KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a New Year’s Eve reveler accidentally shot himself while preparing to fire a celebratory round in Kansas City, Kansas.

Police Chief Terry Zeigler tweeted that the shooting happened as the victim was getting ready to go out at midnight and fire his .22-caliber handgun. Zeigler says that when he sat the gun down on the couch, he accidentally shot himself in the stomach.

Zeigler says the man is expected to recover. Celebratory gunfire is illegal because of the risk of stray bullets hurting or killing someone.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic and Republican congressional leaders are expected to attend a briefing on border security at the White House as the government remains partially shut down and President Donald Trump asks in a tweet, “Let’s make a deal?”

Border Security and the Wall “thing” and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let’s make a deal?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) January 1, 2019

The partial government shutdown began on Dec. 22. Funding for Trump’s pet project, a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, has been the sticking point in passing budgets for several government departments.

The briefing is scheduled for 3 p.m. EST Wednesday, the day before Democrats are to assume control of the House and end the Republican monopoly on government.

The exact agenda, however, was not immediately clear, according to a person with knowledge of the briefing who was not authorized to speak publicly about the issue and spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the top incoming House Republicans — Kevin McCarthy of California and Steve Scalise of Louisiana — planned to attend, according to aides. The departing House speaker, Paul Ryan, was not expected.

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi, who is expected to become speaker on Thursday, and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer planned to attend. Pelosi said Tuesday that Democrats would take action to “end the Trump Shutdown” by passing legislation Thursday to reopen government.

“We are giving the Republicans the opportunity to take yes for an answer,” she wrote in a letter to colleagues. “Senate Republicans have already supported this legislation, and if they reject it now, they will be fully complicit in chaos and destruction of the President’s third shutdown of his term.”

The White House invitation came Tuesday after House Democrats released their plan to re-open the government without approving money for a border wall — unveiling two bills to fund shuttered government agencies and put hundreds of thousands of federal workers back on the job. They planned to pass them as soon as the new Congress convenes Thursday.

Responding to the Democratic plan, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders late Tuesday night called it a “non-starter” and said it won’t re-open the government “because it fails to secure the border and puts the needs of other countries above the needs of our own citizens.”

Trump spent the weekend saying Democrats should return to Washington to negotiate, firing off Twitter taunts. After aides suggested there would not necessarily be a traditional wall as Trump had described since his presidential campaign, Trump stated that he really still wanted to build a border wall.

On Tuesday morning, after tweeting a New Year’s message to “EVERYONE INCLUDING THE HATERS AND THE FAKE NEWS MEDIA,” Trump tweeted: “The Democrats, much as I suspected, have allocated no money for a new Wall. So imaginative! The problem is, without a Wall there can be no real Border Security.”

But he seemed to shift tactics later in the day, appealing to Pelosi. “Border Security and the Wall ‘thing’ and Shutdown is not where Nancy Pelosi wanted to start her tenure as Speaker! Let’s make a deal?” he tweeted.

Whether the Republican-led Senate would consider the Democratic bills — or if Trump would sign either into law — was unclear. McConnell spokesman Donald Stewart said Senate Republicans would not take action without Trump’s backing.

“It’s simple: The Senate is not going to send something to the president that he won’t sign,” Stewart said.

Even if only symbolic, the passage of the bills in the House would put fresh pressure on the president. At the same time, administration officials said Trump was in no rush for a resolution to the impasse.

Trump believes he has public opinion on his side and, at very least, his base of supporters behind him, the officials said, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

The Democratic package to end the shutdown would include one bill to temporarily fund the Department of Homeland Security at current levels — with $1.3 billion for border security, far less than the $5 billion Trump has said he wants for the wall — through Feb. 8 as talks continued.

It would also include another measure to fund the departments of Agriculture, Interior, Housing and Urban Development and others closed by the partial shutdown. It would provide money through the remainder of the fiscal year, to Sept. 30.

___

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri state lawmaker wants to prohibit local governments from banning food and drink packaging amid a push by environmentalists to reduce the use of single-use plastics.

State Rep. Dan Shaul, an Imperial Republican and director of the Missouri Grocers Association, filed legislation that would prohibit bans, restrictions or other regulations on bottles, cups, bags, containers and other food and drink packaging. The limits would cover containers made of plastic, aluminum, cardboard and a variety of other materials.

