TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Independent Kansas Senate candidate Greg Orman acknowledges having a modest business tie to a former Goldman Sachs board member convicted of insider trading.

Orman said Wednesday during a news conference that Rajat Gupta is a friend and that he won’t abandon a friend who’s made a mistake.

Orman is touting his business experience as he seeks to unseat three-term Republican incumbent Pat Roberts. The race is competitive, making Kansas an unexpected battleground in the fight for control of the Senate.

Orman said he has an investment of less than $50,000 in a company involving Gupta. Orman was not more specific.

Online business records show he and Gupta each own more than 5 percent of Exemplar Wealth Management of Olathe. Gupta’s conviction was in 2012.

 

BARBARA ORTUTAY, AP Technology Writer
PAUL ELIAS, AP Technology Writer

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Facebook says it temporarily restored hundreds of deleted profiles of self-described drag queens and others, but declined to change a policy requiring account holders to use their real names rather than drag names such as Lil Ms. Hot Mess and Sister Roma.

SPRINGFIELD (AP) – A Springfield man faces up to 40 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to making and distributing about $6.7 million worth of synthetic marijuana.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says 28-year-old Brandon D. Franklin pleaded guilty Wednesday to conspiracy to commit mail fraud and money laundering. Besides any prison time he’ll receive at sentencing, Franklin must also forfeit the $6.7 million, about $800,000 from bank accounts and investments, and real estate in Missouri, California and Oregon.

Franklin admitted manufacturing and selling K2, which is dried plant material sprayed or mixed with the active ingredient in marijuana. The product was marketed as incense and sold at retail outlets in Springfield and Joplin and shipped via FedEx.

Prosecutors said the scheme involved the sale of about 2,200 kilograms of K2.

SPRINGFIELD (AP) – A southwest Missouri man already serving 18 years in state prison for attempted enticement of a child has been sentenced to more than 24 years in federal prison for sexual exploitation of a minor.

The U.S. Attorney’s office says 40-year-old Ezra Robert Gramm, of Springfield, won’t be eligible for parole under the sentence he received Wednesday in federal court. District Judge Gregory Kay ordered the federal sentence to be served after Gramm completes his Missouri prison term.

Gramm pleaded guilty in May 2013 to making contact in late 2009 with a 13-year-old girl in an online chat room. Gram admitted asking the girl to take sexually explicit photos of herself and send them to him, which she did.

Law enforcement officers reported finding multiple images of the girl on Gramm’s cellphone.

NEW YORK (AP) — A bug in Apple’s new iOS 8 software for mobile devices is prompting the company to withhold apps that use a highly touted feature for keeping track of fitness and health data.

Apple says it hopes to have HealthKit apps restored to its app store by the end of the month. The bug affects Apple’s own Health app and those made by outside developers. Apple didn’t provide details on what went wrong.

The iOS 8 software became available Wednesday. HealthKit is supposed to create a central repository for health and fitness data, so that apps have a better picture of your overall wellness and can even recommend trips to the doctor.

Apple’s new iPhones have sensors to monitor fitness activities, and its upcoming Apple Watch will have a heart-rate monitor.

JOPLIN (AP) – Officials in Joplin say Vice President Joe Biden will speak at next month’s dedication of the city’s new high school.

The district announced Wednesday that Biden will be joined by U.S. Education Secretary Arne Duncan for the Oct. 3 ceremony at the Joplin High School/Franklin Technology Center.

Half of Joplin’s schools were damaged or destroyed in the May 2011 tornado that killed 161 people and flattened thousands of homes and businesses.

Construction of the new high school was the last of the district’s major rebuilding projects. It opened Sept. 2.

As part of the Oct. 3 dedication, students, parents and others will try to set a world record for the longest ribbon used in a ribbon-cutting ceremony. The planned 6.5-mile ribbon symbolizes the tornado’s path through Joplin.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A suburban Kansas City teenager is no longer in a medically induced coma and is speaking with family members after a police officer critically injured him with a stun gun.

The Kansas City Star  reports 17-year-old Bryce Masters of Independence began slowly recovering overnight and was able to answer questions from hospital staff on Wednesday. Family attorney Daniel Haus says the teen is breathing on his own but remains in critical condition.

Masters’ family has said his heart stopped after he was shocked with the stun gun during a traffic stop Sunday in Independence.

Police say he was combative and wouldn’t comply with the officer’s demands. They say he was pulled over because of a warrant associated with the license plate on the car, which belonged to someone else.

 

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Doctors in Nebraska treating a U.S. doctor battling the Ebola virus say they now expect him to make a full recovery.

Fifty-one-year-old Rick Sacra contracted Ebola while working at a hospital in Liberia. He’s been hospitalized in Omaha since Sept. 5.

Dr. Phil Smith is the medical director of the Nebraska Medical Center isolation unit where Sacra is being treated. Smith said Wednesday that an initial set of blood samples from Sacra sent to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed a decreased amount of the virus in his blood

Doctors are now awaiting results of a second set of blood samples.

Dr. Angela Hewlett, associate medical director of the unit, says there must be two negative blood tests done 24 hours apart for Sacra to be released.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A suburban Topeka school district is among several nationwide that have taken advantage of free military surplus gear, but officials aren’t saying what they got.

Auburn Washburn superintendent Brenda Dietrich said Wednesday the district learned of the Pentagon’s surplus program from a staff member who had a spouse at the Kansas Bureau of Investigations.

Dietrich would say only that district police received a piece of safety equipment that is part of an emergency operations plan.

District spokesman Martin Weishaar says the equipment is not a grenade launcher or a tank or anti-mine vehicle. But he refused to describe it because the district considers that security-related information.

The equipment is meant to be used in response to a situation in which somebody outside a school would want to do harm.

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TAMI ABDOLLAH, Associated Press

LOS ANGELES (AP) — School police departments across the country have taken advantage of free military surplus gear, stocking up on mine resistant vehicles, grenade launchers and scores of M16 rifles.

JOHN HANNA, AP Political Writer

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Republican serving as Kansas’ top elections official won’t give up on forcing Democrats to field a U.S. Senate candidate, even if the state Supreme Court orders the current nominee’s removal from the ballot.

Secretary of State Kris Kobach said Tuesday that state law requires Democratic leaders to pick a new candidate if Chad Taylor is removed from the ballot. Taylor stopped campaigning but Kobach refused to remove him from the Nov. 4 ballot.

Taylor went to the Supreme Court. It had a hearing Tuesday.

Some Democrats pushed Taylor to leave the race against three-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, seeing independent candidate Greg Orman as stronger.

Kobach said Tuesday that state law requires parties to fill candidate vacancies, and he’s ready to return to the Supreme Court if necessary.