CAMDENTON, Mo. (AP) — The parents of two suburban Kansas City victims of a Lake of the Ozarks boat crash have filed a lawsuit.

The suit was filed in Camden County, Missouri, Circuit Court on behalf of the families of 23-year-old Joseph LeMark, of Overland Park, Kansas, and 21-year-old Hailey Hochandel, of Olathe, Kansas.

They were killed in May along with 24-year-old Daniel Lewis, who was driving the boat when it slammed into a rock bluff in the dark. Two others were injured, including the boat’s owner, 22-year-old Hayden Frazier.

The suit alleges that Lewis was intoxicated and operated the craft in a negligent and careless manner. It says Frazier was negligent in allowing him to do so.

The suit seeks an unspecified amount in damages.

Ashley Lamb a 22-year-old senior at Kansas State University was also injured in the crash.

VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Francis has defrocked former U.S. Cardinal Theodore McCarrick after Vatican officials found him guilty of soliciting for sex while hearing confession and sexual crimes against minors and adults, the Holy See said Saturday.

McCarrick, 88, is the highest-ranking churchman to be laicized, as the process is called. It means he can no longer celebrate Mass or other sacraments, wear clerical vestments or be addressed by any religious title.

The scandal swirling around him was particularly damning to the church’s reputation in the eyes of the faithful because it apparently was an open secret that he slept with adult seminarians. Francis removed McCarrick as a cardinal in July after a U.S. church investigation determined that an allegation he fondled a teenage altar boy in the 1970s was credible.

The punishment for the once-powerful prelate, who had served as the archbishop of Washington and had been an influential fundraiser for the church, was announced five days before Francis is set to lead an extraordinary gathering of bishops from around the world to help the church grapple with the crisis of sex abuse by clergy and systematic cover-ups by church hierarchy. The decades-long scandals have shaken the faith of many Catholics and threatened Francis’ papacy.

The Vatican’s press office said that on Jan. 11, the Holy See’s doctrinal watchdog office, the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, had found McCarrick guilty of “solicitation in the sacrament of confession, and sins against the Sixth Commandment with minors and adults, with the aggravating factor of the abuse of power.” The commandment forbids adultery.

The officials “imposed on him the penalty of dismissal from the clerical state.”

McCarrick, when he was ordained a priest his native New York City in 1958, took a vow of celibacy, in accordance with church rules on priests.

The pope “has recognized the definitive nature of this decision made in accordance with (church) law, rendering it as ‘res iudicata,'” the Vatican said, using the Latin phrase for admitting no further recourse.

“Today I am happy that the pope believed me,” said one of McCarrick’s chief accusers, James Grein.

In a statement issued through his lawyer, Grein also expressed hope that McCarrick “will no longer be able to use the power of Jesus’ church to manipulate families and sexually abuse children.”

Grein had testified to church officials that, among other abuses, McCarrick had repeatedly groped him during confession.

Saying it’s “time for us to cleanse the church,” Grein said pressure needs to be put on state attorney generals and senators to change the statute of limitations. “Hundreds of priests, bishops and cardinals are hiding behind man-made law,” he said.

McCarrick moved from his Washington retirement home to a Kansas religious residence after Francis ordered him to live in penance and prayer while the investigation continued.

McCarrick’s civil lawyer, Barry Coburn, told The AP that for the time being his client had no comment. Coburn also declined to say if McCarrick was still residing at the friary in Victoria, Kansas.

McCarrick had appealed his penalty, but the doctrinal officials earlier this week rejected that, and he was notified of the decision on Friday, the Vatican announcement said.

The archdiocese of Washington, D.C., where McCarrick was posted at the pinnacle of his clerical career, from 2001-2006, said in a statement it hoped that the Vatican decision “serves to help the healing process for survivors of abuse, as well as those who have experienced disappointment or disillusionment because of what former Archbishop McCarrick has done.”

Complaints were also made about McCarrick’s conduct in the New Jersey dioceses of Newark and Metuchen, where he previously served.

It marks a remarkable downfall for the globe-trotting powerbroker and influential church fundraiser who mingled with presidents and popes but preferred to be called “Uncle Ted” by the young men he courted.

