TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is asking the U.S. Supreme Court to overturn a federal appeals court ruling that prevents the state from cutting off Medicaid funds to a Planned Parenthood affiliate.

Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer said Thursday that the state is seeking to reverse a 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision last month. Colyer is a strong abortion opponent.

The appeals court’s decision left in place a lower court’s preliminary injunction blocking a move by Kansas in 2015 to end its contract with Planned Parenthood Great Plains. It was the fifth of six appeals courts to uphold patients’ right to receive health care from their preferred qualified provider.

Planned Parenthood Great Plains operates two health centers in Kansas. One in the Kansas City area performs abortions but Medicaid seldom covers such procedures.

By STEPHAN BISAHA

Federal prosecutors told jurors Thursday that three men charged with plotting to bomb an apartment complex and mosque in western Kansas were motivated by their hate of Muslim immigrants.

“They wanted to send the message that Muslims are not welcome here — not in Garden City, not in Kansas, not in America,” prosecutor Risa Berkower said.

Her opening statement in the Wichita trial laid out a case that only the work of federal agents stopped the trio from carrying out a bombing the day after the Nov. 8, 2016, presidential election.

Patrick Stein, Gavin Wright and Curtis Allen were arrested in October 2016 and charged with conspiracy to bomb the apartment complex.

They were recorded by a paid FBI informant calling Muslims “cockroaches” and talked about the prospect of a “bloodbath” to reverse damage they believed immigrants had done to the country. In the recordings, the men discuss a plan to bomb a mosque and apartment complex in Garden City predominantly occupied by Somali Muslims.

Defense attorneys argued the recordings don’t reflect a conspiracy, just “banter” that’s constitutionally protected free speech. Each defendant has his own legal team.

Kari Schmidt, representing Wright, said that meetings of the defendants at Wright’s business were “complaint and bull sessions.” While there was violent language used in those meetings, she said, “there was absolutely nothing wrong with that.”

The prosecutors said the defendants were doing more than just talking, that they took action that included the construction of a detonator for a bomb.

“That detonator wasn’t just words,” Berkower said. “That detonator was action.”

The defense was denied a request to include jurors from counties in western Kansas, which contains more Trump voters than Wichita and the surrounding counties where the jurors have been pulled from.

U.S. District Judge Eric Melgren also ruled before trial that the defense would need more evidence that the men were not inclined to commit the crime before they can argue entrapment.

Attorneys for the three men argued Thursday that the FBI went too far in setting up a case against the defendants. Richard Federico, Allen’s lawyer, said that the real victims were the defendants. He said they were targeted by the FBI.

“The FBI created and directed all of this,” Federico said.

The portrayal of Dan Day, the paid FBI informant who recorded the defendants,  is key for both the prosecution and the defense. Prosecutors presented Day as a concerned citizen and a hero. The defense said he was broke and essentially a bounty hunter who exploited the defendants’ fears for a payday.

Defense attorneys for all three men argued the case in similar ways. But attorneys for Wright and Allen both tried to play down their individual roles. Wright’s attorney said that while the meetings took place at his business, he was often absent. Allen’s lawyer said that Wright and Stein had a close relationship and often left Allen out.

“It was the two of them working together a lot more than Mr. Allen,” said Federico.

Wright and Allen were also both portrayed by their attorneys as lonely men whose desire for camaraderie was exploited by the FBI.

Prosecutors moved to paint that interpretation as absurd.

“Think about what the FBI’s options were,” Berkower said, “when they learned that these three men were highly motivated to kill Muslims and were taking steps to do just that.”

The men are also charged with violating the rights of the targeted Somali Muslims guaranteed by the Fair Housing Act — to live in their homes without being attacked or intimidated because of their race, religion or where they were born. The prosecution said it would use recordings from defendants to show that they were motivated by a hatred of Muslims.

Stein’s attorney, James Pratt, said the context of the statements — the contentious 2016 election season — matters. He described political coverage at the time as “chaos news” that further divided the country.

“Hate ruled the day,” Pratt said. “Left hating right. Right hating left.”

The trial is expected to last six weeks. If the men are found guilty they could face life in prison.

Stephan Bisaha is an education reporter for the Kansas News Service. Follow him on Twitter @SteveBisaha. 

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress gave final approval Friday to a giant $1.3 trillion spending bill that ends the budget battles for now, but only after late scuffles and conservatives objected to big outlays on Democratic priorities at a time when Republicans control the House, Senate and White House.

All members of the Kansas congressional delegation voted in favor of the bill.

Senate passage shortly after midnight averted a third federal shutdown this year, an outcome both parties wanted to avoid. But in crafting a sweeping deal that busts budget caps, they’ve stirred conservative opposition and set the contours for the next funding fight ahead of the midterm elections.

The House easily approved the measure Thursday, 256-167, a bipartisan tally that underscored the popularity of the compromise, which funds the government through September. It beefs up military and domestic programs, delivering federal funds to every corner of the country.

But action stalled in the Senate, as conservatives ran the clock in protest. Then, an unusual glitch arose when Sen. James Risch, R-Idaho, wanted to remove a provision to rename a forest in his home state after the late Cecil Andrus, a four-term Democratic governor.

At one point, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., stepped forward to declare the entire late-night scene “ridiculous. It’s juvenile.”

In the end, Risch lost. But the fight contributed to late-night delays before passage of the massive spending package,

Once the opponents relented, the Senate began voting, clearing the package by a 65-32 vote a full day before Friday’s midnight deadline to fund the government.

