KANSAS CITY—Law enforcement and school district officials are investigating after a gun was found in a student's back pack at Park Hill South High School,&nbsp;4500 River Park Drive, Riverside, Missouri, on Tuesday, according to a statement from the school district.

There was no threat to the school, according to principal Dr. Kerrie Herren. "During this time, our law enforcement partners and team continued to work through our safety protocols and also secured a student during this process, Herren wrote in message to school disctrict families.

"The student was removed from school, and we will be following guidance in partnership with our law enforcement partners in continuing our investigation. We want to reiterate that our process worked, and our team worked through appropriate steps to ensure that safety was the priority for all."

"We are well aware that this information may cause unease given the context of other incidents in our larger Kansas City community over the past month. We commit to sharing information and resources as we continue to learn more in this investigation. Our counselors, social workers and administration will be available throughout this week to help support students."

KANSAS CITY—Law enforcement and school district officials are investigating after a gun was found in a student's back pack at Park Hill South High School,&nbsp;4500 River Park Drive, Riverside, Missouri, on Tuesday, according to a statement from the school district.There was no threat to the school, according to principal Dr. Kerrie Herren. "During this time, our law enforcement partners and team continued to work through our safety protocols and also secured a student during this process, Herren wrote in message to school disctrict families."The student was removed from school, and we will be following guidance in partnership with our law enforcement partners in continuing our investigation. We want to reiterate that our process worked, and our team worked through appropriate steps to ensure that safety was the priority for all.""We are well aware that this information may cause unease given the context of other incidents in our larger Kansas City community over the past month. We commit to sharing information and resources as we continue to learn more in this investigation. Our counselors, social workers and administration will be available throughout this week to help support students."

Student brought gun to Kansas City area high school

JOHNSON COUNTY —Authorities continue investigating the cause of a fire at a former golf clubhouse in Johnson County, Kansas are offering a reward for information.

Just before 6a.m. January 15, crews responded to a building fire in 105th Block of Antioch, according to a media release. First arriving crews found heavy smoke and fire coming from the two-story former clubhouse of the Brookridge Country Club.

Due to the heavy fire and extreme weather conditions, a second alarm was called. It took crews over an hour to bring the fire under control. There was nobody in the building and no injuries reported. The building sustained significant fire damage, according to the release.

JOHNSON COUNTY —Authorities continue investigating the cause of a fire at a former golf clubhouse in Johnson County, Kansas are offering a reward for information.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">We&#39;re looking for some help. <a href="https://t.co/RajTO6P7dX">pic.twitter.com/RajTO6P7dX</a>&mdash; Overland Park Fire (@OverlandParkFD) <a href="https://twitter.com/OverlandParkFD/status/1753112255460409378?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">February 1, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Just before 6a.m. January 15, crews responded to a building fire in 105th Block of Antioch, according to a media release. First arriving crews found heavy smoke and fire coming from the two-story former clubhouse of the Brookridge Country Club.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/1/1705338373023.png" alt="Photo Overland Park fire" />
 <figcaption>Photo Overland Park fire</figcaption>
 </figure>Due to the heavy fire and extreme weather conditions, a second alarm was called. It took crews over an hour to bring the fire under control. There was nobody in the building and no injuries reported. The building sustained significant fire damage, according to the release.

Reward still offered for info on fire at former golf clubhouse in Kansas

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will rush about $300 million in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts, even though the military remains deeply overdrawn and needs at least $10 billion to replenish all the weapons it has pulled from its stocks to help Kyiv in its&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-avdiivka-2e827b4cae4698b3f6b80a421447fab8">desperate fight</a>&nbsp;against Russia, the White House announced Tuesday. The U.S. will also provide a $2 billion loan to Poland.

It's the Pentagon's first announced security package for Ukraine since December, when it acknowledged it was out of replenishment funds. It wasn't until recent days that officials publicly acknowledged they weren't just out of money to buy replacement weapons, they are $10 billion overdrawn.

The announcement comes as Ukraine is running dangerously low on munitions and efforts to get fresh funds for weapons have stalled in the House because of Republican opposition. U.S. officials have insisted for months that the United States wouldn’t be able to resume weapons deliveries until Congress provided the additional replenishment funds, which are part of the stalled supplemental spending bill.

The replenishment funds have allowed the Pentagon to pull existing munitions, air defense systems and other weapons from its reserve inventories under presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, to send to Ukraine and then sign contracts to order replacements, which are needed to maintain U.S. military readiness.

“When Russian troops advance and its guns fire, Ukraine does not have enough ammunition to fire back,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan in announcing the $300 million in additional aid.

The Pentagon also has had a separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI, which has allowed it to fund longer-term contracts with industry to produce new weapons for Ukraine.

Senior defense officials who briefed reporters said the Pentagon was able to get cost savings in some of those longer-term contracts of roughly $300 million and, given the battlefield situation, decided to use those savings to send more weapons. The officials said the cost savings basically offset the new package and keep the replenishment spending underwater at $10 billion.

One of the officials said the package represented a “one time shot” — unless Congress passes the supplemental spending bill, which includes roughly $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine, or more cost savings are found. It is expected to include anti-aircraft missiles, artillery rounds and armor systems, the official said.

“This is not a sustainable way to support Ukraine,” said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, calling it a “one time good deal" that officials can't plan on occurring again.

The aid announcement came as&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/poland-us-ukraine-biden-white-house-66b04d8c3917be6fe5b9ea5e016f7f5b">Polish leaders were in Washington</a>&nbsp;to press the U.S. to break its impasse over funds for Ukraine at a critical moment in the war. Polish President Andrzej Duda met Tuesday with President Joe Biden after meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate earlier in the day.

House Speaker Mike Johnson has so far refused to bring the $95 billion package, which includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, to the floor. Seeking to put pressure on the Republican speaker, House&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-aid-israel-taiwan-5cc94d69691ed8f26d6e4ff614cf12fc">Democrats have launched a long-shot effort</a>&nbsp;to force a vote through a discharge petition. The seldom-successful procedure would require support from a majority of lawmakers, or 218 members, to move the aid package to a vote.

Ukraine's situation has become more dire, with units on the front line&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-resupply-aid-republicans-53db93c5db8ab249503e93b558da5bd8">rationing munitions</a>&nbsp;as they face a vastly better supplied Russian force. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly implored Congress for help, but House Republican leadership has not been willing to bring the Ukraine aid to the floor for a vote, saying any aid must first address border security needs.

Pentagon officials said Monday during budget briefings that they were counting on the supplemental to cover the $10 billion replenishment hole.

“If we don’t get the $10 billion we would have to find other means,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said. “Right now we’re very much focused on the need for that supplemental.”

This is the second time in less than nine months that the Pentagon has “found” money to use for additional weapons shipments to Ukraine. Last June, defense officials said they had overestimated the value of the weapons the U.S. had sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years.

At the time, Pentagon officials said a review found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. The discovery resulted in a surplus that the department used for presidential drawdown packages until the end of December.

The United States has committed more than $44.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including more than $44.2 billion since the beginning of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.

The Pentagon is $10 billion overdrawn in the replenishment account in part due to inflationary pressures, and in part because the new systems the Pentagon is seeking to replace the old systems with cost more, such as the upcoming Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, which the Army is buying to replace the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS.

The vast majority of those munitions have come from Army stockpiles due to the nature of the conventional land war in Ukraine.

