3/5/2023 Lawrence Journal-World

Unions call for cuts to school district’s administration

By Rochelle Valverde rvalverde@ljworld.com

teaching positions, but no reductions to district administrator positions or salaries.

Paper artist’s work has popped up in all kinds of places

It’s been on books and tissue boxes — and in galleries

By Chris Conde l l l cconde@ljworld.com

You might have seen Lawrence resident Susan Pogány’s marbled paper art many times without even realizing it — on tissue boxes, book covers, wrapping paper and greeting cards — and now you can see it in a book that chronicles the history of the art form over the last half century.

Lawrence school board members recently voted to hold public hearings for two school closures, Broken Arrow and Pinckney elementaries, and to cut as many as 50 teachers

across the middle and high school levels at the district’s brick and mortar schools and the Lawrence Virtual School.

SCHOOLS > UNIONS, 9A

Kansas women race past TCU. 1B

WWI letters inspire KU history student recovering from his own trauma

By Dan Coleman Special to the Journal-World

Sometimes a letter can make a reader gasp even a century after it is sent. Rick McNabb learned this in 2018, seated beside his wheelchair in the quiet of the Kenneth Spencer Research Library at the University of Kansas, researching the papers of Pfc. Walter F. Bopp, who served in Company F of the U.S. Army’s 359th Infantry in World War I. As McNabb dug into Bopp’s letters from the Western Front, it was slow going until he picked up one that looked different.

McNabb

“I had been reading letters written on a typewriter from a hospital, the kind of thing you would write home from camp. ‘The food is okay,’ that type of thing. Then I picked up one on darker paper that he wrote by hand in cursive, and when I started reading, I kind of shrieked.”

It was a letter that Bopp, a 25-year old Texan, wrote to his parents and sister back home, in which he describes the day that changed his life.

Chris Conde/Journal-World Photos TOP TO BOTTOM: l SUSAN POGÁNY IS PICTURED IN HER PAPER MARBLING STUDIO on Feb. 22 at her Lawrence home. l POGÁNY SHOWS OFF some of her old paints. l ONE OF THE PAPER WORKS in Pogány’s home.

KAREN ANN (PARRY) HORNER

EDNA JEAN VAN SCHMUS

A memorial service for Edna J Van Schmus will be at 11:00 am on Saturday, April 15 at Plymouth Congregational Church, Lawrence Edna passed away in her home in the presence of family on Thursday morning, February 23 2023 after a prolonged illness

Edna was born in July of 1938 to Arthur and Elizabeth Evison She grew up in Liverpool, England during and following WWII

f ive­year tour in the Navy, during which, she also taught school in Charleston SC and in Guam After the Navy, they moved to Indiana in 1975 and she became a stay­at­home mom for 10 years Karen then returned to teaching at Mt Vernon Schools in Fortville, IN Over her 30 years in education she was a positive

Karen was a talented seamstress While a student at Washburn University, she sewed all the costumes for the Washburn University play of Hamlet Her other hobbies included gardening, crafting and reading a good mystery She handed down her love of reading to her two children and those she taught She was an active member of the Garnett First United Methodist Church prior to moving to Lawrence Her love for children was represented in her teaching and her close relationship with her grandchildren She is survived by her husband Seward A

Horner of Lawrence, KS, daughter; Heather Giczewski (Gary) Garnett KS, son; Seward Ellis Horner (Jenni) Wakarusa IN sisters; Sharon Stebens, Emporia, KS, Janet Iotti (Bob) Sanford N Carolina Jane Reagan (Jim) Council Grove, KS, Kathleen Parry­Clements (Bob) Emporia KS brother; John J Parry, Belvue KS paternal aunt; Ethlyn Taylor Bloomington, IN, sisterin­laws; Nancy Feuerborn (Frank) Garnett KS Ronda Horner Aurora, CO brother­in­law; Brad Horner (Christy) Larkspur, CO, and her grandchildren; Ruth Burkdoll Jonathon Burkdoll, Chase Horner, and Ellissa Horner She is also survived by numerous nieces, nephews dear friends and cousins She was preceded in death by her parents John Eldon and Esther Mae (Grounds) Parry A gathering of friends and family will be held on Friday, March 24, 2023, from 1:00 until 2:00 p m at the Campanella & Stewart Funeral Home of Wamego KS 4370 Salzer Rd, Wamego, KS 66547, following the gathering of friends and family a graveside service will take place in the Westmoreland City Cemetery, Westmoreland, KS Memorials are suggested to the Garnett

First United Methodist Church Scholarship program or if able please donate blood in memory of Karen Ann Horner Contributions may be left in care of Campanella & Stewart Funeral Home of Wamego KS 4370 Salzer Rd, PO Box 48, Wamego, KS 66547

Please sign this guestbook at Obituaries LJWorld com

Although the years were diff icult Edna had fond memories of growing up surrounded by a closeknit extended family Edna did her primary and middle schooling in Liverpool then emigrated with her family to Montreal, Canada and then Chicago where she graduated from Kelly High School

After graduation Edna worked for United Airlines then transferred to Los Angeles where her father moved the family once again In 1959 Edna resumed schooling enrolling in the Nursing School at Huntington Memorial Hospital Pasadena & Pasadena City College At this time, Edna also became a U S Citizen

In 1960 Edna met her future husband William R (Randy) Van Schmus who was a Senior at Caltech in Pasadena They were married in Monterey Park, CA on June 30, 1961 , and made their home in Pasadena where Edna completed her schooling in 1962 She then worked as a Registered Nurse for Huntington Memorial Hospital while Randy f inished his PhD at UCLA In 1964 the couple moved to Bedford Massachusetts where Randy served on active duty as a research off icer in the United States Air Force and Edna enjoyed the comradery of the other young Air Force families

In August 1967 they moved to Lawrence where Randy took a faculty position in Geology at the University of Kansas Edna became an active member of the community lending her time and talents to local schools, scout troops, the university and Plymouth

Church She also enjoyed several social groups through which she made many treasured friends She resumed her professional career as a nurse at the Pediatrics off ice of Drs Branson & Gilles and continued pediatric nursing until 1996 when she retired after more than 20 years Edna was a woman of many talents and interests She was a skilled craftswoman and is especially remembered for her beautiful needle work including knitting crocheting embroidering and quilting She also enjoyed both cooking and baking and took great pride in entertaining and serving traditional holiday meals An avid traveler Edna enjoyed adventures throughout the U S and England in addition to Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Brazil Edna was beloved by many and is survived by her husband Randy of the home; daughter­in­law Nina Van Schmus; son, Derek (Pam) VanSchmus; daughter Jennifer (Michael) Chartier; grandchildren Emily Anthony Devin Molly and Olivia and a brotherin­law sisters­in­law and many nieces nephews and cousins She was preceded in death by son Brian Van Schmus sister Pauline Dolinski, and her parents In lieu of flowers the family suggests memorials to VNA & VNA Hospice of Douglas County or Lawrence Habitat for Humanity sent in care of Rumsey­Yost Funeral Home, P O Box 1260, Lawrence KS 66044 Online condolences may be left at rumsey­yost com

LEON A. ROMME

SALOMON ALFIE, MD

On Saturday February

25, 2023, holding the hand of his wife Maria, Salomon Alf ie passed away peacefully To friends and loved ones, he was known as “Moni ”

Salomon was born on September 15, 1933, in Buenos Aires Argentina the oldest son of Roberto Alf ie and Margarita Alf ie (née Intebi); his seven siblings were David, Beatriz, Julio Eduardo, Enrique Raúl Silvia Sara Jorge, and Florinda Salomon married Maria Alf ie (née Moltif iori) on May 27, 1957, and together they moved to the United States in 1960 He completed a residency and fellowship in Child and Adolescent Psychiatry at the Menninger Clinic in Topeka Dr Alf ie practiced psychiatry in Providence RI until 1976, and afterwards in Kansas City where he helped to co­found the Greater Kansas City Psychoanalytic Institute (GKCPI) As a psychiatrist and training analyst Dr Alf ie helped many people, and he was incredibly empathetic and compassionate especially towards children and people with mental illnesses

Salomon is survived by his wife Maria of Lawrence and by his sons Sebastian (Carmen OrthAlf ie) and Fabian (Laura Alexander) He was grandfather to Sebastian and Carmen’s children Tristan and Gwentessa; and Fabian and Laura s child Ezri His grandchildren loved to play with him and they called him “Moony” or “Pa ” Coming from a large family, he was an uncle to

many, but particularly to Enzo (Darcy) and Nella Paschino, the children of Maria’s identical twin Luisa who also lived in the Kansas City area He was a great­uncle to Enzo and Darcy’s children Francesca and Gilbert Salomon is remembered as a warm and loving husband and father later a grandfather who put his family members f irst He was a sweet man, always generous, kind, jovial and supportive a comforting presence whenever he was needed He will be missed Visitation will be held at Warren­McElwain Mortuary 120 W 13th Street in Lawrence on Saturday March 11 2023 at 1:30 pm followed by a celebration of life at 2:30pm

In lieu of flowers please donate to the Alzheimer’s Association in his memory (https:// www alz org /get­involvednow/donate); make checks out to Alzheimer’s Association and may be sent in care of WarrenMcElwain For more information or to post a condolence go to warrenmcelwain com Please sign this guestbook at Obituaries LJWorld com

PATRICIA AGNES "PAT" HOLLOMON

Our beloved, Patricia (Pat) Agnes Hollomon passed away on February 27, 2023 at her home in Lawrence KS She was 83 Services will be held at 10:30 a m Friday, March

10 2023 at the Christ Community Church, 1100 Kasold Dr , Lawrence, Kansas 66049 Private burial will take place in Mount Hope Cemetery

In lieu of flowers please make donation to Kansans

for Life, 3301 W 13th St N Wichita Kansas 67203 Dove Southeast Chapel, 2843 SE Minnesota Ave in Topeka is assisting the family with service arrangements To leave the family a special message online, please visit www DoveTopeka com

¸

CAMERON PATRICK LEE BRICKER

A Celebration of Life will be held Saturday March 18 2023 from 1:00 to 5:00 p m at the Cider Gallery 810 Pennsylvania St Lawrence KS Online condolences made at rumey­yost com

Boards make an impact on inclusiveness, diversity, equity

By Autumn Bishop

At LMH Health, our purpose is being a partner for lifelong health. We’re committed to making everyone’s health our priority by keeping people healthy, which is much more than treating them only when they’re sick.

Our commitment to health equity, inclusion and diversity isn’t something we do in addition to

our work, it’s a fundamental part of who we are.

What is health equity?

We’ve borrowed our definition of health equity from the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.

Health equity means that everyone has a fair and just opportunity to be as healthy as possible. This requires removing obstacles to health such as poverty, discrimination and their consequences, including powerlessness and lack of

access to good jobs with fair pay, quality education and housing, safe environments and health care.

Simply put, health equity means increasing opportunities for everyone

to live the healthiest life possible, no matter who you are, where you live or how much money you make.

“Health equity is central to our purpose: to be a partner for lifelong

health,” said Russ Johnson, LMH Health president and CEO. “We are making investments in advancing health equity and ensuring we are a place where everyone knows they belong.

Health equity should be part of the very fabric of our organization and something we intentionally do every day.”

How does LMH Health demonstrate commitment?

The Rev. Verdell Taylor has been a longtime advocate of Lawrence Memorial Hospital. In the early 2000s, as he served as the pastor of St. Luke’s AME, Taylor

DATA: PANDEMIC’S TOLL ON YOUTH MENTAL HEALTH IS UNPRECEDENTED

By Lindsey Tanner Associated Press

The pandemic took a harsh toll on U.S. teen girls’ mental health, with almost 60% reporting feelings of persistent sadness or hopelessness, according to a government survey released last month that bolsters earlier data.

Sexual violence, suicidal thoughts, suicidal behavior and other mental health woes affected many teens regardless of race or ethnicity, but girls and LGBTQ youth fared the worst on most measures, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report. More than 17,000

In 30 years, ‘we’ve never seen this kind of devastating, consistent findings,’ expert says

U.S. high school students were surveyed in class in the fall of 2021.

