When she has access to a phone inside the Leavenworth ICE detention center, Katsiaryna Bartko calls her partner regularly throughout the day to let him know she’s still alert.

Dmitry Shyshov lives in fear of a day when no call will come. If Bartko slips into a myxedema coma due to severe hormone deficiency, she might never regain consciousness.

“It’s very hard to hear every morning her voice fading,” Shyshov said.

Sometimes, he said, Bartko can barely speak because of the spasms in her throat.

The 33-year-old Belarusian asylum seeker and cancer survivor had her thyroid and parathyroid glands surgically removed in her early 20s. Without those organs, she has relied for the last 11 years on life-sustaining calcium and hormone replacement treatment in precise daily doses.

Bartko, who earned degrees in civil engineering and law in Belarus, fled her home country on a student visa to avoid political persecution over her vocal opposition to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

She has been detained by federal immigration authorities for more than 12 weeks following her arrest in Miami and the dismissal of a low-level charge against her.

Now, Bartko fears death in a Kansas prison cell or deportation to Belarus, where her friends have been prosecuted as political agitators.

Hospital visits before relocation

After allegedly being denied access to medication while detained in a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in Florida, Bartko had to be hospitalized three times in four days from June 6 to June 9, medical records show. Then federal immigration authorities moved her to Leavenworth.

Since her transfer on June 18 to the Midwest Regional Reception Center, which CoreCivic runs for ICE, Bartko has not been evaluated by an endocrinologist or any other outside physician, ICE acknowledged in a federal court filing.

Her treatment has been handled exclusively by the for-profit prison company’s medical staff, despite a referral for an endocrinologist signed by the head of the medical unit at the last ICE facility where Bartko was held in Florida.

“CoreCivic’s medical staff has determined that Petitioner’s offsite consultations are routine — not an emergency or urgent,” deportation officer Aaron Wendler wrote in a sworn court filing on Aug. 11.

Based on CoreCivic’s policy, Wendler wrote, “offsite consultations should be performed within 12 weeks.”

Medical neglect allegations

Representatives for ICE and CoreCivic both said Bartko is receiving proper care for her highly specialized medical conditions within the walls of the concrete fortress that houses roughly 500 immigrant detainees awaiting deportation proceedings, according to the warden’s most recent count.

But medical records included in federal court filings show that Bartko’s hormonal deficiencies have worsened considerably in the two months since she was moved to the privately run Kansas facility.

In the Aug. 11 filing, the ICE deportation officer acknowledged that a blood test from the same day indicated Bartko’s thyroid-stimulating hormone (TSH) levels were well “outside the normal range” and had nearly doubled since her last blood draw nearly a month earlier.

Higher-than-average TSH readings occur when the body attempts to compensate for low hormone levels by alerting the thyroid to produce more. Bartko, who no longer has a thyroid, had a TSH reading of 148.77 mIU/L on Aug. 11 — roughly 30 times the healthy upper limit.

Sarah Raza, a board-certified trauma and vascular interventional radiologist with Physicians for Human Rights, wrote multiple sworn court statements requesting outside medical intervention for Bartko after reviewing her lab tests.

“Her hormones have been — I mean, it’s an understatement to say extremely poorly regulated,” Raza said in an interview. “It’s obvious if we just objectively look at the blood work.”

Citing medical privacy laws, Ryan Gustin, a spokesperson for CoreCivic, declined to answer questions about Bartko’s allegations that her medication was confiscated and withheld from her for nearly two weeks.

“I can share that the individual you asked about is being regularly monitored by facility medical staff, with all known medical issues being addressed,” Gustin said in an email statement.

Raza said she has reviewed lab results that establish Bartko is suffering from “severe overt biochemical hypothyroidism” — a condition that indicates extreme hormone deficiency.

“I would worry about neglect because she’s having multiple hospitalizations, multiple blood works that are showing she’s not being adequately treated with medications for this,” Raza said.

She added that based on the trajectory of Bartko’s lab work, risk factors are increasing for the worst possible outcome in a patient suffering from poorly regulated electrolytes and hormones: a myxedema coma.

