KANSAS CITY (AP) — The Latest on flooding in the Midwest (all times local):

Vice President Mike Pence will travel to Nebraska to survey damage from flooding in the Midwest.

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders tweeted that President Donald Trump requested Pence go Tuesday to the Midwest to see the damage.

Troopers are assisting Fremont Police Department with flooding operations. Thank you for allowing safe transport utilizing the MRAP. #NSP51 #NSP309 @NSP_TroopA_ISO pic.twitter.com/tefdz5MBT3

— NSP_TroopANightShift (@NSPTroopANights) March 18, 2019

Sanders says Pence will be joined by Nebraska Gov. Pete Ricketts and Iowa Gov. Kim Reynolds.

The tweet did not say where in Nebraska Pence would go.

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3:30 p.m.

North Dakota’s largest city has declared an emergency and Fargo Mayor Tim Mahoney is asking residents to help fill 1 million sandbags as the city prepares for major Red River flooding.

This Highway 91 at the Dodge/Washington County line. pic.twitter.com/ZFqyobYt1O

— NSP Troop A (@NSP_TroopA) March 18, 2019

The National Weather Service says “significant” snowmelt flooding is likely this spring in the Red River Valley after last week’s massive late-winter storm in the Midwest. The chance the river will reach major flood stage in Fargo has increased from 50 percent to 90 percent.

The neighboring cities of Fargo and Moorhead, Minnesota, experienced a record flood 10 years ago. The two cities have implemented several measures such as home buyouts and levees since then.

But Mahoney says there are still areas that could be vulnerable. Sandbag-filling operations begin March 26.

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3:10 p.m.

An Illinois town is bracing for potentially the worst flooding it has seen in at least a half-century.

Freeport City Manager Lowell Crow says the town of 25,000 residents west of Rockford could see an all-time record flood along the Pecatonica River. At best, the water level will get to its highest level in 50 years.

Several Illinois towns face flooding from the late-winter deluge that has ravaged several Midwestern states. National Weather Service readings show major flooding along the Pecatonica River at Shirland, Illinois, and along the Rock River in Moline and the Rockford area.

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2:45 p.m.

The late-winter flood has compromised about 200 miles of Missouri River levees in four Midwestern states.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers says levees that have been topped or breached in Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas contributed to the flooding that has forced hundreds of people from their homes. Three deaths have been blamed on floodwaters, and two men in Nebraska have been missing since Thursday.

The National Weather Service says river levels have topped off along the Missouri River at Omaha, Nebraska, as well as at several Missouri River tributaries in Nebraska.

High flows and water levels remain throughout the river basin south of Sioux City, Iowa.

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RENO COUNTY — One person was injured in a home accident Monday in rural Reno County.

Just after 4:30p.m., deputies and emergency crews were dispatched to a home at 27119 W. Pleasant Valley Road in Reno County for a report of an explosion with an injured person, according to the Reno County Sheriff’s Department.

Gary Osenbaugh, 50, Turon, was blowing out a pressure tank with an air compressor when the pressure tank exploded.

The tank was blown out of the underground housing and struck Gary in the head.

Reno County EMS transported Osenbaugh to Wesley Medical Center for treatment of a severe head injury, according to the sheriff’s department.

WILSON COUNTY — One person died in an accident just before 5p.m. Monday in Wilson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2015 GMC Acadia driven by Marilyn K. Millikan, 74, Buffalo, Kansas, was eastbound on U.S. 400 five miles west of Fredonia.

As the GMC slowed down to turn onto Kansas 39, an eastbound semi was unable to slow down and struck the Acadia.

A passenger in the Acadia Jackie Dean Millikan, 76, Buffalo, Kansas, was transported to the hospital in Fredonia where he died. Marilyn Millikan was transported to Wesley Medical Center with serious injuries.

The semi driver Valeriy V. Grinev, 53, Ephrata, Pennsylvania, was not injured. All three were properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the KHP.

CLARK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a southwest Kansas high school teacher for alleged unlawful sexual relations.

Just after 7a.m. Monday, deputies arrested 25-year-old Elizabeth Wilczek on a Ford County warrant, according to the sheriff’s department.  She is a member of the teaching staff at USD 219 in Minneola, according to the school web site.

Wilczek was being held in the Ford County jail. Authorities did not release details on bond or when she might make an initial court appearance. The Ford County Attorney will now determine charges in the case.

SEDGWICK COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on criminal damage allegations after an arrest in connection with damage at a mall.

Just after 7p.m. Friday, a citizen notified an off-duty police officer working security at Towne West Mall in Wichita that a man was near a light pole and appeared to be cutting wires, according to officer Charley Davidson.

The suspect then drove away in a gold colored sedan. Officers responded to the area, located the vehicle traveling southbound and conducted a traffic stop in the 500 Block of West Street, according to Davidson.

The suspect later identified as 43-year-old Rodnee Cain fled from the vehicle and was taken into custody after a brief foot-chase.  Police also contacted a 16-year-old male driver and a 17-year-old passenger in the vehicle.

An investigation revealed six light poles in the Mall parking lot had been damaged, according to Davidson. Authorities in Wichita and across the state continue to see an increase in copper theft.  Caine is being held on requested charges that include six counts of destruction of property, aggravated weapons violation and outstanding warrants.

Cain also have four previous convictions that include criminal threat, taxation and drugs, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Kansas’ solicitor general on Monday called on a federal appeals court to reinstate the state’s law requiring people to provide proof of citizenship before they can register to vote, saying problems with how it was enforced during the three years it was in place are fixable.During a hearing before a three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals in Salt Lake City in a case with national implications for voting rights, Judge Jerome Holmes questioned attorneys for the state and for plaintiffs who succeeded in getting a lower court to overturn the law, which was in effect from 2013 until 2016. He pointed to evidence that it kept more than 30,000 people from registering to vote even though nearly all of them were citizens.

