KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Henry Bloch, who helped found tax preparation giant H&R Block, died Tuesday at age 96, the company announced.

Bloch died of natural causes at St. Luke’s Hospice in Kansas City. He founded H&R Block in 1955 in the city with his brother, Richard, to take advantage of the vacuum left as the Internal Revenue Service stopped providing free income tax returns service. Richard Bloch died in 2004.

Henry Bloch retired as H&R Block’s chief executive officer in 1992 and as chairman of the board of directors in 2000.

“Through his honesty and integrity, Henry embodied the best of American business, entrepreneurship and philanthropy. In so many ways, he was ahead of his time and a model for today’s entrepreneur,” said Jeff Jones, president and chief executive officer of H&R Block Inc. in a written statement. “His vision lives on through our H&R Block associates and the many philanthropic organizations that he supported.”

Bloch, who flew 32 combat missions over Germany as a navigator in World War II, also was a philanthropist and a foundation he started along with his wife, Marion, that supported numerous charitable causes in Kansas City, including the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, the Marion Bloch Neuroscience Institute at Saint Luke’s Hospital and the Bloch School of Management at the University of Missouri-Kansas City. Marion Bloch died in 2013.

“This is an enormous loss to the community and to the Nelson-Atkins,” said Richard Green, chair of the museum’s Board of Trustees in a written statement. “Henry Bloch had an unfailing vision and enthusiasm that was borne of genuine gratitude.”

Bloch is survived by four children, 12 grandchildren and 19 great-grandchildren.

RILEY COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a registered Kansas sex offender on new charges after a Monday arrest.

Just after 9p.m. Monday, the Riley County Police Department received two reports of an unknown man exposing himself at separate locations in central Manhattan, according to the Riley County Police Department activity report.

The first incident listed two 22-year-old women as the victims.  The second incident was reported at 9:45p.m. listed a 15-year-old girl and 44-year-old woman as the victims.

Police arrested Curtis Fry, 57 of Udall, in the the 1100 block of Moro Street in Manhattan.

He is is being held on a $17,000 bond for two counts of lewd and lascivious; exposing sex organs to another =>16, lewd and lascivious; exposing sex organs to another <16, and possession of opiate, opium, narcotic or certain stimulant, according to the Riley County Police Department arrest report.

Frey was convicted in July 2012 for “criminal attempt internet sexual exploitation of a child,” according to the KBI offender registry.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court’s conservative majority seemed ready Tuesday to uphold the Trump administration’s plan to ask about citizenship on the 2020 census , despite evidence that millions of Hispanics and immigrants could go uncounted.

There appeared to be a clear divide between the court’s liberal and conservative justices in arguments in a case that could affect how many seats states have in the House of Representatives and their share of federal dollars over the next 10 years. States with a large number of immigrants tend to vote Democratic.

Three lower courts have so far blocked the plan to ask every U.S. resident about citizenship in the census, finding that the question would discourage many immigrants from being counted. Two of the three judges also ruled that asking if people are citizens would violate the provision of the Constitution that calls for a count of the population, regardless of citizenship status, every 10 years. The last time the question was included on the census form sent to every American household was 1950.

But over 80 minutes in a packed courtroom, the conservative justices did not appear to share the concern of the lower court judges.

Justice Brett Kavanaugh, the court’s newest member and an appointee of President Donald Trump, suggested Congress could change the law if it so concerned that the accuracy of the once-a-decade population count will suffer. “Why doesn’t Congress prohibit the asking of the citizenship question?” Kavanaugh asked near the end of the morning session.

Kavanaugh and the other conservatives were mostly silent when Solicitor General Noel Francisco, the administration’s top Supreme Court lawyer, defended Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross’ decision to add the citizenship question. Ross has said the Justice Department wanted the citizenship data, the detailed information it would produce on where eligible voters live, to improve enforcement of the Voting Rights Act.

Lower courts found that Ross’ explanation was a pretext for adding the question, noting that he had consulted early in his tenure with Stephen Bannon, Trump’s former top political adviser and immigration hardliner Kris Kobach, the former Kansas secretary of state.

The liberal justices peppered Francisco with questions about the administration plan, but they would lack the votes to stop it without support from at least one conservative justice.

“This is a solution in search of a problem,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the court’s lone Hispanic member, said of Ross’ decision.

Justice Elena Kagan chimed in that “you can’t read this record without sensing that this need was a contrived one.”

Chief Justice John Roberts appeared to have a different view of the information the citizenship question would produce.

“You think it wouldn’t help voting rights enforcement?” Roberts asked New York Solicitor General Barbara Underwood, who was representing states and cities that sued over Ross’ decision.

Underwood said the evidence Ross had before him was “that it would not give better citizenship information.”

And, Underwood said, the record is clear that a census that asks people if they are citizens will be less accurate.

Census Bureau experts have concluded that the census would produce a more accurate picture of the U.S. population without a citizenship question because people might be reluctant to say if they or others in their households are not citizens. Federal law requires people to complete the census accurately and fully.

The Supreme Court is hearing the case on a tight timeframe, even though no federal appeals court has yet to weigh in. A decision is expected by late June, in time to print census forms for the April 2020 population count.

The administration argues that the commerce secretary has wide discretion in designing the census questionnaire and that courts should not be second-guessing his action. States, cities and rights groups that sued over the issue don’t even have the right to go into federal court, the administration says. It also says the citizenship question is plainly constitutional because it has been asked on many past censuses and continues to be used on smaller, annual population surveys.

Justice Neil Gorsuch, also a Trump appointee, also noted that many other countries include citizenship questions on their censuses.

Douglas Letter, a lawyer representing the House of Representatives, said the census is critically important to the House, which apportions its seats among the states based on the results. “Anything that undermines the accuracy of the actual enumeration is immediately a problem,” Letter said, quoting from the provision of the Constitution that mandates a decennial census.

Letter also thanked the court on behalf of Speaker Nancy Pelosi for allowing the House to participate in the arguments.

“Tell her she’s welcome,” Roberts replied.

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — A 70-year-old driver told investigators that his brakes failed before his car careened onto a suburban Kansas City sidewalk where it struck and killed a 14-year-old girl and narrowly missed three other children.

Police in Overland Park, Kansas, released the report Monday about the April 12 crash that killed Alexandra Rumple as she was walking home from a nearby middle school. The report says the driver had a valid license without any restriction and showed no evidence of impairment. Toxicology results are pending.

Police say the car also hit a traffic light, knocking it off its base, struck a speed limit sign and destroyed about 80 feet of a wood fence. The driver told police he tried to stop, but his brakes weren’t working.