In 30 years of collecting similar data, “we’ve never seen this kind of devastating, consistent findings,” said Kathleen Ethier, director of CDC’s adolescent and school health division. “There’s no question young people are telling us they are in crisis. The data really call on us to act.”

The research found:

l Among girls, 30% said they seriously considered attempting suicide, double the rate among

boys and up almost 60% from a decade ago.

l Almost 20% of girls reported experiencing rape or other sexual violence in the previous year, also an increase over previous years.

l Almost half of LGBTQ students said they had seriously considered a suicide attempt.

l More than a quarter of American Indians and Alaska Natives said they had seriously considered a suicide attempt — higher than other races and ethnicities.

l Feelings of persistent sadness

and hopelessness affected more than one-third of kids of all races and ethnicities and increased over previous years.

l Recent poor mental health was reported by half of LGBTQ kids and almost one-third of American Indian and Alaska Native youth. The results echo previous surveys and reports and many of the trends began before the pandemic. But isolation, online schooling and increased reliance on social media during the pandemic made things worse for many kids, mental health experts say.

Women’s Health Reimagined

Taylor Hill

Black-Opilo Villanueva Rials Holman

also served on the Board of Trustees for eight years. During that time he became well-acquainted with then-CEO Gene Meyer, who approached him with a proposition.

“It started with Mr. Meyer. He came to me in January 2014 and said that we needed to do some things in the area of inclusion, diversity and equity (IDE),” Taylor said. “That’s when a seed was planted.”

After a number of discussions, Taylor came on board part-time at LMH Health in April 2014 and began to put together a team to oversee the hospital’s development of its IDE plan.

“Many organizations use DEI — or diversity, equity and inclusion — for their work in this area,” he said. “I was given free rein to establish and make this program work, and it was important to us to lead with inclusion.”

Some of the first people to seek Taylor out were former employee Don Engel and Erica Hill, who now serves as finance director for the LMH Health Foundation and director for health equity, inclusion and diversity at LMH Health. When looking for people to serve on the IDE committee, Taylor was determined to find out if both Engel and Hill were available.

“I volunteered because of my interest and it became my purpose,” Hill said. “I wanted to use my voice to help others and now understand that using our voices is more than what comes from our mouths — it’s also demonstrating that we care and creating an environment that says, ‘You belong here.’ I’m grateful for the opportunity to do this work.”

And with that, IDE at LMH Health was born. It’s gone through a variety of name changes and has resulted in two distinct teams — the Health Equity Impact Advisers and the Health Equity Advancement Team, also known as HEAT. The work that these teams undertake is vital to the health and well-being of the associates at LMH.

“We must appreciate the differences in one another and identify and respect what others bring to the table. Each one of us has something to bring, but we’re not always invited,” Taylor said. “We want to make sure that as many people as possible can contribute so that we’re able to move forward.”

One of the ways that associates’ voices are heard is through monthly IDE conversation classes that he hosts, providing the opportunity to come together and have an interactive discussion about a wide variety of topics.

“I love teaching, so I want to delve into a bit of everything and focus on people,” Taylor said. “Whatever box we’re led to check, however you identify — I want to be able to cover those topics. We need to have a greater understanding of people who are different than we are, and we have to do that by knowing ourselves.”

Joining the team

Julie Black-Opilo, LMH Health integration architect, joined the Impact Advisers in 2015. It was important to her to have a seat at the table to make LMH a better place for patients and staff who are part of marginalized communities.

“Everyone should be treated with respect and kindness when they walk through our doors. It shouldn’t have to do with their religion, color of their skin or who they love,” Black-Opilo said. “We should also be providing a work environment where they can be their authentic self.”

The mission of the Impact Advisers is to make things better for LMH Health patients and staff, in terms of IDE. The HEAT team focuses on the provision of care and ensuring that LMH serves marginalized

communities and groups. Black-Opilo cited the focus on breast cancer screenings and prostate screenings for the Black community as an example.

“The HEAT team has a narrower focus on medical care itself and where we see inequity in care around our unconscious biases and marginalized communities,” she said.

Why do you serve?

Growing up in inner Kansas City wasn’t always easy for staffing/bed coordinator Patty Villanueva. She was called names and learned to blow it off, but as she got older and had a child of her own, Villanueva became an advocate for him.

“I didn’t ever want to hear anything negative about the color of his skin,” she said. “Someone once told him that the color of your skin enters the room before you do. It’s sometimes hard to accept but it’s very true.”

Villanueva was asked to join the advisers in 2015. She knew it would provide her with the opportunity to hear what other employees had to say and to voice her feelings on a variety of subjects.

“As the group grew, it made the conversation broader, allowing people to voice personal things and talk about what happens within the walls of the organization,” she said. “What’s brewing with our patients and families? Are we respecting their beliefs

and cultures? We’re able to use this group to discuss those types of things.”

Leslie Rials also knows the struggle of wanting to belong and have opportunities. That’s one of the reasons that it has been important for her to be part of the Impact Advisers. It provides an opportunity to share her ideas, thoughts and provide a service that helps others.

“It allows me to give back. When you share the load, you make it lighter for everyone,” she said. “Think back to Martin Luther King Jr., civil rights and women’s activists. If they hadn’t made their contributions, where would America be today? Serving on teams like this gives me an opportunity to contribute and do my part.”

For Rials, working at LMH Health would feel different if the organization weren’t tackling this work. Employee morale would decline, so it’s important for IDE efforts to be visible so that employees know the work is more than an afterthought.

Rials offered an analogy: “When you go to a music store, you see racks of albums. Did you know that the gospel section is always the smallest? You always have to ask if they have it. When you have these groups and opportunities you don’t want to make it the gospel section. It’s important to know about the efforts at in your place of business so people don’t have to wonder if you have it.”

Physician leadership

For Dr. Lynley Holman, an OB-GYN with Lawrence OB-GYN Specialists, serving as the co-chair of the HEAT team has amplified her awareness and given her more insight to her privilege as a white woman.

“It’s unacceptable that some populations have access to health care and resources and live longer simply because of the neighborhood they live in or the color of their skin and the opportunities that affords them,” she said.

Holman has long been interested in health equity work and knows that as a health care provider, it’s her responsibility to get educated about trauma-informed care and cultural humility.

“I love the work I do with my patients and those who have trauma. I can help them trust the health care system and get care,” she said. “I want to see systemic changes, community changes and elevate voices. I want people that feel like they haven’t been heard to have a voice and be heard.”

Finding time to undertake these efforts can be challenging. Holman is grateful to have support from leadership and her clinic to do the work.

“People in the community know that I’ll listen to them, and I’m seeing people who haven’t been to a health care provider in years,” Holman said. “They’ve often cancelled multiple times before keeping their appointment. I’m helping them rebuild that trust. Without

my colleagues and the leadership at LMH being on board, it would be that much harder.”

New kid on the block Health equity is Tori Gleason’s “why.” She spent 17 years working as a chiropractor and 10 years working on a critical access hospital board in western Kansas. Those have allowed her to see access and barrier issues firsthand and understand how those barriers impact health outcomes.

She was able to share her lived and learned experience with staff through conversation classes organized by Taylor with topics such as advancing health equity for LGBTQ communities and the history of Pride month.

“As I was engaging in those conversations with LMH Health, it made me feel like this was the place for me,” she said. “I knew I wanted to be part of this family before there was even a job.”

When there was an opportunity for Gleason to come on board at LMH Health, she jumped at the chance. The conversation classes started it all. That’s why Gleason is now proud to serve both the Impact Advisers and HEAT team.

“This is the first place I’ve been where I feel like I belong. I get up and I’m excited to go to work every morning because the people I work with want me there. That just isn’t the case everywhere,” she said. — Autumn Bishop is the marketing manager and content strategist at LMH Health.

The book, “Pattern and Flow: A Golden Age of American Decorated Paper, 1960s to 2000s,” is associated with an exhibition running at New York’s Grolier Club in conjunction with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and it includes decorated paper works from dozens of artists. And while they might not be as well-known as modern painters or sculptors, Pogány knows firsthand that paper artists’ work is every bit as delicate and complex.

Making the feathery, swirling, hypnotic patterns requires lots of dexterity, precision and patience. It also takes some knowledge of chemistry, and in Pogány’s case, it even required some construction and carpentry skills to build a special studio in her basement.

But when she first became interested in marbled paper in the 1970s, Pogány had no idea she’d one day be tracking down unusual substances and remodeling her home to pursue her obsession. In fact, she had little idea where to even start learning about it at first.

Back in the ’70s, Pogány had moved from Kansas to Portland, Oregon, with her husband so he could pursue his doctorate in organic chemistry, and she worked as a writer and editor. She remembers going to a bookstore in the city’s downtown and falling in love with the “really complicated, feathery repeating patterns” on some of the old books there. And in 1977, she noticed those same kinds of designs on a big sheet on a colleague’s wall.

“And I said, you know, ‘Where did you get that? What is that?’” Pogány said.

She learned that it was a piece by a marbler named Peggy Skycraft, one of the best-known practitioners of the art in the country and “one of the earliest to be reviving the ancient technique,” she said. The renowned artist happened to be teaching a class in Portland, and Pogány wanted to give it a try. She went to one of the workshops, “and that’s where I fell in love with it.”

attempts are typically more common in girls, he said.

Prinstein noted that anxiety and depression tend to be more common in teen girls than boys, and pandemic isolation may have exacerbated that.

Creating a marbled paper, Pogány said, starts with mixing paints with special chemicals and making a design on a bath of seaweed-infused water, dripping color onto it using long glass rods. Then, the marbler takes a “rake” or “comb,” which actually looks like a yardstick with pins stuck in the side of it, and drags it across the surface of the water to make the patterns.

In low-income areas, where adverse childhood experiences were high before the pandemic, the crisis has been compounded by a shortage of school staff and mental health professionals, experts say.

Once that’s done, the paper — which has been specially treated to make the paint stick — must be painstakingly laid across the water’s surface.

As she was learning the craft, Pogány frequently had to rely on Skycraft for tips. Sometimes she would ask her husband for advice on the chemistry side of things, but she said Skycraft was the most helpful in guiding her to the

Chris Conde/Journal-World Photo ABOVE: THIS COPY OF “RABBIT AT REST” BY JOHN UPDIKE features Susan Pogány’s paper marbling design printed on the cover.

LEFT: POGÁNY WORKS ON A PIECE in her first studio in Kansas in 1990.

right proportions and techniques, which she would rely on for the rest of her career.

“I think it took me more than a year to make it work,” Pogány said. “It was really hard because you have to get everything in the correct proportions, and anything can throw off the process.” l l l

When Pogány and her husband moved back to Kansas in 1978, Pogány knew she wanted to continue marbling. But she faced new hurdles now that she didn’t have an instructor or a special class.

For starters, in Skycraft’s classes, the students were provided with the paints and other materials they needed. But now, Pogány had to track them down herself. In addition

to opaque watercolor paints, called gouache paints, she needed red seaweed and various chemical compounds such as alum and glutaraldehyde.

One of the most important substances, she said, is ox gall, a substance that’s obtained from the gallbladders of steers. It’s essential for making the paint spread out in the proper way to create the designs.

“Fortunately, even back then, I didn’t have to go to the stockyards to beg for that stuff,” Pogány said. She also knew she needed more space if she wanted to seriously pursue her art. And that meant building her own studio setup in the basement of their home on Louisiana Street.

for kids in particular,” said Mitch Prinstein, the American Psychological Association’s chief science officer. “Suicide has been the second- or third-leading cause of death for young people between 10 and 24 years for decades now,” and

Comprehensive reform in how society manages mental health is needed, Prinstein said. In schools, kids should be taught ways to manage stress and strife, just as they are taught about exercise for physical disease prevention, he said.

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CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1A > MARBLING,

Contributed Photo

8A

PUBLIC FORUM

Banning and rewriting books

To the editor:

On Wednesday, Froma Harrop informed readers in her editorial “Threatening librarians is barbaric” that our good legislators to the east of us in Missouri have passed a measure that librarians could be put behind bars for having books in their libraries that local authorities have determined as “off limits.” Objectionable subjects include books viewed as pornographic and those dealing with gay and transgender issues.