The months without further shipments of U.S. support have hurt operations, and Ukrainian troops withdrew from the eastern city of Avdiivka last month, where outnumbered defenders had withheld a Russian assault for four months.

CIA Director William Burns told Congress that entire Ukrainian units have told him in recent days of being down to their last few dozen artillery shells and other ammunition. Burns called the retreat from Avdiivka a failure of ammunition resupply, not a failure of Ukrainian will.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710267271851.png" alt="Soldiers in an M1A2 SEPV3 Abrams tank assigned to the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division fires conduct a Combined Arms Live-Fire exercise at Trzebien, Poland, Feb. 12, 2024. The 3rd Infantry Division’s mission in Europe is to engage in multinational training and exercises across the continent, working alongside NATO Allies and regional security partners to provide combat-credible forces to V Corps, America’s forward deployed corps in Europe.&nbsp;&nbsp;Photo By:Army Spc. Bernabe Lopez III" />
 <figcaption>Soldiers in an M1A2 SEPV3 Abrams tank assigned to the U.S. Army's 3rd Infantry Division fires conduct a Combined Arms Live-Fire exercise at Trzebien, Poland, Feb. 12, 2024. The 3rd Infantry Division’s mission in Europe is to engage in multinational training and exercises across the continent, working alongside NATO Allies and regional security partners to provide combat-credible forces to V Corps, America’s forward deployed corps in Europe.&nbsp;&nbsp;Photo By:Army Spc. Bernabe Lopez III</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — The Pentagon will rush about $300 million in weapons to Ukraine after finding some cost savings in its contracts, even though the military remains deeply overdrawn and needs at least $10 billion to replenish all the weapons it has pulled from its stocks to help Kyiv in its&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-war-avdiivka-2e827b4cae4698b3f6b80a421447fab8">desperate fight</a>&nbsp;against Russia, the White House announced Tuesday. The U.S. will also provide a $2 billion loan to Poland.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">National Security Adviser <a href="https://twitter.com/JakeSullivan46?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@JakeSullivan46</a> announces $2 billion loan to Poland and $300 million in weapons and equipment to Ukraine amid Russia&#39;s war. He says the new aid to Ukraine is not meant to replace the supplemental bill. <a href="https://t.co/J2tMq5S7AI">pic.twitter.com/J2tMq5S7AI</a>&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1767619413652488492?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>It's the Pentagon's first announced security package for Ukraine since December, when it acknowledged it was out of replenishment funds. It wasn't until recent days that officials publicly acknowledged they weren't just out of money to buy replacement weapons, they are $10 billion overdrawn.The announcement comes as Ukraine is running dangerously low on munitions and efforts to get fresh funds for weapons have stalled in the House because of Republican opposition. U.S. officials have insisted for months that the United States wouldn’t be able to resume weapons deliveries until Congress provided the additional replenishment funds, which are part of the stalled supplemental spending bill.The replenishment funds have allowed the Pentagon to pull existing munitions, air defense systems and other weapons from its reserve inventories under presidential drawdown authority, or PDA, to send to Ukraine and then sign contracts to order replacements, which are needed to maintain U.S. military readiness.“When Russian troops advance and its guns fire, Ukraine does not have enough ammunition to fire back,” said national security adviser Jake Sullivan in announcing the $300 million in additional aid.The Pentagon also has had a separate Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, or USAI, which has allowed it to fund longer-term contracts with industry to produce new weapons for Ukraine.Senior defense officials who briefed reporters said the Pentagon was able to get cost savings in some of those longer-term contracts of roughly $300 million and, given the battlefield situation, decided to use those savings to send more weapons. The officials said the cost savings basically offset the new package and keep the replenishment spending underwater at $10 billion.One of the officials said the package represented a “one time shot” — unless Congress passes the supplemental spending bill, which includes roughly $60 billion in military aid for Ukraine, or more cost savings are found. It is expected to include anti-aircraft missiles, artillery rounds and armor systems, the official said.“This is not a sustainable way to support Ukraine,” said Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder, Pentagon press secretary, calling it a “one time good deal" that officials can't plan on occurring again.The aid announcement came as&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/poland-us-ukraine-biden-white-house-66b04d8c3917be6fe5b9ea5e016f7f5b">Polish leaders were in Washington</a>&nbsp;to press the U.S. to break its impasse over funds for Ukraine at a critical moment in the war. Polish President Andrzej Duda met Tuesday with President Joe Biden after meeting with Democratic and Republican leaders in the House and Senate earlier in the day.House Speaker Mike Johnson has so far refused to bring the $95 billion package, which includes aid for Ukraine, Israel and Taiwan, to the floor. Seeking to put pressure on the Republican speaker, House&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-aid-israel-taiwan-5cc94d69691ed8f26d6e4ff614cf12fc">Democrats have launched a long-shot effort</a>&nbsp;to force a vote through a discharge petition. The seldom-successful procedure would require support from a majority of lawmakers, or 218 members, to move the aid package to a vote.Ukraine's situation has become more dire, with units on the front line&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/congress-ukraine-resupply-aid-republicans-53db93c5db8ab249503e93b558da5bd8">rationing munitions</a>&nbsp;as they face a vastly better supplied Russian force. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has repeatedly implored Congress for help, but House Republican leadership has not been willing to bring the Ukraine aid to the floor for a vote, saying any aid must first address border security needs.Pentagon officials said Monday during budget briefings that they were counting on the supplemental to cover the $10 billion replenishment hole.“If we don’t get the $10 billion we would have to find other means,” Deputy Defense Secretary Kathleen Hicks said. “Right now we’re very much focused on the need for that supplemental.”This is the second time in less than nine months that the Pentagon has “found” money to use for additional weapons shipments to Ukraine. Last June, defense officials said they had overestimated the value of the weapons the U.S. had sent to Ukraine by $6.2 billion over the past two years.At the time, Pentagon officials said a review found that the military services used replacement costs rather than the book value of equipment that was pulled from Pentagon stocks and sent to Ukraine. The discovery resulted in a surplus that the department used for presidential drawdown packages until the end of December.The United States has committed more than $44.9 billion in security assistance to Ukraine since the beginning of the Biden administration, including more than $44.2 billion since the beginning of Russia’s invasion on Feb. 24, 2022.The Pentagon is $10 billion overdrawn in the replenishment account in part due to inflationary pressures, and in part because the new systems the Pentagon is seeking to replace the old systems with cost more, such as the upcoming Precision Strike Missile, or PrSM, which the Army is buying to replace the long-range Army Tactical Missile System, or ATACMS.The vast majority of those munitions have come from Army stockpiles due to the nature of the conventional land war in Ukraine.The months without further shipments of U.S. support have hurt operations, and Ukrainian troops withdrew from the eastern city of Avdiivka last month, where outnumbered defenders had withheld a Russian assault for four months.CIA Director William Burns told Congress that entire Ukrainian units have told him in recent days of being down to their last few dozen artillery shells and other ammunition. Burns called the retreat from Avdiivka a failure of ammunition resupply, not a failure of Ukrainian will.___

🎥U.S. will rush $300 million in weapons to Ukraine; $2 billion loan to Poland  

GARDNER, Kansas. –Kansas inmate 49-year-old&nbsp; John Evans Johnson, Jr., has been placed on escape status after not returning to the Johnson County Department of Corrections (JSDOC) Adult Residential Center (ARC) facility this afternoon, according to a media release from the Kansas Department of Corrections.

