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WASHINGTON ― After staying away for much of the race, the Democratic Party came to the aid of James Thompson, the Democrat running to fill the House seat vacated by Donald Trump appointee Mike Pompeo, just before voters went to the polls Tuesday. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee on Monday began doing live calls to 25,000 households in Kansas’ 4th Congressional District, urging residents to vote in Tuesday’s unexpectedly competitive special election. National Democrats have held off committing their resources to Thompson’s campaign, citing the difficulty of flipping an ultra-conservative district that Trump carried by nearly 30 percentage points in...

Vice President Pence is stepping into Kansas's special House election, recording a robocall urging Republican voters to cast their ballots for the party's congressional nominee on Tuesday, the Washington Examiner reported on Friday. The robocall comes amid shaky support for Kansas State Treasurer Ron Estes, who is running against Democrat James Thompson to fill the House seat vacated by Mike Pompeo, who is now President Trump's CIA director. President Trump won Kansas's 4th District by almost 30 points in November. But Democrats in the district have been energized by the president's low-approval ratings and controversies in his first months in...

Connor Balthazor, 17, was in the middle of study hall when he was called into a meeting with his high school newspaper adviser. A group of reporters and editors from the student newspaper, the Booster Redux at Pittsburg High School in southeastern Kansas, had gathered to talk about Amy Robertson, who was hired as the high school’s head principal on March 6. The student journalists had begun researching Robertson, and quickly found some discrepancies in her education credentials.

Lawmakers in Kansas on Monday failed to override Republican Governor Sam Brownback's veto of a bill expanding eligibility for Medicaid for the poor under the federal Affordable Care Act (ACA). State lawmakers in the Republican-controlled senate voted in favor of the measure last week, just days after President Donald Trump's efforts to repeal and replace the ACA, also known as Obamacare, ended with the bill being pulled from a vote. The Republican-controlled House also voted in favor of the measure, but Brownback quickly vetoed the bill on Thursday. The House took up a debate on overriding the veto that day,...

The Kansas Supreme Court held that courts are independent of the state's executive branch, when ruling on immunity from prosecution for self defense.In the case before the court, the self defense claim was very strong. Immunity from prosecution was granted. The state appealed, arguing that the judge was required to look at the evidence in the way most favorable to the prosecutor's case. From cjonline.com: The state’s highest court rejected a tougher standard set by a lower court for determining when someone can avoid prosecution for wounding or killing another person. The state Court of Appeals had said trial...

Representatives from 13 states including 12 state attorneys general and one governor filed a motion in support of President Trump’s temporary travel ban. From the Dallas Morning News: Attorney General Ken Paxton on Monday led a coalition of 13 states in filing a brief with the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals defending President Donald Trump’s revised immigration order.In the brief, Paxton and representatives from 12 other states argue that the Trump administration’s new order is legal and falls under the president’s power over foreign affairs and national security. Those joining the brief included Paxton plus AG’s in the...

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — A huge fire at an apartment building under construction in suburban Kansas City has sparked fires at several homes blocks away. The eight-alarm fire broke out about 3:30 p.m. Monday at the multimillion-dollar CityPlace development in Overland Park, Kansas, sending plumes of smoke and embers toward homes in the suburban neighborhood nearby, The Kansas City Star reported (http://bit.ly/2nLM3Hg ). Once one roof caught fire, embers jumped from roof to roof, spreading the blaze, said Overland Park Fire Department spokesman Jason Rhodes. "It's a bit of a war zone down there frankly," Rhodes said. No serious...

Jeffrey Allen Burgess has been accused of harming Ankur Mehta because of his "perceived race, colour and national origin". (Photo courtesy: wtae.com) Less WASHINGTON: An American man has been charged with hate crime for assaulting an Indian-origin man and hurling racial slurs, mistaking him for a Muslim. Jeffrey Allen Burgess, 54, of Bethel Park, Pennsylvania, has been accused of intentionally harming a man named Ankur Mehta on November 22 because of his "perceived race, colour and national origin". A federal grand jury on Thursday indicted Burgess of a hate crime charge in connection with the alleged assault at a Red...

In a city with enlightened leaders, people might commend Rocky and Lisa Cole for finding a way to get by without city water or a top heating system. Unfortunately for the Coles, they live in Fort Hutchinson where government bureaucrats try to force rigid adherence to the city's military like regulations. Hutchinson's hypocritical officials want everyone to obey their regulations, but don't think they need to obey the constitutional provisions defining the judicial power. Hutchinson's municipal court violates both the state and federal constitutions. It doesn't have the constitutional authority to legally fine people, take property or place people in...

