KANSAS CITY, Mo (AP) — Police say an off-duty officer who caused a chain-reaction wreck that killed a Kansas teen was driving a department van too quickly when he slammed into the teen’s car as traffic slowed to turn into Arrowhead Stadium for a Kansas City Chiefs game.

The police report was issued Wednesday for the Oct. 21 crash that killed 17-year-old Chandan Rajanna, of Overland Park, Kansas, and seriously hurt his father and older sister.

The document says witnesses reported that the van was going as fast as 70 mph when it started braking about 30 feet from the stopped traffic. It says the driver was “unable to stop, or avoid the vehicles in front of him.”

Besides the van and car, two other vehicles also were struck.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ new Democratic governor-elect said Thursday that she will look to block enforcement of a new adoption law that she and LGBT-rights activists consider discriminatory, a sharp break with the state’s two previous conservative Republican governors.

Gov.-elect Laura Kelly said she will have her staff review how far the state can go to avoid enforcing the law. It was designed to provide legal protections to adoption agencies that cite faith-based reasons for refusing to place children in homes that violate their religious beliefs.

The debate over the law centered on agencies that won’t place children in LGBT foster homes. The agencies handle those adoptions of abused and neglected children for the state Department for Children and Families. Supporters saw it as a religious liberties measure.

Kelly, a veteran state senator from Topeka, voted against what she called “the adoption discrimination” measure when the Republican-controlled Legislature approved it in May. In the governor’s race, she defeated conservative Republican Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, and was endorsed by Equality Kansas, the state’s most influential LGBT-rights group.

“If there is way to direct the agency to not implement that, then I will do that,” Kelly said during a Statehouse news conference, her first since winning the election.

Chuck Weber, the Catholic Conference’s executive director, said supporters of the law will fight to see that it’s fully enforced.

“This is not a surprise, that Gov.-elect Kelly would try to circumvent the will of the people of Kansas to advance her own radical agenda,” said Weber, a former Kansas House member.

The law says the state can’t force an adoption agency to make placements in homes that violate its religious beliefs. An adoption agency cannot be denied a license or state reimbursement for a placement, or blocked from participating in DCF programs, solely because of its beliefs.

Tom Witt, Equality Kansas’ executive director, said the law so clearly allows adoption agencies to engage in discrimination while receiving tax dollars that the state shouldn’t enforce it.

“There are a number of unconstitutional laws on the books that aren’t being enforced,” Witt said. “The (state’s same-sex) marriage ban comes to mind.”

But Weber said: “We were very careful in drafting that bill, in dotting i’s and crossing t’s and making sure that this would pass constitutional muster.”

Departing Republican Gov. Jeff Colyer signed the measure, and his DCF secretary backed it as a way to encourage more groups to do adoptions.

Colyer took office in January when GOP Gov. Sam Brownback resigned to become U.S. ambassador at large for international religious freedom. In 2015, Brownback rescinded a previous executive order from Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius barring anti-LGBT bias in state hiring and employment decisions, saying such a policy should be set by the Legislature.

Kelly told reporters Thursday that she will have a new order reinstating such protections drafted before she takes office so that it can be issued as quickly as possible.

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GREAT FALLS, Mont. (AP) — A federal judge in Montana has blocked construction of the $8 billion Keystone XL Pipeline to allow more time to study the project’s potential environmental impact.

The Great Falls Tribune reports U.S. District Judge Brian Morris’ order on Thursday came as Calgary-based TransCanada was preparing to build the first stages of the oil pipeline in northern Montana. Environmental groups had sued TransCanada and The U.S. Department of State in federal court in Great Falls.

Morris says the government’s analysis didn’t fully study the cumulative effects of greenhouse gas emissions, the effects of current oil prices on the pipeline’s viability or include updated modeling of potential oil spills.

The 1,184-mile  pipeline would transport up to 830,000 barrels of crude a day from Alberta, Canada and Montana to facilities in Nebraska.

