KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas City, Missouri, man who was thousands of dollars in debt from a drunken driving case has pleaded guilty to a Kansas bank robbery that netted just $615.

Prosecutors say 41-year-old Ryan Michael Cothern pleaded guilty Wednesday to robbing a U.S. Bank in Overland Park in October 2017.

Investigators say Cothern handed a teller his cellphone with a message demanding she put money into a bag. The teller placed $615 and a GPS locator in the bag and pulled the alarm. Cothern was arrested about 7 miles from the bank.

Johnson County records show Cothern was released from jail four days before the robbery. He was under court order to pay back more than $14,000 he owed in an earlier DUI case.

 

WASHINGTON —

Following another round of testimony, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee on Thursday approved Governor Sam Brownback to be the Ambassador-at-large for International Religious Freedom.

The nomination will now go to the full Senate. There is no timeline on when they will schedule a vote.

 

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WASHINGTON — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is back in Washington for a second U.S. Senate committee confirmation hearing on his nomination for ambassador-at-large for international religious freedom. Testimony was to begin early Thursday afternoon, according to the Foreign Relations Committee web site.

President Donald Trump nominated the two-term Republican governor for the ambassadorship in late July.

However, Brownback wasn’t among dozens of nominees given final approval by the end of the year.  There is no word on how long the process will take.

MINNEAPOLIS (AP) — Key senators and farm groups are trying to fix a provision in the federal tax overhaul that gave an unexpected tax break to farmers who sell their crops to cooperatives rather than regular companies.

Lawmakers say they didn’t intend to give a competitive advantage to co-ops. But it’s not clear they can rework the legislation given the partisan divide on Capitol Hill. That means many companies — from local grain companies to agribusiness giants such as Cargill and ADM — could wind up paying more for crops than co-ops.

The provision from GOP Sens. John Thune of South Dakota and John Hoeven of North Dakota surfaced in the final days of the debate over the tax bill, which President Donald Trump signed last month. Thune and Hoeven wanted to replace a deduction that benefited co-ops in the old law, which was being dropped, and they wanted to make sure farmers didn’t wind up with a tax increase.

But the final language went further than maintaining the status quo.

“I think at the end of the day what it boiled down to is the staff didn’t know what they were doing. … They rushed this thing through,” said U.S. Rep. Collin Peterson of Minnesota, the ranking Democrat on the House Agriculture Committee.

Agricultural co-ops are typically owned by farmers, and they provide their members with help with marketing crops, purchasing supplies and various other services. They range from small and local co-ops to big, nationwide ones such as Land O’ Lakes and Sunkist Growers.

The new provision lets farmers deduct 20 percent of their gross sales to co-ops, but only 20 percent of their net income if they sell to other companies. The difference is big enough that farmers who sell to co-ops could entirely eliminate their tax bills.

“If it stands the way it is, you’re going to see a dramatic change in who farmers sell their product to,” said Paul Neiffer, a partner with CliftonLarsonAllen, a national accounting firm with clients on both sides.

Farmers who do sell to regular companies may be able to command higher prices to help make up for the lower tax break.

Kristine Tidgren, assistant director of the Center for Agricultural Law and Taxation at Iowa State University, calculated that a farmer with $300,000 in income from grain sales to a regular company and $180,000 in expenses would have $86,400 in taxable income for the year. If that same producer sells to a co-op, she said, the farmer would have just $48,000 in taxable income.

“It’s a huge difference. … We’ve tried to tell everyone to hold on and see what happens before you make any major changes to your business,” she said.

Hoeven’s chief of staff, Ryan Bernstein, said the senators didn’t intend to give a competitive advantage to co-ops and their farmer-patrons. They’ve been working with the National Grain and Feed Association, the National Council of Farmer Cooperatives and other parties to find a quick solution, he said.

Greg Ibach, undersecretary at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, said the tax code shouldn’t “pick winners and losers” and the agency expects a correction.

The new tax break has at least one defender, the North Dakota Farmers Union. The group’s president, Mark Watne, said efforts to change it “may not be in the best interest of farmers or the viability of cooperatives.”

Spokespeople for Thune and Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas, chairman of the Senate Agriculture Committee, said they’re supporting efforts to fix the provision.