The Vatican summit, running Feb. 21-24, draws church leaders from around the world to talk about preventing abuse. It was called in part to respond to the McCarrick scandal as well as to the explosion of the abuse crisis in Chile and its escalation in the United States last year.

Despite the apparent common knowledge in church circles of his sexual behavior, McCarrick rose to the heights of church power. He even acted as the spokesman for U.S. bishops when they enacted a “zero tolerance” policy against sexually abusive priests in 2002.

That perceived hypocrisy, coupled with allegations in the Pennsylvania grand jury report detailing decades of abuse and cover-up in six dioceses, outraged many among the rank-and-file faithful who had trusted church leaders to reform how they handled sex abuse after 2002.

The allegation regarding the altar boy was the first known to involve a minor — a far more serious offense than sleeping with adult seminarians.

Francis himself became implicated in the decade-long McCarrick cover-up after a former Vatican ambassador to the U.S. accused the pope of rehabilitating the cardinal from sanctions imposed by Pope Benedict XVI despite being told of his penchant for young men.

Francis hasn’t responded to the claims. But he has ordered a limited Vatican investigation. The Vatican has acknowledged the outcome may produce evidence that mistakes were made, but said Francis would “follow the path of truth, wherever it may lead.”

Vatican watchers have compared the McCarrick cover-up scandal to that of the Rev. Marcial Maciel, perhaps the 20th-century Catholic Church’s most notorious pedophile. Maciel’s sex crimes against children were ignored for decades by a Vatican impressed by his ability to bring in donations and vocations. Among Maciel’s staunchest admirers was Pope John Paul II, who later became a saint.

Like Maciel, McCarrick was a powerful and popular prelate who funneled millions in donations to the Vatican. He apparently got a calculated pass for what many in the church hierarchy would have either discounted as ideological-fueled rumor or brushed off as a mere “moral lapse” in sleeping with adult men.

By STEPHEN KORANDA

Gov. Laura Kelly has said she has an easy solution for funding schools. Just renew the finance plan the Kansas Legislature agreed to last year and fold in an adjustment for inflation. But over in the Senate, lawmakers are picking that proposal apart.

After months of wrangling last year, lawmakers approved a $500 million multi-year boost for schools in response to a state Supreme Court ruling in the long-running Gannon case.

The justices said that plan made strides, but still wasn’t enough to fulfill the mandate in the state constitution.

The governor’s new proposal would add another $360 million over four years.

Kelly, a Democrat, branded herself as the “education governor” during the fall campaign. And she hammered on the issue during her first State of the State speech last month.

“We’re going to properly fund our schools this year. And next year. And the year after that,” she said. “Every year, every month, every day that I’m governor.”

A Senate committee held two days of hearings, where a parade of school administrators voiced support for the governor’s proposal.

They said last year’s funding boost, coupled with the inflationary adjustment, would allow them to continue investing in services for struggling students and plan ahead when hiring teachers.

“We can talk all day about teacher quality, but if we can’t plan on how many teachers we’re even going to staff, it hurts,” said Goddard Public Schools Superintendent Justin Henry. “You just don’t find them in July.”

BARNHART, Mo. (AP) — A dog found in an eastern Missouri ditch with electrical and duct tape around his mouth and legs has been reunited with his owner.

Authorities believe the dog was in a ditch in cold temperatures for about 12 hours before a Jefferson County sheriff’s deputy found him Saturday . He was dubbed “Jimmy” while he recovered.

The sheriff’s office said the dog — whose name is “Flick” — had “an emotional” reunion with his owner Friday and was headed home. An area funeral home paid for the dog’s care.

Jefferson County Sheriff Dave Marshak said Thursday 39-year-old Paul Garcia of Barnhart was charged with felony animal abuse and armed criminal action. Marshak says investigators believe Barnhart taped the dog and threw him out of a window. A motive hasn’t been disclosed.

By JIM MCLEAN

Kansas U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran is one of several Republicans who expressed concern about President Donald Trump’s declaration Friday of a national emergency to fund construction of a U.S.-Mexico border wall.

