TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An American Civil Liberties Union attorney says Kansas law doesn’t give Secretary of State Kris Kobach the authority to remove thousands of names from the state’s voter registration rolls.
And another critic accused the Republican secretary of state Wednesday of trying to keep potential Democratic voters from casting ballots, which Kobach’s spokesman disputed.
ACLU of Kansas attorney Doug Bonney and Topeka National Organization for Women leader Sonja Willms said during a hearing that Kobach should drop a proposed administrative rule.
The rule would require county election officials to cancel incomplete registrations after 90 days. About 36,000 registrations are now incomplete. Most are because prospective votes have failed to document their U.S. citizenship.
Shawnee County Election Commissioner Andrew Howell said the rule would make administering voting more orderly.
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TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s critics are expected to protest his plan for removing more than 36,000 names from the state’s voter registration rolls.
Kobach’s office is having a hearing Wednesday on a rule the secretary of state proposed to deal with registrations that aren’t complete. County election officials would be required to cancel them after 90 days.
About 32,000 of the incomplete registrations are for people who haven’t yet complied with a requirement to provide election officials with papers documenting their U.S. citizenship.
Kobach championed the requirement as a way to combat election fraud. His critics contend it suppresses turnout.
The attorney general’s office and Department of Administration have approved the rule, but Kobach is required by law to have a public hearing and consider possible changes.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Senate Democrats have rallied the 34 votes they need to keep the Iran nuclear deal alive in Congress, handing President Barack Obama a major foreign policy victory.
Sen. Barbara Mikulski of Maryland became the crucial 34th vote Wednesday morning, declaring the agreement is the best way to curb Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Congress is to vote later this month on a resolution disapproving the deal, which is unanimously opposed by Republicans, who call it a dangerous giveaway to Iran.
Obama has vowed to veto the resolution if it passes. It would take 34 votes to uphold his veto, and Democrats now have those in hand.
The agreement — signed by Iran, the U.S. and five other world powers — seeks to dismantle Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for billions of dollars in relief from sanctions.
BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — U.S. transportation officials will offer $10 million in grants for states to upgrade highway-rail crossings and tracks in response to a recent surge in flammable fuel shipments.
Wednesday’s planned announcement from the Department of Transportation comes as rail crossing collisions have increased over the past several years, following more than three decades of steady declines.
There were more than 2,200 collisions in 2014, killing 269 people and injuring 849.
Almost 40 percent of the fatalities occurred in just five states — California, Illinois, Texas, Alabama and Louisiana.
Acting Federal Railroad Administrator Sarah Feinberg says most rail crossing deaths are preventable.
The grants would pay for improvements along rail routes that transport flammable fuels. Shipments of crude oil and ethanol increased dramatically over the past decade before energy prices plummeted.
Ron Wilson is director of the Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development at Kansas State University.
By RON WILSON Huck Boyd National Institute for Rural Development
Let’s go to California, where firefighters are battling a wildfire with high quality hand tools produced by a company halfway across the nation in rural Kansas. These hand tools are also serving gardeners, growers and others around the nation and beyond.
Loren Kisby is owner and founder of Prohoe, the company which produced these remarkable tools. Loren grew up at Clifton and went to K-State. He became a teacher, served in the Army, and worked in business before farming. He also met and married Judy through their sisters who went on a church trip together.
Loren and Judy moved to a farm near Munden in Republic County and had two children. As their family grew, their farmhouse needed to expand also. Loren hand-dug a trench for an addition to their house – but then it rained, and the trench caved in.
Loren looked at the muddy mess and realized he needed a special tool to clean out the mud. He welded a chunk of broken disk blade onto a metal handle to make the tool. It worked great.
He tossed the tool in the junk pile when he was done, but while doing fieldwork, he needed something to clean the mud off his farm implements. He fished the tool out of the junk pile again.
After five years of doing this, he noticed that the handle was bent but the blade looked like new. He realized such a durable tool could have several applications.
In 1990, he built a prototype garden hoe to give to family members for Christmas. The hoes worked so well that he started making them as a business. This professional hoe was heavy duty and durable, so he named his company Prohoe for short. He named his product Rogue.
“Rogue has two meanings,” Loren said. “It means someone who’s fierce and independent, like a rogue elephant, but in raising seed corn, for example, it means taking out the weeds and uneven plants so you get a great field of corn. These hoes have great strength and are also great for cleaning up a field.”
The reason these hoe blades are so strong is that they are made from the “recycled” disk blades of a farmer’s implement. These disk blades are made to withstand tough field conditions. Growers and gardeners loved them. Loren expanded the business.
He started making Rogue hoes in an empty chicken house on the family farm. In 1993, the grade school in Munden closed. Loren purchased the building and “recycled” it into the location for Prohoe. “We moved the business into the old school,” Loren said. “Of course, the business was only me, and it kind of echoed in there.”
Loren credits the Small Business Development Center for providing key help to his business. Business students from K-State helped with his early marketing plans.
Prohoe continues to make high quality, durable hand tools for outdoor applications. The company has reached an agreement with the City of Munden to purchase and “recycle” the soon-to-be-replaced community center. This will double the production area for the company’s 14 employees.
“We listened to our customers very carefully and developed products in response to customer needs,” Loren said. In addition to garden hoes, the company now offers field hoes, scuffle hoes, collinear hoes, scrapers, and fire tools with various lengths and types of handles. “We have 45 different models, but when you add in all the different handle lengths and types of handles, there are 134 different tools that we can make.”
