TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Latest on the Kansas governor’s race.

The three candidates for Kansas governor met to debate in Wichita on Tuesday afternoon, sponsored by the Kansas Association of Broadcasters.  Watch a replay here.

1:10 p.m.

Independent candidate Greg Orman is stepping up his attacks on Democratic nominee Laura Kelly in the Kansas governor’s race.

Orman compared Kelly, a veteran state senator, to unpopular former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback during a debate Tuesday in Wichita at a Kansas Association of Broadcasters convention.

Orman is trailing well behind Kelly and Republican nominee Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state. Kelly and Kobach are in a dead heat, and many Democrats view Orman as a possible spoiler helping Kobach.

Orman, a Kansas City-area businessman, touted his private-sector experience. He said Kelly is like Brownback in that he also was a longtime legislator before becoming governor.

Brownback was a U.S. senator before being elected governor in 2010. He resigned in January to take an ambassador’s post.

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12:39 p.m.

The dead-heat Kansas governor’s race has become a referendum on how a Republican experiment in slashing income taxes went awry.

Democrat Laura Kelly and Republican Kris Kobach are arguing over what lessons came from the budget misery that followed tax cuts in 2012 and 2013 and whether the state needs a do-over.

Kelly is a veteran state senator who supported a successful effort last year to repeal most of the tax cuts championed by former GOP Gov. Sam Brownback. She argues that Kobach wants to bring back Brownback’s fiscal experiment and even top it.

Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state, wants to return to cutting taxes but bristles at being described as another Brownback. He says he would avoid Brownback’s mistakes by being more aggressive about controlling spending.

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. (AP) — The NASA astronaut and northwest Kansas native who survived last week’s failed launch and emergency landing says he knew he needed to stay calm.

Air Force Col. Nick Hague on Tuesday publicly described his close call during a Facebook conversation.

Hague and Russian Alexei Ovchinin were two minutes into their flight last Thursday from Kazakhstan to the International Space Station when the Soyuz rocket failed.

LIVE NOW: @AstroHague, who along with his Russian crewmate were forced to abort their Oct. 11 Soyuz launch during ascent to @Space_Station, is answering your questions now on Facebook. Watch & ask your questions: https://t.co/Ige2lQnuAR pic.twitter.com/oPIFtQWxye

— NASA (@NASA) October 16, 2018

Their capsule ripped away from the rocket as designed and plummeted to Earth. Hague communicated in Russian throughout the more than half-hour ordeal.

Neither was injured.

Hague says he and his crewmate grinned at touchdown, shook hands and then joked about their short flight. He says he’d rather be in orbit, getting ready for a spacewalk, but is grateful to be alive.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A court document contends a former Douglas County sheriff’s deputy admitted he had sex with a female inmate in his office at the jail and in his personal car on the streets of Lawrence.

The media reported Tuesday it obtained the affidavit detectives prepared in support of the arrest of 47-year-old Mario J. Godinez of Lawrence. Gondinez was charged in August with engaging in consensual sexual activity with the inmate.

The deputy told detectives the woman aggressively seduced him before he touched her and that afterward he felt ashamed of himself.

The deputy was in charge of an inmate work release program at the jail. The inmate ended up let out of the jail through that program even though no judge ever approved her request for work release privileges.

BRANSON, Mo. (AP) – Officials say two carts on a mountain coaster crashed into each other earlier this month in Branson, sending three people to the hospital with minor injuries.

The  issue appears to be with a collision avoidance system on the Runaway Branson Mountain Coaster. The ride is designed to allow people to control their speed as they descend a steep hillside on bobsled-like carts. The system apparently didn’t work on Oct. 4, causing a stopped cart to be rear-ended.

A manager wasn’t sure what happened but told police there’s sometimes an issue with one of the carts not linking up with the system for a moment.

Branson Fire Chief Ted Martin says the involved carts were inspected on the company’s computer system and no issues were found.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Health officials say Kansas has recorded its first flu deaths of the season.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment says two deaths in the state have already been directly attributed to influenza as of Monday. Pneumonia has been the direct cause of death in another 38 deaths, and the flu or pneumonia has been contributing factors in an additional 132 deaths.

In last week’s KDHE flu report for Kansas, there were 101 outpatient visits for influenza-like illnesses. The newborn to 4 years old age group had 29 reported cases for the first week of the flu season.

Flu shots are generally recommended for anyone age 6 months and older. Flu symptoms include a fever, body aches, chills, tiredness, cough and headache.