Like any agreement in divided government, the funding bill signed today is not perfect. But, it does prevent another shutdown, and provides funding to increase security at the border and support programs that greatly benefit MO

— Senator Roy Blunt (@RoyBlunt) February 15, 2019

Both Moran and fellow Republican U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts voted for a bipartisan appropriations bill, which prevented another partial shutdown of the federal government and passed the Senate 86-16. Democrat Sharice Davids was the only member of Kansas’ U.S. House delegation to support the measure, which passed 300-128 in the House.

We started these negotiations asking for 230 miles of border wall – Washington left us now with 55 miles. Any Kansan can tell you that’s not a compromise worth taking.

— Dr. Roger Marshall (@RogerMarshallMD) February 14, 2019

Moran told the Kansas News Service last month during the government shutdown over the wall funding that he shared Trump’s concerns about border security, but that he hoped the president wouldn’t use emergency powers to circumvent Congress.

“Throughout my time in the Congress, particularly in the Senate, I have complained about administrations taking more and more of what is constitutionally the responsibility of the United States Congress,” he said. “But I also complain that Congress allows it to happen.”

The 1976 law that gives the president authority to declare a national emergency also gives Congress the power to terminate the order.

On Friday, Trump signed the appropriations bill. The president then declared an emergency on Friday because the measure included only $1.3 billion of the $5.7 billion he wanted for the wall. Unless blocked by Congress or the courts, the declaration will allow the president to redirect money appropriated for the U.S. military and for disaster response.

In a statement, Davids called the bill a good compromise that “funds smart and effective security at our borders and many other important investments in our communities.” The congresswoman, who is serving her first term in the 3rd District seat she captured from Republican Kevin Yoder in November, also criticized the president’s emergency declaration as “dangerous to our democracy.”

The Republican House members from Kansas all opposed the funding bill.

“It is shameful that these negotiations failed to secure our border, so I understand and respect the president’s declaration (of a national emergency),” U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall said in a statement. Marshall, who represents the vast western Kansas 1st District, voted it down because it included only enough money to build 55 of the 230 miles of border wall sought by Trump.

“I’m fed up with it, and the more than 70 percent of Kansans in my district who want the wall built are sick and tired of the political games and dysfunction in Washington,” he said.

Rep. Ron Estes, a Republican from Wichita who oversees the 4th District, also said the lack of funding for the wall justified emergency declaration.

“Rather than President Trump needing to declare a national emergency to protect our country, Congress should have done its job to provide increased border security,” Estes said in a statement.

U.S. Rep. Steve Watkins, a Topeka Republican serving his first term, ran as a “build the wall guy.” He said the funding bill doesn’t do what’s needed.

“Our border agents told us what it will require to secure our border and this is not it,” Watkins said on Twitter.

Jim McLean is the senior correspondent for the Kansas News Service. You can reach him on Twitter @jmcleanks. 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly has three words for workers at the state’s most crowded maximum-security prison: “Please don’t quit.”

Kelly spoke to more than 100 employees at El Dorado Correctional Facility on Thursday, two days after the Kansas Department of Corrections declared an emergency there. She says to “Trust that we will work this out as fast as we can.”

The prison has 95 vacant staff positions while also housing 74 inmates over its limit. It’s had multiple inmate disturbances over the past two years. Several staff members raised issues of working long hours of overtime, sometimes with few breaks, and years of no pay raises.

Interim Corrections Secretary Roger Werholtz told prison employees that “What’s happening here right now is not sustainable.”

WASHBURN, Mo. (AP) — A former Missouri drama teacher has been charged with having sex with a 16-year-old student at the high school.

23-year-old Chelsie Leroy, of Washburn, was charged last week with four felonies, including two counts each of second-degree statutory rape and sexual contact with a student by a teacher. Her attorney didn’t immediately return a phone message.

Charging documents say she had two sexual encounters with the teen in the high school’s “little teacher” room, the first time on Sept. 20. Court documents say Leroy was a substitute with extra duties as a drama teacher.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Battling with one branch of government and opening a new confrontation with another, President Donald Trump announced Friday he was declaring a national emergency to fulfill his pledge to construct a wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.

Bypassing Congress, which approved far less money for his proposed wall than he had sought, Trump said he would use executive action to siphon billions of dollars from federal military construction and counterdrug efforts for the wall, aides said. The move is already drawing bipartisan criticism on Capitol Hill and expected to face rounds of legal challenges.

