KS - December 23 2024

1. Kansas lawmakers move to pull Haskell Indian Nations University from federal control
2. Rural Kansas Faces Doctor Shortage
3. Free Kansas Highways App Updated
4. Restaurant Review: Roma’s Italian Restaurant - Hutchinson, KS
5. How to Disable App Notifications
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Heartland Citizen Journal will be off until Thursday January 3 2025 unless substantial Kansas news breaks 

1. Kansas lawmakers move to pull Haskell Indian Nations University from federal control

Sen. Jerry Moran said Monday that he will propose legislation to remove Haskell Indian Nations University from control by the Bureau of Indian Education, a sweeping move that comes as the university has been criticized for failing to protect its students. The university in Lawrence is the only Tribal Nations University in the country and is the only four-year college funded and run by the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Over the past decade, the university has faced turmoil as it ran through eight presidents and was subject to a congressional investigation over failing to address student concerns about sexual assault. Moran’s bill, in partnership with Rep. Tracey Mann, a Salina Republican, would remove the university from the control of the Bureau of Indian Education and transfer it to a Haskell Board of Trustees appointed by the tribal community. The move would take the institution from being completely government-run to one modeled after public colleges and universities.

Article Source: KC Star

2. Rural Kansas Faces Doctor Shortage

Half the Kansas population lives in medically underserved areas.  Dr. Robin Durrett, clinical faculty at the Kansas College of Osteopathic Medicine, said a July visit to western Kansas showed student doctors what working in Garden City and Dodge City, Kansas, would look like. This is the second year of the immersion program.  According to Durrett, Kansas ranks 39th in physicians per capita in the United States and 48th in healthcare quality. That doesn’t mean the state provides poor care.  Instead, it means if someone needs to see a specialist in a rural area, he or she has to wait a prolonged period of time.  It’s estimated about 30% of physicians are nearing retirement age, and Durrett expects the shortage to worsen. He hopes the rural immersion program can help remedy the shortage.

Article Source: HPJ

3. Free Kansas Highways App Updated

A free app can help travelers in Kansas navigate detours and avoid areas of heavy traffic, show live camera views of highways, send alerts of poor weather and more. The Kansas Department of Transportation’s KanDrive app was recently updated. Among new features, drivers can receive notifications of snow, ice, fog, poor visibility, high wind speeds and more along their routes. Drivers have the option to use the app’s “Tell me” feature so they can keep their eyes on the road and get audio notifications.

Article Source: Lawrence Times

4. Restaurant Review: Roma’s Italian Restaurant - Hutchinson, KS

We continued our tour of central Kansas’s Italian offerings (after a successful trip to Martinelli’s in Salina) with a trip to Roma’s Italian Restaurant in Hutchinson, Kansas. Hutchinson is a 30-minute trip on K-61 southwest from McPherson, and our westward journey pointed into a beautiful, fiery sunset. Roma’s is adjacent to the Hutchinson train station, which is on Amtrak’s Southwest Chief line. According to their website one can “take in the grandeur of the American West on an adventure between Chicago and Los Angeles” on the Southwest Chief. To enjoy that grandeur however, eastbound journeys depart at 1:18am and a westbound trip begins at 2:55am, so don’t ditch your frequent flier program just yet.  

Inside, Roma’s offer’s a cozy, upscale setting, with beautiful red brick walls. We had salads and a fantastic spinage artichoke dip appetizer for starters. Perhaps deterred by my past public criticism, nobody ordered seafood for their entree. I ordered my go to spaghetti with meat sauce while my dad ordered a chicken pasta dish with white sauce. Mom also ordered spaghetti with meat sauce, but asked to alter the sauce and to substitute penne noodles for spaghetti noodles. When I informed her this was, in fact, not spaghetti with meat sauce, she was unperturbed. The dishes were excellent, and after tasting my mom’s dish and comparing it to my own, ostensibly equivalent item, I can confirm they were entirely different dishes. I don’t know what this off-menu creation was, but it was tasty.  

Our waiter had some kind of accent and we spent most of the meal debating where she was from. My mom embarrassingly asked her at the end of the meal, and my guess of “Moldova” turned out to be wildly off the mark when she turned out to be Italian. After an additional embarrassing session of showing her a lookalike Italian’s Instagram account (“you look just like her!”), it was time to leave. However, not yet satisfied with my full public humiliation, dad asked for a photograph near a neat (but not that neat) fake, painted portal into a vineyard storage tunnel. I highly recommend Roma’s Italian Restaurant in Hutchinson, Kansas, it’s well worth the trip there.

5. How to Disable App Notifications

A future app update will allow subscribing to certain notifications (e.g. McPherson news and sports). In the meantime, all notifications go to all app users. If you want to disable notifications:  

iOS: Settings / Notifications then find citizen journal among the apps then uncheck “Allow Notifications” 

Android: Settings / Notifications / App notifications then find citizen journal among the apps then uncheck “Allow Notifications”  

Note: this turns off ALL notifications

Sports

KU ranked #7 in men’s AP poll  

Chiefs 27 Texans 19 

KU 87 Brown 53 

KSU 65 WSU 84

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Sources

1. https://www.kansascity.com/news/politics-government/article297404672.html

2. https://hpj.com/2024/12/20/rural-immersion-program-visits-western-kansas/

3. https://lawrencekstimes.com/2024/12/23/kandrive-app-updates-24/