Johnson, a 49-year-old white male with green eyes, stands 5-feet-9 inches tall and weighs 191 pounds. He has a shaved head and nine tattoos across his arms, legs, neck, and back.

He was placed on escape status when he did not return to the residential center following two job interviews.

Johnson has been serving a one-year sentence at the Johnson County Work Release Center since August 3, 2023. He was convicted in Wyandotte County for one count of burglary.

Anyone with information on Johnson should call the KDOC’s Enforcement, Apprehension, and Investigations Division (EAI) at 816-266-2102, the JCDOC at 913-715-6539, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at (800) 572-7463 or local law enforcement at 911. Kansans can also contact EAI via email at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:KDOC_EAI_Intel@ks.gov">KDOC_EAI_Intel@ks.gov</a>

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710296467700.png" alt="Johnson from an earlier arrest in Wyandotte Co." />
 <figcaption>Johnson from an earlier arrest in Wyandotte Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>GARDNER, Kansas. –Kansas inmate 49-year-old&nbsp; John Evans Johnson, Jr., has been placed on escape status after not returning to the Johnson County Department of Corrections (JSDOC) Adult Residential Center (ARC) facility this afternoon, according to a media release from the Kansas Department of Corrections.Johnson, a 49-year-old white male with green eyes, stands 5-feet-9 inches tall and weighs 191 pounds. He has a shaved head and nine tattoos across his arms, legs, neck, and back.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710296332190.png" alt="Johnson photo KDOC" />
 <figcaption>Johnson photo KDOC</figcaption>
 </figure>He was placed on escape status when he did not return to the residential center following two job interviews.Johnson has been serving a one-year sentence at the Johnson County Work Release Center since August 3, 2023. He was convicted in Wyandotte County for one count of burglary.Anyone with information on Johnson should call the KDOC’s Enforcement, Apprehension, and Investigations Division (EAI) at 816-266-2102, the JCDOC at 913-715-6539, the Kansas Bureau of Investigation at (800) 572-7463 or local law enforcement at 911. Kansans can also contact EAI via email at&nbsp;<a href="mailto:KDOC_EAI_Intel@ks.gov">KDOC_EAI_Intel@ks.gov</a>

Inmate serving time for burglary escaped from Kansas jail

KANSAS CITY —A federal grand jury in Kansas City returned&nbsp; an indictment last week charging a man with stealing firearms from a gun shop.

According to court documents, Patrick Montufar, 19, of Kansas City, Kansas, is charged with one count of burglary of a licensed firearms dealer. On October 24, 2023, Montufar allegedly stole nine pistols from Frontier Justice, a licensed gun dealer in Kansas City, Kansas.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is investigating the case.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1709943955199.png" alt="Montufar-photo Wyandotte Co." />
 <figcaption>Montufar-photo Wyandotte Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>KANSAS CITY —A federal grand jury in Kansas City returned&nbsp; an indictment last week charging a man with stealing firearms from a gun shop.According to court documents, Patrick Montufar, 19, of Kansas City, Kansas, is charged with one count of burglary of a licensed firearms dealer. On October 24, 2023, Montufar allegedly stole nine pistols from Frontier Justice, a licensed gun dealer in Kansas City, Kansas.The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) is investigating the case.

Kansas teen allegedly stole nine pistols from gun store

WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers turned a Tuesday hearing on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents into a proxy battle between the Democratic president and Republican front-runner Donald Trump, as&nbsp;a newly released transcript of Biden’s testimony&nbsp;last fall showed that he repeatedly insisted he never meant to retain classified information after he left the vice presidency.

<a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24476201/biden1-copy.pdf">Click here to read</a>&nbsp;day 1 interview with President Biden.

<a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24476203/biden-2-copy.pdf">Click here to read </a>day 2 interview with President Biden

<a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf">Click here to read </a>the 345 page report following the interview

Special counsel&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/robert-hur-biden-special-counsel-classified-documents-0f8e4a9d99f8b7d035f75f78e9b8d3d3">Robert Hur</a>, testifying for more than four hours before the House Judiciary Committee, stood steadfastly by the assessments in his 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but recommended no criminal charges for the 81-year-old president, finding insufficient evidence to make a case stand up in court.

“What I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows, and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe," Hur said. "I did not sanitize my explanation. Nor did I disparage the president unfairly.”

The transcript of hours of interviews between Biden and the special counsel released Tuesday provide a more textured picture of the roughly year-long investigation, filling in some of the gaps left by Hur’s and Biden's accounting of the exchanges. But there was no guarantee the hearing or transcript would alter preconceived notions about the president, the special counsel who investigated him, or Trump, particularly in a hard-fought election year.

While Biden was adamant that he treated classified information seriously, the transcript shows that&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-memory-age-special-counsel-report-doj-f4232bc8316e556ed467185b67c3e0a8">he was at times fuzzy about dates and details</a>&nbsp;and he said he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some of the sensitive documents he handled.

The hearing played out as both Biden and Trump were&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-primary-georgia-washington-mississippi-hawaii-15bb0084ad656903ffef14cfae822abd">on the cusp of claiming their parties' nominations</a>, and the party lines calcified almost immediately over which leader meant to hang on to classified documents, or rather, who “willfully” retained them — and who didn't. And Hur was the rare witness vilified all around, by Republicans angry over his decision not to charge the president, and by Democrats for his unflattering commentary about Biden.

Republicans argued Biden was being given a pass by his own Justice Department and that Trump had been unfairly victimized by prosecutors. Democrats, for their part, stressed Biden’s cooperation in the investigation and strongly contrasted that with the separate criminal case against Trump, who refused to return classified documents requested by the National Archives that he had at his Florida estate.

Democrats started off their questioning by hitting hard at the contrast between Biden and Trump, focusing more on the latter's criminal case. Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the ranking Democrat, asked whether Biden's willingness to comply with investigators and turn over documents contributed to the decision not to charge him.

“That was a factor in our analysis," Hur said.

But the Democrats quickly bored into Hur, who was handpicked by Biden’s own attorney general, suggesting he was a political partisan doing Republican bidding via his written slights about Biden’s age and memory. Hur took issue with the characterization.

“Politics played no part whatsoever in my investigative steps, my decisions and the words that I put in my report,” Hur responded.

Republicans, meanwhile, insisted Trump was being unfairly singled out and vilified, questioning how the two cases were really all that different.

Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., called it a “glaring double standard.”

“Donald Trump’s being prosecuted for exactly the same act that you documented Joe Biden committed,” he told Hur.

But there were major differences between the two probes. Biden’s team returned the documents after they were discovered, and the president cooperated with the investigation by voluntarily sitting for an interview and consenting to searches of his homes. Trump, by contrast, is accused of enlisting the help of aides and lawyers to conceal the documents from the government and seeking to have&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-justice-department-special-counsel-2025feb3f0f4e3820d14387c67ce4316">potentially incriminating evidence</a>&nbsp;destroyed.

Hur’s report cited evidence that Biden willfully held on to highly classified information and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-ghostwriter-mark-zwonitzer-classified-documents-case-8ad6e560c2eb54e25db149a2d01ad545">shared it with a ghostwriter,</a>&nbsp;based on audio of the conversations between the two men in which Biden said he had just come across some classified documents at his home.

