COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Republican leaders in Kansas and South Carolina have voted to scrap their presidential nominating contests in 2020, while party officials Nevada were deciding whether to follow suit as the GOP erects more hurdles for the long shots challenging President Donald Trump.

Canceling primaries, caucuses and other voting is not an unusual move for the party of the White House incumbent seeking a second term, and allows Trump to try to consolidate his support as Democrats work to winnow down their large field of candidates.

A spokesman for the South Carolina Republican Party, Joe Jackson, confirmed that the party voted Saturday against holding a presidential primary next year. The Kansas GOP tweeted on Friday that it will not organize a caucus “because President Trump is an elected incumbent from the Republican Party.” Its state committee planned to approve rules Saturday for an “internal party process” for selecting convention delegates, according to Kelly Arnold, the party’s former state chairman, and Helen Van Etten, a member of the Republican National Committee from Topeka.

Officials in Nevada scheduled meetings later Saturday to determine the fate of their contests. A decision in Arizona is expected later in the month.

Challengers have emerged to Trump, including Bill Weld , a former Massachusetts governor, and Joe Walsh , a former Illinois congressman. Others may join them.

Walsh told CNN after the South Carolina vote that his campaign would “fight South Carolina and any other state that considers doing this.” He also noted that Trump complained during the 2016 election “about how the Democrats were rigging the system to get Hillary (Clinton) elected. Well, look what he’s doing now. You talk about rigging a system.”

Primary challenges to incumbents are rarely successful, and Trump’s poll numbers among Republican voters have proved resilient. Nonetheless, Trump aides are looking to prevent a repeat of the convention discord that highlighted the electoral weaknesses of Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter in their failed reelection campaigns

Since last year, Trump’s campaign has worked to monitor and at times control the process by which delegates to next year’s Republican National Convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, are selected. His campaign wants the convention to be a four-night “infomercial” for Trump by sidelining the president’s detractors within the party.

The effort is an acknowledgment that Trump hasn’t completely cemented his grip on the GOP and might not coast to the nomination without some opposition. To that end, the campaign has worked over the past year to scuttle any attempts at a Trump challenge by party dissidents, mindful that a serious primary opponent could weaken Trump heading into the general election.

In January, the Republican National Committee voted to express its “undivided support” for Trump and his “effective presidency.”

In years past, both Republicans and Democrats have cut state nominating contests when an incumbent president from their party ran for a second term. In 1984, South Carolina GOP leaders opted to call off their primary as President Ronald Reagan sought a second term. In 2004, the GOP again canceled the state’s primary with leaders deciding instead to endorse President George W. Bush’s reelection bid.

The South Carolina Democratic Party didn’t hold presidential primaries in 1996 or in 2012, when Presidents Bill Clinton and Barack Obama were their incumbents.

The Nevada Republican Party was expected to hold a vote on possibly changing its rules to allow a bypass of its presidential nominating caucuses in 2020 and endorse Trump outright. The move would allow the state’s central committee members to hold a vote and commit the state’s GOP delegates to the president, shielding him from a primary challenge.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — An 18-year-old Kansas City man and his 15-year-old brother have been charged with killing another man in a case that prosecutors allege was motivated by revenge for an earlier shooting in which the younger brother was wounded.

The older brother, Taylor Mackey was charged Thursday with second-degree murder and three other felonies in the death of Isaac Louis Brown. No attorney is listed for him in online court records. The younger brother is charged as a juvenile with first-degree murder and armed criminal action.

Court records say Mackey told detectives he believed Brown was responsible for shooting his brother and wanted him to feel the same pain. He says he was thinking it was time to “Get him” before he and his brother pulled out guns and shot Brown one time each.

By BRIAN GRIMMETT
Kansas News Service

WICHITA— Kansas is a national leader in wind energy, but a new report shows the state lags in the adoption of other so-called green technologies.

Find out how Kansas compares to the rest of the country.

Wind

Kansas and other Plains states produce the majority of the nation’s wind energy. While that’s mostly because the area has the highest average sustained wind speeds, the leading wind states have put in place regulatory policy and tax incentives aimed at attracting wind developers.

In 2018, developers installed 543 megawatts of new wind generation in Kansas, according to a new U.S. Department of Energy study. That’s good enough for sixth in the country.

As far as overall capacity, Kansas ranks fifth.