One solution for offensive books, noted by Ms. Harrop, is to handle them like a librarian handled them in her youth. Certain offensive books were kept on a shelf under the counter and were checked out only upon a specific request. Ah, such a simpler time.

Rich Lowry then shared his dislike of rewriting objectionable books, “Rewriting books is cultural vandalism.”

A few books for children have recently been rewritten by Puffin Books to promote “inclusion and accessibility in children’s literature.” They went about this by primarily removing and replacing offensive words and phrases, like replacing “enormously fat” with “enormous.”

Inclusion is a goal shared by many, but particularly those on the left who might see outdated language as a detriment to inclusion because it often does not reflect current treatment of social and political issues. They do forget, though, that outdated language offers an opportunity to look at how things were and compare them to the present.

Banning books and rewriting books to conform to current societal standards are two sides of the same coin. Both are equally dangerous because they limit our opportunity to learn and explore.

Ken Grotewiel, Lawrence

Letters to the editor

l Letters should be 250 words or fewer and can be submitted via email at letters@ljworld.com.

OLD HOMETOWN

150 years ago IN 1873

From the Daily Kansas Tribune for Wednesday, March 5, 1873: l “HORRIBLE ACCIDENT. – Yesterday morning at about half past nine o’clock our city was thrown into the greatest excitement at the occurrence of the most dreadful accident that has ever oc-

The nonsense over stock buybacks

W ashington — Forgive them because they cannot help themselves. Progressives have a metabolic urge to boss around the private sector. It is not just that, as is said, progressives do not care what people do as long as it is compulsory. Progressives want to be compellers because they think they know exactly what people must be made to do if progress is to arrive.

On a recent morning, a Wall Street Journal front-page headline said, “Buybacks Set Pace for Record,” and the New York Times’ lead Page 1 story reported that semiconductor manufacturers seeking government subsidies must curtail buybacks — corporations repurchasing their stock. Hostility to buybacks arises from foggy economic thinking that is encouraged by the progressive animus against the people and processes that create the wealth that progressives delight in redistributing.

The question is: What should corporations do when their profits exceed their needs for internal investments? Progressives know what they should not do: buybacks.

Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., who has spent as much time as an NFL linebacker as he has in private enterprise, calls buybacks “despicable.” Of his two recommendations for corporations, one is as predictable as the other is vague: Money spent on buybacks should instead fund “significant” increases in employees’ wages,

or “meaningful” investments. Schumer seems sure that employees are generally paid below-market wages. Or that the market is less competent than senators are at measuring workers’ value-added. Or that paying wages higher than necessary to attract or retain workers somehow counts as investing. Or that corporations always have at hand investments that are “meaningful,” whatever that means.

President Joe Biden thinks that quadrupling the twomonth-old 1% tax on buybacks would “encourage long-term investments” by discouraging stock repurchases that reward “CEOs and shareholders.” His two linked assumptions are that corporate leaders always have economically efficient opportunities for long-term investments in their companies, but often prefer to use profits for buybacks because these raise the value of stock they own — and sometimes their compensation is linked to share prices.

Biden is particularly cranky about “Big Oil” spending on buybacks rather than on increased production. He dislikes

buybacks more than fossil fuels.

Gosh.

John H. Cochrane, the “Grumpy Economist” of Stanford University and the Hoover Institution, recommends considering why buybacks raise share prices, if they do so at all. Yes, buybacks increase short-term demand for the company’s shares, sometimes producing a small price increase. But, Cochrane says, the main reason buybacks sometimes slightly raise a stock’s price is that the stock market recognizes this: Buybacks redirect cash from suboptimum uses within the repurchasing company to optimum uses elsewhere, often in companies that have immediate investment needs.

So, Cochrane says, giving management stock options and allowing them to profit from buybacks incentivizes managers to make decisions that benefit the company’s shareholders, its long-term prospects and the economy’s efficient allocation of capital. Money spent on buybacks does not disappear like rain into sand; it changes hands and trajectories, and continues to work.

Cato Institute tax policy analyst Adam N. Michel notes that a stock buyback does not by itself “create or destroy any wealth, it is simply a voluntary exchange of cash for the value of the stock.” And “according to one estimate, about 95 percent of resources returned through stock buybacks are reinvested in other public companies.”

Buybacks — worth more than $5 trillion in the past decade — seem not to have hurt the buying companies’ efficiency: These companies have, on average, outperformed the market, long-term. This, says James Surowiecki, writing in the Atlantic, “suggests that companies generally do a good job of buying their stock when it’s undervalued.” And that executives who sell shares during their companies’ buybacks “are usually giving up sizable future gains.”

Hostility to buybacks is so firmly lodged in the catechism of the Church of Progressivism, it is impervious to mere evidence and arguments. Nevertheless, it is worth hearing from Omaha, which can be considered the Vatican of U.S. capitalism.

Warren Buffett’s grandfatherly persona was absent when, his patience exhausted, he recently wrote: “When you are told that all repurchases are harmful to shareholders or to the country, or particularly beneficial to CEOs, you are listening to either an economic illiterate or a silver-tongued demagogue (characters that are not mutually exclusive).”

Biden, to whom the private sector is a region as foreign as Outer Mongolia, says buybacks are pernicious. Buffett, who has caused the creation and distribution of wealth that dwarfs his net worth, disagrees. You decide who to believe.

— George Will is a columnist for

The Washington Post News Service & Syndicate.

What the Lawrence Journal-World stands for

l Accurate and fair news reporting.

l No mixing of editorial opinion with reporting of the news.

l Safeguarding the rights of all citizens regardless of race, creed or economic stature.

l Sympathy and understanding for all who are disadvantaged or oppressed.

short time seemed to have a good effect. He was revived considerably…. He uttered or groaned out the words ‘Oh, dear!’ every second or two, quite distinctly…. He continued to rally. But suddenly, at about 11 o’clock, his groans grew more feeble, and he soon expired…. In the afternoon a subscription was made up for the families of the deceased.”

Trump is firmly on top of Republican Party for now

Donald Trump has had a terrible couple of months — and still leads national polls for the Republican nomination handily.

Almost everything that he’s done lately — really, everything since he’s left office — should redound to his discredit, and yet he remains in a relatively strong position.

That he could take a large hand in blowing the 2022 midterms, follow that up with a limp campaign announcement, immerse himself in bizarre and unnecessary controversies (pass the ketchup, Kanye), attack an up-and-coming Republican governor in crude terms, and not just live to tell the tale, but stay at the head of the pack may be the most astonishing testament to the power of his political brand yet.

Of course, it’s still very early in a late-developing race, and there’s no doubt that Trump has taken on water.

That said, unless Trump’s support in surveys is a complete mirage, he continues to have a formidable grip on the GOP. Regarding his leadership of the party, he can set up like the Texans defending their canon at the Battle of Gonzales and defy his adversaries to “come and take it.”

That is a daunting prospect. It’s one thing to imagine supplanting Trump as he slip-slides away, defeating himself with his own obsessions and animosities; it’s another to figure out a way to topple him.

Since he first entered the race in 2015, Trump has benefited from a natural sense of command. What he’s lacked in policy depth or in dignity, he’s made up with his considerable personal force and authority.

In the 2016 primary debates, he was the tall, orange-hued man standing in the middle of the stage, hushing the other candidates as necessary.

In the current developing field, he’s the only one with a track record of winning (and losing) at the national level. He’s the creator of the movement that everyone else wants to take over or, at the very least, accommodate. He’s the dominant

force — the one whose standing in the race affects everything, and, importantly, the one everyone fears.

The latter quality is a key part of the Trump phenomenon. Other national figures might out-charm their competition (Barack Obama in 2008) or overwhelm them with resources (George W. Bush in 2000, Hillary Clinton in 2016). Trump’s M.O. is to bludgeon them with highly personal, belittling attacks.

Nikki Haley had a pretty good launch a couple of weeks ago, but among her weakest moments were when she was clearly frightened to say anything at all about Trump, including mentioning a policy difference or two.

Former Vice President Mike Pence has been more forthright, although even he has leveled criticisms in oblique terms.

Gov. Ron DeSantis, the target of a flurry of initial jabs from Trump, has shrugged them off or parried with very subtle counter punches. None of this is irrational. Why would Haley want to become the subject of Trump’s ire at a time when she’s the only other major politician in the

race? Pence can wait to prosecute his case more directly if he launches a campaign. DeSantis is trying to push his own message and put more points on the board in the coming Florida legislative session. A mud fight with Trump now isn’t in his interest.

Yet, the disinclination to engage with Trump at all brings back memories of 2016. If it’s a temporary dynamic, that’s one thing; if it’s another prisoner’s dilemma among the non-Trump candidates, waiting for someone else to take him on and hoping to emerge unscathed in the aftermath, it’s repeating the same mistake and expecting a different result.

If the current situation holds, there’s no way around Trump — only through — and that will require making a case against him.

To be “The Man” (or “The Lady”), as the immortal Ric Flair said, you’ve got to beat “The Man.” Trump may indeed be beatable, but the latest polling shows him squarely in the way of anyone who wants to take over the party he’s dominated for years.

— Rich Lowry is a columnist with King Features Syndicate.

George Will georgewill@washpost.com

Rich Lowry

“I had been laying on my stomach quite a while out in the open with my face buryed in the earth,” Bopp writes. “Bulletts were hitting all around me and some even hit my ‘tin hat’ but was not hurt. Then pieces of large shell were falling on my back. I had on my pack and that saved my life more than once I tell you.”

A page later, Bopp describes how he ended up in the hospital. “Well it was getting good and hot out there for me. So I got nerve to look up and around me and quite near me was a shell hole and I made for it. Rolling and crawling as I was under machine gun fire and they shoot low. Had I got up would have been shot in the head. At last I got there. Only to learn that it was a gas shell hole and still had lot in it.”

Bopp was burned so badly by the liquid remnants of mustard gas in the shell hole that he could not continue, and he made his way back to a first-aid station with another soldier who had just been shot twice.

Caitlin Klepper, head of public services at the Spencer library, was in the reading room when McNabb made his discovery and heard him cry out. She had brought out World War I-related materials from the library’s collections for McNabb and other students from Prof. Jonathan Hagel’s “Historian’s Craft” class, but she had never read Bopp’s vivid battlefield descriptions. “While we do know what’s in the collections generally speaking,” Klepper says, “we don’t always comprehensively know what is there. Researchers stumble upon things.” Bopp’s is the only firsthand account of

mustard gas exposure in the library’s collections about which Klepper is aware, and the contents of his other letters provide a rare look at the journey of a WWI infantryman, including descriptions of hospital life and travel with his unit by ship from New York to Liverpool, England.

McNabb’s journey to Bopp’s letters may not have covered that many miles, but was no less extraordinary. In 2010, a brain aneurysm left him hospitalized for months and without feeling on one side of his body.

“You know it’s bad when they bring in all these people to your room, to say

Dan Coleman/Journal-World Photos ABOVE: RICK MCNABB IS PICTURED IN FEBRUARY at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library on the University of Kansas campus. LEFT: A LETTER FROM WORLD WAR I PFC. WALTER BOPP TO HIS FAMILY, written Oct. 6, 1918, from the archives at the Kenneth Spencer Research Library.

goodbye,” he says. “The doctor came in and said we’ll be really happy if you can ever get out of bed into a wheelchair and get to the bathroom by yourself. That’s when I got mad. I was just supposed to lie there in bed for the rest of my life.”

Instead, guided by his faith and with the help of family, friends and medical professionals, he relearned how to use his body. Nearly 13 years after the aneurysm, McNabb maneuvers around town in his wheelchair, catches rides on the bus or from friends, and continues his physical therapy and training. He has been able to resume coaching youth basketball in Hoopsters, the local league he helped establish, and when a group of friends with whom he meets for

breakfast suggested he go back to college and finish his degree, he took up the challenge.