According to the transcript, Biden told Hur he did not recall the exchange, or that he had actually discovered any documents. He said if he had discussed anything questionable with the ghostwriter, it was in referring to a 20-page sensitive memo he had written to then-President Barack Obama in 2009 arguing against surging troops in Afghanistan that he wanted to ensure didn't make it into publication.

Hur said he was aware of the need to explain in great detail why he’d decided not to charge the president and why the case didn't meet the standard for criminal charges. Such explanations are common but usually kept confidential.

But there's a tradition at the Justice Department to release such documents publicly and so as Hur was working on his report, he almost certainly would have understood that the document was going to see the light of the day.

“The need to show my work was especially strong here,” Hur said. “The attorney general had appointed me to investigate the actions of the attorney general’s boss, the sitting president of the United States. I knew that for my decision to be credible, I could not simply announce that I recommended no criminal charges and leave it at that. I needed to explain why.”

He added that “the evidence and the president himself put his memory squarely at issue.”

In his interviews, Biden repeatedly told prosecutors that he did not know how classified documents ended up at his&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-united-states-government-812ef44a5333f6d93423a67a683fa024">home and former Penn Biden Center office in Washington</a>.

He also insisted that had he known they were there, he would have returned them to the government.

The president did acknowledge that he&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/hur-biden-trump-presidential-records-diaries-ada4f47bc6c69321f6ed9b3d4f9466c1">intentionally held on to his personal diaries</a>&nbsp;— which officials said contained classified information. Biden insisted were his own property, a claim also asserted by previous presidents and vice presidents, and that he had a right to keep them.

He also acknowledged that he was “never that organized,” as prosecutors pressed him on why some of the documents were located in different places.

Hur, in his report, detailed how his findings about Biden were far different from those of special counsel Jack Smith about Trump, who has been charged with willfully retaining classified documents.

Trump hyped Tuesday as a “Big day in Congress for the Biden Documents Hoax,” while casting himself as being unfairly targeted. “The DOJ gave Biden, and virtually every other person and President, a free pass," he said. "Me, I’m still fighting!!!"

<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6">FBI agents searched Trump’s Florida estate in 2022</a>&nbsp;and removed boxes of documents marked as classified after he refused multiple requests from the National Archives to return them.

Biden, by his own admission in the interviews, has retained such a sprawling assortment of photos, documents and artifacts from his more than 50 years in public life that he can’t keep track of everything.

When asked if first lady Jill Biden kept her things with his, he said, "She wants nothing to do with my filing system.” He added, to laughs from the lawyers, “not even kidding.”

The transcript also offered a rare window into the mind of a sitting president, revealing his his humor and his obsessions — including his beloved Corvette and his keen interest in construction work at his home in Wilmington — as well as the rigors of the presidency and international crises.

Biden first sat down with Hur during a time of crisis, one day after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.

He entered the first day of the interview having just gotten off the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, part of a series of calls meant to prevent the attack from spiraling into a wider regional confrontation. At multiple points, when Hur suggested a pause, Biden encouraged prosecutors to keep going, saying, “I'll go all night if we get this done.”

Biden said that he left it to his staff to safeguard classified information that was presented to him, often leaving papers on his desk in heaps for aides to sort through and secure.

“I never asked anybody,” Biden said. He noted that much of his staff had worked with him for years, to the point where they didn't need direction from him. "It just - it just got done. I don’t know. I can’t remember who.”

Confusion over&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-beau-special-counsel-80eaaee6de62c0c7b455c03d39502ecb">the timing of the death of Biden's adult son Beau</a>&nbsp;— who died May 30, 2015 — was highlighted by Hur in his report as an example of the president's memory lapses. But the transcript shows that Hur never asked Biden about his son specifically, as a visibly angry Biden had suggested in comments to reporters the day the report was released.

“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden said of Hur. "Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.”

But the transcript suggests that the exchange was less revealing about Biden's memory than Hur let on, and that Biden's recollection of it during his emotional White House remarks was incorrect.

Hur asked Biden about where he kept the things that he was "actively working on" while he was living in a rental home in Virginia immediately after leaving the vice presidency in January 2017. And in that context, it was Biden himself who brought up Beau's illness and death as he talked about a book he'd published later in 2017 about that painful time.

“What month did Beau die?” Biden mused, adding, “Oh God, May 30th.”

A White House lawyer then chimed in with the year, 2015.

“Was it 2015 he died?” Biden asked again.

