(AP) – Outgoing Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger admits she no longer fits into the state Republican party she has served for most of her life.

Praeger, who is in her final term as insurance commissioner, favors abortion rights and gun control, and is a strong supporter of the new health insurance plan called Obamacare. All those positions put her at odds with the current Republican party establishment, including Gov. Sam Brownback.

Praeger, who was mayor of Lawrence, a state representative and a state senator before becoming Insurance Commissioner, says she will end her public service career after her current term is completed.

State Rep. Scott Schwab, a former Johnson County Republican chairman, says that somewhere along the line Praeger stopped listening to her constituents.

AP) — Two space station astronauts are taking care of a little maintenance outside their orbiting home.

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Russian flight engineers Fyodor Yurchikhin and Alexander Misurkin floated out of the International Space Station on Monday morning. The spacewalkers will replace valves, install clamps and retrieve science experiments. Some of the work will pave the way for the arrival of a new Russian compartment later this year.

This is the third spacewalk conducted so far this year. Monday’s excursion is under the direction of Russian Mission Control outside Moscow.

Today, U.S. Senator Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) released the following statement on the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to review the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit ruling on presidential recess appointments:

“The Supreme Court today agreed with Senate Republicans to review the constitutionality of the President’s ‘recess’ appointments, and the decision validates my concerns with the alarming pattern of overreach by the Obama Administration. Whether it’s the Environmental Protection Agency’s Cross State Air Pollution Rule or the Department of Labor’s Farm Labor Rules, this Administration continues to side step the role of Congress when they find it politically expedient. I look forward to the Supreme Court evaluation, and remain hopeful that the Administration will choose to put both the U.S. Constitution and best interests of Americans first.”

The legal controversy with the appointments is tied to whether brief Senate breaks called pro-forma sessions, which Congress states are not formal recesses, are in fact recesses. The federal court of appeals ruled that the only congressional break that counts as recess is the one that occurs between formal, year-long sessions of Congress. Even then, the president may only fill vacancies that come open while the Senate is in recess.

A Supreme Court ruling against President Obama could nullify all the National Labor Relations Board and Consumer Financial Protection Bureau Board decisions since January 2012.

In May, Sen. Moran joined 44 Senate colleagues in filing an Amicus brief in the United States Supreme Court in a challenge (Noel Canning v. NLRB) to the constitutionality of President Obama’s recess appointments in January 2012.

The Obama administration has approved the state of Alabama for a waiver from No Child Left Behind (NCLB) in exchange for state-developed plans to prepare all students for college and career, focus aid on the neediest students, and support effective teaching and leadership.

Since fall 2011, 47 states, D.C., Puerto Rico and the Bureau of Indian Education have requested waivers from NCLB in order to implement next-generation education reforms that go far beyond the law’s rigid, top-down prescriptions. The U.S. Department of Education has now approved requests from 38 states and D.C., with other applications still pending.

“Thirty-eight states and the District of Columbia can’t wait any longer for education reform,” said U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan. “A strong, bipartisan reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) remains the best path forward in education reform, but as these states have demonstrated, our kids can’t wait any longer for Congress to act.”

Federal education law has been due for congressional reauthorization since 2007. In the face of congressional inaction, President Obama announced in September 2011 that the Obama administration would grant waivers from NCLB to qualified states.

The previous 37 states, plus D.C., that have been approved for waivers from NCLB include: Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, South Dakota, Tennessee, Utah, Virginia, Washington, West Virginia and Wisconsin.

The seven states, plus the Bureau of Indian Education and Puerto Rico, with outstanding requests for waivers include: Illinois, Iowa, Maine, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Texas and Wyoming.

The five states that have not yet requested ESEA flexibility include: California, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota (request withdrawn), and Vermont (request withdrawn). California has notified the Department that the state does not plan to request ESEA flexibility for the next school year, and instead will focus on implementing the new Common Core state standards. The Department will continue its consideration of a separate request for waivers from the CORE districts in California.