McNabb credits Hagel, the KU history professor who sent him to the library “to go find stories that talk to you,” with sparking his interest in archival research. McNabb was hooked after his first encounter with Bopp’s letters, and transcribed the collection as a capstone project for his major in history. It was a nine-month process in which he visited the Spencer library several times each week.

“There are surprising and somewhat life-altering experiences you can only get from sitting with someone’s old stuff, something authentic and almost primal,” says Hagel, a selfdescribed “archives junky” himself.

Another adviser to the project, Paul Mirecki, professor emeritus of religious studies at KU, spoke with McNabb about the unique challenges of studying personal letters.

“Even though I was working on 2nd, 3rd, and 4th century letters and he was working on 20th century letters, the methodology is the same,” Mirecki says. He urged McNabb, who was interested in the idea of soldiers finding faith under fire, to avoid reading his own preconceptions into the letters. McNabb didn’t find the “foxhole conversion” he was looking for, but did find a kindred spirit in Bopp, who writes in one letter that “nothing but God’s will” saved him on the battlefield.

“Mustard gas probably saved his life,” McNabb says. “That exposure took him off the battlefield. In the big-picture story, something terrible and awful happened to him, like me — an aneurysm is terrible and awful — and at the same time it enhanced his life, and led to his survival.

It’s the only reason we have his letters today.”

Bopp’s words may resonate with even more readers now that McNabb’s transcriptions make it possible for KU students and researchers from the general public to read them without having to decipher his handwriting. Klepper says the collection is also a great candidate for digitization, which would allow it to be accessed online.

“These are private moments in a family’s life during World War I,” Mirecki says. “That’s important for us to know about. The same thing is going on right now in Ukraine, similar letters being written that will show us what that war was like someday.”

McNabb defended the capstone project before faculty ahead of his graduation last December, and asked what they thought he should do next. The panel suggested his research would make a great subject for a master’s thesis or book. McNabb says he would like to research Bopp’s life after the war and learn more about a prayer booklet he thinks Bopp may have carried with him in the field. Some letters to Bopp from a French family he befriended remain to be transcribed and translated, as well.

For now, McNabb is content to reflect, but not to sit still. In the coming months, he plans to join in a physical training program at LMH Health in which participants summit the 29,000-foot elevation of Mount Everest via the climbing of stairs over the course of 100 days, a feat he accomplished last year propelled by his right arm and leg.

“I have so many cool people supporting me, and pushing me, and not letting me settle for whatever,” McNabb says. “I can’t do it without all these people holding me up.”

Marbling

“I took a sheet rock class and sheet-rocked off an area of the basement, and I had a plumber run water,” she said. She also had to learn how to build a large, watertight wooden trough to catch spilled water. The metal tubs where she created the actual designs came from a local metal shop.

Once she had all the pieces in place, the work was addictive, Pogány said, and she soon was able to monetize it. As she found out, there was quite a market for marbled designs that companies could put on their products.

Throughout the ‘80s, she was selling her designs — sometimes to publishers, where they were featured on the covers and flaps of books, just like the ones she fell in love with at that bookstore in Portland. Other designs appeared on greeting cards and wrapping paper.

But there were also pitfalls that came from working in a seemingly anonymous medium like paper decoration. She said she sold some of her designs to a large, well-known company for much less than she thought they were worth, because the company threatened to find her work and use it without licensing it if she wouldn’t accept their offer.

She’d heard of other marblers being taken advantage of by companies, too — including the artist who created the marbled design for the Kleenex tissue box.

“When I think of the Kleenex box, that is definitely the design you know,” she said. “That was made by another marbler and she got $250, I think. They still use that box. So, she really got a bad deal.”

Pogány would eventually design tissue box patterns of her own for Puffs, Scotties, and Soft ‘n’ Gentle, and she said “I didn’t want to get a bad deal.” Before a meeting about the Puffs box with Procter and Gamble, she asked for some advice from another marbler she

‘‘ I’m just intending to make something beautiful. Yeah, that’s the most I can say.”

— Artist Susan Pogány

knew in New York — and “she told me this crazy amount of money.”

So, when Pogány went to Cincinnati for her meeting, she asked for that amount, “and they said ‘yeah.’”

“I mean, to me it was a crazy amount of money,” Pogány said.

l l l

Pogány’s marbling career spanned two decades, as well as two home studios. In 1994, when she moved to a home on the west side of Lawrence where she still lives, she found that much of her studio was too tightly integrated into her old home or simply too big to

move, so she had to build a new one.

“The sink is still there (in the old house), and I’m sure the tray is there,” she said. “... Maybe even —” and then she paused and chuckled, “no, I think I took the colors to hazardous waste.”

She only marbled for a few more years after the move, retiring from it in 1998. But she’s far from finished with creating art — and her old pieces still play a role. Today, she scans her marbled works onto her computer and creates fractal art with them in Photoshop, morphing her old designs into new creations.

“I’m very addicted, just like I was to marbling,” she said. “... I come down every day and work. I just can’t get enough of it. I don’t know, I must have an addictive personality.

“But you know, when you have the normal stresses of life, it’s really good to be able to get away and come down and do something like this and have

your head go to a completely different place,” she said. “And I just love it.” Her art has often physically taken her to different places, as well. Over the years, Pogány has had her work featured in exhibits across the U.S., and as recently as 2016 she traveled to Istanbul to exhibit three of her works at the International Ebru Congress — “ebru” is a Turkish word for paper marbling. And in April, Pogány plans to attend a special event for the exhibit at the Grolier Club, where she hopes to meet with other paper artists featured in the show. But no matter where her passion takes her, Pogány said she’s tried to stay grounded and focus on what’s really important to her. “I can’t give you a big, you know, an artist’s statement with all this,” she said. “Artist statements always seem to be these slightly overblown comments about what you were intending. I’m just intending to make something beautiful. Yeah, that’s the most I can say.”

ON THE RECORD

Marriages

Taylor Nicole Kurtz, 30, Eudora, and Chester James Shaw, 33, Eudora. Kozo Hirata, 32, Raytown, Missouri, and Emma

Lawrence, and Rita Michelle Corbett, 47, Lawrence.

Divorces No divorces were reported last week in Douglas County.

Bankruptcies

Emily

SUSAN POGÁNY OPENS ONE OF HER FRACTAL ARTWORKS IN PHOTOSHOP

Unions

Representatives for both unions say reductions should not only come down on teachers and staff, and that district administration should also be examined. Other concerns include the effects of the proposed cuts on teacher workloads and students.

Emerson Hoffzales, interim president of the Lawrence Education Association, the union that represents teachers and other certified staff, said that in a letter to Lewis and the board, the LEA asked for a list of all district positions and their job responsibilities. Hoffzales, who uses they/them pronouns, said that while they don’t necessarily think there can be any more cuts to administrative positions, the district could be more efficient.

“I think we need to be very intentional with figuring out and restructuring district positions from top to bottom to make sure that we are using our funds to the best of our ability,” Hoffzales said.

One of the main drivers of the budget reductions is to provide raises to district teachers and staff, but Hoffzales said that the proposal to use

school closures and teacher cuts, which come with increased class sizes, to help fund those raises puts teachers in a difficult position. They said teachers are already struggling to manage heavy workloads, and cutting teaching positions and increasing class sizes will only intensify those struggles. “The workload will definitely increase with that, and that’s something that we want to avoid,” Hoffzales said.

Hoffzales spoke to those issues in comments to the Lawrence school board at its most recent meeting Monday. Hoffzales said the increase in class sizes will be on top of all the other responsibilities teachers have, including the addition of multigrade classes at the elementary level, the implementation of various district initiatives, piloting new curriculum, and trainings.

“These things together make it impossible or near impossible to complete our work within the confines of our contract day,” Hoffzales told the board. “And increasing our workload and paying us more money isn’t a raise — it’s paying us for the additional hours we would be spending doing our job.”

Hoffzales also told the board that teachers’ working conditions are

students’ learning conditions, and students will be negatively impacted too.

Speaking in more detail to the Journal-World, Hoffzales said that as an English teacher they already have about 146 students across all their sections, and adding more students to that number will only make it more difficult for them to meet the academic and social and emotional needs of their students.

“My students will not get me at 100% or close to,” Hoffzales said. “I have to divide myself with 146 students.”

In a letter to the school board, the Personnel Association of Lawrence — Communication Workers of America, the union representing the district’s classified staff, calls for reductions to the district’s administrative budget as well. In the letter, PALCWA expresses concern that the district is considering school closures, increased class sizes and cuts to student programs but not also considering a cut to district administration or a small-percentage pay decrease for employees making over $100,000 per year.

Hannah Allison-Natale, president of PAL-CWA, said that with all the other reductions currently on the table, the union thinks administrative reductions should also occur.

“If we’re talking about school closures, if we’re talking about increasing class ratios, we do think that it is not unreasonable to ask that there also be another budget cut this year from the administrative budget,” Allison-Natale said.

Allison-Natale said that while PAL-CWA recognized that other cuts are necessary and only making cuts to administration would not be enough to free up the funding needed for teacher and staff raises, the district should make sure administrators also make sacrifices.

“I think everyone has been asked to sacrifice in our community, so we definitely want to make sure that we’re spreading out that sacrifice, right?”

Allison-Natale said. “As classified staff we have been sacrificing for years: not making a living wage, living in our cars, living on public assistance. And so absolutely I think if we’re cutting, we need to leave no stone unturned.”

For a couple of years, PAL-CWA has been pushing the district to increase all classified staff pay to a living wage, which it emphasized in the letter to the board. The living wage in Lawrence is $16.04 an hour for a single adult with no children, according to the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s

Living Wage Calculator. The letter states that there are approximately 410 classified employees earning less than $16 per hour, with 320 of those employees making between $9.70 and $14.00 per hour. It goes on to say that the district has lost nearly 100 hourly employees this school year, and that the district’s low pay is the number one reason those employees have cited for leaving.

Allison-Natale said by the union’s count, that means there has been turnover in a fifth of the district’s classified positions since August, and though the positions have been mostly refilled, that inconsistency is not good for kids.

“I don’t think that we can underestimate the impact that that’s having on our students, whether that’s a paraeducator or a custodian or a food service worker,” Allison-Natale said. “It is so important that students have trusted adults in their lives.”

The district will also consider other potential cuts that have to be negotiated with both unions. Those include reductions in district payments to 403b retirement accounts and the elimination of a collaborative plan time for middle school teachers. Allison-Natale said that PAL-CWA opposes the 403b cuts and that

taking money from employees’ retirement to increase their pay now does not constitute a raise. The district estimates the reduction of the middle school planning time will enable the district to cut another 20 teachers, which Hoffzales said not only eliminates valuable time for teachers to coordinate, but further contributes to concerns about teacher workload and student learning.

Both Allison-Natale and Hoffzales also stressed that ultimately, the district’s budget issues are rooted in inadequate state funding. Both urged the community to call for fully funded schools at the state level.

“We are absolutely concerned about the whole picture of what’s happening with school funding in our state,” Allison-Natale said. “We are in a crisis statewide and I think it is really important that we as a community, and as school staff across the state, come together to fight for actually fully funded schools.”

Hoffzales added that they thought the school board had done a good job of asking questions regarding the budget proposal, and also encouraged community members to continue to attend local board meetings to make their questions heard.

Election conspiracies fuel dispute over voter fraud system

By Christina A. Cassidy Associated Press

AtlAntA — A bipartisan effort among states to combat voter fraud has found itself in the crosshairs of conspiracy theories fueled by Donald Trump’s false claims about the 2020 presidential election and now faces an uncertain future.

One state has dropped out, a second is in the process of doing so and a handful of other Republican-led states are deciding whether to stay.

The aim of the Electronic Registration Information Center, a voluntary system known as ERIC, has been to help member states maintain accurate lists of registered voters by sharing data that allows officials to identify and remove people who have died or moved to other states. Reports also help states identify and ultimately prosecute people who vote in multiple states.

In Maryland, state election officials have received reports through the system identifying some 66,000 potentially deceased voters and 778,000 people who may have moved out of state since 2013. In Georgia, the system is credited with providing data to remove nearly 100,000 voters no longer eligible to vote in the state.