Biden went on to recount in detail the story contained in his book, “Promise Me, Dad,” of how his late son had encouraged him to remain engaged in public life after the Obama administration ended.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2023/1/1673546739694.png" alt="Biden backing his Corvette into the garage next to stacks of boxes where classified documents were found-image from a 2020 Biden for President campaign ad" />
 <figcaption>Biden backing his Corvette into the garage next to stacks of boxes where classified documents were found-image from a 2020 Biden for President campaign ad</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — Lawmakers turned a Tuesday hearing on President Joe Biden’s handling of classified documents into a proxy battle between the Democratic president and Republican front-runner Donald Trump, as&nbsp;a newly released transcript of Biden’s testimony&nbsp;last fall showed that he repeatedly insisted he never meant to retain classified information after he left the vice presidency.<a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24476201/biden1-copy.pdf">Click here to read</a>&nbsp;day 1 interview with President Biden.<a href="https://s3.documentcloud.org/documents/24476203/biden-2-copy.pdf">Click here to read </a>day 2 interview with President Biden<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Former Special Counsel Hur: &quot;My assessment in the report about the relevance of the president&#39;s memory was necessary and accurate and fair...I did not sanitize my explanation nor did I disparage the president unfairly.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/vEfUTuTU3z">pic.twitter.com/vEfUTuTU3z</a>&mdash; CSPAN (@cspan) <a href="https://twitter.com/cspan/status/1767564395436011628?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div><a href="https://www.justice.gov/storage/report-from-special-counsel-robert-k-hur-february-2024.pdf">Click here to read </a>the 345 page report following the interview<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/2/1707478982378.png" alt="Page from the special counsel's report that highlight's Biden's memory challenges.- U.S. Department of Justice" />
 <figcaption>Page from the special counsel's report that highlight's Biden's memory challenges.- U.S. Department of Justice</figcaption>
 </figure><figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710256853789.png" alt="Special Counsel Robert Hur during his opening statement Tuesday image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>Special Counsel Robert Hur during his opening statement Tuesday image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>Special counsel&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/robert-hur-biden-special-counsel-classified-documents-0f8e4a9d99f8b7d035f75f78e9b8d3d3">Robert Hur</a>, testifying for more than four hours before the House Judiciary Committee, stood steadfastly by the assessments in his 345-page report that questioned Biden’s age and mental competence but recommended no criminal charges for the 81-year-old president, finding insufficient evidence to make a case stand up in court.“What I wrote is what I believe the evidence shows, and what I expect jurors would perceive and believe," Hur said. "I did not sanitize my explanation. Nor did I disparage the president unfairly.”The transcript of hours of interviews between Biden and the special counsel released Tuesday provide a more textured picture of the roughly year-long investigation, filling in some of the gaps left by Hur’s and Biden's accounting of the exchanges. But there was no guarantee the hearing or transcript would alter preconceived notions about the president, the special counsel who investigated him, or Trump, particularly in a hard-fought election year.While Biden was adamant that he treated classified information seriously, the transcript shows that&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-memory-age-special-counsel-report-doj-f4232bc8316e556ed467185b67c3e0a8">he was at times fuzzy about dates and details</a>&nbsp;and he said he was unfamiliar with the paper trail for some of the sensitive documents he handled.The hearing played out as both Biden and Trump were&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-primary-georgia-washington-mississippi-hawaii-15bb0084ad656903ffef14cfae822abd">on the cusp of claiming their parties' nominations</a>, and the party lines calcified almost immediately over which leader meant to hang on to classified documents, or rather, who “willfully” retained them — and who didn't. And Hur was the rare witness vilified all around, by Republicans angry over his decision not to charge the president, and by Democrats for his unflattering commentary about Biden.Republicans argued Biden was being given a pass by his own Justice Department and that Trump had been unfairly victimized by prosecutors. Democrats, for their part, stressed Biden’s cooperation in the investigation and strongly contrasted that with the separate criminal case against Trump, who refused to return classified documents requested by the National Archives that he had at his Florida estate.Democrats started off their questioning by hitting hard at the contrast between Biden and Trump, focusing more on the latter's criminal case. Rep. Jerry Nadler of New York, the ranking Democrat, asked whether Biden's willingness to comply with investigators and turn over documents contributed to the decision not to charge him.“That was a factor in our analysis," Hur said.But the Democrats quickly bored into Hur, who was handpicked by Biden’s own attorney general, suggesting he was a political partisan doing Republican bidding via his written slights about Biden’s age and memory. Hur took issue with the characterization.“Politics played no part whatsoever in my investigative steps, my decisions and the words that I put in my report,” Hur responded.Republicans, meanwhile, insisted Trump was being unfairly singled out and vilified, questioning how the two cases were really all that different.Rep. Tom McClintock, R-Calif., called it a “glaring double standard.”“Donald Trump’s being prosecuted for exactly the same act that you documented Joe Biden committed,” he told Hur.But there were major differences between the two probes. Biden’s team returned the documents after they were discovered, and the president cooperated with the investigation by voluntarily sitting for an interview and consenting to searches of his homes. Trump, by contrast, is accused of enlisting the help of aides and lawyers to conceal the documents from the government and seeking to have&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-classified-documents-justice-department-special-counsel-2025feb3f0f4e3820d14387c67ce4316">potentially incriminating evidence</a>&nbsp;destroyed.Hur’s report cited evidence that Biden willfully held on to highly classified information and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-ghostwriter-mark-zwonitzer-classified-documents-case-8ad6e560c2eb54e25db149a2d01ad545">shared it with a ghostwriter,</a>&nbsp;based on audio of the conversations between the two men in which Biden said he had just come across some classified documents at his home.According to the transcript, Biden told Hur he did not recall the exchange, or that he had actually discovered any documents. He said if he had discussed anything questionable with the ghostwriter, it was in referring to a 20-page sensitive memo he had written to then-President Barack Obama in 2009 arguing against surging troops in Afghanistan that he wanted to ensure didn't make it into publication.Hur said he was aware of the need to explain in great detail why he’d decided not to charge the president and why the case didn't meet the standard for criminal charges. Such explanations are common but usually kept confidential.But there's a tradition at the Justice Department to release such documents publicly and so as Hur was working on his report, he almost certainly would have understood that the document was going to see the light of the day.“The need to show my work was especially strong here,” Hur said. “The attorney general had appointed me to investigate the actions of the attorney general’s boss, the sitting president of the United States. I knew that for my decision to be credible, I could not simply announce that I recommended no criminal charges and leave it at that. I needed to explain why.”He added that “the evidence and the president himself put his memory squarely at issue.”In his interviews, Biden repeatedly told prosecutors that he did not know how classified documents ended up at his&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-politics-united-states-government-812ef44a5333f6d93423a67a683fa024">home and former Penn Biden Center office in Washington</a>.“I have no idea,” he said.He also insisted that had he known they were there, he would have returned them to the government.The president did acknowledge that he&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/hur-biden-trump-presidential-records-diaries-ada4f47bc6c69321f6ed9b3d4f9466c1">intentionally held on to his personal diaries</a>&nbsp;— which officials said contained classified information. Biden insisted were his own property, a claim also asserted by previous presidents and vice presidents, and that he had a right to keep them.He also acknowledged that he was “never that organized,” as prosecutors pressed him on why some of the documents were located in different places.Hur, in his report, detailed how his findings about Biden were far different from those of special counsel Jack Smith about Trump, who has been charged with willfully retaining classified documents.Trump hyped Tuesday as a “Big day in Congress for the Biden Documents Hoax,” while casting himself as being unfairly targeted. “The DOJ gave Biden, and virtually every other person and President, a free pass," he said. "Me, I’m still fighting!!!"<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-mar-a-lago-government-and-politics-9e8d683afe87389407950af7ccfdbdd6">FBI agents searched Trump’s Florida estate in 2022</a>&nbsp;and removed boxes of documents marked as classified after he refused multiple requests from the National Archives to return them.Biden, by his own admission in the interviews, has retained such a sprawling assortment of photos, documents and artifacts from his more than 50 years in public life that he can’t keep track of everything.When asked if first lady Jill Biden kept her things with his, he said, "She wants nothing to do with my filing system.” He added, to laughs from the lawyers, “not even kidding.”The transcript also offered a rare window into the mind of a sitting president, revealing his his humor and his obsessions — including his beloved Corvette and his keen interest in construction work at his home in Wilmington — as well as the rigors of the presidency and international crises.Biden first sat down with Hur during a time of crisis, one day after the devastating Hamas attack on Israel on Oct. 7.He entered the first day of the interview having just gotten off the phone with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, part of a series of calls meant to prevent the attack from spiraling into a wider regional confrontation. At multiple points, when Hur suggested a pause, Biden encouraged prosecutors to keep going, saying, “I'll go all night if we get this done.”Biden said that he left it to his staff to safeguard classified information that was presented to him, often leaving papers on his desk in heaps for aides to sort through and secure.“I never asked anybody,” Biden said. He noted that much of his staff had worked with him for years, to the point where they didn't need direction from him. "It just - it just got done. I don’t know. I can’t remember who.”Confusion over&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-beau-special-counsel-80eaaee6de62c0c7b455c03d39502ecb">the timing of the death of Biden's adult son Beau</a>&nbsp;— who died May 30, 2015 — was highlighted by Hur in his report as an example of the president's memory lapses. But the transcript shows that Hur never asked Biden about his son specifically, as a visibly angry Biden had suggested in comments to reporters the day the report was released.“How in the hell dare he raise that,” Biden said of Hur. "Frankly, when I was asked the question, I thought to myself it wasn’t any of their damn business.”But the transcript suggests that the exchange was less revealing about Biden's memory than Hur let on, and that Biden's recollection of it during his emotional White House remarks was incorrect.Hur asked Biden about where he kept the things that he was "actively working on" while he was living in a rental home in Virginia immediately after leaving the vice presidency in January 2017. And in that context, it was Biden himself who brought up Beau's illness and death as he talked about a book he'd published later in 2017 about that painful time.“What month did Beau die?” Biden mused, adding, “Oh God, May 30th.”A White House lawyer then chimed in with the year, 2015.“Was it 2015 he died?” Biden asked again.Biden went on to recount in detail the story contained in his book, “Promise Me, Dad,” of how his late son had encouraged him to remain engaged in public life after the Obama administration ended.