Randy Gordon, president of the National Grain and Feed Association, which represents co-ops as well as regular companies, said there’s been progress in the past week. He said in a newsletter Wednesday that all sides have held several meetings and conference calls to explore alternatives.

Minnesota-based Land O’Lakes, the country’s third-largest agricultural co-op, and Illinois-based ADM both said they look forward to a fix.

But it won’t be simple. Bernstein said Hoeven and Thune are looking at attaching it to must-pass legislation, likely a big spending bill expected to come up late next month. That assumes that everyone agrees on a solution by then.

Even a must-pass bill likely would require 60 votes to pass the Senate, which would require some support from Democrats.

“All it’s going to take is a couple Democrats in the Senate to derail the whole thing. … I’m willing to help, but it looks like a long shot to me,” Peterson said.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) – A grand jury has indicted a Missouri man on charges related to the stopping of an Amtrak train in Nebraska.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in Omaha says the grand jury Wednesday indicted 25-year-old Taylor Michael Wilson, of St. Charles, Missouri, on two counts. He was indicted on a charge of attempting to disable a train and attempting to interfere with an engineer or conductor.

The charges stem from an Oct. 23, 2017, incident in which Wilson allegedly enabled an emergency brake as the eastbound California Zephyr train traveled through western Nebraska.

The attorney’s office says the first count relates to trying to wreck or derail a train while the second accuses Wilson of acting with intent to endanger people while trying to interfere or disable an engineer or conductor.

A hearing will be held later.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — An 18-year-old Topeka man is charged with first-degree murder in a shooting death at a hotel.

Shawnee County District Attorney Mike Kagay on Thursday charged Logan Lee Able Bartley with first-degree murder, aggravated robbery and conspiracy to commit aggravated robbery.

Prosecutors allege Bartley shot 31-year-old Jesse Lee McFall last week at a Best Western Hotel.

Topeka police say McFall was shot several times during an argument at the hotel.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Federal inspectors say they found no evidence the Topeka Zoo violated any standards before the death of a 35-year-old elephant.

Inspectors were called after the Dec. 11 death of Shannon, an African elephant.

Deputy Topeka city manager Doug Gerber says a veterinary medical officer from the U.S. Department of Agriculture presented a report to the zoo Tuesday.

The cause of the animal’s death has not been determined. The veterinary pathology department at Kansas State University is evaluating tissue samples taken from the elephant.

Shannon died that day after she spent about 20 hours on the ground over a two-day span. When she was found on the ground Dec. 10, a team lifted her back up but she was found back on the ground the next day.

LYON COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating four suspects on burglary and drug charges.

An alert citizen followed the “SeeSomethingSaySomething rule,” according to the Lyon County Sheriff’s department. As a result,  four suspects were caught in the act of breaking into buildings in the 200 block of Road 190 on Wednesday afternoon.
Deputies arrested Diana Lee, 59; Clinton Moody, 28; Andrea Redburn, 31 and Nathan Kennedy, 33, all of Emporia

Moody and Redburn also had outstanding warrants they were arrested for various charges, according to the sheriff’s department. Moody has a previous drug conviction and DianaLee has a previous theft conviction, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – Republican Gov. Eric Greitens says he wants to lower income taxes for most Missourians and eliminate those taxes for the state’s lowest earners.

Greitens in a Thursday press release announced the pillars of his tax plan without much specificity. He promised more details in the coming weeks.

Greitens says he wants to cut taxes for anyone earning more than about $9,000 a year, which covers most Missourians. He didn’t say by how much.

The governor also wants to eliminate taxes for 380,000 low-income workers and reduce corporate taxes.

Spokesman Parker Briden says the governor is still working on details of the plan.

The release of the tax plan and a planned tour to promote it were delayed after the governor last week admitted to having an extramarital affair in 2015.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas Corporation Commission is studying how recently enacted federal tax cuts could affect public utilities.

The KCC on Thursday announced the general investigation and ordered utilities to track all savings from the tax cuts and to keep those funds in a separate interest-bearing account.

The tax cuts reduce the federal corporate income tax rate from 35 to 21 percent.

The commission’s announcement came after Westar Energy, Kansas City Power and Light, and Black Hills Energy announced they will ask for regulatory approval to lower their rates because of the tax cuts.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports KCP&L expects to save up to $100 million a year, while Westar anticipates it will save about $65 million a year. Black Hills did not say how much it anticipates saving.