Yet the effort to improve election integrity and thwart voter fraud has become a target of suspicion among some Republicans after a series of online posts early last year questioning its funding and purpose.

Shortly after, Louisiana left the group, citing concerns raised by the posts. A day after being sworn in last month, Alabama’s new secretary of state, Wes Allen, sent a letter informing the center of the state’s exit after criticizing the program during his campaign.

Other Republican-led states could follow, according to a survey of state election offices by The Associated Press. Officials in Florida and Missouri said they are evaluating their participation, while legislation in Texas could force the state to leave. West Virginia election officials declined to weigh in, saying they are “closely monitoring the situation with ERIC’s membership.”

Oklahoma voters will soon decide on recreational marijuana

OklAhOmA City (Ap)

— Tens of thousands of Texans from the bustling Dallas-Fort Worth area routinely drive across the Red River to gamble in glitzy, Las Vegas-style tribal casinos or to relax at cabins or swim and ski in lakes that dot southern Oklahoma.

Soon, they could come north for another draw: recreational marijuana.

Oklahoma voters will decide Tuesday whether to approve a ballot measure that legalizes consuming the plant for adults 21 and older. The conservative state already has one of the nation’s most robust medical marijuana programs, and industry proponents hope an influx of Texas consumers will be a boon for a market that’s become saturated.

“There are thousands and thousands of Texans who are increasingly coming to Oklahoma as a tourist destination,” said Ryan Kiesel, a former state lawmaker and one of the organizers of State Question 820. “I want to be able to sell legal, regulated and taxed marijuana to those Texans over the age of 21, and take their tax dollars and invest them in Oklahoma schools and Oklahoma health care.”

The population of the booming Dallas-Fort Worth metroplex alone — closing

The departures and potential for additional ones have frustrated state election officials involved in the effort and have demonstrated how deeply election conspiracies have spread throughout the Republican Party.

“The idea that any state would leave, and we know many are leaving or considering leaving, based solely on misinformation that in most cases they know is not accurate — it’s bizarre to me,” said Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson, a Democrat.

“Their leaving directly harms the security and integrity of their own state voter rolls and their ability to keep them up to date and accurate.”

Not all Republican-led states are reevaluating their participation in the program. Of those surveyed by AP, election offices in 23 states and the District of Columbia said they had no intention of leaving, including eight led or controlled by Republicans. Four state offices did not respond: Alaska, Colorado, Delaware and Washington.

Republican officials who said they had no intention to leave signaled strong support for the

effort. Iowa’s chief election official said the program, in less than a year, had helped the state identify more than 1,300 deceased voters not included in state data.

“ERIC is an effective tool for ensuring the integrity of Iowa’s voter rolls,” said Iowa Secretary of State Paul Pate, a Republican in his third term.

The program was started in 2012 by seven states and was bipartisan from the beginning, with four of the founding states led by Republicans. Today, 32 states and the District of Columbia are members.

In April, that will drop to 31 when Alabama officially leaves the group. Allen made various claims during his 2022 campaign about the group that prompted a rebuke from thenSecretary of State John Merrill. Merrill, a Republican, noted that ERIC had identified more than 19,000 records of potentially deceased Alabama voters since 2016.

A chief complaint about the program is that it was funded by George Soros, the billionaire investor and philanthropist who has long been the subject of conspiracy theories. While

BRIEFLY

in on 8 million people — is nearly double that of the entire state of Oklahoma.

Biden expected to tighten rules on investment in China

WilmingtOn, Del. (Ap)

— The Biden administration is close to tightening rules on some overseas investments by U.S. companies in an effort to limit China’s ability to acquire technologies that could improve its military prowess, according to a U.S. official familiar with the deliberations.

The soon-to-be-issued executive order from President Joe Biden will limit American investment in advanced technologies that have national security applications — such as

next-generation military capabilities that could help China improve the speed and accuracy of military decision making, according to the official, who was not authorized to comment and spoke on the condition of anonymity.

The expected action is the latest effort by the White House to target China’s military and technology sectors at a time of increasingly fraught relations between the world’s two biggest economies.

In October, the Biden administration imposed export controls to limit China’s ability to access advanced chips, which it says can be used to make weapons, commit human rights abuses and improve the speed and accuracy of its military logistics.

The complicated relationship has become further strained in recent weeks

ERIC received initial funding from the nonpartisan Pew Charitable Trusts, that money was separate from the money provided to Pew by a Soros-affiliated organization that went to an unrelated effort, said ERIC’s executive director, Shane Hamlin.

The effort has since been funded through annual dues by member states. Hamlin said the current discussions among member states have been “robust” and decisions are expected soon on potential changes.

“Is the mission of ERIC still relevant? Yes,” Hamlin said. “But are the ways in which members use ERIC to achieve that mission still relevant? Still effective? That is what we are talking about internally.” Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a Republican, is among those pushing for changes. In an interview, Ashcroft said he wants the system to drop a requirement for member states to send mailings to eligible but unregistered voters. “It needs to be focused on cleaning rolls,” Ashcroft said. “It is not the job of the secretary of state to add voters to the

after the U.S. shot down a Chinese spy balloon last month that traversed the country. The Biden administration has also publicized U.S. intelligence findings that raise concern Beijing is weighing providing Russia weaponry for its ongoing war on Ukraine.

Pressure builds on Ukrainians in Bakhmut

khrOmOve, UkrAine

(Ap) — Pressure from Russian forces mounted Saturday on Ukrainians hunkered down in Bakhmut, as residents attempted to flee with help from troops who Western analysts say may be preparing to withdraw from the key eastern stronghold.

A woman was killed and two men were badly wounded by shelling while trying to cross a makeshift bridge out of the city in Donetsk province, according to Ukrainian troops who were assisting them.

A Ukrainian army representative who asked not to be named for operational reasons told The Associated Press that it was now too dangerous for civilians to leave Bakhmut by vehicle and that people had to flee on foot instead.

Bakhmut has for months been a prime target of Moscow’s grinding eastern offensive in the war, with Russian troops, including forces from the private Wagner Group, inching ever closer.

rolls. It’s our job to make sure there is a good, simple process for people who meet the requirements to be registered.”

Ashcroft also is weighing the value that taxpayers receive from the program, arguing the state misses out on data for voters who leave Missouri because several surrounding states don’t participate. Time is running out, he said, for changes to be made.

“I have raised them with ERIC, and so far I am not satisfied with their response,” Ashcroft said. “The clock is ticking.”

A fellow Republican, Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose, said he was aware of concerns about the program but remained confident in the effort.

“Like any human endeavor, there are imperfections to that organization and, you know, some of the people involved have caused concern for others,” LaRose told reporters last month. “But I can tell you that it is one of the best fraud-fighting tools that we have — when it comes to actually catching people who try to vote in multiple states, when it comes to maintaining the accuracy of our voter rolls by removing those that move out of state.”

Lawmakers in Texas have introduced legislation that, if passed and signed into law, would require the state to leave the system. In Oklahoma, proposed legislation would prohibit the state from joining.

In California, Kansas and New Hampshire, lawmakers have introduced bills that would enable their states to join it, according to the Voting Rights Lab, which tracks voting legislation in the states. New York is another high population state that is not currently a member.

Gabriel Sterling, a top official in the Georgia secretary of state’s office, said he recently appealed to representatives from three other Republicanled states to join the system.

“A lot of this is politics and gets in the way of good election administration,” Sterling said. “At the end of the day, we want more people to join than leave. A lot of this is a tempest in a teacup.”

An AP team near Bakhmut on Saturday saw a pontoon bridge set up by Ukrainian soldiers to help the few remaining residents reach the nearby village of Khromove.

Later they saw at least five houses on fire as a result of attacks in Khromove.

Ukrainian units over the past 36 hours destroyed two key bridges just outside Bakhmut, including one linking it to the nearby town of Chasiv Yar along the last remaining Ukrainian resupply route, according to U.K. military intelligence officials and other Western analysts.

Cold weather a big obstacle for electric vehicles

tOk, AlAskA (Ap) — Alaska’s rugged and frigid interior, where it can get as cold as minus 50 Fahrenheit, is not the place you’d expect to find an electric school bus.

But here is Bus No. 50, with a cartoon horse decal on its side, quietly traversing about 40 miles of snowy and icy roads each day in Tok, shuttling students to school not far from the Canadian border. It works OK on the daily route. But cold temperatures rob electric vehicle batteries of traveling range, so No. 50 can’t go on longer field trips, or to Anchorage or Fairbanks.

It’s a problem that some owners of electric passenger vehicles and transit

officials are finding in cold climates worldwide. At 20 degrees F, electric vehicles just don’t go as far as they do at the ideal 70 degrees. Part of it is that keeping passengers warm using traditional technology drains the battery. So longer trips can be difficult in the coldest weather. Transit authorities like Chicago’s, which has pledged to convert its whole bus fleet to electricity by 2040, have to take extraordinary steps to keep electric buses charged and on schedule.

Some automakers and drivers fear lower battery range in the cold could limit acceptance of electric cars, trucks and buses, at a time when emissions from transportation must go down sharply to address climate change. There is hope. Scientists are racing to perfect new battery chemistries that don’t lose as much energy in cold weather as today’s lithiumion systems.

Also, cars equipped with efficient heat pumps don’t lose as much range in the cold.

“It is a problem to have batteries in cold weather, and we have a pretty cold climate, one of the coldest in North America,” said Stretch Blackard, owner of Tok Transportation, which contracts with the local schools.

When the temperature hits zero, the cost to run Tok’s electric bus doubles. Tok has among the highest electricity prices in the nation.

AP File Photo

A POLL WORKER SPEAKS THROUGH A PLASTIC BARRIER while assisting a voter in a polling station at Marshfield High School on Nov. 3, 2020, in Marshfield, Mass.

Vadim Ghirda/AP Photo

TETIANA HURIEIEVA, THE MOTHER OF VOLODYMYR HURIEIEV, A UKRAINIAN SOLDIER KILLED IN THE BAKHMUT AREA, receives the flag that draped his coffin during the funeral in Boryspil, Ukraine, on Saturday.

LOANS ARE FUNDED FAST

A loan through your contractor may also mean a faster start to your project. Once the contractor knows funds are available, they can get to work. Unlike with home

But getting a loan offer when you’ve just settled on an estimate leaves little time to compare — and comparing is key, says Trent Porter, a certified financial planner with Priority Financial Partners.

“Just because that’s what’s in front of you doesn’t mean it’s necessarily the best,” says Porter, who is based in Durango, Colorado.

Some home improvement lenders allow applicants to pre-qualify to preview their potential loan amount and rate with a soft credit check, which doesn’t affect their credit score

PRESSURE TO OVERSPEND

As with other point-of-sale financing options, getting a loan offer while the contractor is in your home could make you feel pressured to start a project before you’re ready — or spend more than you initially planned.

Planning the project upfront will take some of that pressure off, says Tess Downing, a certified financial planner at Complete View Financial in

I like to joke that rocket science and artificial intelligence is the easy part. The hard part is the human. It’s about the culture change and the action that we need to bring to bear in every different jurisdiction. Our goal is to make data available to everybody so that ultimately more actions can be taken and more mitigations happen.

U.S. oil and gas emissions are at record high levels. What can be done? Methane emissions absolutely are higher than they have been in the last couple of years. And that’s not just in the U.S., that’s worldwide. We see it pretty much in every sector We see it in oil and gas, coal mining and landfills. In oil and gas, I’m very pleased that there’s increased efforts on all fronts for reducing

emissions. We haven’t seen the results we want to get, that’s for sure. There are operator initiatives, there’s a U.N. initiative. The Biden administration has proposed new rules to tighten emissions standards and make it easier for new technologies to be used to monitor and mitigate emissions. We need to keep at it. There’s a lot more work to be done.

What percentage of methane leaks that your company found have been fixed? Right now it’s pretty small. It’s currently in the single percentage range, and that’s clearly something we need to improve on. We have a huge opportunity to raise awareness with all of these operators so they know what their real emissions are

and where some of these sources are. In many cases the technologies exist to mitigate the emissions from those sources so they’re really easy to address quickly.