Trump made the announcement from the Rose Garden, as he claimed illegal immigration was “an invasion of our country.”

Trump’s move followed a rare show of bipartisanship when lawmakers voted Thursday to fund large swaths of the government and avoid a repeat of this winter’s debilitating five-week government shutdown. The money in the bill for border barriers, about $1.4 billion, is far below the $5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance just a quarter of the more than 200 miles (322 kilometers) he wanted this year.

To bridge the gap, Trump announced that he will be spending roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through executive actions, including the national emergency. The money is expected to come from funds targeted for military construction and counterdrug efforts, but aides could not immediately specify which military projects would be affected.

Despite widespread opposition in Congress to proclaiming an emergency, including by some Republicans, Trump was responding to pressure to act unilaterally to soothe his conservative base and avoid appearing like he’s lost his wall battle.

Word that Trump would declare the emergency prompted condemnations from Democrats and threats of lawsuits from states and others who might lose federal money or said Trump was abusing his authority.

In a sing-songy tone of voice, Trump described how the decision will be challenged and work its way through the courts, including up to the U.S. Supreme Court.

He said, “Sadly, we’ll be sued and sadly it will go through a process and happily we’ll win, I think.”

In an unusual joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., called it an “unlawful declaration over a crisis that does not exist” and said it “does great violence to our Constitution and makes America less safe, stealing from urgently needed defense funds for the security of our military and our nation. ”

“The President’s actions clearly violate the Congress’s exclusive power of the purse, which our Founders enshrined in the Constitution,” they said. “The Congress will defend our constitutional authorities in the Congress, in the Courts, and in the public, using every remedy available.”

Democratic state attorneys general said they’d consider legal action to block Trump. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told the president on Twitter “we’ll see you in court” if he made the declaration.

Even if his emergency declaration withstands challenge, Trump is still billions of dollars short of his overall funding needed to build the wall as he promised in 2016. After two years of effort, Trump has not added any new border mileage; all of the construction so far has gone to replacing and repairing existing structures. Ground is expected to be broken in South Texas soon on the first new mileage.

The White House said Trump would not try to redirect federal disaster aid to the wall, a proposal they had considered but rejected over fears of a political blowback.

—————-

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress lopsidedly approved a border security compromise that would avert a second painful government shutdown.

But a new confrontation has been ignited — this time over President Donald Trump’s plan to bypass lawmakers and declare a national emergency to siphon billions of dollarsfrom other federal coffers for his wall on the Mexican boundary.

Money in the bill for border barriers, about $1.4 billion, is far below the $5.7 billion Trump insisted he needed and would finance just a quarter of the 200-plus miles (322 kilometers) he wanted. The White House said he’d sign the legislation but act unilaterally to get more, prompting condemnations from Democrats and threats of lawsuits from states and others who might lose federal money or said Trump was abusing his authority.

The uproar over Trump’s next move cast an uncertain shadow over what had been a rare display of bipartisanship to address the grinding battle between the White House and lawmakers over border security.

The Senate passed the legislation 83-16 Thursday, with both parties solidly aboard. The House followed with a 300-128 tally, with Trump’s signature planned Friday. Trump will speak Friday morning in the Rose Garden about border security, the White House said.

Trump is expected to announce that he will be spending roughly $8 billion on border barriers — combining the money approved by Congress with funding he plans to repurpose through executive actions, including a national emergency, said a White House official who was not authorized to speak publicly. The money is expected to come from funds targeted for military construction and counterdrug efforts.

House Democrats overwhelmingly backed the legislation, with only 19 — most of whom were Hispanic — opposed. Just over half of Republicans voted “no.”

Should Trump change his mind, both chambers’ margins were above the two-thirds majorities needed to override presidential vetoes. Lawmakers, however, sometimes rally behind presidents of the same party in such battles.

Lawmakers exuded relief that the agreement had averted a fresh closure of federal agencies just three weeks after a record-setting 35-day partial shutdown that drew an unambiguous thumbs-down from the public. But in announcing that Trump would sign the accord, White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders also said he’d take “other executive action, including a national emergency,”

In an unusual joint statement, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said such a declaration would be “a lawless act, a gross abuse of the power of the presidency and a desperate attempt to distract” from Trump’s failure to force Mexico to pay for the wall, as he’s promised for years.