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Jurors who found that agribusiness giant Monsanto’s Roundup weed killer contributed to a school groundskeeper’s cancer are urging a San Francisco judge not to throw out the bulk of their $289 million award in his favor, a newspaper reported Monday.

Juror Gary Kitahata told Judge Suzanne Bolanos in a letter that the jury was convinced by the evidence, the San Francisco Chronicle said.

“I urge you to respect and honor our verdict and the six weeks of our lives that we dedicated to this trial,” he said.

Juror Robert Howard wrote to the judge that the jury had paid “studious attention” to the evidence and any decision to overturn its verdict would shake his confidence in the judicial system.

Bolanos said last week she is inclined to throw out $250 million in punitive damages in favor of DeWayne Johnson. She is also considering dramatically reducing the remaining award. Her final decision is due by Oct. 22.

Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer AG in June, has asked the judge to override the jury’s decision and enter judgment in its favor or order a new trial.

Bayer AG in a statement on Monday thanked the jury for its “important public service,” but said the “post-trial motions in the Johnson case raise issues of law that are properly addressed by Judge Bolanos.”

Johnson sprayed Roundup and a similar product, Ranger Pro, at his job as a pest control manager at a San Francisco Bay Area school district, according to his attorneys. He was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma in 2014 at age 42.

His lawsuit is among hundreds alleging Roundup caused cancer, but it was the first one to go to trial.

Many government regulators have rejected a link between glyphosate — the active ingredient in Roundup — and cancer. Monsanto has vehemently denied such a connection, saying hundreds of studies have established that glyphosate is safe.

The jury in August determined that Monsanto should have provided a label warning of a potential health hazard.

In a tentative order last week, Bolanos said Johnson’s attorneys had failed to show Monsanto acted with “malice or oppression” — a prerequisite for punitive damages.

Howard told the Chronicle testimony at trial showed there were “serious questions” about the safety of Roundup when the company gave it to Johnson’s employer.

BRANSON, Mo. (AP) – The Latest on the lawsuits over a July tourist boat accident in Missouri that killed 17 people (all times local):

A survivor of a July tourist boat accident that killed 17 people in Missouri and attorneys representing deceased family members are calling the latest legal filing by two companies facing multiple lawsuits insulting and insensitive.

The attorneys also said Monday night in a statement that there have been no settlement offers.

In their filing, lawyers for Florida-based Ripley Entertainment Inc. and Missouri-based Branson Duck Vehicles cited an 1851 federal law that allows vessel owners to try to avoid or limit legal damages. They said under its terms, the companies are not liable for any damages.

But a Ripley spokeswoman said the company is seeking mediation toward settling all claims.

Robert J. Mongeluzzi is a Philadelphia attorney representing many of the accident victims and called the filing “frivolous.” Survivor Tia Coleman also decried the filing.

7:15 p.m.

Two companies facing multiple federal lawsuits over a summer tourist boat accident in Missouri that killed 17 people are invoking an 1851 law that allows vessel owners to try to avoid or limit legal damages.

But the companies also say they’re seeking settlement negotiations with victims’ family members.

Attorneys for Florida-based Ripley Entertainment Inc. and Missouri-based Branson Duck Vehicles cited the old federal law Monday in a court filing.

If a judge concludes that the law applies, claims for damages over the July 19 accident on Table Rock Lake near Branson, Missouri, could be consolidated into a single case.

But the filing came less than a week after the companies asked a judge for a 90-day extension of court filing deadlines so they could pursue a potential settlement.

By DAN MARGOLIES

Four transgender residents of Kansas sued the state on Monday, challenging its refusal to allow them to change the sex listed on their birth certificates.

The lawsuit, filed in federal court in Kansas City, Kansas, argues that Kansas’ policy violates the due process and equal protection clauses of the Constitution. It also argues that it violates the plaintiffs’ free speech rights under the First Amendment.

“I’m here to seek justice,” said Nyla Foster, a transgender woman and one of the plaintiffs. “My birth certificate does not reflect the gender I identify as, and I’m here to correct it so I can move forward with my life.”

Kansas, Ohio and Tennessee are the only three states that don’t allow people to change their birth certificates to reflect gender identities that differ from genders assigned at birth.

Although Kansas law does provide for the correction of a person’s gender identity – driver’s licenses, for example, can be amended – the Kansas Division of Vital Statistics claims it does not have the authority to amend birth certificates to account for gender transition.

