MCPHERSON COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities and officials with USD 418 are investigating a reported school threat.

A student discovered the threatening message written on a wall at McPherson High School, according to a media release from police.  The threat is unsubstantiated but has prompted an increase in law enforcement presence at the school.

There was an increased law enforcement presence at the school Thursday and there will also be an increased police presence on Friday to provide additional security and peace of mind, according to the release.

Due to the nature of the investigation, police released no additional details.

Anyone with information on the reported threat is encouraged to contact McPherson Police.

GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge in Montana has blocked construction of the $8 billion Keystone XL Pipeline to allow more time to study the project’s potential environmental impact.

The Great Falls Tribune reports U.S. District Judge Brian Morris’ order on Thursday came as Calgary-based TransCanada was preparing to build the first stages of the oil pipeline in northern Montana. Environmental groups had sued TransCanada and The U.S. Department of State in federal court in Great Falls.

Morris says the government’s analysis didn’t fully study the cumulative effects of greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of current oil prices on the pipeline’s viability or include updated modeling of potential oil spills.

The 1,184-mile  pipeline would transport up to 830,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta, Canada and Montana to facilities in Nebraska.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas father whose toddler was fatally shot by another toddler has been sentenced to probation for leaving a loaded semi-automatic handgun within the children’s reach.

33-year-old Chance Smith, of Lawrence, is barred from having guns while on probation under the sentence ordered Wednesday. He pleaded no contest in September to two counts of aggravated child endangerment. Prosecutors dropped an involuntary manslaughter charge as part of the plea.

Smith’s daughter, Autumn Grace Smith, was a week away from her second birthday when she was shot in September 2017. Smith told police that he was outside for five or 10 minutes and didn’t hear a gunshot. When he returned, he found a 2-year-old boy crying and Autumn upstairs, shot. Gunpowder was found on the boy’s hands.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A man has been ordered to stand trial in a deadly Topeka shooting.

33-year-old Tony Lee Foster was bound over for trial during a preliminary hearing Tuesday.

He has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder and criminal possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in the death of 35-year-old David William Payne.

Officers responded in July to a report of a shooting at a home in the northern part of the city. Payne was rushed to a hospital, where he later died.

A jury trial is set to begin March 11.

MANHATTAN — The Kansas State University Police Department has concluded its investigation into a note using a racial slur posted on a door in the Jardine Apartment Complex.

On Monday, K-State Police received a report of the note, according to a media release.

Upon questioning, the person who reported the incident admitted to creating and posting the note to their own door.

The matter will be addressed in accordance with applicable disciplinary procedures.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kris Kobach rode his national reputation as an advocate for tough immigration and voting rules to a job atop President Donald Trump’s short-lived election-fraud commission. But Kansas voters rejected his no-apologies conservatism in this week’s election for governor.

Now the Republican’s hard-line, in-your-face approach could help him land his next political position, possibly in the Trump administration.

Kobach’s name immediately popped up Wednesday, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to resign. If Trump picks someone else to replace Sessions, Kobach’s name is almost certain to surface again when Trump has another big post to fill.

“I guarantee you that if there is a place that he can find, he’ll find a home for Kris,” said state Rep. John Whitmer, a conservative Wichita Republican and a Kobach ally.

Kobach, whose term as Kansas secretary of state ends in January, did not immediately return cellphone messages Thursday seeking comment. Whitmer said Kobach had planned to go hunting. Kobach spokeswoman Danedri Herbert texted, “No comment,” in response to a question about the speculation that Kobach was being considered for U.S. attorney general.

In his concession speech late Tuesday, the 52-year-old Ivy League graduate dropped no hints about his future. He told supporters at a Topeka hotel, “This one just wasn’t God’s will.”

“The Republicans are going to be fighting for the values we hold dear, regardless of which offices we Republicans hold,” he said.

In nearly eight years as secretary of state of state, Kobach turned what had been a backwater of state politics into a high-profile office by successfully pushing for laws to require all voters to show a photo ID at the polls and new voters to provide papers documenting their U.S. citizenship when registering.

