JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court says voters will get to decide whether to raise cigarette taxes to benefit early childhood programs.

Judges ruled Tuesday that the proposal will stay on the Nov. 8 ballot.

The measure would phase in a 60-cent-per-pack increase of the state’s lowest-in-the-nation tobacco taxes. It also would raise fees by 67 cents a pack for off-brand cigarettes, in addition to the tax hike.

Cigarette giant Reynolds American Inc. is backing the proposal.

Opponents sued to get the measure off the ballot. At issue was a lower court ruling that a summary of the proposal was inaccurate because it didn’t mention the off-brand cigarette fee would increase annually.

Critics had argued signatures gathered using that summary shouldn’t count, which would have bumped it off the ballot.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A spokesman for a campaign to allow medical marijuana in Missouri says the proposal likely won’t go to voters this year.

New Approach Missouri spokesman Jack Cardetti said Tuesday that a Cole County circuit judge won’t count at least some contested petition signatures needed to get the measure on the Nov. 8 ballot.

Secretary of State Jason Kander previously said the measure fell about 2,200 signatures short after local election authorities threw out thousands of signed petitions. Issues included registered voters who signed petitions for the wrong county.

New Approach Missouri went to court to try to overturn some of those invalidated signatures.

Cardetti says Cole County Circuit Judge Daniel Green could rule as early as Wednesday.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas agriculture groups have formed a group to push for the lifting of a trade embargo with Cuba.

The Wichita Eagle reports that Engage Cuba’s Kansas State Council includes representatives of the Kansas Wheat Commission, Kansas Soybean Association, Kansas Farm Bureau, Kansas Livestock Association and the Kansas Corn Growers Association.

The state council is part of Engage Cuba, a coalition of private U.S. companies and organizations working to build support for congressional action to end the ban in order to sell more grain and other commodities in Cuba.

Jay Armstrong, past chairman of the Kansas Wheat Commission, said in statement that a level playing field with Canada and Europe is critical for U.S. wheat farmers to fully realize their export potential to Cuba.

RENO, Nev. (AP) — Eldorado Resorts has agreed to buy Isle of Capri Casinos for $1.7 billion in combined stocks and cash, a move that will add 13 casino-resorts to the Reno-based company’s portfolio.

The deal announced Monday includes $929 million of long-term debt held by Isle of Capri Casinos.

The company based in the St. Louis, Missouri-area operates 14 casino properties in Colorado, Florida, Iowa, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri and Pennsylvania.

Eldorado Resorts chairman and CEO Gary Carano told the Reno-Gazette Journal the deal will help spread his company’s risk across 20 casinos in 10 different states.

Eldorado’s expanded property portfolio will include about 20,800 slot machines and video lottery terminals, more than 560 table games and 6,500 hotel rooms. The company said in a news release it received the $2.1 billion in financing from J.P. Morgan.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A case playing out in a Kansas courtroom will determine whether potentially thousands of votes will be counted in November when they are cast in state and local elections by people who registered at motor vehicles offices or with a federal form without providing citizenship documents.

Shawnee County District Judge Larry Hendricks was scheduled to hear arguments Wednesday on whether to temporarily block Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach from throwing out the votes in local and state elections cast by people who fall into those categories.

The judge had earlier ordered the state to count them for the state’s August primary, and he must now rule on whether to extend that order for the November general election as well.

Meahwhile, a voting rights groups says registrations for thousands of Kansas voters have been purged

The League of Women Voters says that as of August Secretary of State Kobach has discarded the registrations of about 6,570 prospective voters under a rule that allows him to toss them after 90 days because they did not prove citizenship.

Those prospective voters likely registered at some place other than a motor vehicle office without providing citizenship documents, so their voting rights are not protected by recent court orders. They would need to register again to vote in November. Kansas requires proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote.

The Secretary of State’s office says it could not immediately confirm the number.

The League purchased copies of the Kansas voter suspense list in March and in August, and compared them to calculate the number of missing registrations.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Investigators say a man who accidentally shot an off-duty Omaha police officer was cleaning a gun when the officer startled him.

The Douglas County Sheriff’s Office said in a news release Tuesday that the 70-year-old man was in his home cleaning the exterior of the handgun when he unexpectedly encountered 38-year-old Ben Weidner at his door.

Investigators say the man was startled and reacted by squeezing the handgun and trigger. A shot was fired and struck Weidner in the abdomen.

Officials say the homeowner believed the gun was unloaded at the time he was cleaning it.

Investigators say the man and Weidner know each other and are on good terms. The shooting has been determined to be accidental, and no criminal charges are expected.

Weidner is expected to recover.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The third top official of Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign is scheduled to be sentenced in federal court in Des Moines for conspiring to cover up campaign payments to a former Iowa state senator.

Deputy campaign manager Dimitri Kesari was convicted of conspiracy and three charges related to false campaign reporting, the same charges for which a jury convicted the campaign’s chairman Jesse Benton and its manager John Tate.

Benton and Tate were sentenced Tuesday to two years’ probation and six months of home confinement.

Kesari’s hearing is set for Wednesday morning.

The men have argued they broke no laws when they paid $73,000 to former Sen. Kent Sorenson, who endorsed Paul six days before the 2012 Iowa caucuses.

Prosecutors say hiding the payment in campaign financial reports was illegal.

LAS VEGAS (AP) — A coalition of 21 states is suing the U.S. Department of Labor over a new rule that would make more higher-earning workers eligible for overtime pay. Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt’s office announced Tuesday the state would the court fight. Schmidt called the initiative part of a “cascade of unauthorized rules and regulations emerging from Washington in the final months of the Obama administration.

Nevada Attorney General Adam Laxalt filed the lawsuit in Texas on Tuesday, urging the court to block implementation before the regulation takes effect on Dec. 1.

The measure would shrink the so-called “white collar exemption” and more than double the salary threshold under which employers must pay overtime to their workers.

Laxalt said the rule would burden private and public sectors and represents inappropriate federal overreach.

Officials from the labor department didn’t immediately respond to requests for comment.

Other plaintiffs include Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maine, Michigan, Mississippi, Nebraska, New Mexico, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Wisconsin.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Longtime light rail activist Clay Chastain is promoting his plan for a 40-mile Kansas City system ahead of the November election.

Chastain outlined the plan Monday. Chastain says the system could be built for $45 million per mile.

Destinations would include the Kansas City International Airport, the Truman Sports Complex and the Kansas City Zoo. Chastain says suburbs would want to build their own connections to the system.

Although Chastain gathered enough signatures to trigger an election, members of the City Council don’t support his plan. He says that if voters reject the plans, he will “accept that and consider the light rail issue in Kansas City is dead.”

This spring, the city began operating a 2.2-mile downtown streetcar line.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — Court documents allege that a man’s blood-alcohol level was double Kansas’ legal threshold when he caused a crash that killed a Johnson County sheriff’s deputy.

Adrian Espinosa-Flores’ blood-alcohol content measured .160 after the Sept. 11 crash.

Espinosa-Flores is charged with involuntary manslaughter and leaving the scene of a fatality traffic crash in connection with the crash that killed Master Deputy Brandon Collins.

Collins was conducting a traffic stop on U.S. 69 in Overland Park when authorities say a pickup truck driven by Espinosa-Flores ran into Collins’ parked patrol vehicle from behind.

Adrian Espinosa-Flores told police he had been drinking beer at a friend’s house before the crash and that he was in the country illegally.

His public defender hasn’t returned messages seeking comment.