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.”
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Thirty-three priests or religious brothers in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Jefferson City, Missouri, have been “credibly accused” and/or removed from the ministry over sexual abuse of minors, the bishop of the central Missouri diocese said Thursday.
Bishop W. Shawn McKnight released a complete list of the names that followed an internal investigation begun in February. The list includes 25 priests from the diocese, three priests from other areas who previously served in the Jefferson City diocese, and five members of a religious order.
Fourteen of the 33 men named are dead. Many of them are elderly. The diocese said the most recent case of physical sexual abuse found in the investigation occurred in 1997.
“Although the incidents are in the past, the pain caused is still a present reality for the survivors of abuse and their loved ones,” McKnight said in a statement. He apologized for the actions of the priests and brothers, “and the incomplete transparency we have lived under by not making all their names public.”
McKnight also encouraged any additional victims to come forward.
David Clohessy, St. Louis director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, or SNAP, called the list “irresponsibly and painfully short on details.”
McKnight “should reveal where each of these men worked, when they were accused, when those allegations were deemed credible, why the years of secrecy, and where the men are now,” Clohessy said in a statement.
The internal investigation is unrelated to an investigation announced in August by Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, in which the Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, the Diocese of Jefferson City, the Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau and the Archdiocese of St. Louis all agreed to open their records.
Hawley’s announcement came amid renewed concern about sexual abuse by priests that followed the release of a scathing report in Pennsylvania citing abuse of more than 1,000 children by hundreds of priests since the 1940s, along with cover-up by church leaders.
Mary Compton, a spokeswoman for Hawley, said that investigation is “active and ongoing,” but offered no timetable for when it will be complete.
“We are working as quickly as possible to carefully and thoroughly review all evidence obtained by our office,” Compton said in a statement. “The Pennsylvania Grand Jury completed its work in two years. Our Office believes Missourians deserve answers as soon as feasible.”
Hawley on Tuesday defeated incumbent Democrat Claire McCaskill in the race for U.S. Senate. Gov. Mike Parson will name a replacement.
Jack Smith, spokesman for the Catholic Diocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph, said the diocese also plans to release a list of names but will wait until the Attorney General’s investigation is complete.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Charges have been filed against the captain of a tourist boat that sank in a southwest Missouri lake in July and killed 17 people, including nine members of an Indiana family, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
A federal indictment shows 51-year-old Kenneth Scott McKee is facing 17 counts of misconduct, negligence or inattention to duty by a ship’s officer resulting in death. The accident occurred when an amphibious vessel known as a duck boat sank when a sudden and severe storm rolled into the area.
McKee is accused of not properly assessing the weather before or after the boat went into Table Rock Lake near the tourist town of Branson, U.S. Attorney Tim Garrison said during a news conference in Springfield. McKee also allegedly failed to tell passengers to put on their flotation devices or prepare them to abandon ship as waves crashed into the boat, which was originally designed for military use in World War II but had been refurbished as a tourist attraction.
Ripley Entertainment, the company that operated the boats and suspended the operation following the accident, didn’t immediately respond to messages from The Associated Press seeking comment on the indictment.
The U.S. Coast Guard had found probable cause that the accident resulted from McKee’s “misconduct, negligence, or inattention to the duties,” according to an August court filing. The U.S. attorney’s office added that the captain of a second duck boat that safely made it to shore during the storm acted in a “grossly negligent manner,” though the court filing didn’t elaborate on those findings.
The sinking killed nine members of Tia Coleman’s family, including her three young children and husband, who were vacationing from Indiana. The other people killed included two couples from Missouri, an Illinois woman who died while saving her granddaughter’s life, an Arkansas father and son, and a retired pastor who was the boat’s operator on land. Several lawsuits have been filed on behalf of victims and their survivors.
A spokeswoman for Ripley Entertainment has repeatedly declined to comment on the investigation but has said the company has cooperated with authorities.
Garrison said McKee violated conditions specified in the boat’s certificate of inspection by failing to tell passengers to put on personal floatation devices and not immediately increasing speed and driving to the nearest shore, according to the indictment.
The indictment also alleges McKee allowed the boat’s plastic side curtains to be lowered, which blocked the exits, and didn’t instruct passengers to put on flotation devices or prepare them to abandon ship even after the bilge alarm sounded twice.
The vessels first take tourists on a trip through Branson, a Midwestern destination for country music shows and entertainment venues about 170 miles (274 kilometers) northwest of Little Rock, Arkansas. The amphibious vehicles then travel to Table Rock Lake for a short excursion on water.
Weather was calm when the vessel known as a Stretch Duck 7 began its trip on July 19, but investigators have contended that operators had ample warning that a strong storm was approaching.