HIGHLIGHTS o Trump said he condemns hate in all its forms as well as the shooting in Kansas last week. o He was referring to a what s being called a 'hate crime' last week when two Indians were shot and one was killed by a US army veteran. o At the same time, he said tightening immigration rules will 'keep America safe.' NEW DELHI: Even as he condemned last week's shooting of an Indian in Kansas, US President Donald Trump said today that enforcing immigration rules is the only way to keep the country safe. "We condemn hate in...

POLITICISING HATE CRIME Wrong to blame Trump for racial killing It is tragic that an Indian engineer was shot dead in the US in what appears to be a racial hate crime. The killer (a Navy veteran) shouted, "Get out of my country", before he shot the victim and injured another Indian. American laws are strong enough to deal with such incidents and one must hope that the murderer will be punished sooner than later. It would be wrong, however, to generalise that hate crimes against Indians, or non-whites, are becoming part of the American DNA. Let us not forget...

CNN)The widow of an Indian man killed in a Kansas bar said Friday she was constantly worried about violence against foreigners, but her husband had assured her everything would be OK. "I told him many a times, 'Should we think about going back? Should we think about going to a different country?' He said, No," Sunayana Dumala said, according to video recorded by CNN affiliate KCTV. Srinivas Kuchibhotla, 32, died Wednesday from wounds after being shot at a bar and restaurant in Olathe where he was having an after-work beer with a good friend. Hours later police arrested Adam W....

Rocky Cole is stuck between a rock and a hard place. The city of Hutchinson has told him he and his wife, Lisa, can’t continue living in their home because of code violations, but he is struggling to afford to make the needed changes because he is on a fixed income. He has lived in the home at 211 N. Chemical St., owned by his mother, Myrna Cole, for about 11 years, he estimated. Unable to work full-time because of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, Rocky Cole relies on Social Security disability income. Because of that limited income – and because...

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback on Wednesday vetoed a bill that would undo his signature income tax cut and his allies prevented the Legislature from overriding him, setting up future confrontations over balancing the state budget. Less than two hours after Brownback vetoed the bill, the state House voted 85-40 to override him, giving supporters one vote more than the two-thirds majority they needed. But the vote in the Senate hours later was 24-16, which was three shy of a two-thirds majority. By not overriding the veto, lawmakers will have to draft another plan aimed at closing projected budget shortfalls totaling...

Kansas Republican Gov. Sam Brownback is hoping the federal government can rescue several critical infrastructure projects that the state can no longer afford.The Brownback administration recently sent what amounts to a wish list to President Donald Trump for inclusion in his planned infrastructure initiative. It includes the following $240 million in highway and bridge projects delayed or abandoned because of the state’s ongoing budget problems: $50 million to replace a section of the Lewis and Clark Viaduct that carries Interstate 70 across the Kansas River between Kansas and Missouri.$91 million to build an I-235 interchange in Wichita.$45 million to reconstruct...

Kansas Democrats hoping to turn voter discontent into an upset picked civil rights attorney Jim Thompson to run for the U.S. House seat that Mike Pompeo vacated to become CIA director under President Donald Trump. Thompson, a 46-year-old political newcomer and Army veteran, will run against Republican state Treasurer Ron Estes in the April 11 special election. It will be the nation’s first special congressional election since Trump’s win, and Democrats view it as their best chance to flip the seat representing the heavily Republican 4th District in southern Kansas. After winning the Democratic nomination, Thompson, told delegates that the...

Larry Hauth has a farm in Coffey County and a daughter in Wichita. Good roads are kind of important to him. So he’s disturbed by the ongoing and accelerating trend of the state taking money out of the highway fund to balance the rest of its budget. “One of the things Kansas has going for it, compared to our surrounding states, is our road system,” Hauth said. “When they built them in years past, they were thinking ahead. I don’t think we’re thinking ahead right now. We’re trying to tread water, at best.” Gov. Sam Brownback wants to take nearly...

Secretary of State Kris Kobach did not consult with the Kansas Highway Patrol before crafting a bill that would require the agency to partner with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on immigration enforcement, an agency spokesman said Thursday. Rep. John Whitmer, R-Wichita, introduced a pair of conceptual bills on Kobach’s behalf at Thursday’s meeting of the House Federal and State Affairs Committee. One of the bills would instruct the Highway Patrol to negotiate and sign an agreement with the Department of Homeland Security “concerning the enforcement of federal immigration laws, detentions and removals, and related investigations,” according to a...

Lou Dobbs just broke in with the report that Mike Pompeo now has 56 votes for confirmation, and has been confirmed by the Senate.

Kansas election officials threw out thousands of ballots cast in November, mostly because the state had no record those residents were registered voters.<> Some local officials are now voicing concerns about numerous documented instances of lost voter registrations from people who had filled out applications on the state’s online site and at motor vehicle offices. Those names never showed up on any poll books despite the fact these voters had date-stamped, computer screenshot confirmations. The secretary of state’s office says there was a technical problem with the motor vehicle department computer system that handles online registrations that was corrected days...