Read transcript: Biden classified docs interview with Special Prosecutor 

&nbsp;JACKSON COUNTY, Kan. –Law enforcement authorities are investigating two woman on multiple allegations after a traffic stop.

Just after 8:30p.m. March 9, a Deputy Sheriff conducted a traffic stop on a passenger car for a traffic infraction on U.S. Highway 75 in southern Jackson County, according to Sheriff Tim Morse.

The driver, Carol Ann Frison, 65, of Topeka, was arrested on a requested charge of driving while habitual violator.&nbsp; The passenger, Brenda Ann Crocker, 60, of Topeka, was arrested on requested charges of possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, felony interference with law enforcement and trafficking contraband into a correctional facility. Both subjects were booked into the Jackson County Jail.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710164243427.png" alt="Crocker-photo Jackson Co." />
 <figcaption>Crocker-photo Jackson Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>&nbsp;JACKSON COUNTY, Kan. –Law enforcement authorities are investigating two woman on multiple allegations after a traffic stop.Just after 8:30p.m. March 9, a Deputy Sheriff conducted a traffic stop on a passenger car for a traffic infraction on U.S. Highway 75 in southern Jackson County, according to Sheriff Tim Morse.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710164222472.png" alt="Frison-photo Jackson Co." />
 <figcaption>Frison-photo Jackson Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>The driver, Carol Ann Frison, 65, of Topeka, was arrested on a requested charge of driving while habitual violator.&nbsp; The passenger, Brenda Ann Crocker, 60, of Topeka, was arrested on requested charges of possession of methamphetamine, possession of drug paraphernalia, felony interference with law enforcement and trafficking contraband into a correctional facility. Both subjects were booked into the Jackson County Jail.

Two Kansas women jailed after drugs were found in their car

OSAGE COUNTY —Authorities investigating a fatal pedestrian accident that occurred just after 8p.m. Monday in Osage County have identified the victim as Robin G.&nbsp;Williams, 64, Topeka, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol.

A 2021 Freightliner semi driven by&nbsp; Bilal&nbsp;Taskaya, 59, Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, was northbound on U.S. 75 one mile north of U.S. 56. The semi struck Williams who was in the middle of the roadway.

She was pronounced dead at the scene. North and southbound lanes of U.S. 75 were shut down temporarily as the KHP investigated. The highway reopened just after midnight Tuesday.

OSAGE COUNTY —Authorities investigating a fatal pedestrian accident that occurred just after 8p.m. Monday in Osage County have identified the victim as Robin G.&nbsp;Williams, 64, Topeka, according to the Kansas Highway Patrol.A 2021 Freightliner semi driven by&nbsp; Bilal&nbsp;Taskaya, 59, Mountain Top, Pennsylvania, was northbound on U.S. 75 one mile north of U.S. 56. The semi struck Williams who was in the middle of the roadway.She was pronounced dead at the scene. North and southbound lanes of U.S. 75 were shut down temporarily as the KHP investigated. The highway reopened just after midnight Tuesday.

KHP IDs Kansas woman who died in pedestrian accident

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two top Kansas Republican Party officials are facing internal calls to resign over a viral online video showing people at a fundraiser kicking and beating a mannequin wearing a mask of Joe Biden, underscoring the national GOP’s deep divisions and its struggles to win over voters outside Donald Trump’s base.

Mike Brown, the Kansas GOP's state chair, and Maria Holiday, the leader of the party in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, distanced themselves from the display at a Friday evening fundraiser for the county party.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/kansasrepublicanparty/posts/pfbid0nb5aFdk3u3CahujH8hUxDsZJAsTh6UxMxVjbQTna1DGNykC1vq5fcven2TAet46pl">In a Facebook post,</a>&nbsp;the state GOP blamed an outside vendor who rented space at the event to promote a martial arts school.

Brown said in an email Tuesday that the state party wouldn't comment further. Holiday did not respond to a text message seeking an interview. The vendor has not been named.

The calls for their resignations started over the weekend with Brown's predecessor, Mike Kuckelman, a Kansas City attorney and frequent Brown critic, and quickly led to bipartisan condemnations amid widespread news coverage. The state GOP accused Kuckelman of creating “a false narrative" and dividing the party.

The conflict between Brown and Kuckelman reflects the split in the national GOP between former President Donald Trump's most ardent, election conspiracy-promoting supporters and its more establishment wing, including former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel. Kuckelman supported McDaniel's reelection in 2022, while Brown wanted her out. Trump now fully controls the RNC&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/republican-national-committee-trump-staffing-cuts-46bc8afcc152aecfd471161a59b74005">through hand-picked-leaders.</a>

The dispute is also notable because the fundraiser was in Johnson County, the state's most populous, where 20% of Kansas voters live. The county, which includes Kansas City suburbs, has become bluer since Trump's election as president in 2016. It was key to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's victories in 2018 and 2022 and became an area where it was increasingly difficult for GOP statewide candidates to win.

“This disgusting visualization of violence went viral. This doesn’t just go away,” Kuckelman said during an interview Tuesday. “This does not help win independent and soft Republican voters.”

The Friday fundraiser featured 1970s rocker Ted Nugent, known for his backing of gun rights, hard-right political views and support for Trump, with tickets ranging from $90 for students to $300 for premier seats. The mannequin with the Biden mask also wore a “Let's Go Brandon” T-shirt, using a slogan that's become conservative code for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lets-go-brandon-what-does-it-mean-republicans-joe-biden-ab13db212067928455a3dba07756a160">a vulgar insult</a>&nbsp;directed at the Democratic president.

The incident in Kansas also came after Trump's campaign rhetoric&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-violent-rhetoric-retribution-authoritarians-2024-39e090680a33c0869312e79bcef106e8">became more violent.</a>&nbsp;Last fall, he suggested that shoplifters should be immediately shot. He called his opponents “lowlifes,” threatened news organizations and later told a crowd in Iowa that he wouldn't be a dictator&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritarian-presidential-election-f27e7e9d7c13fabbe3ae7dd7f1235c72">“except for Day 1.”</a>

Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, condemned all political violence. He said it’s important for people to use good judgment at a time when elected officials in both parties have faced threats across the U.S. Last year, more than 100 Kansas legislators, including Hawkins, received threatening mail with white powder that turned out not to be dangerous.

“What may seem like a joke for many will be seen by some as an expansion of acceptable behavior with potentially tragic consequences,” Hawkins said in a statement Tuesday.

In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/jcrpkansas/posts/pfbid0Vg9uuGiMHHpRVHYU4QFHLoqosUHNRHEhJNVEGt71RsGoimXiWmGYADKXGwvvnpfZl">Facebook post</a>&nbsp;Monday evening, the Johnson County GOP described the Biden mask on the mannequin as only “a brief incident.”

“The mask was regrettable and removed," the statement said. “No one collected or solicited any funds or donations in exchange for hitting the training device.”

The Kansas GOP said in a statement over the weekend that no one from its staff attended the event, and called Kuckelman “a disgruntled former member of the state party."

“It’s unfortunate the events took place, and even more so the former state party member created a false narrative in order to spew rhetoric and capitalize on continued attempts to divide the party,” the statement said.

But Kuckelman said blaming the vendor is “disingenuous” because the party controlled the event and decided which venders were there. He recalled the furor in 2017 when comedian Kathy Griffin took part in a photoshoot that showed her holding up a fake bloody head that resembled Trump's.