Businesses could still opt to use more environmentally friendly to-go wrappings and other packaging for food and drinks under Shaul’s bill. But the lawmaker said the move toward more sustainable packaging should be consumer-driven and not dictated by local governments.

The bill “will not impede a business from making a decision that’s in their best interest or meets their business model,” Shaul said. “We think it should be their decision.”

The legislation is up for consideration when lawmakers return to the Capitol for their next session beginning Jan. 9.

Shaul’s efforts come amid a push by environmentalists around the world to cut down on single-use plastics that can pollute waterways and end up in the food chain, though the newspaper reported that the impact on human health is unclear.

Former Republican city councilwoman Laura Nauser opposed Columbia’s proposed limits on plastic bags in 2015, but she also opposes state pre-emption.

“Let the local council make the decision, and if it turns out to be a bad one, it’s a lot easier to reverse it at the local level than it would be if there was a problem — or a poor law — (that needed to be) reversed at the state or federal level,” she said.

Eliza Coriell, co-owner of the Crow’s Nest in the St. Louis suburb of Maplewood, said he’s open to restrictions on foam containers because she said there are cheap, biodegradable substitutes. But she said her restaurant uses plastic bags for to-go orders, and because they’re recyclable she’s not sure if a broader rule against them is needed.

“I’m not opposed to municipalities having the ability to ban certain things,” Coriell said. “And whether or not I would support (state) legislation one way or the other would depend on which things they (cities) were trying to ban.”

The Crow’s Nest has decided on its own to provide straws to customers upon request instead of automatically putting them in all drinks.

A December 2017 report by the Missouri Department of Public Safety said 28 of Missouri’s 114 counties lacked the ability to identify the location of callers seeking 911 emergency help.

Sixteen Missouri counties had only basic 911 service, with call centers that lacked 911 answering equipment and were unable to identify a caller’s location or name. Those counties included: Bollinger, Carter, Cedar, Clark, Dent, Douglas, Hickory, Mercer, Oregon, Ozark, Ripley, St. Clair, Schuyler, Scotland, Shannon and Wayne.

An additional 11 counties had equipment capable of identifying the location and name of a caller on a landline phone but not of a caller on a wireless phone. Those counties included: Bates, Camden, Cape Girardeau, Linn, Howard, Maries, Mississippi, Montgomery, Perry, Pemiscot and Reynolds.

Holt County had equipment able to identify a wireless phone caller’s number, cell tower and sector but not the caller’s exact location.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Two more Missouri House members are resigning shortly before their terms were scheduled to end.

Republican Reps. Kurt Bahr of St. Charles County and Rick Brattin of Cass County submitted their resignations effective at 11:59 p.m. Monday — the final minute of 2018.

Both are leaving the Legislature for jobs in local government. Bahr won election in November as the St. Charles County elections director. Brattin won election as the Cass County auditor.

Their state legislative terms had been scheduled to end Jan. 9, when the new legislative session begins.

Their early departures mean there are 15 vacancies in the 163-member House.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A judge ruled Monday that Kansas cannot stop telemedicine abortions, thwarting the latest attempt by state lawmakers to prevent doctors from providing pregnancy-ending pills to women they see by remote video conferences.

District Judge Franklin Theis ruled that a law barring telemedicine abortions and set to take effect in January has no legal force. During an earlier hearing, Theis derided the law as an “air ball” because of how lawmakers wrote it.

That law was challenged in a lawsuit filed by the Center for Reproductive Rights on behalf of Trust Women Wichita, which operates a clinic that performs abortions and provides other health care services.

Theis also ruled that other, older parts of the state’s abortion laws that could ban telemedicine abortions are on hold indefinitely because of a separate lawsuit challenging them that’s still pending.

The Wichita clinic began offering telemedicine abortions in October because its doctors live outside Kansas and could be on site only two days a week. It also hopes to provide the pills to women in rural areas and have them confer by teleconference with doctors.

The center argues that banning telemedicine abortions violates the state constitution by placing an undue burden on women seeking abortions and singling out abortion for special treatment when state policies intend to encourage telemedicine. Kansas has no clinics that provide abortions outside Wichita and the Kansas City area.

“That procedure by telemedicine is going to be legal after midnight (Monday), and the clinic will continue to offer it,” said Bob Eye, one of the attorneys for Trust Women. “This is a good outcome.”

The anti-abortion group Kansans for Life, influential with the Republican-controlled Legislature, contends telemedicine abortions are dangerous. But a study of abortions in California, published in the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists’ journal in 2015, said less than one-third of 1 percent of medication abortions resulted in major complications.