INDEPENDENCE, Mo. (AP) – A 26-year-old Kansas City man has pleaded guilty to fatally stabbing another man in Independence in 2013.

John Seger pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of Corey Laykovich.

Seger was sentenced Thursday to nine years in prison.

Court documents show Seger and Laykovich argued and got into a physical disturbance that ended with Seger stabbing Laykovich in early 2013.

The case went uncharged for years and inspired Laykovich’s mother to found the victim advocate group Corey’s Network, Inc.

A break in the case came in early 2016, when Seger was arrested in an unrelated incident.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – Police say a type of synthetic marijuana, possibly laced with dangerous narcotics or even rat poison, is to blame for more than dozen overdose cases in Columbia.

The police department said in a news release that five of the cases occurred between 5:30 and 6:30 p.m. Wednesday. Other overdoses were reported at extended stay motels. Police say no deaths have occurred.

The Columbia Tribune reports all the overdoses were linked to a synthetic marijuana commonly known as K2, which is sold under several names.

Police don’t know the source of the substance.

Earlier this year, a batch of K2 in the St. Louis area, which may have been laced with Fentanyl, caused several overdoses in one area in just a few hours.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – Two 20-year-olds have been charged in the killing of a 14-year-old during a dispute about a marijuana deal.

Alex Glay and Erick Libimbi are jailed without bond in Boone County on charges of second-degree murder in the death Nasir Smith. They also are charged with distribution of a controlled substance. No attorneys are listed for them in online court records.

Libimbi was wounded in an exchange of gunfire Tuesday in Glay’s apartment. Libimbi and Glay gave differing accounts of what led to the death of Smith. Both blamed the other for selling drugs to Smith before gunfire erupted.

Officers also found marijuana in several locations in Glay’s apartment.

MANHATTAN — The Kansas State University Police Department has concluded its investigation into a note using a racial slur posted on a door in the Jardine Apartment Complex.

On Monday, K-State Police received a report of the note, according to a media release.

Upon questioning, the person who reported the incident admitted to creating and posting the note to their own door.

The matter will be addressed in accordance with applicable disciplinary procedures.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — A U.S. appeals court ruled Thursday that President Donald Trump cannot immediately end an Obama-era program shielding young immigrants from deportation.

A three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals kept in place a preliminary injunction blocking Trump’s decision to phase out the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program.

Lawsuits by California and others challenging the administration’s decision will continue in federal court while the injunction remains in place.

DACA has protected some 700,000 people who were brought to the U.S. illegally as children or came with families that overstayed visas.

The Trump administration has said it moved to end the program last year because Texas and other states threatened to sue, raising the prospect of a chaotic end to DACA.

The decision prompted lawsuits across the nation, including one by California. A judge overseeing that lawsuit and four others ruled against the administration and reinstated the program in January.

U.S. District Judge William Alsup rejected the argument that then-President Barack Obama had exceeded his power in creating DACA and said the Trump administration failed to consider the disruption that ending the program would cause.

The Trump administration then asked the 9th Circuit to throw out Alsup’s ruling.

During a hearing in May, Deputy Assistant Attorney General Hashim Mooppan argued that the courts could not review the administration’s decision to end DACA and defended the move against assertions that it was arbitrary and capricious.

“It’s a question of an agency saying, ‘We’re not going to have a policy that might well be illegal,'” Mooppan told the judges. “That is a perfectly rational thing to do.”

Mooppan said the administration was under no obligation to consider the fact that people had come to rely on DACA.

The judges on the 9th Circuit panel appeared skeptical of the argument that the DACA decision was beyond the court’s authority to review.

Judge Kim Wardlaw noted at the hearing that another appeals court had reviewed a similar Obama administration immigration policy.

Judge Jacqueline Nguyen questioned whether courts could intervene if they thought DACA was legal and disagreed with the administration’s position that it wasn’t.