And since 2009, the amount of wind-generated electricity produced in Kansas has grown sevenfold, the third most of any state during the same time period.

Solar

Like with wind, Kansas is in a great position to turn abundant solar radiation into electricity.

Unlike with wind, it hasn’t.

A report from the environmental advocacy group Environment America ranks Kansas 45th in solar energy growth from 2009 to 2018.

In 2018, only 36 gigawatt hours (GWh) were produced in the state. That’s compared to nearly 40,000 GWh coming from the nation’s top state, California.

Everything Else

Kansas has adopted other new green technologies slower than most of the country, too. Cumulative electric vehicle sales in Kansas through 2018 is only 2,621 vehicles — ranking 33rd among U.S. states.

Major electric utility companies in Kansas haven’t invested in any large-scale battery storage projects, either. That’s not unique — it’s a relatively new technology — but the Environment America report shows adoption in the rest of the country is growing quickly.

But thanks to Kansas’ quick adoption of wind energy and developers’ willingness to build here, the state still ranks high when it comes to the amount of renewable energy it produces in relation to how much energy it consumes.

In 2018, 47% of the electricity the state used came from wind or solar, the second- highest percentage in the country.

Brian Grimmett reports on the environment, energy and natural resources the Kansas News Service. You can follow him on Twitter @briangrimmett or email him at grimmett (at) kmuw (dot) org. 

SEDGWICK COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal beating in a Kansas grocery store parking lot and have made an arrest.

Just after 2a.m. Wednesday. Police responded to a disturbance in the Dillons parking lot in the 2200 Block of North Rock Road, according to officer Charley Davidson.

At the scene, officers located a man unconscious and with critical injuries. The victim identified as 33-year-old Haley Collins was transported to an area hospital.
Investigators have learned that Collins and a suspect identified as 35-year-old Steven Speakman were involved in a disagreement, according to Davidson. Speakman battered Collins during the dispute. On Thursday, Collins died.

Police arrested Speakman at the scene of the fight for aggravated battery. He is now being held without bond on a requested charge of first-degree murder.

This is the 21st criminal homicide this year in Wichita, according to Davidson.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Friday released a list of 19 clerics who Bishop James Johnston Jr. said had substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of children against them.

Of the 19 clerics named, 13 have died, two have been removed from ministry, and four have been laicized, or removed from the clerical state. One of the laicized clerics, Shawn Ratigan, is serving 50 years in federal prison after being convicted in 2013 of producing or attempting to produce child pornography.

Johnston said in a statement that he hoped releasing the names would help the victims heal.

“The dreadful scourge of sexual abuse of minors has wounded our entire family of faith,” Johnston said. “As shepherd of our local church, I must do all in my power to eradicate this sin, heal those who have been harmed, and bring to justice those who have offended.”

The diocese also released the names of 11 clerics in other categories. Three had substantiated allegations while in the diocese but are now under the control of other dioceses; two religious-order priests have been removed from ministry; three former diocesan priests were found “unsuitable for ministry out of concern for the safety of our youth;” and three clergy are part of legal settlements but their cases have not been substantiated in court or by the church.

Johnston said the findings came after independent investigators with Fidelity Consultants reviewed the diocese’s records. With the exception of Ratigan, all of the allegations occurred before 1990 and the firm found no clerics currently serving in the diocese with substantiated allegations against them, he said.

The list has been turned over to the Missouri attorney general’s office, which is investigating clergy sex abuse in the state’s four dioceses.

David Clohessy, former director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said in a statement the Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese had no excuse of hiding abusers’ names for any length of time.

“So while this may seem like a step forward, it is at best a partial disclosure forced on the Bishop by pressure from parents, parishioners and the public,” the statement said. “It is a way of feigning ‘openness’ trying to diffuse legitimate anger, and turn attention back on the perpetrator priests and away from complicit church officials who have minimized and hidden these cases.”

Johnston said any new information of clergy sexual abuse of minors will be updated if the allegations are substantiated.

“I renew my apology to any person who has been afflicted by acts of clergy sexual abuse, including family members,” the bishop wrote.

The Kansas City-St. Joseph diocese is the last of four dioceses in Missouri to release lists of accused clerics. The St. Louis Diocese named 61 clergy facing substantiated allegations in July. The Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau identified three priests and the Diocese of Jefferson City listed 35 credibly accused priests or religious brothers.