Mary Kay Culp, executive director of Kansans for Life, called Theis’ ruling “infuriating.”

“This judge has a long history of taking laws designed by the Legislature to protect unborn babies and women and turning them into laws that instead protect the abortion industry,” Culp said.

Seventeen other states have telemedicine abortion bans, according to the Guttmacher Institute, a group that advocates for abortion rights.

The 2018 law represents the third time Kansas legislators passed a measure meant to outlaw telemedicine abortions.

In 2011, a ban was part of legislation imposing special regulations on abortion clinics that critics argued were meant to shut them down. Providers sued, and Theis blocked all of the regulations. The case is still pending.

Legislators passed another version of the telemedicine abortion ban in 2015, but Theis ruled Monday that it also is covered by his order blocking the 2011 clinic regulations. He called that 2011 injunction a “safe harbor” for the clinic.

The 2018 law says that in policies promoting telemedicine, “nothing” authorizes “any abortion procedure via telemedicine.” Theis concluded that it’s toothless because it does not give prosecutors a way to bring a criminal case over a violation. He said in his order Monday that it “has no anchor for operation” — essentially rendering the clinic’s lawsuit moot.

The Kansas health department has reported that in 2017, the latest data available, nearly 4,000 medication abortions were reported, or 58 percent of the state’s total, all in the first trimester. It’s not clear how many of them were telemedicine abortions.

While abortion opponents have a long list of legislative victories over the past decade, they’ve fared less well in the courts. The U.S. Supreme Court recently refused to hear an appeal of lower federal court orders barring Kansas from stripping Medicaid funds for non-abortion services provided by Planned Parenthood.

The state’s first-in-the-nation ban on a common second trimester procedure anti-abortion lawmakers called “dismemberment abortion” has been on hold since 2015. In that case, the Kansas Supreme Court has yet to decide whether the state constitution protects abortion rights independently of the federal constitution — so that state courts could chart their own, more liberal course.

___

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — While work by Missouri House lawmakers to investigate Eric Greitens officially came to an end Monday when the investigatory committee issued its final report, its leader said he’s still hopeful the former scandal-ridden governor will be held accountable for alleged campaign finance violations.

Republican Rep. Jay Barnes said in a statement that the committee he headed lost the authority to continue its investigation into numerous claims of personal and political misconduct levied against Greitens when the Republican resigned in the face of possible impeachment in June.

“However, the Missouri Ethics Commission has the power to investigate and act,” Barnes said. “I remain hopeful the commission will take appropriate action to enforce Missouri’s campaign finance laws against Eric Greitens and those with whom he conspired to evade reporting requirements and voter-enacted campaign finance limits.”

Barnes in July filed an ethics complaint against Greitens’ gubernatorial campaign and a nonprofit that promoted his agenda.

Among the allegations, the complaint said several of Greitens’ campaign staff members established the nonprofit called A New Missouri specifically to skirt new donation limits while essentially functioning as an unofficial arm of Greitens’ operation.

The nonprofit has faced criticism because it’s able to accept unlimited campaign donations without disclosing its donors.

Catherine Hanaway, an attorney for the campaign and nonprofit, on Monday said she’s “not surprised” that Barnes still wants the complaint to be heard months after he filed it.

“We don’t believe that his allegations about violations of campaign finance law are accurate,” Hanaway said. “Greitens for Missouri and A New Missouri complied with all Missouri campaign finance laws.”

The Missouri Ethics Commission can levy fines and, in certain cases, refer cases to prosecutors.

The final House committee report details months of work by lawmakers to investigate mounting claims against Greitens, including allegations that he slapped and shoved a woman with whom he had an extramarital affair and that he took a donor list without permission from a nonprofit he founded and used it for political fundraising. Greitens has repeatedly denied allegations of criminal misconduct.

A special prosecutor ultimately decided against taking up a felony invasion of privacy charge against Greitens related to claims that he allegedly took a photo of the woman he had an affair with while she was partially nude, then threatened to release it if she exposed their relationship. In exchange for his resignation, St. Louis prosecutors also dropped a felony charge of tampering with computer data that was related to the donor list.

Still pending are a lawsuit alleging Greitens’ office violated the Sunshine Law by using a message-deleting app called Confide and an appeal of a dismissed lawsuit claiming A New Missouri should have to turn over its financial records.