The vessel’s certificate of inspection issued by the Coast Guard in 2017 established rules and limitations on when it could be on the water. It states the boat “shall not be operated waterborne” when winds exceed 35 mph and/or wave heights exceed 2 feet.
Video and audio from the boat, recovered by divers, showed that the lake was calm when the boat entered the water. But the weather suddenly turned violent and, within minutes, the boat sank.
The wind speed at the time of the accident was more than 70 mph, just short of hurricane force, according to the National Transportation Safety Board. Weather forecasts had warned of an impending storm with winds possibly exceeding 60 mph.
The wave height wasn’t known, but cellphone video shot by passengers on a nearby excursion boat showed waves that appeared to be far greater than 2 feet (0.61 meters) high.
In addition to the weather, the Coast Guard has said it was looking into regulatory compliance of the boat and crew member duties and qualifications.
Branson is among several places around the country where the amphibious vehicles offer excursions. Since 1999, 42 deaths have been associated with duck boat accidents .
On May 1, 1999, 13 people died when the Miss Majestic duck boat sank on Lake Hamilton near Hot Springs, Arkansas. In 2015, five college students died and more than 70 people were hurt when a duck boat veered into a charter bus on a bridge in Seattle. Two Hungarian tourists died in 2010 when a stalled duck boat was struck by a tugboat-guided barge on the Delaware River in Philadelphia.
SALINE COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 4 a.m. Thursday in Saline County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 1992 Chevy Cavalier driven by Michael Rudroff, 29, Rolla, Missouri, was eastbound on Interstate 70 just east of Hedville Road.
The car left the roadway and came to rest underneath the bridge.
A passenger Stacy Crader, 44, Tipton, Missouri, was pronounced dead at the scene.
Rudroff was transported to the hospital in Salina. They were not wearing seat belts, according to the KHP.
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KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) – An anti-abortion activist who shot and wounded Kansas abortion doctor George Tiller in 1993 and committed clinic attacks in several states has been released from prison in Oregon.
The U.S. Bureau of Prisons on Wednesday confirmed the release of 62-year-old Rachelle “Shelley” Shannon. The bureau says she’ll be on supervised release for three years. Conditions of her release aren’t public.
Shannon was sentenced to 20 years in prison for six fire bombings and two acid attacks at abortion clinics in California, Oregon and Nevada.
She received 11 years for shooting Tiller, who was fatally shot in Wichita in 2009 by another anti-abortion extremist, Scott Roeder, who visited Shannon several times in prison.
Shannon had been staying at a halfway house in Portland, Oregon, since May. She has been in custody for 25 years.
FARMINGTON, Mo. (AP) – The wife of a slain Missouri Ku Klux Klan leader says in a letter from jail that she was the one who pulled the trigger, not her son.
Malissa Ancona and her son, Paul Edward Jinkerson Jr., face charges that include first-degree murder in the death of Frank Ancona, who called himself an “imperial wizard” of the Ku Klux Klan.
She agreed last year to testify against her son. She originally told police that Jinkerson shot his stepfather after he asked her for a divorce. The body of the 51-year-old was found in February 2017 outside of Belgrade, which is about 70 miles (110 kilometers) miles south of St. Louis.
Barnhart rejected a plea deal with prosecutors. Jinkerson’s trial is set for May.
THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — A hooded gunman dressed entirely in black opened fire on a crowd at a country dance bar holding a weekly “college night” in Southern California, killing 12 people and sending hundreds fleeing including some who used barstools to break windows and escape, authorities said Thursday. The gunman was later found dead at the scene.
An Emergency Information Hotline to assist locating people that may have been involved in the #BorderLineShooting incident has been established by @Venturaoes: at 805-465-6650
— Ventura Co. Sheriff (@VENTURASHERIFF) November 8, 2018
The dead from the shooting Wednesday night also included 11 people inside the bar and a sheriff’s sergeant who was the first officer inside the door, Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean said.
“It’s a horrific scene in there,” Dean told a news conference in the parking lot of the Borderline Bar & Grill. “There’s blood everywhere.”
The massacre was the deadliest mass shooting in the United States since 17 classmates and teachers were gunned down at a Parkland, Florida school nine months ago. It also came less than two weeks after a gunman killed 11 people at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. That, it turn, closely followed the series of pipe bombs mailed to prominent Democrats, CNN and former officials critical of President Donald Trump.
The gunman at the country dance bar was tall and wearing all black with a hood over his head and his face partly covered, witnesses told TV stations at the scene. He first fired on a person working the door, then appeared to open fire at random at the people inside, they said.
Many more people had more minor injuries, including some that came from their attempt to flee, Dean said.
Sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Helus and a passing highway patrolman were responding to several 911 calls when they arrived at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks at about 11:20 p.m., the sheriff said. They heard gunfire and went inside.
Helus was immediately hit with multiple gunshots, Dean said. The highway patrolman cleared the perimeter and pulled Helus out, and then waited as a SWAT team and scores more officers arrived. Helus died early Thursday at a hospital.
By the time they entered the bar again the gunfire had stopped. They found 12 people dead inside, including the gunman.
It’s not yet clear how the gunman died, and authorities do not yet know his name or have any idea of a motive, Dean said.
It was college night and country two-step lessons were being offered Wednesday at the Borderline, according to its website.
The bar, which includes a large dance hall with a stage and a pool room along with several smaller areas for eating and drinking, is a popular hangout for students from nearby California Lutheran University. It’s also close to several other universities including California State University Channel Islands in Camarillo, Pepperdine University in Malibu and Moorpark College in Moorpark.
When the gunman entered, people screamed and fled to all corners of the bar, while a few people threw barstools through the windows and helped dozens to escape, witnesses said.
Tayler Whitler, 19, said she was on the dance floor with her friends nearby when she saw the gunman shooting and heard screams to “get down.”
“It was really, really, really shocking,” Whitler told KABC-TV as she stood with her father in the Borderline parking lot. “It looked like he knew what he was doing.”
Sarah Rose DeSon told ABC’s “Good Morning America” that she saw the shooter draw his gun.
“I dropped to the floor,” she said. “A friend yelled ‘Everybody down!’ We were hiding behind tables trying to keep ourselves covered.”
Shootings of any kind are very rare in Thousand Oaks, a city of about 130,000 people about 40 miles (64 kilometers) west of Los Angeles, just across the county line.
Helus was a 29-year veteran of the force with a wife and son and planned to retire in the coming year, said the sheriff, who choked back tears several times as he talked about the sergeant who was also his longtime friend.
“Ron was a hardworking, dedicated sheriff’s sergeant who was totally committed,” Dean said, “and tonight, as I told his wife, he died a hero because he went in to save lives.”
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THOUSAND OAKS, Calif. (AP) — The Latest on a shooting at a bar in Southern California (all times local):
A sheriff says 13 people are dead, including a sheriff’s sergeant and the gunman, after a shooting inside a crowded Southern California bar late Wednesday.
Ventura County Sheriff Geoff Dean says sheriff’s Sgt. Ron Helus responded to the scene and was shot after he entered the building. He died at a hospital early Thursday.
Authorities did not say how the gunman died.
For information on the Borderline Bar & Grill incident please call the Joint Public Information Hotline at 805.465.6650 or https://t.co/iHQJXycKbX
Para mas informacion sobre Borderline Bar & Grill incidente porfavor llame a la linea de infromacion conjunta del Condado de Ventura— Ventura OES (@Venturaoes) November 8, 2018
Dean says around 10 other people were shot and wounded. No other information on the victims was immediately known.
Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Garo Kuredjian said the first reports of shots fired came around 11:20 p.m. at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, which is about 40 miles west of Los Angeles.
The bar’s website says its hosts “College Country Night” every Wednesday. Police said hundreds were inside when the shooting occurred.
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2 a.m.
Ventura County Sheriff Sgt. Eric Buschow says the gunman is dead inside a Southern California bar where 11 people were injured late Wednesday.
Authorities say a responding deputy was shot and taken to a hospital. No other information on the victims was immediately known.
Ventura County Sheriff’s Office Capt. Garo Kuredjian said the first reports of shots fired came around 11:20 p.m. at the Borderline Bar & Grill in Thousand Oaks, which is about 40 miles west of Los Angeles.
The bar’s website says its hosts “College Country Night” every Wednesday. Police said hundreds were inside when the shooting occurred.
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Henry County, Mo. — Law enforcement authorities are reminding parents to lock their guns after a boy’s accidental death.
Just after 12:30p.m. Tuesday, police were dispatched to the 500 block of South 11 Street Terrace in the city of Clinton in reference to a four-year-old boy who had been shot in the head, according to a media release from police.
When officers arrived, they found the boy on the floor of the kitchen area where his mother was attempting first aid.
The boy was breathing and had a pulse. Officers assisted in first aid until Golden Valley Memorial Hospital Paramedics arrived on the scene and transported the boy to a waiting Life Flight helicopter.
He was then flown to a hospital in the Kansas City area but he did not survive his wound.
Preliminary investigation by Clinton Police Detectives revealed that the boy apparently located a firearm in the kitchen area of the home and accidentally discharged it with the bullet striking him in the head.