“Congress will defend our constitutional authorities,” they said. They declined to say whether that meant lawsuits or votes on resolutions to prevent Trump from unilaterally shifting money to wall-building, with aides saying they’d wait to see what he does.

Democratic state attorneys general said they’d consider legal action to block Trump. Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello told the president on Twitter “we’ll see you in court” if he makes the declaration.

Despite widespread opposition in Congress to proclaiming an emergency, including by some Republicans, Trump is under pressure to act unilaterally to soothe his conservative base and avoid looking like he’s lost his wall battle.

The abrupt announcement of Trump’s plans came late in an afternoon of rumblings that the volatile president — who’d strongly hinted he’d sign the agreement but wasn’t definitive — was shifting toward rejecting it. That would have infused fresh chaos into a fight both parties are desperate to leave behind, a thought that drove some lawmakers to ask heavenly help.

“Let’s all pray that the president will have wisdom to sign the bill so the government doesn’t shut down,” Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said Thursday’s Senate session opened.

Moments before Sanders spoke at the White House, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., took to the Senate floor to announce Trump’s decisions to sign the bill and declare an emergency.

Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, told reporters there were two hours of phone calls between McConnell and the White House before there were assurances that Trump would sign.

McConnell argued that the bill delivered victories for Trump over Pelosi. These included overcoming her pledge to not fund the wall at all and rejecting a Democratic proposal for numerical limits on detaining some immigrants, said a Republican speaking on condition of anonymity to describe private conversations.

In a surprising development, McConnell said he would support Trump’s emergency declaration, a turnabout for the Kentucky Republican, who like many lawmakers had opposed such action.

Democrats say there is no border crisis and Trump would be using a declaration simply to sidestep Congress. Some Republicans warn that future Democratic presidents could use his precedent to force spending on their own priorities, like gun control. GOP critics included Maine Sen. Susan Collins, who said emergency declarations are for “major natural disasters or catastrophic events” and said its use would be of “dubious constitutionality.”

White House staff and congressional Republicans have said that besides an emergency, Trump might assert other authorities that could conceivably put him within reach of billions of dollars. The money could come from funds targeted for military construction, disaster relief and counterdrug efforts.

Congressional aides say there is $21 billion for military construction that Trump could use if he declares a national emergency. By law, the money must be used to support U.S. armed forces, they say. The Defense Department declined to provide details on available money.

With many of the Democrats’ liberal base voters adamantly against Trump’s aggressive attempts to curb immigration, four declared presidential hopefuls opposed the bill in the Senate: Cory Booker of New Jersey, New York’s Kirsten Gillibrand, Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Kamala Harris of California. Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota voted for it, as did Vermont independent Bernie Sanders, who is expected to join the field soon.

Notably, the word “wall,” the heart of many a chant at Trump campaign events and his rallies as president, is absent from the compromise’s 1,768-page legislative and descriptive language. “Barriers” and “fencing” are the nouns of choice, a victory for Democrats eager to deny Trump even a rhetorical victory.

The agreement, which took bargainers three weeks to strike, would also squeeze funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, or ICE, in an attempt to pressure the agency to detain fewer immigrants. To the dismay of Democrats, however, it would still leave an agency many of them consider abusive holding thousands more immigrants than last year.

The measure contains money for improved surveillance equipment, more customs agents and humanitarian aid for detained immigrants. The overall bill also provides $330 billion to finance dozens of federal programs for the rest of the year, one-fourth of federal agency budgets.

Trump sparked the last shutdown before Christmas after Democrats snubbed his $5.7 billion demand for the wall. The closure denied paychecks to 800,000 federal workers, hurt contractors and people reliant on government services and was loathed by the public.

With polls showing the public blamed him and GOP lawmakers, Trump folded on Jan. 25 without getting any of the wall funds. His capitulation was a political fiasco for Republicans and handed Pelosi a victory less than a month after Democrats took over the House and confronted Trump with a formidable rival for power.

Trump’s descriptions of the wall have fluctuated, at times saying it would cover 1,000 miles of the 2,000-mile boundary. Previous administrations constructed over 650 miles of barriers.