Why do you name satellites after children? We name the satellites after our kids because it reminds us of why we do what we do. Ultimately, we’re going to be leaving our planet to future generations, and that includes our very own kids. And it’s really heartwarming for us to know that what we do every day is going to be helpful, not just to the current world, but to the future world.

Interviewed by Cathy Bussewitz.

Edited for clarity and length.

The Week In Review

SUPREME COURT MAY REJECT STUDENT LOAN FORGIVENESS

Conservative justices holding the Supreme Court’s majority seem ready to sink President Joe Biden’s plan to wipe away or reduce student loans held by millions of Americans In arguments lasting more than three hours Tuesday, Chief Justice John Roberts led his conservative colleagues in questioning the administration’s authority to broadly cancel federal student loans because of the COVID-19 emergency.

promised by the Biden plan, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer said, “delinquencies and defaults will surge.”

Loan payments that have been on hold since the start of the coronavirus pandemic three years ago are supposed to resume no later than this summer. Without the loan relief

The plan has so far been blocked by Republican-appointed judges on lower courts. It did not appear to fare any better with the six justices appointed by Republican presidents. Republican-led states and lawmakers in Congress, as well as conservative legal interests, are lined up against the plan as a violation of Biden’s executive authority. Democratic-led states and liberal interest groups are backing the administration in urging the court to allow the plan to take effect

LILLY TO SLASH SOME INSULIN PRICES

Eli Lilly will cut prices for some older insulins later this year and immediately give more patients access to a cap on the costs they pay to fill prescriptions

also come as lawmakers and patient advocates pressure drugmakers to do something about soaring prices. Lilly said it will cut the list prices for its most commonly prescribed insulin, Humalog, and for another insulin, Humulin, by 70% or more in the fourth quarter, which starts in October A Lilly spokeswoman said the current list price for a 10-milliliter vial of the fast-acting, mealtime insulin Humalog is $274.70. That will fall to $66.40. Likewise, she said the same amount of Humulin currently lists at $148.70. That will change to $44.61

RAPID DEMISE OF ‘DILBERT’ IS NO SURPRISE

The comic strip “Dilbert” disappeared with lightning speed following racist remarks by creator Scott Adams, but it shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone who has followed them both

Adams, who is white, was an outspoken presence on social media long before describing Black people as a “hate group” on YouTube and, to some, “Dilbert” had strayed from its roots as a chronicler of office culture.

The editor of the San Francisco Chronicle, which dumped “Dilbert” last year, said the comic strip “went from being hilarious to being hurtful and mean.” The Los Angeles Times, which joined dozens of other newspapers in dropping the comic following last week’s remarks, had quietly replaced four of Adams’ strips last year Adams said Monday that the strip, which first appeared in 1989, will only be available on his subscription service on the Locals platform.

KU women take down TCU in regular-season finale

By Jack McGarr Special to the Journal-World

The Kansas women pounded on TCU during their regular-season finale, combining defensive pressure with junior guard Chandler Prater’s team-leading, career-high 24 points in an 84-61 victory over the Horned Frogs on Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas.

The Jayhawks forced six first-quarter turnovers for six points, but TCU held its own in rebounds, outrebounding Kansas 12-6. Three of those came on offense, and TCU

went on a 10-4 scoring run before Kansas knocked them back to take a 17-16 lead heading into the second quarter.

Kansas had to rely on its bench early as senior center Taiyanna Jackson picked up her second personal foul with less than two minutes remaining in the first quarter. Despite Jackson being sidelined, the Jayhawks held their own in the paint.

KU flipped the table on TCU, this time outrebounding the Horned Frogs 12-6, including four offensive rebounds. The Jayhawks scored five second-chance

points off of those and held TCU to just one offensive rebound.

The Jayhawks found open looks all quarter long both in the paint and from behind the arc. KU converted 50% of its shots in the quarter and 40% of its 3-point attempts and extended its lead to 3933 heading into halftime.

Prater led the game in scoring with 14 points in the first half. She was able to drive inside and get open looks in the paint, making five layups and accounting for 10 of 22 Kansas points in the paint.

With Jackson out for the quarter, TCU forward Lucy Ibeh dominated the paint on the offensive end, making nine in just nine minutes of action.

But with Jackson’s return in the third quarter, Kansas shut down TCU’s momentum. They couldn’t get any open looks in the paint, and Jackson racked up three blocks in the third quarter alone. The Jayhawks held the Frogs to three baskets on 20% shooting.

NO. 9 TEXAS 75, NO. 3 KANSAS 59

Lawrence girls rout Wichita South

Lady Lions to make first trip to state since 2018

By Conner Becker cbecker@ljworld.com

The Lawrence High girls’ basketball team is headed to state. No. 3-seeded LHS (18-4) outran No. 6 Wichita South 76-53 in Saturday’s substate championship, earning its first state playoff berth since 2018.

W-South stormed out front right from the tipoff, burying 5 of 7 threepoint attempts in the first quarter. LHS, burning two timeouts in the first, refocused and dropped 17 combined points from sophomore Brynnae Johnson, senior Lucy Hardy and junior Destiny Savannah.

Entering the second quarter down 25-20, the Lady Lions found their rhythm with a 13-1 run. Senior center Daphne Bracker Sturm grabbed LHS’ first lead of the game midway through the second, and the Lady Lions never gave it up.

“They made so many sacrifices to put themselves in this position,” LHS coach Jeff Dickson said after the win. “To see it come to fruition is why you coach. You want kids to be able to face adversity and come through it the right way.”

Four LHS girls — Johnson (24 points), Amaya Marshall (19 points), Bracker Sturm (12 points) and Hardy (11 points) — paved the way with double-figure performances. Marshall finished matching a game-high five 3s.

Titans juniors Zion Butler and RaMya Kennedy, who’d dropped eight or more points each in the first quarter, were practically silent in the second. Six second-quarter turnovers by W-South proved costly, as LHS stormed ahead 40-30 at the break.

Dickson’s group has made countless strides from a year ago when LHS finished with a losing record and a disappointing first-round loss at substate. The early punch in the mouth is something Dickson feels his team’s ready to throw right back in the opponent’s face.

“Last year, we probably don’t come back from that,” Dickson said of the early deficit.

“We were a team last year that when we shot well, we were pretty good but if we took a hit like that, we didn’t fight back, we’d close ourselves off and our body language wouldn’t be very good. You just don’t see that out of this group. We have tremendous senior leadership and tremendous depth.”

Adding to her ongoing 3-point barrage, Marshall sunk two more 3s to open the third quarter, now 4 of 5 behind the arc, as LHS jumped ahead 48-32 with six minutes still to play in the third. WSouth, cutting within as much as eight in the third, wouldn’t come any closer to reclaiming the lead

KU SWARMED

Longhorns knock Jayhawks out of comfort zone

By Matt Tait

mtait@ljworld.com

Austin, texAs — Eager to get revenge for a loss in Lawrence that flipped the Big 12 race in KU’s favor four weeks ago, No. 9 Texas forced third-ranked Kansas into one of its worst outings of the season and beat the Jayhawks, 75-59, at Moody Center. The Jayhawks still left Austin as the Big 12 regular-season champs. That much was decided days before tipoff. But it was the Longhorns who celebrated on Saturday. “I think Texas was turned up, and, defensively, they made us play out of our comfort zone,” Kansas coach Bill Self said after watching his team shoot 36% for the game. “We got what we deserved today.”

For about three minutes of Saturday’s top-10 showdown, things went about as well as they could’ve for the Jayhawks.

Wilson caps stellar regular season with 23-point effort

By Matt Tait mtait@ljworld.com

Austin, texAs — With ballots due this weekend, KU junior Jalen Wilson made one final statement in his player of the year candidacy in the Big 12 Conference on Saturday in the Jayhawks’ 75-59 loss at No. 9 Texas. Wilson, who entered the day leading the Big 12 in both scoring

(19.6 points per game) and rebounding (8.3), as well as doubledoubles, with nine, finished with 23 points on 7-of-18 shooting, moving his season average to 19.74 points per outing while starting all 31 games.

Damon Young/Kansas Athletics

KANSAS FORWARD CHANDLER PRATER SHOOTS near the rim against TCU’s Bella Cravens (14) and Tara Manumaleuga (2) on Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas.

Eric Gay/AP Photo

KANSAS GUARD KEVIN MCCULLAR JR. (15) drives to the basket between Texas forward Christian Bishop (32) and forward Dillon Mitchell (23) during the first half Saturday in Austin, Texas.

Eric Gay/AP Photo

KANSAS GUARD GRADEY DICK (4) drives around Texas guard Marcus Carr (5) during the first half Saturday in Austin, Texas.

Eric Gay/AP Photo

KANSAS FORWARD JALEN WILSON (10) drives between Texas forward Timmy Allen, left, and forward Dylan Disu (1) Saturday in Austin, Texas.

6A GIRLS SUBSTATE

COLLEGE WOMEN’S BASKETBALL ROUNDUP

No. 16 OU women rally behind defense, wrap up Big 12

The Associated Press

Stillwater, Okla — Taylor Robertson had 15 points and six assists, Skylar Vann had a double-double off the bench, and No. 16 Oklahoma defeated Oklahoma State 80-71 on Saturday to wrap up its first Big 12 championship since 2009.

The Sooners won without All-American Madi Williams who hit two 3-pointers early in the first quarter but sat the final 36 minutes with an undisclosed injury.

After trailing for 15 minutes of play spanning halftime and into the middle of the third quarter, Oklahoma (24-5, 14-4 Big 12) tied it at 48 on a 3-pointer by Reyna Scott. The Sooners went on to hold OSU to 10 third-quarter points on 2-of-11 shooting and 6 of 8 free throws

Women

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1B

On top of the defensive flurry, KU also found its rhythm on offense, converting nearly 70% of its attempts.

Kansas drained 2 of 3 attempts from behind the arc and Jackson and Prater had their way in the paint as the Jayhawks outscored TCU 24-10.

Kansas took a 63-43 lead going into the fourth quarter.

The offense continued to roll for the Jayhawks in the final quarter. KU outscored the Horned Frogs 21-18 and also made 61% of its attempts, putting the game out of reach.

Prater ended the regular season with 24 points and added five assists and four rebounds as she led the Jayhawks all night

while building a 63-55 lead heading to the final quarter. Oklahoma State got finally got its third field goal of the second half when Kassidy De Lapp scored in the paint with about six minutes remaining. The Cowgirls hit three shots in a row and got within 67-62 halfway through the fourth before Robertson promptly converted a three-point play. The Sooners maintained at least a sixpoint lead the rest of the way en route to the seventh Big 12 regular-season championship in program history.

Naomie Alnatas scored 15 points, Lexy Keys 14 and Lior Garzon 13 for Oklahoma State (20-10, 10-8).

Louisville 64, No. 10 Notre Dame 38 GreenSbOrO, n c — Hailey

Van Lith had 15 points, and unranked Louisville used a stifling defensive performance to knock off No. 10 Notre Dame and advance to the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championship game.

Louisville limited the Fighting Irish to 31.4% shooting and forced 22 turnovers, using a full court press to create chaos while closing off entry passes in half court sets.

It’s the first time Notre Dame has been held to under 50 points all season.

Olivia Cochran had 12 points and eight rebounds and Mykasa Robinson and Chrislyn Carr each had 10 points for Louisville (23-10).

Maddy Westbeld had nine points to lead Notre Dame (255), which played without point guard Olivia Miles, who was

Damon Young/Kansas Athletics

KANSAS GUARD ZAKIYAH FRANKLIN (15) looks for an opening in the TCU defense Saturday in Fort Worth, Texas.

long. Three other Jayhawks scored in double figures: Jackson (16), senior guard Holly Kersgieter (14) and junior guard Wyvette Mayberry (18).

TCU guard Tomi Taiwo led the Horned Frogs with 19 points, while three others scored in double digits. TCU was held under 38% shooting overall and were

outrebounded 39-27 in the game.

