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Allen County COVID-19 Case Count
Active cases ...........10 Total cases* ...........3,951 Deaths ..................46 *Since the start of the pandemic Sources: Southeast Kansas Multi-County Health Departments, Kansas Department of Health and Environment
Thursday, March 10, 2022
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Airstrike hits Ukraine maternity hospital MARIUPOL, Ukraine (AP) — A Russian airstrike devastated a maternity hospital Wednesday in the besieged port city of Mariupol and wounded at least 17 people, Ukrainian officials said, amid growing warnings from the West that Moscow’s invasion is about to take a more brutal and indiscriminate turn. The ground shook more than a mile away when the Mariupol complex was hit by a series of blasts that blew out windows and ripped away much of the front of one building. Police and soldiers rushed to scene to evacuate victims, carrying out a heavily pregnant and bleeding woman on a stretcher. Another woman wailed as she clutched her child. In the courtyard, mangled cars burned, and a blast crater extended at least two stories deep. “Today Russia committed a See UKRAINE | Page A6
Oksana Romaschuk, 43, puts her hands in prayer, moments before she and her family crammed into getaway cars to escape the fighting between Russian and Ukrainian forces drawing closer to Irpin, Ukraine. (MARCUS YAM/LOS ANGELES TIMES/TNS)
ACC looks at changes to Burlingame campus By VICKIE MOSS The Iola Register
Superintendents for schools near the Burlingame campus of Allen Community College had a surprising request: Let our kids attend in person. ACC administrators including President John Masterson, Jon Marshall and Cynthia Jacobson met with the superintendents of several schools on Feb. 16 to talk about ways to improve the Burlingame campus. The satellite campus has been beleaguered by low enrollment numbers over the past decade, and the meeting was intended to improve outreach. The superintendents want to set up a program where college-bound students could attend classes in the mornings for general education classes such as English and speech. Currently, some schools offer dual-credit classes at their respective high schools, so this would differ by transporting those students to the Burlingame campus instead. They envision it similar to the way students travel for Career and Technical Educa-
Maeve Gilchrist
Allen Community College Board of Trustees members Jenny Spillman, from left, Lonnie Larson and Robin Schallie review material at Tuesday’s meeting. REGISTER/VICKIE MOSS tion courses, such as welding or automotive repair. Many students in those school districts travel to a tech center in Topeka in the afternoons; that same transportation program could be used in the mornings to take students to Burlingame. “It doesn’t eliminate the problem but it’s a good first start,” Masterson said. “I really appreciated the cooperative feeling we got from the superintendents. They’re interested in making sure we stick around.” On ACC’s side, it would require a scheduling change.
The college would offer two one-hour classes on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and other classes on Tuesdays and Thursdays. Students could earn between 12 and 15 college credit hours each semester, and would be eligible for scholarships to offset the costs. That’s different from the block classes now typically offered at Burlingame, which might teach a three-hour class on Mondays. It isn’t practical for a high school student to attend a three-hour class one day a week; they need a more traditional schedule. Masterson noted the pro-
gram could also encourage older adults to take advantage of the classes. Participating superintendents came from Burlingame, Lyndon, Marais Des Cygnes Valley, Osage City and Mission Valley-Eskridge districts. Marshall noted it can be difficult for smaller schools to offer the same level of dual-credit college classes as larger schools, so this gives them more options. The administrators planned to continue to examine the proposal. Board memSee ACC | Page A4
Harpist here on Friday By the Register staff
A Celtic harpist described as “a phenomenal harp player who can make her instrument ring with unparalleled purity” will visit Iola on Friday. Maeve Gilchrist will perform at 7 p.m. Friday at the Creitz Recital Hall at the Bowlus Fine Arts Center, along with musician Kyle Sanna. Gilchrist was born and raised in Edinburgh, Scotland who tours internationally as a band leader and composer. She also beSee HARP | Page A4
3.7M children were pushed into poverty when child tax credit expansion ended By ALFRED LUBRANO The Philadelphia Inquirer/ TNS
Starting in July, RoDena Lloyd’s five children were lifted out of poverty by the Biden administration’s expansion of the child tax credit (CTC), which delivered cash infusions to families across America. But at the end of December, the CTC expired and Congress has thus far not extended it. Vol. 124, No. 111 Iola, KS $1.00
By late January, 3.7 million U.S. children were plunged back into poverty, according to a recently released Columbia University report. Lloyd, a home health aide who lives with her children, ages 4 through 11, and her disabled husband, Adrien Sr., in Morton, Delaware County, said they’d again fallen below the poverty line — around $42,000 for a family of seven: “The money went away, and now there’s a big hole.”
With the stipend, which had amounted to around $250 to $300 a month for each of the children, Lloyd, 34, was able to buy more nutritious food, pay for the older kids to play sports, and get all of them new shoes. Since the flow of money stopped, however, Lloyd said she’s begun raiding the savings accounts she’d set up for the children to pay bills. “We were climbing out of a bad place,” she said, “and now
we’re right back in it.” The Biden administration had anticipated that the expanded CTC would be so popular that Congress would automatically renew it for 2022 and beyond. That it didn’t happen “is a tragedy, a self-inflicted wound,” said Indivar Dutta-Gupta, director of the Georgetown University Center on Poverty and Inequality. During his State of the Union address Tuesday, Presi-
dent Joe Biden referenced the CTC as he listed his goals for the nation: “Let’s ... raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour and extend the Child Tax Credit, so no one has to raise a family in poverty.” Between July and December 2021, the Internal Revenue Service paid out monthly CTC payments at an annual rate of $3,000 per child ages 6 to 17, and $3,600 per child under 6, reaching more than 61 million See TAX | Page A3
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