“If this had happened when I was chair, if a vendor pulled a stunt like this, I would have immediately shut it down and had them escorted off the premises,” he said. “This is so far over the line, you can’t just say, ‘Stop.’”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710277472125.png" alt="In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/jcrpkansas/posts/pfbid0Vg9uuGiMHHpRVHYU4QFHLoqosUHNRHEhJNVEGt71RsGoimXiWmGYADKXGwvvnpfZl">Facebook post</a>&nbsp;Monday evening, the Johnson County GOP described the Biden mask on the mannequin as only “a brief incident.” -Screen shot from the viral video" />
 <figcaption>In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/jcrpkansas/posts/pfbid0Vg9uuGiMHHpRVHYU4QFHLoqosUHNRHEhJNVEGt71RsGoimXiWmGYADKXGwvvnpfZl">Facebook post</a>&nbsp;Monday evening, the Johnson County GOP described the Biden mask on the mannequin as only “a brief incident.” -Screen shot from the viral video</figcaption>
 </figure>By JOHN HANNA&nbsp;TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two top Kansas Republican Party officials are facing internal calls to resign over a viral online video showing people at a fundraiser kicking and beating a mannequin wearing a mask of Joe Biden, underscoring the national GOP’s deep divisions and its struggles to win over voters outside Donald Trump’s base.Mike Brown, the Kansas GOP's state chair, and Maria Holiday, the leader of the party in Johnson County in the Kansas City area, distanced themselves from the display at a Friday evening fundraiser for the county party.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/kansasrepublicanparty/posts/pfbid0nb5aFdk3u3CahujH8hUxDsZJAsTh6UxMxVjbQTna1DGNykC1vq5fcven2TAet46pl">In a Facebook post,</a>&nbsp;the state GOP blamed an outside vendor who rented space at the event to promote a martial arts school.Brown said in an email Tuesday that the state party wouldn't comment further. Holiday did not respond to a text message seeking an interview. The vendor has not been named.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710156462660.png" alt="Screen shot from the viral video" />
 <figcaption>Screen shot from the viral video</figcaption>
 </figure>The calls for their resignations started over the weekend with Brown's predecessor, Mike Kuckelman, a Kansas City attorney and frequent Brown critic, and quickly led to bipartisan condemnations amid widespread news coverage. The state GOP accused Kuckelman of creating “a false narrative" and dividing the party.The conflict between Brown and Kuckelman reflects the split in the national GOP between former President Donald Trump's most ardent, election conspiracy-promoting supporters and its more establishment wing, including former Republican National Committee Chair Ronna McDaniel. Kuckelman supported McDaniel's reelection in 2022, while Brown wanted her out. Trump now fully controls the RNC&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/republican-national-committee-trump-staffing-cuts-46bc8afcc152aecfd471161a59b74005">through hand-picked-leaders.</a>The dispute is also notable because the fundraiser was in Johnson County, the state's most populous, where 20% of Kansas voters live. The county, which includes Kansas City suburbs, has become bluer since Trump's election as president in 2016. It was key to Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly's victories in 2018 and 2022 and became an area where it was increasingly difficult for GOP statewide candidates to win.“This disgusting visualization of violence went viral. This doesn’t just go away,” Kuckelman said during an interview Tuesday. “This does not help win independent and soft Republican voters.”The Friday fundraiser featured 1970s rocker Ted Nugent, known for his backing of gun rights, hard-right political views and support for Trump, with tickets ranging from $90 for students to $300 for premier seats. The mannequin with the Biden mask also wore a “Let's Go Brandon” T-shirt, using a slogan that's become conservative code for&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/lets-go-brandon-what-does-it-mean-republicans-joe-biden-ab13db212067928455a3dba07756a160">a vulgar insult</a>&nbsp;directed at the Democratic president.The incident in Kansas also came after Trump's campaign rhetoric&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-violent-rhetoric-retribution-authoritarians-2024-39e090680a33c0869312e79bcef106e8">became more violent.</a>&nbsp;Last fall, he suggested that shoplifters should be immediately shot. He called his opponents “lowlifes,” threatened news organizations and later told a crowd in Iowa that he wouldn't be a dictator&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-hannity-dictator-authoritarian-presidential-election-f27e7e9d7c13fabbe3ae7dd7f1235c72">“except for Day 1.”</a>Kansas House Speaker Dan Hawkins, a Wichita Republican, condemned all political violence. He said it’s important for people to use good judgment at a time when elected officials in both parties have faced threats across the U.S. Last year, more than 100 Kansas legislators, including Hawkins, received threatening mail with white powder that turned out not to be dangerous.“What may seem like a joke for many will be seen by some as an expansion of acceptable behavior with potentially tragic consequences,” Hawkins said in a statement Tuesday.In a&nbsp;<a href="https://www.facebook.com/jcrpkansas/posts/pfbid0Vg9uuGiMHHpRVHYU4QFHLoqosUHNRHEhJNVEGt71RsGoimXiWmGYADKXGwvvnpfZl">Facebook post</a>&nbsp;Monday evening, the Johnson County GOP described the Biden mask on the mannequin as only “a brief incident.”“The mask was regrettable and removed," the statement said. “No one collected or solicited any funds or donations in exchange for hitting the training device.”The Kansas GOP said in a statement over the weekend that no one from its staff attended the event, and called Kuckelman “a disgruntled former member of the state party."“It’s unfortunate the events took place, and even more so the former state party member created a false narrative in order to spew rhetoric and capitalize on continued attempts to divide the party,” the statement said.But Kuckelman said blaming the vendor is “disingenuous” because the party controlled the event and decided which venders were there. He recalled the furor in 2017 when comedian Kathy Griffin took part in a photoshoot that showed her holding up a fake bloody head that resembled Trump's.“If this had happened when I was chair, if a vendor pulled a stunt like this, I would have immediately shut it down and had them escorted off the premises,” he said. “This is so far over the line, you can’t just say, ‘Stop.’”

Viral video of Biden effigy beating prompts calls for top Kan. GOP leaders to resign

'MONTGOMERY COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a wanted Kansas felon on new allegations after a standoff.

On March 8, Montgomery County Patrol Sergeant, while on duty in Coffeyville, Kansas, observed a man&nbsp; entering a residence in the 100 block of West Jefferson, according to Sheriff Ron Wade.

He recognized the individual as 33-year-old David Foster of Coffeyville, a suspect in a recent commercial burglary case and with outstanding felony warrants from the Kansas Department of Corrections.

Deputies arrived at the residence, where Foster was seen entering, and attempted to establish contact. With several other individuals confirming Foster's presence inside, barricading himself in the attic, law enforcement initiated verbal commands and announcements using a patrol car loudspeaker. 

Given Foster's extensive criminal record, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (SERT) was activated and responded to the scene. The SERT team, recognizing the necessity of additional support, requested the assistance of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CoffeyvillePD?__cft__[0]=AZVIOTnNJy9zWtj5ClPtoUI2_GwZ5PXsXJc9WXcS12_gGUMiQv_6ODAFRttovQFz8y0HQPY3S36Z73D5wqUQbyYJoY44ctrqTj_DI-fKcZZ2dD8ULdhVLDNAuvTOiAYUp7GGd48kSvskRuoWHo_imB0QN51oXUL_zmqV6qF3PuMDqyXiE8VQIe8ifgO7ZEx0xxY&amp;__tn__=-]K-R">Coffeyville Police Department</a> Special Operations Team (SOT), who joined efforts with their Armored Rescue Vehicle (ARV) to aid in the apprehension.