Kansas finishes its regular season with a 19-10 record (9-9 Big 12), while TCU ends its season at 7-22 (1-17). The Jayhawks look ahead to the Big 12 Conference Tournament, which begins Thursday, March 9.

injured. The Irish already had lost starter Dara Mabrey to a season-ending injury earlier this year.

No. 14 Ohio State 79, No. 2 Indiana 75 MinneapOliS — Rikki Harris made a go-ahead layup with 38 seconds left for Ohio State in a victory over Indiana after rallying from a 24-point deficit in the semifinals of the Big Ten Tournament.

Taylor Thierry had 19 points, 12 rebounds and three steals for the Buckeyes (25-6), who turned up their full-court press in the second half to take down the regular-season conference champion Hoosiers (27-3) and damage their bid for a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament.

Cotie McMahon added 12 points, 14 rebounds and three

steals. She also played a major role in limiting Indiana star Mackenzie Holmes, who had 12 points — nearly 13 below her average — on 3-for-7 shooting. Grace Berger led the Hoosiers with 20 points and six assists.

No. 8 Virginia Tech 58, No. 13 Duke 37

GreenSbOrO, n c — Georgia Amoore scored 24 points on six 3-pointers and Virginia Tech advanced to the Atlantic Coast Conference Tournament championship game for the first time in program history with a victory over Duke.

Amoore finished 9 of 16 from the field, including 6 of 8 from beyond the arc, to go along with seven assists and five rebounds.

Elizabeth Balogun had nine points for Duke (25-6).

NFL launches new professional development program for players

The Associated Press indianapOliS — While the best college players showcase their skills at this week’s annual scouting combine, the NFL launched a professional development program Friday to provide current and former players opportunities to prepare for their future after football. NFL Career Tours gives players exclusive access to major organizations to learn about various career opportunities and network with industry leaders. Sixty men will participate in the program this month to gain behindthe-scenes experience in entertainment, sports business, and the music industry.

The NFL has partnered with the Fifth Season and Hidden Empire film groups, Nike, and Interscope Records.

The program kicks off next week in Los Angeles with 18 players, including Kansas City Chiefs guard Trey Smith, going to work with Fifth Season and Hidden Empire to gain an all-access look into all facets of the entertainment industry, including acting, casting for roles, directing, financing, producing, and distributing movies.

“The opportunity to better myself outside football from a professional standpoint, I think it’s extremely important,” Smith said on the AP Pro Football Podcast. A group of 16 players will be at Nike World Headquarters in Oregon on March 13-14 for a look at the sports business industry, including product development, marketing, and branding.

Sixteen others will go to Interscope Records in Los Angeles on March 20-21. They’ll learn all aspects of the music industry, including becoming an artist, managing an artist, promoting the music, operating a record label, and envisioning the money needed to be successful.

Smith

Kansas scored on its opening possession to take a 2-0 lead — off of a bucket from Austin native KJ Adams, no less — and held that lead until the Longhorns got on the board on a bucket by Timmy Allen at 2:49 into the game.

No one could have known then that the Jayhawks (256 overall, 13-5 Big 12) would never lead again, but that was exactly the way things played out. The Longhorns (23-8, 12-6) jumped in front with a 9-0 run and never looked back, taking a 32-24 lead into halftime and leading by as many as 17 points before the final horn sounded.

So many things that bothered Kansas on Saturday were the direct result of Texas’ effort and intensity. KU freshman Gradey Dick, who hit the Longhorns for 21 points in the win in Lawrence, struggled to get open and find shots and finished with six points on 2-of-5 shooting.

Kansas turned it over just

11 times but the first three or four of those giveaways led directly to UT baskets. After each one, whether it was a lob in transition or a 3-pointer in the half-court offense, the Moody Center crowd roared louder and Kansas’ hole grew larger.

The Jayhawks insisted all week that they would not head to Austin with a nothing-togain attitude. But Self said his team’s effort did not illustrate that.

“I didn’t think we matched it at all,” he said. “I think guys had good intentions and all that stuff. But, a lot of times you can tell a little bit about a group when they get punched in the mouth and taste their own blood and how they react to that. I don’t think we reacted as well in this scenario as we have in maybe some other ones.”

If ever there were a play that illustrated how the first half went for Kansas, it came with just over 10 minutes remaining and led to the Longhorns’

Udeh 4 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 1 0 Ejiofor 3 0-0 1-2 0-1 0 0 1 Jankovich 1 0-0 0-0 0-0 0 0 0

first 3-point make of the day after misses on their first seven attempts.

After great defense by Kevin McCullar Jr. shut down Allen’s drive to the basket, the UT forward dished a bounce pass to Christian Bishop, who immediately attacked the rim for a dunk. Adams, who helped double Allen, recovered and got a piece of the dunk attempt, but the ball bounced right to Arterio Morris behind the 3-point line in front of the KU bench and the UT freshman buried the long jumper to put Texas up 17-9 with 9:59 to play in the half.

KU cut the Texas lead to as little as six or seven on a few possessions in the second half, but never put any real pressure on the home team.

“They got up and down on us and they just punched us in the mouth to start the game,” said Kansas point guard Dajuan Harris Jr. “We kind of responded a little bit, but it wasn’t enough. They were hyped, they made shots, they got to the free throw line, so …”

Both KU junior Jalen Wilson and McCullar said the fact that the Big 12 race was already over before Saturday arrived had no bearing on how the Jayhawks’ prepared or played.

“None at all,” McCullar said. “It was another Big 12 game. We wanted to come out and win it. We just came out a little flat.”

Added Wilson: “We’re playing for a lot too, trying to get the No. 1 overall seed. Today just wasn’t all of our days.”

Wilson led the Jayhawks with 23 points on 7-of-18 shooting. He also added 10 rebounds, giving him his 10th double-double of the season and the 26th of his career. While much of that production may have kept the game from getting out of hand earlier, it didn’t do much to help Kansas stay in the contest.

No other KU player reached double figures in scoring, and the other four Kansas starters shot a combined 11-for-32 from the floor in Saturday’s lopsided loss.

“I think it’s been clear all season when we get stagnant our offense doesn’t look its best,” Wilson said.

Harris, who finished with just five points on 2-of-12 shooting, agreed. “We’ve got to play together,” he said after adding seven assists, five rebounds and no turnovers to his game line. “That’s coach’s system, playing together. That’s our best ball. If we play individual ball, we’re not going to win

too many games. So, if we get to playing together in the Big 12 and March Madness, we should be pretty good.”

Self described the way the Jayhawks played on Saturday as having too many players on “islands.” The Jayhawks’ desire to play one-on-one basketball led to bad shots, easy defensive execution for Texas and a few too many KU turnovers.

“We’re pretty good when we play together and play as a unit,” Self said. “And today we played more as individuals because Texas did some good things to take us out of stuff. We weren’t very good.”

So, now it’s on to the postseason for the defending national champions.

The team’s postgame meeting, which lasted nearly 30 minutes, was significantly longer than most. And Self said when he arrived in the media room that part of the discussion was about what comes next.

“We’re not leaving out of here happy,” he said. “But they still know there’s bigger fish to fry.”

Asked if that was the theme of the postgame discussion, Self added, “Maybe a do-better talk in conjunction with that.”

So, now the Jayhawks will turn their attention to next

week’s Big 12 tournament, where they’ll be the No. 1 seed and open play at T-Mobile Center at 2 p.m. Thursday against the winner of Wednesday’s 8-9 matchup between West Virginia and Texas Tech.

Self made it clear that there would be no pouting or hangover from Saturday’s loss. With the potential for three games in three days against the toughest conference in the country, there just isn’t time for any of that.

“I’m not going to dwell on the fact that we lost to a team as good as Texas on the road,” Self said. “You play a team like Texas on the road, it would be an upset if we won. A minor upset, but it’d be an upset. So, I’m not going to take away too much from it other than the fact that we weren’t very good and we’ve got to get better.”

Eric Gay/AP Photo

KANSAS FORWARD JALEN WILSON (10) SHOOTS PAST Texas forward Timmy Allen (0) during the first half Saturday in Austin, Texas.

BIG 12 ROUNDUP

Groves, Oklahoma start fast, down No. 22 TCU 74-60

The Associated Press

NormaN, okla. — Tanner Groves scored a season-high 23 points to go with 10 rebounds, and Oklahoma rode a hot start all the way, beating No. 22 TCU 74-60 in the regularseason finale for both teams.

Grant Sherfield added 20 points and Milos Uzan had 12 for Oklahoma. The Sooners made their first six shots and improved their record this season to 15-16. Oklahoma finished at the bottom of the powerful Big 12 Conference, but beat four ranked opponents, having earlier defeated then-No. 2 Alabama, Kansas State and Iowa State.

Mike Miles Jr. scored points for TCU. The Horned Frogs are 20-11.

Notebook

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1B

Asked last week if he thought his star forward was worthy of the conference’s player of the year honors, KU coach Bill Self said there was no question about it.

“In my mind, he is,” Self said. League rules dictate that coaches cannot vote for their own players for these types of awards — the Associated Press winner will be revealed Tuesday — and Self views it as his responsibility to cast his vote without Wilson in mind.

“I can’t vote for Jalen, and it’s my job, as I see it, to vote for the guy who should be player of the year if it’s not Jalen,” Self said. “Not to vote for somebody that won’t be player of year to help Jalen.”

Self added: “I don’t think I have campaigned for my guys to win an award in which the other nine coaches vote on. I don’t think it’s the right thing to do. Coaches have their own perspective (on) what they value most. I know for me what (Wilson) does (is what) I value most.”

Earlier Saturday, Wilson was named as one of 15 players

Iowa State 73, No. 7 Baylor 58

Waco, Texas — Jaren Holmes had 16 points and Iowa State ended a four-game losing streak.

The Cyclones (18-12, 9-9 Big 12) played their first game since the dismissal of veteran guard Caleb Grill from the team earlier this week.

Iowa State built as much as a 14-point lead before halftime. Tre King finished with 13 points and Gabe Kalscheur had 12.

Adam Flagler had 20 points for Baylor (22-9, 11-7), and LJ Cryer added 13 points. Bears freshman Keyonte George finished with seven points on 3-of10 shooting after missing Monday’s victory at Oklahoma State because of a right ankle sprain.

nationally on the national ballot for the John R. Wooden Award, given annually to college basketball’s best player. Wilson also landed on the Oscar Robertson Award semifinalist list earlier in the week. The Robertson Award is college basketball’s annual player of the year honor handed out by the U.S. Basketball Writers Association.

Big 12 tourney set

The final Saturday of the Big 12 season featured a few upsets, with West Virginia’s win over Kansas State and Oklahoma taking down TCU the biggest among them.

As such, the seeds are now set for next week’s Big 12 tournament at T-Mobile Center in Kansas City, Missouri. Kansas is the top seed and will open play at 2 p.m. Thursday against the winner of Wednesday’s 8/9 matchup between West Virginia and Texas Tech.

Texas is the 2 seed, Kansas State edged Baylor for the No. 3 seed and the Bears will take on Iowa State in Thursday’s 4/5 game, with the winner taking on the winner of KU’s Thursday game.

TCU is the No. 6 seed and will play Kansas State in the

West Virginia 89, No. 11 Kansas State 81 morgaNToWN, W.va. — Erik Stevenson scored 27 points, Kedrian Johnson added 23 and West Virginia gave its NCAA Tournament hopes a big boost.

Emmitt Matthews added 20 points and Tre Mitchell scored 14 for West Virginia (18-13, 7-11 Big 12), which has won three of four heading into the conference tournament.

Before a sellout crowd, West Virginia rallied from 10 points down to take a 39-37 halftime lead and never trailed after that, shooting 58% (15 of 26) from the floor in the second half.

Markquis Nowell and Keyontae Johnson each scored 24 points for Kansas State (23-8, 11-7). Cam Carter finished with 13.

quarterfinals; Oklahoma State got the No. 7 seed and will face 10th-seeded Oklahoma in Wednesday’s other Day-1 matchup.