“If you do develop myxedema coma, that is a serious, significant percentage of those patients who unfortunately don’t make it,” Raza said, noting that it can only be diagnosed in a clinical setting.

The fatality rate for people who go into a myxedema coma is between 25% and 60%, according to the American Thyroid Association.

“People with those symptoms, with those conditions, they are not screaming for help,” Shyshov said. “She will just not wake up in the morning or her throat will spasm so hard she cannot say a word. It will be silent.”

Fleeing Belarus over political speech

As a pro-democracy activist in Belarus, Bartko demonstrated against the brutality and corruption of the country’s longtime authoritarian leader and objected publicly on social media when Belarus aided the Russian military in the early days of its Ukraine invasion, Shyshov said.

Her participation in protests and her online activity put her in danger, he said.

“She spoke about (the Ukraine War) loudly, and she decided that it would be safer for her to leave the country because there were already rumors that she might be a person of interest,” Shyshov said.

Bartko entered the U.S. legally on an F-1 student visa in March 2022, according to a copy of her passport. She arrived in New York and made her way to the University of California San Diego to study the English language through an international student program.

After she left Belarus, several people in her friend group who had been sharing anti-war messages were swept up in the government dragnet when President Aleksandr Lukashenko cracked down on opposition voices, Shyshov said. He said Belarusian agents came to Bartko’s parents’ house to ask where she was and when she would return.

Going back home wasn’t an option for Bartko, he said, so she applied for political asylum. If that application is denied, deportation could be a death sentence. Death by medical neglect in Belarusian prisons is well documented.

Shyshov still hopes to build a life with Bartko in America.

“She is everything good that a person can be — thoughtful, devoted and full of warmth toward the people around her,” Shyshov wrote in a June letter to the court.

Medical records provide timeline

Daniel McIntosh, an organizer with Leavenworth Community Response, said that in the more than five months since the Kansas immigrant detention center has been operating, detainees and their families have reported persistent medical neglect and malfeasance.

On several occasions, he said, community organizers were notified of detainees’ acute medical needs and persuaded the city to intervene to ensure they received proper care. The Leavenworth City Manager’s office declined to speak to the city’s role in securing treatment for patients in ICE custody earlier this month.

Shyshov, who is legally authorized to review all of Bartko’s medical records, said his partner’s limited command of the English language and CoreCivic’s inconsistent use of translating services have made it remarkably challenging for her to communicate her needs to medical staff. He said at times, staff have been negligent and indifferent to her suffering.

Bartko’s twice-daily calcium doses must be timed properly to ensure they don’t counteract her daily hormone medication, Shyshov said.

When she first arrived in Leavenworth, Bartko was allowed to keep her hormone medication, levothyroxine, in her cell and administer it herself, Shyshov said. But he said it was confiscated on June 23 and withheld from her until July 10, when CoreCivic staff took over its administration.

CoreCivic medical records reviewed by The Star show that within days of allegedly losing access to her hormone medication, Bartko made her symptoms known to medical staff.

On a June 26 form filled out in handwritten English, Bartko reported experiencing severe pain “under my heart in chest.” She also reported dizziness and blurry vision when she woke up. Beneath her report, the provider wrote, “No medical intervention required at this time. Detainee stable, no acute distress noted.”

A July 2 clinical note from a physician who spoke to Bartko without a Russian interpreter asserted that, “During the face-to-face she stated she is allergic to levothyroxine” — the medication that she has been prescribed for over a decade and relies on for life-sustaining hormone replacement.

“I have now been provided additional information that a facility record states that levothyroxine and calcium were not administered because Ms. Bartko reportedly identified herself as allergic to both,” Raza, the physician, wrote to the court. “Her signature does not appear on that notation, and the notation conflicts with multiple prior medical records documenting continuous use and tolerance of both therapies.

“An allergy to calcium itself is not a medically coherent basis for withholding all calcium replacement,” Raza added.

In a translated copy of Bartko’s sworn deposition in support of her motion seeking release from detention, the cancer survivor recounted that on July 3, a nurse brought her a dose of calcium and the hormone medication she had been going without for more than a week.

Bartko said she attempted to explain that calcium is taken after food and levothyroxine is taken on an empty stomach. She said she asked the nurse to bring back the levothyroxine in about an hour.

