TOPEKA, Ks. (AP) — New Jersey Governor Chris Christie will be part of the Kansas Republican caucuses next year.

The Kansas Republican Party said in a news release Wednesday that Christie paid the $15,000 filing fee to qualify for the March 5 caucuses.

Christie visited Kansas several times in 2014 to campaign for Gov. Sam Brownback’s re-election. He was chairman of the Republican Governors Association at the time.

He is the seventh candidate to file for the Kansas caucuses. Others are Donald Trump, Ben Carson, U.S. Sens. Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, Ohio Gov. John Kasich, and former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Obama administration says the Supreme Court should reject a lawsuit from Nebraska and Oklahoma that seeks to declare Colorado’s legalization of marijuana unconstitutional.

The Justice Department’s top courtroom lawyer said in a brief filed Wednesday that the interstate dispute over a measure approved by Colorado voters in 2012 does not belong at the high court.

Nebraska and Oklahoma filed their lawsuit directly with the Supreme Court last year, arguing that Colorado’s law allowing recreational marijuana use by adults runs afoul of federal anti-drug laws.

The two states have complained that Colorado’s action has hindered efforts to enforce anti-marijuana laws in their states. They say combatting marijuana that’s coming across the border is a drain on their resources.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A group that wants to keep Nebraska’s death penalty off the books says it will focus on the practical problems of carrying out the punishment in the build-up to next year’s statewide vote on capital punishment.

Senator Colby Coash of Lincoln and University of Nebraska law professor Eric Berger outlined several arguments Wednesday at an event sponsored by Nebraskans for Public Safety. Nebraska’s last execution was in 1997, using the electric chair.

Governor Pete Ricketts has said the state will not try to obtain lethal injection drugs until voters decide in November whether to keep capital punishment, but his administration is looking at changes to the protocol.

Berger says changing the protocol would be difficult, expensive and a short-term fix.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Federal Reserve is raising interest rates after seven years of record lows. But it’s signaling that further rate hikes will likely be made slowly as the economy strengthens further and muted inflation rises.

The Fed’s move to lift its key rate by a quarter-point to a range of 0.25 percent to 0.5 percent ends an extraordinary seven-year period of near-zero rates that began at the depths of the 2008 financial crisis. Consumers and businesses could now face modestly higher rates on some loans.

The Fed’s action reflects its belief that the economy has finally regained enough strength 6½ years after the Great Recession ended to withstand higher borrowing rates. But the statement announcing the rate hike said the committee expects “only gradual increases” in rates going forward.

FORT WORTH, Texas (AP) — A former Missouri police officer must serve 20 years in federal prison in a Texas child pornography case.

Erik Miltonhall was sentenced in Fort Worth.

Prosecutors on Tuesday announced the penalty for the 40-year-old Miltonhall, who in August pleaded guilty to transportation of child pornography.

Investigators say Miltonhall in 2014 stayed with a friend in Arlington and used that person’s computer to transmit child pornography.

Records show Miltonhall was hired as a police officer in Ellington, Missouri, in October 2008 and resigned in April 2009. Ellington is a town of about 1,000, located 120 miles southwest of St. Louis.

Miltonhall was sentenced Dec. 10.

IMPERIAL, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a 4-year-old eastern Missouri boy has shot himself in the groin with his grandfather’s handgun.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the boy’s mother and grandfather thought the boy had gone to sleep in his room when they heard a gunshot Tuesday afternoon in Imperial. Jefferson County Sheriff’s Lt. Col. Steve Meinberg says the bullet entered the boy’s groin and exited his buttocks, just missing his genitals.

Investigators believe the child was wandering around the home when he found the gun in the bathroom, took it into a bedroom and began playing with it.

Meinberg says he was told the boy was “talking and laughing with the doctors and asking for a soda.”

Deputies are investigating.

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — A trial is underway for a suburban St. Louis mayor accused of swerving at and hitting a bicyclist last year.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 48-year-old cyclist Randy Murdick testified Tuesday in St. Louis County Circuit Court he was finishing a 40-mile ride in July 2014 when the driver of a red convertible pulled up next to him and yelled expletives.

Murdick says the driver, later identified as Sunset Hills Mayor Frank Furrer, hit him, knocking him to the ground.

Furrer is charged with second-degree assault and property damage. He has pleaded not guilty. If convicted of either felony, he would forfeit office.

Furrer argues Murdick ignored a stop sign and cursed when the mayor admonished him to obey traffic laws. He has claimed Murdick grabbed his car.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Justice Department says it’s having “productive” conversations with the police department Ferguson, Missouri, about making widespread changes within the agency.

Such an overhaul could avert a civil rights lawsuit that federal officials have the option to bring against departments that resist changing their practices.

Justice Department spokeswoman Dena Iverson said Wednesday that negotiations with the police force to create a court-enforceable consent decree have been productive. She says the Justice Department believes such an agreement must be reached without delay.

Another person familiar with the matter, who was not authorized to discuss it publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity, said there had been a “lot of progress” but that sticking points remained.

The federal government launched an investigation into Ferguson’s policing practices last year.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Gov. Jay Nixon’s son has been sentenced to 30 days of home detention and two years of unsupervised probation after pleading guilty to driving while intoxicated as a prior offender.

Willson Nixon, of Branson, entered the plea Wednesday in Boone County Court. His home detention will begin Thursday.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports Columbia police arrested Willson Nixon in August after he hit a parked car while driving without headlights.

After the hearing, Wally Bley, one of Willson Nixon’s lawyers, said his client accepted responsibility for his mistake but does not have a drinking problem.

Willson Nixon pleaded guilty in June to driving with an excessive blood-alcohol content after he was arrested in Columbia in May for running a red light.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri state lawmaker has withdrawn a bill that sought to strip scholarships from college athletes who go on strike or refuse to play for reasons unrelated to health.

Republican state Rep. Rick Brattin dropped the legislation Wednesday without explanation. Neither he nor a GOP co-sponsor, state Rep. Kurt Bahr, immediately responded to phone messages seeking comment.

The duo proposed the measure Friday in response to last month’s threat by University of Missouri football players to not play due to the administration’s handling of racial discrimination complaints at its main campus.

The players’ participation in the efforts to affect change helped force both the university system’s president and Columbia campus’ chancellor to resign.