The suit names as defendants Jeff Anderson, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment; Elizabeth W. Saadi, the Kansas state registrar; and Kay Haug, director of the state’s vital statistics office, a unit of the Department of Health and Environment.

Theresa Freed, a spokeswoman for the department, said the issue has already been litigated in a Kansas court. 

“The court in that case determined that the amendment of a birth certificate regarding gender is not required,” Freed said in an email. “We would not be able to speak to the allegations of this particular lawsuit, as we have not yet been served.”

Freed was referring to a ruling in a case brought by Topeka resident Stephanie Mott, who sued the state in 2016 so that she could list her gender as female on her birth certificate. A Shawnee County judge ruled against her. 

Freed added that the department doesn’t have the authority to change an individual’s birth certificate, “with the exception of minor corrections or by court order.”

“Gender identity would not be considered a minor correction,” she said. 

In addition to Foster, the plaintiffs suing state officials are Luc Bensimon; Jessica Hicklin; an individual identified only as C.K.; and the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project Inc., better known as K-STEP. They’re represented by Lambda Legal, a national organization that advocates for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender people, and the law firm of Bryan Cave Leighton Paisner.

At a press conference in front of the federal courthouse in Kansas City, Kansas, on Monday, Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney with Lambda Legal, explained why the organization was challenging the state’s policy.

“A birth certificate is more than a piece of paper,” he said. “It is the quintessential identity document that follows a person from birth till death.”

Gonzalez-Pagan said birth certificates can determine access to education, employment, healthcare, travel and the ability to obtain other identification documents.

“It must reflect a person’s identity,” he said.  

Lambda Legal filed a similar lawsuit in Ohio earlier this year. That suit came just weeks after a federal judge, in another lawsuit brought by Lambda Legal, found that Idaho’s refusal to allow individuals to change the sex on their birth certificates violated the equal protection clause.

Foster said she was challenging Kansas’ policy “because it is the last document that doesn’t reflect who I truly am.”

“It creates different barriers for me as far as getting a job, applying for housing or health insurance,” she said.

Luc Bensimon, Foster’s fellow-plaintiff, said the state’s policy made it easier for people to discriminate against him, “on top of the discrimination I already confront based on my disability.”

Bensimon has a mild form of cerebral palsy.

“It’s frustrating,” he said. “For me, it’s not about the individuals here but about the generation coming up.”

In recent years, Kansas has been hostile to the idea of expanding legal protections to include LGBT individuals.

In August, Kansas joined 15 other states in asking the U.S. Supreme Court to rule that it’s legal to fire people for being transgender.

And in 2015, then-Gov. Sam Brownback rescinded an executive order by former Gov. Kathleen Sebelius offering legal protection against discrimination to LGBT employees of the state. 

Pedro Irgonegaray, the attorney who represented Stephanie Mott two years ago in her unsuccessful effort to amend her birth certificate, described Kansas’ LGBT policies as “regressive, abusive, uneducated and misguided.”

“We need to be more enlightened in how we deal with transgender individuals,” he said. “Unfortunately, transgender individuals, females, in particular, are the subject of abuse, violence, for no other reason than that their gender identity is incongruent with their sexual organs. And until we evolve as a state to set aside superstitions about transgender individuals and recognize the science involved, I fear that these abuses are going to continue.” 

Dan Margolies is a senior reporter and editor in conjunction with the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @DanMargoli

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KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A federal lawsuit is challenging a Kansas policy that prohibits changing the gender designation on birth certificates for transgender people.

Lamba Legal says Kansas is one of three states, along with Tennessee and Ohio, with similar policies.

The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of four people and the Kansas Statewide Transgender Education Project. It seeks an order forcing state officials to provide birth certificates that reflect a transgender person’s sex consistent with their gender identity.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said in an email that the issue was previously litigated in a state court.

Its spokeswoman said the department does not have the authority to change a birth certificate except to make minor corrections or by a court order. Gender identity is not considered a minor correction.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) – A Missouri woman has pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child in a 2017 car crash that killed her daughter.

Demetres Washington was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Washington was originally charged with second-degree murder for the death of her 13-year-old daughter, Shianna Mays. She also faced three counts of kidnapping and two counts of assault for allegedly taking Shianna and two of her other children from a family visit supervised by the Missouri Department of Social Services Children’s Division.

Mackenzie Quiovers is charged with assisting Washington in the abduction of the children from a Columbia home. The women were pursued by family members, but the chase ended with a rollover crash. Quiovers is scheduled to go to trial next month.