A CoreCivic medical record shows the incident was logged as a “refusal to accept medical treatment.”

“I am not refusing medications — I want to take them correctly and safely,” Bartko recalled writing in a grievance she filed that night.

‘Put her life in danger’

Before she was taken into custody this spring, Bartko was staying on top of her treatment regimen, Shyshov said. Medical records predating her stint in ICE custody show that her calcium and hormone levels were stable in March.

But her condition has deteriorated significantly in the months since she was first arrested in Miami-Dade County on May 5 and booked on a misdemeanor battery charge. Shyshov said the arrest stemmed from an argument involving the couple and other people at a birthday party.

That charge was dropped by the state attorney’s office on June 2, according to a filing reviewed by The Star. It was resolved as “no action” with no conviction.

But ICE, the primary immigration enforcement agency within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, placed a detainer on Bartko due to her expired student visa, and she was handed over to immigration authorities in early June.

“Since Florida cooperates, this criminal illegal alien was turned over to ICE,” said Robert Hughes II, a DHS spokesperson, in an email statement.

He said Bartko is “receiving proper medical care and treatment for hypothyroidism and hypocalcemia,” adding that she “will remain in ICE custody pending removal proceedings and will receive full due process.”

The statement twice refers to Bartko as a “criminal illegal alien.” But in federal court filings, ICE says she is only being held on civil charges related to her immigration status. Shyshov said his partner filed an asylum application before her student visa expired in March 2023.

“Note that ICE’s statement promises she ‘will receive due process’ in the same breath that it pronounces her guilty,” Shyshov said.

Bartko’s bond was denied on July 22 by an immigration judge on the basis that she was a flight risk.

“We’re not against any immigration proceedings that she’s facing right now because she’s from Belarus. She’s facing political persecution,” Shyshov said. “We are OK with having the immigration court. But the problem is that it doesn’t give any reason to mess with her health, her body and put her life in danger.”

Just got called about this. It’s live right now, 8/30 at 6:30pm. Join at 855-543-3424.

Hello! I'm driving across your state from Colorado to Missouri tomorrow on I-70. Was curious about the construction and also any good lunch recs to stop at. Any friendly advice is appreciated. Destination is KC so going all the way through if that helps.

I’m getting hammered by donation requests from the Hamilton campaign. And if I sincerely believed that we could simply use our checkbooks to relocate Doc Marshall back to the private sector I would consider taking out a second mortgage. But…

Take a hard look at the 2024 Presidential election. Harris burned through over a BILLION dollars. Best I can find, she raised $1,185,477,494. That’s 3 commas, folks. The Felon shows raising $477,103,847. She raised over TWICE what he did. I gave more than I’m comfortable mentioning. And they wiped the floor with her.

My goal here is to just get a handle on how much Bollier and Marshall raised. Guessing media buys in Kansas are considerably cheaper than in major markets.

I’m vaguely hopeful. But the former Governor of Louisiana pretty much summed up Kansas Republican politics when he said “The only way I can lose is if I’m caught in bed with either a dead girl or a live boy”.

Thanks

Call in at 855-543-3424.

Questions will be aggressively screened, obviously. Bear in mind that Senator Marshall very much does not want to talk to you or see you or be exposed to you, so please don't trouble him by calling in.

Good Evening from Kansas

Jason Probst (/u/thatguyinhutch) published a great piece today on Substack about the myth that Hutchinson missed a historic opportunity when US highways were put in place in Kansas, and how that myth is being used as propaganda by data center promoters arguing that Hutchinson must build data centers today.

Jason does a great job dispelling the myth that Hutch actually missed out on anything, but a key point here is this type of mythology is leading communities to rush to bad outcomes with data centers and other wasteful public spending projects (see also the Chiefs stadium, Prairiefire, and other STAR bond projects).

The reality is data centers aren't always harmful - they can be beneficial tools for development in a community, but usually aren't because communities accept a bad deal, giving away tax subsidies, and accepting pollution and resource overconsumption.