Dioceses across the country began publicizing names of accused priests in the aftermath of a report issued in 2018 in Pennsylvania, which identified nearly 300 “predator priests” dating back seven decades and accused church leaders of covering up for the abusers.

TOPEKA, Kan. — In a decision published Friday, the Kansas Supreme Court affirmed Larry Laverne Toothman’s seven convictions in Saline County for committing sex crimes against his teenage niece.

According to court documents, Toothman was charged with 11 sex crimes committed between 2010 and 2012, however, a Saline County jury found him guilty of only seven counts.

Court documents noted that “Shortly after his conviction, Toothman moved for a new trial. He argued the district court erred when it failed to instruct the jury that criminal sodomy is a lesser included offense of aggravated criminal sodomy. He also claimed his convictions were multiplicitous because, on each count, the jury convicted him of both the primary charge and the alternative charge for the same sexual act.

“At a hearing on the motion, the district court and parties agreed that Toothman should only be sentenced for the primary offense on each count. So the court ruled that Toothman would be sentenced for the crimes of aggravated criminal sodomy and rape, and it set aside his convictions for criminal sodomy, aggravated indecent liberties with a child, and aggravated incest. The court also ruled that any failure to give a lesser included offense instruction on criminal sodomy did not impact the outcome of trial.”

Court documents show that on the day he was sentenced, Toothman gave a letter to his attorney telling her that he wanted to fire her “because she did not subpoena unspecified letters in his property at jail that would have helped his case.” According to court documents, this letter was not sent to the court, however at the sentencing hearing, the defense attorney showed the letter to the court and told the court of Toothman’s request for a new attorney. Additionally, the defense attorney told the court she was not aware of the letters Toothman referred to in his letter.

According to court documents, the Saline County District Court “denied Toothman’s request for new counsel and sentenced him to 653
months’ imprisonment and lifetime postrelease supervision.”

Toothman appealed his convictions. According to information from Friday’s Kansas Supreme Court ruling, “The Court of Appeals reversed one conviction for rape and one for aggravated criminal sodomy and remanded the case with directions to resentence Toothman for aggravated incest, a less severe offense, in their place. The Court of Appeals believed Toothman should be sentenced for aggravated incest because it was a more specific crime than rape or aggravated criminal sodomy, due to his familial relationship with the victim.

“In a unanimous opinion written by Justice Caleb Stegall, the Supreme Court held the Court of Appeals erred when it reversed Toothman’s convictions for rape and aggravated criminal sodomy. The Supreme Court explained that aggravated incest criminalized ‘otherwise lawful sexual intercourse or sodomy’ with a specified relative, but aggravated criminal sodomy and rape could never be ‘otherwise lawful.’ Thus, the Supreme Court held that aggravated incest is not a more specific crime than aggravated criminal sodomy or rape and affirmed Toothman’s seven convictions.”

FINNEY COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities and USD 457 officials are investigating a student involved in alleged knife attack.

On Tuesday, the staff at Charles Stones Intermediate Center 401 N Jennie Barker Road in Garden City asked police to investigate rumors of a knife being brought to the school, according to Senior Master Patrol Officer Robert Scrivner.

Through the course of the investigation, police learned two students were involved in a physical altercation  with one of the parties later making threats toward the other student.

Police also  learned one of the students had posted on social media a threat involving a knife made towards the other student.

The Garden City Police Department will file an affidavit with the Finney County Attorney’s Office requesting charges of Criminal Threat on one of the students involved in the altercation.

Fifth and sixth grade students attend Stone Intermediate Center.

Police encouraged parents to remind children to report any information about any school safety-related incidents to administrators, staff at school and or the Garden City Police Department.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A federal lawsuit filed Friday accuses the University of Kansas Medical Center of discharging an employee who reported a department head’s age discrimination practices.

The lawsuit against the Kansas City, Kansas-based medical center was filed by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission.

It alleges that in 2014, the medical center’s associate vice chancellor for information resources advised managers within that department to focus on hiring younger people over older applicants.

The lawsuit says information technology help desk supervisor Jeffrey Thomas reported his concerns. The EEOC says the vice chancellor then reorganized the department to eliminate Thomas’ position.

Medical Center spokeswoman Kay Hawes declined comment on the case but says the university seeks to foster an environment where employees “feel comfortable and protected when speaking up and reporting complaints of discrimination.”