The administration has been critical of the 9th Circuit and took the unusual step of trying to sidestep it and have the California DACA cases heard directly by the U.S. Supreme Court. The high court in February declined to do so.

Federal judges in New York and Washington also have ruled against Trump on DACA.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kris Kobach rode his national reputation as an advocate for tough immigration and voting rules to a job atop President Donald Trump’s short-lived election-fraud commission. But Kansas voters rejected his no-apologies conservatism in this week’s election for governor.

Now the Republican’s hard-line, in-your-face approach could help him land his next political position, possibly in the Trump administration.

Kobach’s name immediately popped up Wednesday, after Attorney General Jeff Sessions was forced to resign. If Trump picks someone else to replace Sessions, Kobach’s name is almost certain to surface again when Trump has another big post to fill.

“I guarantee you that if there is a place that he can find, he’ll find a home for Kris,” said state Rep. John Whitmer, a conservative Wichita Republican and a Kobach ally.

Kobach, whose term as Kansas secretary of state ends in January, did not immediately return cellphone messages Thursday seeking comment. Whitmer said Kobach had planned to go hunting. Kobach spokeswoman Danedri Herbert texted, “No comment,” in response to a question about the speculation that Kobach was being considered for U.S. attorney general.

In his concession speech late Tuesday, the 52-year-old Ivy League graduate dropped no hints about his future. He told supporters at a Topeka hotel, “This one just wasn’t God’s will.”

“The Republicans are going to be fighting for the values we hold dear, regardless of which offices we Republicans hold,” he said.

In nearly eight years as secretary of state of state, Kobach turned what had been a backwater of state politics into a high-profile office by successfully pushing for laws to require all voters to show a photo ID at the polls and new voters to provide papers documenting their U.S. citizenship when registering.

Kansas went further than any other state in enforcing a proof-of-citizenship requirement in voter registration until a federal judge struck down that law in June as an unconstitutional violation of voting rights. The state has appealed, and the case is likely to outlast Kobach’s tenure.

Before becoming vice chairman of the president’s voter fraud commission, Kobach was a source behind Trump’s unsubstantiated claim that millions of votes were cast illegally in the 2016 presidential race for Democrat Hillary Clinton, who won the popular vote.

An early supporter of Trump’s presidential campaign, Kobach advised the campaign and later the White House on homeland security issues.

The day before the August primary, Trump tweeted his “full & total Endorsement!” of Kobach, which helped him narrowly defeat GOP Gov. Jeff Colyer. Trump had a rally in Topeka in October partly to boost Kobach’s campaign, telling the crowd he would have liked to put Kobach in his administration.

“President Trump is very supportive of Kris Kobach,” state GOP Chairman Kelly Arnold said. “And I expect a place will be found for him.”

Republicans expanded their narrow 51-49 majority in the U.S Senate, potentially making a Kobach confirmation easier.

The narrow GOP majority had presented a possible obstacle. In July 2017, Trump nominated then-Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback as U.S. ambassador at large for international freedom. But the Senate did not vote to confirm the appointment until January. Vice President Mike Pence had to break a tie.

Kobach has been more of a lightning rod than Brownback and lost the governor’s race because he alienated moderate GOP and independent voters. Frank Sharry, the executive director of the pro-immigration group America’s Voice, celebrated Kobach’s loss with a statement calling him “one of the leading anti-immigrant voices in American politics.”

In a May 2017 interview with The Associated Press, Kobach said he had been offered an undersecretary’s position in the Department of Homeland Security and a White House position coordinating immigration enforcement. The interview was after Trump named him to the election fraud commission but before Kobach formally launched his campaign for governor.

He said he faced “a tough, tough decision” on both. One factor in not taking the jobs, he said, was the likely inability to “unilaterally make a decision and then say, ‘OK, we’re going to carry this out.'”

Kobach, who has five young daughters, also had misgivings about leaving Kansas. He said he viewed going to Washington as a “real sacrifice” for his family because “we would be less happy on a day-to-day level.”