It remains to be seen how many Big 12 teams will make the NCAA Tournament when the bracket is revealed on March 12, but KU’s Kevin McCullar Jr. said he thought the league was ready for the next few weeks.

“I think all Big 12 teams that get in the tournament are going to do great in the tournament,” he said. “We’re definitely all going to be battle tested and ready to play some new teams.”

Clemence returns

With the Jayhawks struggling and trailing by double digits early in the second half, Self went to sophomore big man Zach Clemence off the bench for a new look.

It was Clemence’s first game action since he injured his knee in a loss at Iowa State on Feb. 4, and his time on the floor was short-lived.

Clemence finished with two points, three fouls and two turnovers in four minutes.

None of the KU big men fared too well in the regular-season finale. KJ Adams finished with nine points on 4-of-7 shooting

in 29 minutes and Ernest Udeh and Zuby Ejiofor combined for one point, one rebound and one foul in roughly eight minutes combined.

Meet the Moody Center Saturday’s game was the first for Kansas at the brand-new Moody Center, a state-of-the-art arena across the street from the old Erwin Center, designed as much for concerts and other live events as basketball.

The $375 million venue, which feels and looks as rich as that sounds, seats just under 11,000 for basketball games and can convert into a 15,000-seat arena for concerts. During Saturday’s game, those extra seats were covered by massive projector screens on the upper level that flashed graphics throughout the game.

“I thought it was really good,” Self said of the atmosphere on Saturday. “I thought it was really loud. I don’t know how they pipe in the noise or whatever they do here, but I actually thought it was a really good atmosphere.”

Moody first opened for concerts last April and has been the home to Texas men’s and women’s basketball for the entire 2022-23 season. The Moody Foundation, which has

supported museums, libraries, universities and hospitals throughout Texas for decades, donated $130 million for the new venue. Hollywood actor and UT alumnus Matthew McConaughey also was in on the planning and execution of the project.

The court runs north and south and his surrounded by students at 270 degrees. McConaughey dubbed the student section “The Corral,” and there’s also a section above the north end of the floor that is dubbed “The Upper Corral.” That area is standing room only and contributed greatly to Texas’ average attendance number this season (10,943) being larger than the arena’s capacity of 10,763.

This and that … Saturday’s loss ended a threegame Kansas winning streak on the road. The Jayhawks finished the regular season 10-4 in games played outside of Allen Fieldhouse and 7-4 in true road games. All four true road losses came in Big 12 play … The Jayhawks now lead the all-time series with Texas, 37-13, including an 11-10 record in Austin. The Jayhawks have lost three in a row on Texas’ home floor.

Sue Ogrocki/AP Photo

OKLAHOMA FORWARD TANNER GROVES (35) shoots in front of TCU forward Emanuel Miller, left, in the second half Saturday in Norman, Okla.

Options Counselor /Nutrition Assessor

The

Piano Technician

116 Soaks in hot water

117 Wear white to a chili cook-off, you might say

121 Crock-Pot creation 122 Collared-shirt accessory

DOWN

1 Table salt, to a chemist

2 One of the Hearst magazines

3 International grp. headquartered in Vienna

4 Comedian Trevor

5 TV brand

6 ‘‘You’re embarrassing me!’’

7 Muscles targeted by curls

8 Brings in 9 Muscles targeted by planks

10 Large container

11 Cry from someone who’s disheveled

13

14

16

17

35

When jealousy flies into life, consider the good things you have

Dear Annie: I called a buddy of mine the other day. This is one of my best friends from college. I am trying to call my friends more. We text every day but rarely get the chance to actually hear each other’s voices.

As we are getting caught up, we start talking about work. We both run our own businesses and often compare notes. He travels a lot for his work. I do not. He tells me that his company recently purchased a private jet. He downplayed it

Dear Annie

Annie Lane dearannie@creators.com

as much as possible, saying they co-owned it and that it was only an eight-seater.

I am happy for my friend, but when we hung

‘Contessa’ dines with her friends

The “Barefoot Contessa” welcomes famous friends for free meals at her East Hamptons home on a new season of “Be My Guest

With Ina Garten” (10:30 a.m. Food Network, TV-G). Over the course of four episodes, she will break bread with ballerina Misty Copeland, singer Norah Jones, actress Laura Linney (“Ozark”) and actor and travel-show host Stanley Tucci.

Tonight’s highlights

l “60 Minutes” (6 p.m., CBS).

l Ryan Seacrest is still hosting “American Idol” (7 p.m., ABC, TV-PG).

l For those who can’t wait to obsess about 2024, there’s “The Circus: Inside the Greatest Political Show on Earth” (7 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).

l A corporate big shot’s disappearance seems too convenient on “Magnum P.I.” (8 p.m., NBC, TV-PG).

l The 2023 documentary “Glitch: The Rise & Fall of HQ Trivia” (8 p.m., CNN) looks at the spectacular rise and fall of an app that was quickly embraced and just as suddenly abandoned.

l In this 2023 romantic comedy, a woman goes on a bender with her buddy after receiving her pink slip only to wake up “Married by Mistake” (8 p.m., E!, TV-PG).

l Monsters can be murder on “The Last of Us” (8 p.m., HBO, TV-MA).

l A series of miscalculations on “Your Honor” (8 p.m., Showtime, TV-MA).

l Bumpy suspects a traitor in his ranks on “Godfather of Harlem” (8 p.m., MGM+, TV-MA).

l High-stakes poker on “The Blacklist” (9 p.m., NBC, TV-14).

l Daphne widens her horizons on “The Company You Keep” (9 p.m., ABC, TV-14).

Tonight’s series

A dying woman’s mother takes hostages on “The Equalizer” (7 p.m., CBS, TV-14).

ROYAL STARS HOROSCOPE

up, I felt bad about myself. I felt as though I was lesser than because I did not have a private jet. I even looked up how much his jet cost and started doing the math to see if I could justify it (I could not).

Anyway, I am legitimately happy for my buddy, but private jets aside, why does his “success” make me feel bad? — Begrudgingly

Grounded

Dear Begrudgingly

Grounded: First off, I want to thank you for your letter.

You did one of the most difficult things by admitting to having an uncomfortable feeling that every human being has experienced and asked how to work on it. Kudos to the strength in being vulnerable. Of course it is natural to have mixed feelings when a colleague is more financially successful at a time. Jealousy is a natural emotion. In this case, it comes from a lack mentality. The best way is to remind yourself that you can have all the abundance you want to create.

Remind yourself that comparison is the thief of joy. So catch yourself and let it go. The best way to do that is to take a step back and look at your life — the big picture. I’m sure you have lots to feel grateful about. The more we appreciate what we have, the more we get what we want out of life.

Dear Annie: This is for the woman who signed herself “Feeling Trapped.” Please keep this number for people who write in that they are in an abusive

situation: National Domestic Violence Hotline 800-799-7233.

They help every race, sexual orientation and religion with resources such as shelters, protect orders, legal aid, counseling and so much more. Thank you! —

DV Survivor and Advocate

Dear Survivor: Thank you for sharing the hotline. We can’t print their number often enough.

— Send your questions to dearannie@creators.com.

For Sunday, March 5, 2023: You love variety and adventure in your life. Nevertheless, it’s good to establish stability and contentment. This year your theme is service. Therefore, take care of your mind, body and spirit so that, in turn, you can help and support others. You might consider a makeover.

The stars show the kind of day you’ll have: 5-Dynamic; 4-Positive; 3-Average; 2-So-so; 1-Difficult ARIES (March 21-April 19)

HHHHH Today you have the energy to enjoy sports, playful activities with children plus entertaining and social diversions. Take a mini vacation or a quick getaway, if possible. New romance might suddenly blossom out of the blue. Tonight: Work. This Week: Start letting go of what you don’t need.

TAURUS (April 20-May 20)

HHHH Take a look at your surroundings at home and decide what you can do to make things better. How can you improve where you live? The main thing is, you have energy and focus to make home improvements. Use it!

Tonight: Play!

This Week: Young friends and secret love affairs.

GEMINI (May 21-June 20)

HHHHH This is a strong day for those of you in sales, marketing, teaching, acting or writing, because you’re very eager to communicate your ideas to others. Choose today if you need to persuade someone about something. Tonight: Cocoon.

This Week: You begin two years of success!

CANCER (June 21-July 22)

HHHH Today you might have moneymaking ideas. You also might have big ideas about how to spend money. By nature, you are a thrifty sign, someone who buys things on sale and knows how to get a good value for your dollar.

Tonight: Conversations.

This Week: Plan to learn or travel to enrich your world.

LEO (July 23-Aug. 22)

HHHHH Today the Moon is in your sign dancing with Mars, which gives you a great capacity to work with others and get things done. You will attract people to you who are strong and courageous; ask for their help. Tonight: Money issues. This Week: Be independent and start to get along with less.

VIRGO (Aug. 23-Sept. 22)

HHHH Something is going on behind the scenes. There’s

a strong chance that someone doesn’t have your best interests at heart. This means if you think something fishy is going on, it probably is. Tonight: You win!

This Week: Partnerships might be challenging this year.

LIBRA (Sept. 23-Oct. 22)

HHHHH Your enthusiastic energy will attract people to you today, which is why you will be effective working with groups and organizations. Take the initiative and get things done, and others will follow your lead. Tonight: Solitude.

This Week: Work hard to prove what you can do.

SCORPIO (Oct. 23-Nov. 21)

HHHH You make a strong impression on others today. They see you as capable, independent and proactive. (Which you are.) This is why people will respect you today, and you won’t have to defend your views. Tonight: Be friendly.

This Week: Health and work are favored!

SAGITTARIUS (Nov. 22-Dec. 21)

HHHHH Lively discussions, especially about controversial subjects, might take place today. If so, you will be confident and persuasive. People will listen to you, which is great if you have to teach or convince others about something. Tonight: Take a bow.

This Week: Start to secure your home base this year.

CAPRICORN (Dec. 22-Jan. 19)

HHHHH Disputes about shared property or inheritances will go well today. The secret to your success is that you are motivated and ready to fight for what you want. Tonight: Explore!

This Week: Residential moves or job changes are ahead.

AQUARIUS (Jan. 20-Feb. 18)

HHHH Be smart and ready to give others a lot of rope today. It’s in your best interests to go along to get along. Why? Because the Moon is opposite your sign today, which happens for two and a half days every month. When this occurs, you have to be obliging.

Tonight: Check your finances.

This Week: Appreciate your daily surroundings.

PISCES (Feb. 19-March 20)

HHHH You will be productive today at whatever you choose to do. This same energy will allow you to do something to boost your health or compete in sports. You’re all systems go! Tonight: Cooperate.

This Week: You’re starting a new journey.

— The astrological forecast should be read for entertainment only.

Substate

CONTINUED FROM PAGE 1B

and entered the fourth quarter down 17.

Entering the fourth, Bracker Sturm collected her fourth foul of the game but remained disciplined through the final eight minutes of play. Dickson said keeping his senior big disciplined was crucial to sealing the deal.

“(Bracker Sturm) is such a difference-maker on the defensive end and sometimes people don’t appreciate what she does for us when she doesn’t score,” Dickson said. “She is a massive presence in there and has gotten better and better about sliding her feet.”

LHS, leading 68-51 with 4:26 to go, picked up five more points by Johnson and Bracker Sturm through the final buzzer. Free throws by Johnson, Marshall and senior

Serenity Keo (5 points) sealed the Lady Lions’ substate championship win.

The Lady Lions will now pack their bags for the state tournament in Wichita, which starts March 8.

Brackets will be released today at KSHSAA.org.

LHS girls 76, Wichita South 53 Lawrence High (76):

Photo LAWRENCE HIGH HOLDS UP THE TROPHY after advancing to the state tournament by defeating Wichita South to win the substate championship on Saturday.

David Zalubowski/AP Photo SPORTING KANSAS CITY MIDFIELDER GRAHAM ZUSI, LEFT, blocks Colorado Rapids midfielder Sam Nicholson as he tries to collect the ball during the first half Saturday in Commerce City, Colo. The match ended tied 0-0.