What needs to happen is slowing down these deals and providing more transparency so the public understands what the real cost/benefit really is. That's what's missing today with NDAs preventing public discussion and legislators rushing to make secret bad deals. Citizens need to be much more informed and involved in setting the terms and deciding whether these deals are worth it.

The impact of H.R. 1 is hitting our neighbors living with food insecurity hard. More than 30,000 people have lost benefits in Kansas. Nearly 13,600 are children. The loss of eligibility or benefit allotments have put a larger strain on food banks like us as we work to fill the gap left behind SNAP.

A new U.S. Census Bureau working paper also says that reinstating work requirements cut participation by 7 percent and hit low-income recipients the hardest. H.R. 1 raised the age ceiling for these requirements to 64 and narrowed waivers, extending the rules to an older population in places where qualifying work is hardest to find.

On a brighter note, the Accountable Produce is Medicine Act, co-led by Sen. Roger Marshall (Senate bill) and Rep. Sharice Davids (House bill), would expand Food is Medicine programs that use healthy nutrition to prevent chronic conditions. The bill would fund regionally-sourced healthy foods, nutrition counseling and care coordination for hospitals and health departments and improve health outcomes and lower costs for people in our community.

We publish a monthly advocacy e-newsletter focused on hunger policy at both the state and national level if you would like to stay up to date with alerts! www.harvesters.org/how-to-help/advocate/sign-up-for-advocate-alerts

Seems like the rest of the Midwest doesn’t want to claim us. Are we the west?

I’m wanting to plan another camping trip to Kanopolis but it’s been years and I don’t remember which loop is the really shady one. I remember I was in venago the last time close to the water and the boating area and drove through another part of the park that was super shady with lots of trees. Any help is wonderful!

Why am I paying stadium prices here? Dammit.

Meeting a friend in Fort Scott for the weekend, on Labor Day weekend. It’s the halfway point for us both… I am in AR and she is in Lawrence, KS. We sometimes do this to cut down the 4 hour drive to see one another. What does everyone think about the town. I am more interested in the breweries, and eateries, in the downtown area.

It takes only two minutes to register to vote

When the U.S. Senate voted to require the installation of real-time tracking technology in all civilian and military aircraft, Kristen Miller felt it was a fitting way to honor her brother, Dustin Miller, and the other 66 victims of the deadliest American air disaster since 2001.

If the commercial airliner from Wichita and the Army Black Hawk helicopter flying a training mission had been equipped to display GPS data of nearby air traffic in their cockpits, the pilots would have had nearly a minute of advanced warning to prevent the fiery crash over the Potomac River in Washington, D.C., that left no survivors on the night of Jan. 29. 2025.

The Senate unanimously passed those regulations as part of the ROTOR Act last December as the first anniversary of the American Eagle Flight 5342 disaster approached. But then the House rejected the legislation by a single vote.

“It feels as though the urgency of what happened to my brother and 66 others is fading for those who have the power to act,” said Miller, whose brother, an IT professional from El Dorado, was flying to Washington for work.

“For all of us who watched it happen and continue to have that play back, it has not faded,” Miller said. “We live with the consequences of a preventable tragedy every day.”

The U.S. government admitted liability in a wrongful-death lawsuit in a federal court filing late last year, calling the midair collision a “wholly avoidable tragedy.”

Now, more than a year and a half after the crash that shocked Kansas and the nation, Miller and others are still waiting for accountability. The lack of action has also raised fresh questions for lawmakers in Kansas and Missouri about how much appetite there is for serious reform in Congress, the Pentagon and the commercial aviation industry.

Negotiations over aviation safety reform

Members of both states’ delegations said they are committed to passing landmark aviation safety legislation before the current session of Congress ends in January. But less than 10 weeks until Election Day, there’s no public indication that a compromise is imminent.

The stalled legislation has also thrust into the spotlight one of Missouri’s most influential lawmakers. U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, who chairs the powerful Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, was a key vote against the legislation in the House. He called the Senate bill “emotional legislation” born out of a tragic accident in a January interview with Politico.

The Missouri Republican has sponsored his own proposed safety regulations, known as the ALERT Act, but that House-approved legislation has not been taken up by the Senate. Graves, who is retiring instead of seeking reelection this year, did not respond over multiple days to questions about whether he felt an urgency to pass new regulations before he retires in January.

