The Kansas House has approved Secretary of State Kris Kobach’s bill to require some potential voters to prove their U.S. citizenship ahead of this year’s presidential election.

The House’s 81-43 vote Thursday sends the measure to the Senate, where some of Kobach’s fellow Republicans are cooler to the idea than they are in the House.

Legislators enacted a proof-of-citizenship rule last year for people registering to vote for the first time in Kansas. But at the Senate’s insistence, the requirement doesn’t take effect until Jan. 1, 2013.

Kobach wants to move the effective date up to June 15.

Senate GOP leaders say a key issue is a $40 million upgrade of state computers. Officials say the computer system should be ready, but key GOP senators want a guarantee.

One of two Dodge City women accused of attacking a pregnant woman in an effort to kill the unborn child reached a plea deal in the case.

Eighteen-year-old Kaila Vargas pleaded no contest Tuesday to intentional aggravated battery and criminal threat. In exchange for the plea, an attempted murder charge was dropped.

Assistant Ford County Attorney Scott James says Vargas and Mary Gobin attacked the woman, who was seven to eight months pregnant, at her home last June. They allegedly threw her to the ground and punched her stomach several times.

The Dodge City Daily Globe reports the attack apparently happened because the victim’s boyfriend had talked to police about a separate case.

Gobin pleaded no contest to aggravated battery and criminal threat on Feb. 10.

A bill that would let Kansas residents contribute to arts programs when they pay their income taxes is facing a final vote in the state House.

The measure creates a new income tax check-off for the Kansas Arts Commission. Thursday’s vote will determine whether the bill moves to the Senate.

The proposal, sponsored by 40 Republicans, is in line with GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s push to have arts programs rely more heavily on private funds.

Last year, Brownback vetoed the Arts Commission’s entire $689,000 budget, making Kansas the first state in the nation to eliminate its arts funding. This year, he’s proposing $200,000 for a new Creative Industries Commission.

Supporters don’t know how much a new check-off would generate. Critics say it wouldn’t provide adequate funding.

Fuller Brush Co. is filing for bankruptcy protection, more than a century after its fleet of salesmen popularized door-to-door selling in the U.S.

The 106-year-old company with 180 employees expects to cut costs and discontinue some unprofitable products to emerge a leaner, more profitable company.

Fuller Brush’s assets and debts each amount to $10 million to $50 million.

The company, based in in Great Bend, Kan., sells personal care and household cleaning products directly and through retailers such as Byerly’s and Home Depot.

Private equity firm Buckingham Capital Partners bought the company from CPAC Inc. in 1997.

It is filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection in U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the Southern District of New York.

A Kansas lawmaker says a run-in with a deer made him see a proposal on crossbow hunting in a new light.

House Republican Anthony Brown voted Tuesday against a bill creating a crossbow hunting season.

But when the bill came up for a final vote Wednesday, Brown was for it. The measure now goes to the Senate.

Brown says he was driving home from Topeka to the Douglas County town of Eudora on Tuesday night when a collision with a large doe did substantial damage to his truck. He says a deputy told him it was the second deer-related accident he’d worked that night.

The bill would clear the way for Kansas to create a crossbow hunting season deer, antelope, elk and wild turkey.

Kansas has received bids from five companies for three contracts for managing the state’s $2.9 billion Medicaid program.

Legislators who have been skeptical of Gov. Sam Brownback’s Medicaid overhaul plan saw the number of bidders Wednesday as relatively low and suggested it signals trouble. Medicaid provides health coverage for the needy, disabled and elderly.

But House Majority Leader Arlen Siegfreid, an Olathe Republican, said he thinks the five bids are sufficient for a competitive process.

Brownback’s administration plans to award the contracts this summer.

The bidders include Amerigroup Corp., of Virginia Beach, Va.; Wichita-based Coventry Health Care of Kansas; and Sunflower State Health Plan, based in Topeka.

Also bidding are Minnesota-based United Healthcare and WellCare of Kansas Inc., based in Tampa, Fla.

The number of methamphetamine labs busted by law enforcement officers in Kansas rose last year.

Drug Enforcement Administration numbers obtained this week by The Associated Press show the state had 172 meth lab busts in 2011, compared to 149 the previous year.

The numbers are dwarfed by statistics in neighboring Missouri, which reported nearly 2,100 busts last year. For instance, the statewide total for Kansas is far below the total for Missouri’s Jefferson County, south of St. Louis.

Nationally, meth lab seizures were up 8.3 percent in 2011 from 2010.

Kansas House members don’t think much of giving a state official the power to double the fee for registering a boat to use at state parks.

The House voted 82-29 on Tuesday against giving first-round approval to a bill allow the secretary of wildlife, parks and tourism the authority to increase the boating fee to $60 from $30.

Boat owners pay the fee once every three years. Supporters of the bill said that even if the fee is doubled, it will still be competitive with the fees charged in other states. They said the Department of Wildlife, Parks and Tourism can use more budget flexibility.

But critics worried about increasing fees or giving too much power to an administrative agency.

Kansas House members are preparing to take up a bill designed to inform high school dropouts about other means of continuing their education once they leave school.

The legislation would require 16- and 17-year-old dropouts to be given information about alternatives to a traditional high school diploma, such as a general educational development credential, or GED.

The proposal originally required those quitting school to enroll in a GED or other alternative program. But a House committee amended the bill so that students must be informed of their options during their final counseling session before dropping out.

There was no opposition to the amended proposal.

A 37-year-old man faces two misdemeanor charges of telephone harassment over an allegedly threatening call he made to the Kansas governor’s office.

Stephen J. Thibodeau remained in the Shawnee County jail in Topeka Tuesday night on $25,000 bond. Authorities said his last known home was Columbia, Mo., though he said in court appearance last week that he and his family were moving back to Salina.

Thibodeau was arrested last week at a Topeka motel after Gov. Sam Brownback’s office reported receiving what authorities described as a threatening call.

The Shawnee County district attorney’s office filed a complaint Friday alleging that Thibodeau harassed two employees of the governor’s office. Each count could be punished by up to a year in jail.

An administrative judge has issued an order revoking a Kansas doctor’s license over her referrals of young patients for late-term abortions.

The judge said Dr. Ann Kristen Neuhaus failed to meet accepted standards of care in performing mental health evaluations on 11 patients, aged 10 to 18, in 2003. The order was made public Tuesday.

Neuhaus provided the second opinions that allowed the late Dr. George Tiller, of Wichita, to terminate the patients’ pregnancies.

But Administrative Judge Ed Gaschler, who presided over a hearing for Neuhaus, said the care of the patients was seriously jeopardized by her actions.

The revocation order will be reviewed by the State Board of Healing Arts, which regulates physicians.

Neuhaus attorney Bob Eye did not immediately return a telephone message seeking comment.

An English runner has won the annual Shrove Tuesday trans-Atlantic pancake race, beating the winner of the southwest Kansas leg of the race by 10 seconds.

Eighteen-year-old Devon Byrnes of Olney, England, covered the course in 58.5 seconds to beat 19-year-old Kaela Krueger, who won the leg of the race in Liberal six hours later.

Women clad in aprons and head scarves run the course with a pancake in their pan, flipping it at the beginning and end of the race.

Shrove Tuesday, widely known in Britain as Pancake Day, is traditionally the last day for merrymaking before the start of Lent.

Pancakes were thought to be a good way for Christians to consume the fat they were supposed to give up during the 40 days of Lent before Easter.