“Shame, shame. A pox on both Houses – and parties,” tweeted Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., who spent the afternoon tweeting details found in the 2,200-page bill that was released the night before. “No one has read it. Congress is broken.”

Paul said later he knew he could only delay, but not stop, the outcome and had made his point.

The omnibus spending bill was supposed to be an antidote to the stopgap measures Congress has been forced to pass — five in this fiscal year alone — to keep government temporarily running amid partisan fiscal disputes.

Leaders delivered on President Donald Trump’s top priorities of boosting Pentagon coffers and starting work on his promised border wall, while compromising with Democrats on funds for road building, child care development, fighting the opioid crisis and more.

But the result has been unimaginable to many Republicans after campaigning on spending restraints and balanced budgets. Along with the recent GOP tax cuts law, the bill that stood a foot tall at some lawmakers’ desks ushers in the return of $1 trillion deficits.

Trump only reluctantly backed the bill he would have to sign, according to Republican lawmakers and aides, who acknowledged the deal involved necessary trade-offs for the Democratic votes that were needed for passage despite their majority lock on Congress.

“Obviously he doesn’t like this process — it’s dangerous to put it up to the 11th hour like this,” said Sen. David Perdue, R-Ga., who opposed the bill and speaks regularly to Trump. “The president, and our leadership, and the leadership in the House got together and said, Look, we don’t like what the Democrats are doing, we got to fund the government.”

White House legislative director Marc Short framed it as a compromise. “I can’t sit here and tell you and your viewers that we love everything in the bill,” he said on Fox. “But we think that we got many of our priorities funded.”

Trying to smooth over differences, Republican leaders focused on military increases that were once core to the party’s brand as guardians of national security.

“Vote yes for our military. Vote yes for the safety and the security of this country,” said House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., ahead of voting.

But even that remained a hard sell. In all, 90 House Republicans, including many from the conservative House Freedom Caucus, voted against the bill, as did two dozen Republicans in the Senate.

It was a sign of the entrenched GOP divisions that have made the leadership’s job controlling the majority difficult. They will likely repeat in the next budget battle in the fall.

Democrats faced their own divisions, particularly after failing to resolve the stalemate over shielding young Dreamer immigrants from deportation as Trump’s decision to end the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program has left it for the courts to decide.

Instead, Trump won $1.6 billion to begin building and replacing segments of the wall along the border with Mexico. The Congressional Hispanic Caucus opposed the bill.

Also missing from the package was a renewal of federal insurance subsidies to curb premium costs on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. Trump ended some of those payments as part of his effort to scuttle President Barack Obama’s health care law, but Republicans have joined Democrats in trying to revive them.

Bipartisan efforts to restore the subsidies, and provide additional help for insurance carriers, foundered over disagreements on how tight abortion restrictions should be on using the money for private insurance plans. Senate Republicans made a last-ditch effort to tuck the insurance provisions into the bill, but Democrats refused to yield on abortion restrictions.

Still, Democrats were beyond pleased with the outcome. Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., chronicled the party’s many gains, and noted they could just have easily withheld votes Republicans needed to avert another shutdown.

“We chose to use our leverage to help this bill pass,” Pelosi said.

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said as the minority party in Congress, “We feel good.” He added, “We produced a darn good bill.”

FORD COUNTY — Fire officials are working to determine the cause of a fire at a home in Ford County.

Just after 9 p.m. Thursday, crews were paged to a fire in the northwest part of the Ford County, according to a social media report from Ford County Fire and EMS.

First arriving units reported heavy fire coming from the north side of the residence on the second floor. Crews from Stations 1, 5 and 6 responded and the was fire contained in a very short time. Crews remained on scene for a few hours performing overhaul.

There were no injuries.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A barbecue restaurant owner in eastern Kansas is accused of racking up more than $7,300 in charges on a customer’s credit card left at the business.

Matthew Sander was charged last week with counts of identity theft, misdemeanor theft, felony theft and criminal use of a financial card.

Sander is the owner of Smokin’ Joe’s Bar-B-Q in Olathe.

A customer told police that he ate at the restaurant Jan. 28, and couldn’t find his card the next day. He found several unauthorized purchases made Jan. 28 on his statement. Sander was arrested March 10 after investigators identified him through surveillance video.

Court records show the case is the third time since December that Sander has been charged with similar crimes. His next court appearance is April 11.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Lawrence school officials say about a third of the 150 Lawrence High School band members who recently went to Orlando, Florida, became sick with after apparently contracting a norovirus.

Lawrence High School assistant principal Mark Preut said the students spent six days in Orlando for Festival Disney, a performing arts competition at Disney World. They began falling ill after they arrived at an Orlando hotel on March 14.

A norovirus is a highly contagious virus that people can get from another person, contaminated food or water, or by touching contaminated surfaces. Symptoms include stomach pain, nausea and diarrhea. One student was treated at an emergency room for dehydration.

The high school is on spring break this week.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas lawmakers have advanced the first piece of a plan for complying with a Kansas Supreme Court on public school funding.

A special Senate committee on school finance approved a bill Thursday that would revise the state’s formula for distributing more than $4 billion a year to local school districts. The measure goes next to the Senate and a debate there is expected next week.

The bill’s changes are designed to make the formula fairer to poor school districts. It eliminates several provisions that the Supreme Court said favored wealthier districts.

The court ruled in October that parts of the funding formula were unfair and that the state isn’t spending enough money overall on its schools. The Senate committee’s bill does not significantly boost the state’s overall spending.