Kansas went further than any other state in enforcing a proof-of-citizenship requirement in voter registration until a federal judge struck down that law in June as an unconstitutional violation of voting rights. The state has appealed, and the case is likely to outlast Kobach’s tenure.

Before becoming vice chairman of the president’s voter fraud commission, Kobach was a source behind Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that millions of votes were cast illegally in the 2016 presidential race for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote.

An early supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign, Kobach advised the campaign and later the White House on homeland security issues.

The day before the August primary, Trump tweeted his “full & total Endorsement!” of Kobach, which helped him narrowly defeat GOP Gov. Jeff Colyer. Trump had a rally in Topeka in October partly to boost Kobach’s campaign, telling the crowd he would have liked to put Kobach in his administration.

“President Trump is very supportive of Kris Kobach,” state GOP Chairman Kelly Arnold said. “And I expect a place will be found for him.”

Republicans expanded their narrow 51-49 majority in the U.S Senate, potentially making a Kobach confirmation easier.

The narrow GOP majority had presented a possible obstacle. In July 2017, Trump nominated then-Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback as U.S. ambassador at large for international freedom. But the Senate did not vote to confirm the appointment until January. Vice President Mike Pence had to break a tie.

Kobach has been more of a lightning rod than Brownback and lost the governor’s race because he alienated moderate GOP and independent voters. Frank Sharry, the executive director of the pro-immigration group America’s Voice, celebrated Kobach’s loss with a statement calling him “one of the leading anti-immigrant voices in American politics.”

In a May 2017 interview with The Associated Press, Kobach said he had been offered an undersecretary’s position in the Department of Homeland Security and a White House position coordinating immigration enforcement. The interview was after Trump named him to the election fraud commission but before Kobach formally launched his campaign for governor.

He said he faced “a tough, tough decision” on both. One factor in not taking the jobs, he said, was the likely inability to “unilaterally make a decision and then say, ‘OK, we’re going to carry this out.'”

Kobach, who has five young daughters, also had misgivings about leaving Kansas. He said he viewed going to Washington as a “real sacrifice” for his family because “we would be less happy on a day-to-day level.”

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A U.S. appeals court ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump cannot immediately end an Obama-era program shielding young immigrants from deportation.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals kept in place a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Lawsuits by California and others challenging the administration’s decision will continue in federal court while the injunction remains in place.

DACA has protected some 700,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families that overstayed visas.

The Trump administration has said it moved to end the program last year because Texas and other states threatened to sue, raising the prospect of a chaotic end to DACA.

The decision prompted lawsuits across the nation, including one by California. A judge overseeing that lawsuit and four others ruled against the administration and reinstated the program in January.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup rejected the argument that then-President Barack Obama had exceeded his power in creating DACA and said the Trump administration failed to consider the disruption that ending the program would cause.

The Trump administration then asked the 9th Circuit to throw out Alsup’s ruling.

During a hearing in May, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hashim Mooppan argued that the courts could not review the administration’s decision to end DACA and defended the move against assertions that it was arbitrary and capricious.

“It’s a question of an agency saying, ‘We’re not going to have a policy that might well be illegal,'” Mooppan told the judges. “That is a perfectly rational thing to do.”

Mooppan said the administration was under no obligation to consider the fact that people had come to rely on DACA.

The judges on the 9th Circuit panel appeared skeptical of the argument that the DACA decision was beyond the court’s authority to review.

Judge Kim Wardlaw noted at the hearing that another appeals court had reviewed a similar Obama administration immigration policy.

Judge Jacqueline Nguyen questioned whether courts could intervene if they thought DACA was legal and disagreed with the administration’s position that it wasn’t.

The administration has been critical of the 9th Circuit and took the unusual step of trying to sidestep it and have the California DACA cases heard directly by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court in February declined to do so.

Federal judges in New York and Washington also have ruled against Trump on DACA.