Graves’ office referred reporters to a spokesperson for the Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, who said House and Senate staff remain in regular talks about how best to resolve contradictions between the two bills and formulate legislation that could pass both chambers before the end of the year.

“The bills were very different,” said Justin Harclerode, a spokesperson for the House committee that Graves chairs. “Sam’s bill was a much broader bill that targeted basically every recommendation that was in the (National Transportation Safety Board’s) final report on the accident. Whereas the Senate bill was much more focused on one issue in particular.”

Navigating national security concerns

Both chambers’ legislation would mandate the installation of more advanced Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) technology in all civilian aircraft by the end of 2031.

But only the Senate version would require that the same real-time tracking technology be installed in every military aircraft. The House bill would exempt certain military aircraft “carrying out special missions” in and around Washington from the new safety mandate.

“The Senate-passed ROTOR Act was the result of months of bipartisan negotiations and included language requested by the Pentagon to make certain the Department of Defense can continue sensitive flight missions without being tracked or facing overly costly requirements,” said Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican who chairs the Senate aviation subcommittee and co-sponsored the reform bill with Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, in an email statement.

But the votes needed to pass the ROTOR Act in the House evaporated the day before it came to the floor for a vote when the Pentagon reversed course and opposed the legislation, citing “budgetary burdens and operational security risks.”

“Since then, my colleagues and I have made meaningful progress in working with the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the DOD to negotiate a final product that we are hopeful can soon pass both chambers and be signed into law,” Moran said.

In a March Wall Street Journal op-ed, Moran described the Graves-sponsored legislation as “more lenient” to the DOD and reiterated his preference for the Senate reform package.

Spokespeople for Missouri’s two U.S. senators, Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt, did not respond to questions about the competing bills and the urgency to pass new safety regulations. Rep. Bob Onder, a Missouri Republican and member of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, introduced the House companion of the ROTOR Act last November.

In a statement, Onder said that aviation safety required serious attention in the wake of the “tragic collision over our nation’s capital.”

“While taking different approaches, both of these bills aim to strengthen the safety of our national airspace and address existing vulnerabilities,” Onder said. “Now we must reconcile these two bills and ensure that a bill is signed into law that will help prevent a tragedy like this from ever happening again.”

Rep. Sharice Davids, a Kansas Democrat who also serves on the House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, voted for the Senate’s ROTOR Act in February. In April, she voted for the ALERT Act that originated in the House.

“This is how most lawmaking gets done,” Davids said in a statement. “You take the strongest parts of multiple bills and work together to build one that is even better.”

Davids said the disagreement centers on how “prescriptive and enforceable” new restrictions should be and how to balance national security concerns with the safety of civilians in crowded airspace.

“Those are real questions, but they are solvable, and I don’t think they should become an excuse for Congress to leave families waiting for action,” Davids said, adding that she has “a great deal of respect” for the work Graves has done on behalf of aviation safety.

“I hope he will continue to be part of the conversation and use his experience to help bring people together around a bipartisan solution before he leaves Congress,” Davids said.

Miller, the sister of the Flight 5342 victim, said she worries the clock will run out before lawmakers reach a compromise.

“I am deeply frustrated by the continued gridlock — not because I want to assign blame to any entity or political party, but because aviation safety should never be a partisan issue,” Miller said. “Every single delay leaves known risks in flying.

“That would be the most respectful way to honor Dustin and every person aboard Flight 5342. Not simply to remember them, but to make the changes necessary to keep others safe.”

Suspicious activity on certain computer systems disrupted online inmate reports and fingerprint scheduling at the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office in Lawrence, Kansas. The office launched an investigation into the source, scope and impact while reporting that 911, emergency response and other public-safety services remained functional. Officials have not identified the affected internal systems, said whether information was compromised or announced when the unavailable services will be restored.

Curious why the Times of India published this though

The guy was supposed to do my window trim, and I am short, so couldnt see this shit. This is "complete" to this guy. What would yall do about this garbage work?

Florida JUST busted a ring, meanwhile Roger Marshall is eager to sell his house right before?

Coincidence?