JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Independent challenger Greg Orman remains on a tricky path for defeating three-term Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts after a Kansas court ruling last week meant no Democrat will be on the Nov. 4 ballot.

Orman benefited when some Democrats pushed their nominee out of the race to avoid a major split in the anti-Roberts vote.

He should enjoy strong support from Democrats who believe a Roberts loss could help thwart the GOP’s push for a Senate majority.

Orman can’t get close to prominent Democrats without undercutting his attempts to run as a centrist unhappy with both parties and determined to break partisan gridlock.

Roberts is appealing to many Republicans’ visceral dislike of Democratic President Barack Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. He’s painting Orman as another liberal Democrat.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — An American photojournalist who contracted the deadly Ebola virus while working in West Africa has begun his journey home for treatment.

Ashoka Mukpo will be the second Ebola patient to be treated at the Nebraska Medical Center’s specialized isolation unit. Hospital officials said they expected an Ebola patient to arrive Monday, but declined to provide a name.

The 33-year-old Mukpo was working as a freelance cameraman for NBC in Liberia last week when he became ill. NBC reported Sunday that Mukpo is en route to Nebraska for treatment. Mukpo’s family said Friday he is going to Omaha.

Mukpo is the fifth American to be evacuated to the United States for treatment since the start of the Ebola outbreak, which the World Health Organization says has killed more than 3,400 people.

GALENA, Kan. (AP) — The southeast Kansas town of Galena is shedding ten employees and raising taxes to correct a budget shortfall.

The Joplin Globe reports that Mayor Dale Oglesby says the city had a $260,000 cash shortfall. After the 2011 Joplin tornado, the city’s construction and demolition landfill brought in additional revenue that was used to keep the mill levy from rising.

But the landfill revenue has slowed, and the city’s new hospital hasn’t started showing a return yet.

The three part-time and seven full-time employees who were laid off last week worked for the city’s public works and police departments.

The mayor says the current mill levy of 43.23 will rise to 60.78. That will equate to an increase of about $100 a year for the owner of a $100,000 home.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Google Inc. says it might take longer to install gigabit-speed Internet across Kansas City and a handful of suburbs.

The Kansas City Star reports that Google initially said the wiring would be completed by year’s end. But now it’s telling prospective customers that the work may not wrap up until next summer.

The delay comes as other Internet providers are speeding up their broadband to match Google Fiber.

Akamai Technologies Inc., which helps companies distribute online content, reports that average peak connection speeds in the U.S. nearly tripled since Google started its work in Kansas City.

Time Warner Cable dominates the Kansas City market and sells speeds of 50 megabits per second for what it used to charge for just 15 mps.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — State records show that fewer irrigators are pumping more than they are allowed but that the issue remains a problem.

The Hutchinson News reports that 114 water right holders received a first-offense warning of civil penalties so far this year for overpumping in 2013. Another 70 irrigators were warned a second, and, for a few, a third time for overpumping, and issued a $1,000 fine and temporary cutbacks to their annual water use.

A handful of others tried to hide their overpumping and were caught cheating.

Last year, state officials hardened the fines, hoping to curb overpumping. Lane Letourneau of the Kansas Department of Agriculture says that while the number of irrigators misusing a water right is down from the past few years, it all adds up.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The BTK serial killer says in a letter from prison that he’s cooperating with a book about the 10 killings he committed from 1974 to 1991 in the Wichita area.

Dennis Rader is serving a life sentence for the killings. His self-coined moniker was BTK, which stood for “bind, torture, kill.”

The Wichita Eagle reports that Rader explained in the letters that he is barred from profiting from his crimes by a court settlement. He signed over his media rights to the families of his victims after he was sent to the state prison in El Dorado in 2005.

The author working with Rader is Katherine Ramsland, who oversees the criminal justice master’s program at DeSales University in Pennsylvania. She says she’s written 54 mostly academic nonfiction books.