain secret in some cases. A new law also will bar contracts and settlements that waive a person’s right to testify about sexual harassment or criminal conduct.

TAXES

At least a half dozen states will begin enforcing sales tax laws on some out-of-state retailers. Georgia, for example, will collect a 4 percent sales tax on online retailers who make at least $250,000 or 200 sales a year in Georgia. The U.S. Supreme Court paved the way for states to collect billions in additional sales taxes from online retailers with a ruling in June. Some states began collecting those taxes before the new year.

Missouri, which has not passed an online sales tax law, will cut its individual income tax rate by one-half of a percentage point. The tax cut will be partially offset by phasing in a reduction in the state tax break for taxes paid to the federal government.

Molly Wilson

Molly Elosia Wilson, 36, of Iola, died on Thursday, Dec. 27, 2018, at her home in Iola.

Molly was born Oct. 18, 1982, in Clinton, Mo., the daughter of John Daniel Tadlock and Laura Lynn Hughes Tadlock.

The family moved from Weaubleau, Mo., to Yates Center, when Molly was 2 years old. She attended Yates Center schools and enjoyed playing volleyball and softball. She graduated from Yates Center High School with the Class of 2001.

Following high school Molly and Chuck Wilson were married. They became the parents of three children. They were later divorced and Molly moved back to Yates Center.

Molly had a big heart and always put others first. She loved helping people, especially young children and the elderly. She enjoyed fishing and camping and being outdoors. She loved the time she spent with her family and friends. Mostly she loved her children and was a mother others looked up to.

She was preceded in death by her father, John Tadlock, who died in the same tragedy as Molly. She was also preceded by a brother, Seth Daniel Tadlock, in 1997.

She leaves her children, Raylea Elosia, Devon Raymond, and Morgan Ray Wilson, all of the home; her mother and step-father, Lynn and Mark Hobbs of Yates Center; three brothers, John Tadlock and wife Rebecca, Gardner, Issac Tadlock and fiancé Anneliese Gould, Lexington, Mo., and Gabe Hobbs and wife Leah, Eureka; her children’s stepmother, Lyndsay Wilson of Iola,  grandparents, Mary Ann Hayes Hughes and Seth Hayes, Reeds Point, Ore., and Floyd and Helen Hobbs, Yates Center; a number of nieces and nephews who she loved dearly; many other relatives and friends.

Funeral services will be at 2 p.m. Thursday,  at the Cowboy Church in Toronto. Burial will follow in Yates Center Cemetery.

The family will meet with friends from 6 to 8 p.m. today at Campbell Funeral Home in Yates Center.

In lieu of flowers memorial contributions are requested for the Molly Wilson Children’s Education Fund which may be sent in care of Campbell Funeral Home, PO Box 188, Yates Center, KS 66783.

Online condolences may be left at www.jonescampbellfuneralhome.com.