Solicitor General Toby Crouse said there were problems with the way the law was implemented, but he argued that the state should be able to ensure that ballots are cast legally and called on the court to resurrect the law.

“The rollout is problematic and concerning and should be improved, but that’s not a reason to undermine the law and strike it down as unconstitutional,” he said.

Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project, disagreed. He said cases where people can’t find their birth certificate or afford a new one are inevitable, and the Kansas law contains few fail-safes to ensure citizens can cast a ballot.

“The difficulties of implementing a law like this, which is unique in the country, are baked into the statute,” he said.

The judges didn’t indicate when they might rule.

The legal fight has drawn national attention as Republicans pursue voter ID laws aimed at preventing in-person voter fraud, including by people who are in the country illegally. Many experts say such voter fraud is extremely rare, and critics contend that the Republican-led efforts are actually meant to suppress turnout from groups who tend to back Democrats, including racial minorities and college students.

The law was championed by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who led President Donald Trump’s now-defunct voter fraud commission and was a leading source for Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally may have voted in the 2016 election.

Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly, a Democrat, supported the legislation when she was a state senator but opposes resurrecting it. Kobach, who is an attorney, personally defended the statute in the courts while he was secretary of state. Kansas’ Republican attorney general, Derek Schmidt, has taken up its defense during the appeal, saying in an emailed statement that the law was passed by large bipartisan majorities in the Legislature.

“The Legislature is free to repeal the statute if it is no longer favored, but as long as the law requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote remains on the books, we think it, like other duly enacted state laws, deserves a full and vigorous legal defense,” Schmidt said.

Kansas argued in court filings that it has a compelling interest in preventing voter fraud. It contended its proof-of-citizenship requirement is not a significant burden and protects the integrity of elections and the accuracy of voter rolls.

Critics countered that the documentary proof-of-citizenship law was “a disastrous experiment” that damaged the state’s voter rolls, disenfranchised tens of thousands and eroded confidence in the state’s elections.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has counted 35 states that have laws requiring some form of identification at the polls, but the Kansas voter registration statute at issue goes further by requiring people to provide documents such as a birth certificate, U.S. passport or naturalization papers before they can even register to vote. Arizona is the only other state with a similar law in effect, but it is far more lenient and allows people to satisfy it by writing their driver’s license number on the voter registration form. Proof-of-citizenship laws in Alabama and Georgia are not currently being enforced.

Judge Robinson found that between 1999 and 2013 a total of 39 noncitizens living in Kansas successfully registered, mostly due to applicant confusion or administrative error. That is .002 percent of the more than 1.76 million registered voters in Kansas as of Jan. 1, 2013. Eleven of those 39 noncitizens voted.

The registration law took effect in January 2013. In the three years before the appellate court put it on hold, more than 30,732 Kansans were not allowed to register to vote because they did not submit proof of citizenship. That figure represented about 12 percent of voter registration applications.

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SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A federal appeals court will hear arguments Monday over the constitutionality of a struck-down Kansas statute that had required people to provide documents proving their U.S. citizenship before they could register to vote.In a case with national implications for voting rights, Kansas faces an uphill battle to resurrect the law once championed by former Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach , who led President Donald Trump’s now-defunct voter fraud commission.A three-judge panel of the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals temporarily blocked Kobach in 2016 from fully enforcing the law, calling it “a mass denial of a fundamental constitutional right.” The issue is back before the appellate court after U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson struck it down last year and made permanent the earlier injunction.

“Kansas was the tip of the spear of an effort to make it harder for people to register under the guise of protecting elections from a nonexistent epidemic of noncitizen voting. Those efforts haven’t stopped as this case illustrates, and I think this case will be closely watched,” said Dale Ho, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Voting Rights Project.

The legal fight has drawn national attention as Republicans pursue voter ID laws they say are aimed at people who are unlawfully in the country. Critics contend such efforts amount to voter suppression that target Democratic-leaning minorities and college students who may not have such documentation.

Kobach, a conservative Republican, was a leading source for Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally may have voted in the 2016 election.

Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt said in an emailed statement that the statute was enacted by large bipartisan majorities in the Legislature.

“The Legislature is free to repeal the statute if it is no longer favored, but as long as the law requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote remains on the books, we think it, like other duly enacted state laws, deserves a full and vigorous legal defense,” Schmidt said.

Kansas argued in court filings that it has a compelling interest in preventing voter fraud. It contended its proof-of-citizenship requirement is not a significant burden and protects the integrity of elections and the accuracy of voter rolls.

Critics countered that the documentary proof-of-citizenship law was “a disastrous experiment” that damaged the state’s voter rolls, disenfranchised tens of thousands and eroded confidence in the state’s elections.

The National Conference of State Legislatures has counted 35 states that have laws requiring some form of identification at the polls, but the Kansas voter registration statute at issue goes further by requiring people to provide documents such as a birth certificate, U.S. passport or naturalization papers before they can even register to vote. Arizona is the only other state with a similar law in effect, but it is far more lenient and allows people to satisfy it by writing their driver’s license number on the voter registration form. Proof-of-citizenship laws in Alabama and Georgia are not currently being enforced.

Judge Robinson found that between 1999 and 2013 a total of 39 noncitizens living in Kansas successfully registered, mostly due to applicant confusion or administrative error. That is .002 percent of the more than 1.76 million registered voters in Kansas as of Jan. 1, 2013. Eleven of those 39 noncitizens voted.

The registration law took effect in January 2013. In the three years before the appellate court put it on hold, more than 30,732 Kansans were not allowed to register to vote because they did not submit proof of citizenship. That figure represented about 12 percent of voter registration applications.