Recent growth has come in demand for Prohoe’s firefighting and trailbuilding tools along with online orders. Prohoe has sold products from Washington to Florida, Canada and England. This is quite an accomplishment for a company in rural Munden, Kansas, population 119 people. Now, that’s rural.
It’s time to leave California where firefighters are using a tool from halfway across the continent in Kansas. We salute Loren Kisby and all those involved with Prohoe for making a difference with entrepreneurship and hard work. These tools will definitely come in handy.
GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) — Two elephants will be moving from the Garden City zoo to Colorado.
The Garden City Commission voted Tuesday to move the elephants, Missy and Kimba, to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo in Colorado Springs, Colorado.
A zoo committee recommended that the aging elephants be moved so they can have a better social life and become part of another elephant herd before one of them dies. They will join four other female African elephants in Colorado.
The committee said the Colorado zoo also has stable financing and leadership.
KWCH reports https://bit.ly/1Krx266 ) Missy, who is 46, is among the oldest elephants in an American Zoological Association facility. Kimba is 33. The two have been together for more than 30 years.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A 23-year-old Topeka man has pleaded guilty to two counts of attempted aggravated sexual battery and a count of domestic battery.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports Ian Jameel Norvell Black pleaded guilty Tuesday as part of a plea agreement. Prosecutors say Black and a woman were arguing at the Topeka Rescue Mission when he struck her and attempted to sexually assault her on March 14.
Black faces nearly five years in prison. His sentencing hearing is set for Oct. 30.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A man suspected in the death of a Wichita State University student is back in prison on a parole violation.
Two suspects have been held since Aug. 10 in the fatal shooting of 23-year-old Rayan Ibrahim Baba in Wichita State parking lot. Neither suspect has been formally charged in the homicide.
Kansas Department of Corrections spokesman Adam Pfannenstiel says one of the suspects will spend at least 90 days at the Hutchinson Correctional Facility after admitting to using marijuana on Aug. 7 when he was on parole for a 2010 child abuse conviction.
The other suspect is being held in the Sedgwick County Jail on probation violations and municipal court cases.
Baba, a Saudi undergraduate student majoring in electrical engineering at Wichita State, was found with gunshot wounds Aug. 9.
PITTSBURG, Kan. (AP) — Construction has ceased on the state-owned casino project in southeast Kansas.
Representatives for Kansas Crossing told The Pittsburg Morning Sun construction on the Kansas Crossing casino outside Pittsburg was stopped after the Kansas Lottery Commission issued the company a 90-day extension of the “commencement date.”
Kansas Crossing requested the extension because of lawsuits filed against the project.
The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners and Castle Rock, one of the competitors for the state project, have sued, accusing the state of Kansas of failing to follow the law in awarding the bid to Kansas Crossing to build the final state-owned casino authorized by the legislature.
The Kansas Lottery told Kansas Crossing’s lawyer the company could request another extension if litigation is still pending at the end of the 90-day period.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The family of a 23-year-old Wichita man who was fatally shot by police is demanding $10 million in damages.
Supporters are also demanding the Justice Department investigate the killing of John Paul Quintero. Sunflower Community Action says in a news release that supporters plan to deliver on Wednesday a petition with nearly 90,000 signatures to the local FBI office.
Police contend the two officers were responding to a report that a drunken man armed with a knife was attempting to get inside the home when they found Quintero and his father inside a vehicle parked outside, and ordered them to step out.
Police say during an exchange, one officer used a stun gun. Another officer shot him as Quintero allegedly reached toward his waistband.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kickapoo Tribe has expanded a legal complaint against its former chairman to include a former treasurer.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports the northeast Kansas tribe announced last week that Bobbi Darnell was added to the lawsuit in tribal court. Darnell was the tribal treasurer from October 2011 through October 2014.
The tribe is accusing its former chairman, Steve Cadue, of falsifying meeting minutes to fraudulently pass an unbalanced budget. The lawsuit now includes Darnell.
Cadue said earlier that the lawsuit is without merit and should have been handled through the tribal council, not in a courtroom.
There was no published phone number for Darnell in Horton.
University of Michigan researchers say more U.S. college students are making a habit of using marijuana.
A study released Tuesday found that pot supplanted cigarettes last year as the smoke-able substance of choice among full-time undergraduates who light up regularly.
Just under 6 percent of full-time students surveyed for the annual “Monitoring the Future” study reported using marijuana at least 20 times in the previous 30 days, a frequency the researchers said made them daily or near-daily users.
By contrast, 5 percent of respondents indicated they smoked cigarettes that often.
Lead investigator Lloyd Johnston says 2014 marked the first time the study found that pot was consumed more routinely than cigarettes in the three-and-a-half decades that the university’s Institute for Social Research has surveyed a nationally representative sample of college students.
NEW YORK (AP) — A new government report suggests that for most Americans, your heart is older than the rest of you.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention report takes a new approach to try to spur more Americans to take steps to prevent cardiovascular disease.
CDC scientists estimated the average “heart age” of men and women in every state, based on risk factors like blood pressure, weight, and whether they smoke or have diabetes. Then it compared the numbers to average actual ages.
According to CDC calculations, nearly three out of four U.S. adults have a heart that’s older than their actual age.