After continued verbal announcements, Foster voluntarily surrendered to law enforcement without further incident, exiting the residence through the front door. 

The Coffeyville SOT team effectively took him into custody. Foster was subsequently transported to the Montgomery County Department of Corrections, where he was booked for felony warrants and requested charges of felony interference with law enforcement.&nbsp; Foster has previous convictions for burglary, theft, obstruction and criminal possession of a weapon by a felon, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710273247416.png" alt="Foster-photo Montgomery Co." />
 <figcaption>Foster-photo Montgomery Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>'MONTGOMERY COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a wanted Kansas felon on new allegations after a standoff.On March 8, Montgomery County Patrol Sergeant, while on duty in Coffeyville, Kansas, observed a man&nbsp; entering a residence in the 100 block of West Jefferson, according to Sheriff Ron Wade.He recognized the individual as 33-year-old David Foster of Coffeyville, a suspect in a recent commercial burglary case and with outstanding felony warrants from the Kansas Department of Corrections.Deputies arrived at the residence, where Foster was seen entering, and attempted to establish contact. With several other individuals confirming Foster's presence inside, barricading himself in the attic, law enforcement initiated verbal commands and announcements using a patrol car loudspeaker. Given Foster's extensive criminal record, the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Emergency Response Team (SERT) was activated and responded to the scene. The SERT team, recognizing the necessity of additional support, requested the assistance of the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/CoffeyvillePD?__cft__[0]=AZVIOTnNJy9zWtj5ClPtoUI2_GwZ5PXsXJc9WXcS12_gGUMiQv_6ODAFRttovQFz8y0HQPY3S36Z73D5wqUQbyYJoY44ctrqTj_DI-fKcZZ2dD8ULdhVLDNAuvTOiAYUp7GGd48kSvskRuoWHo_imB0QN51oXUL_zmqV6qF3PuMDqyXiE8VQIe8ifgO7ZEx0xxY&amp;__tn__=-]K-R">Coffeyville Police Department</a> Special Operations Team (SOT), who joined efforts with their Armored Rescue Vehicle (ARV) to aid in the apprehension.After continued verbal announcements, Foster voluntarily surrendered to law enforcement without further incident, exiting the residence through the front door. The Coffeyville SOT team effectively took him into custody. Foster was subsequently transported to the Montgomery County Department of Corrections, where he was booked for felony warrants and requested charges of felony interference with law enforcement.&nbsp; Foster has previous convictions for burglary, theft, obstruction and criminal possession of a weapon by a felon, according to the Kansas Department of Corrections.

Wanted Kan. felon captured hiding in attic of home

BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/sherman-smith/">SHERMAN SMITH</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA — Rep. Rebecca Schmoe says a doctor once tried to talk her into seeking an abortion over concerns that she and her baby would die if she tried to give birth.

Schmoe, an Ottawa Republican, introduced&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2023_24/measures/hb2813/">House Bill 2813</a>&nbsp;to create the felony crime of “coercion” for persuading someone to terminate a pregnancy against their will. She testified in support of the legislation Tuesday before a House committee.

She said the doctor in her case spent more than an hour trying to persuade her to have an abortion.

“I was called selfish at least 10 times, and then I stopped counting,” Schmoe said. “I was told that my parents were going to have to pick out my casket. I was told that my parents were going to have to make all the arrangements. He asked me at one point what kind of flowers I wanted at my funeral.”

“Not only was he wrong about me dying,” she added, “he was wrong about my baby dying. That child is now 21 years old. And he is absolutely amazing. I wouldn’t trade a moment of time with him.”

The House Federal and State Affairs Committee heard testimony on Schmoe’s bill, as well as&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2023_24/measures/hb2809/">House Bill 2809</a>, which is designed to funnel $5.8 million into efforts to pressure women not to terminate a pregnancy.

Advocates of criminalizing coercion said women can be forced into choosing an abortion by an overbearing parent, a scared boyfriend, their trafficker, or, as Schmoe recounted, a doctor.

Anytime someone uses threat of violence, or threat of harming your financial situation, threat of anything that has to do with how you function as a human being, and how you go about living your life, that is wrong,” Schmoe said.

The only opponent to the bill, the Kansas Birth Justice Society, argued that the bill was too narrow in scope and should be broadened to address coercion related to contraception.

Prominent anti-abortion groups — Kansans for Life, Kansas Family Voice and the Kansas Catholic Conference — squared off with reproductive-rights groups over the merits of directing more money toward crisis pregnancy centers to deter abortions.

HB 2809 is the latest in a series of bills that would provide similar funding mechanism exclusively tailored toward organizations that promote childbirth. The organizations would be paid to provide “medically accurate pregnancy-related information” and adoption marketing materials, as well as services that include counseling and developing parental skills.

Those services would be discontinued to women who choose to have an abortion, or who have a miscarriage or stillbirth.

Rep. Will Carpenter, an El Dorado Republican who chairs the committee, tried to tamp down heated debate by declaring “this bill is not about abortion.”

Taylor Morton, lobbyist for Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said the bill was written so that only crisis pregnancy centers would be eligible for state funding. Those organizations, she said, are widely considered to be unethical by health care professionals, including the American college of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association.

The centers “employ a myriad of misleading and harmful tactics to dissuade pregnant people from seeking abortion care,” Morton said.

For example, she said, the centers misrepresent abortion safety and assert false risks of abortion. They also intentionally overestimate the stage of an individual’s pregnancy to falsely suggest they are too far along to access abortion.

Some centers falsely represent themselves as a legitimate, regulated health care clinic, even though staff and volunteers have no medical qualifications, Morton said.

Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, a spokesman for Trust Women Foundation, said the organization is “deeply concerned with the bill’s unnecessary and almost certain squandering of resources that could otherwise support existing state programs that directly benefit struggling families.”

He said the proposal is “at least the third bill introduced in the Legislature this year that creates a channel for state taxpayer funds to be diverted into anti-abortion organizations, including crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion marketing firms.”

Gingrich-Gaylord proposed lawmakers instead expand Medicaid, support birthing centers, remove barriers to contraceptives, expand access to doulas and midwives, and advocate for equitable maternal health care.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710274551929.png" alt=" Rep. Rebecca Schmoe, seen during a March 9, 2023, hearing, says a doctor tried to coerce her into scheduling an abortion against her will. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption> Rep. Rebecca Schmoe, seen during a March 9, 2023, hearing, says a doctor tried to coerce her into scheduling an abortion against her will. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/sherman-smith/">SHERMAN SMITH</a>&nbsp; &nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>TOPEKA — Rep. Rebecca Schmoe says a doctor once tried to talk her into seeking an abortion over concerns that she and her baby would die if she tried to give birth.Schmoe, an Ottawa Republican, introduced&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2023_24/measures/hb2813/">House Bill 2813</a>&nbsp;to create the felony crime of “coercion” for persuading someone to terminate a pregnancy against their will. She testified in support of the legislation Tuesday before a House committee.She said the doctor in her case spent more than an hour trying to persuade her to have an abortion.“I was called selfish at least 10 times, and then I stopped counting,” Schmoe said. “I was told that my parents were going to have to pick out my casket. I was told that my parents were going to have to make all the arrangements. He asked me at one point what kind of flowers I wanted at my funeral.”“Not only was he wrong about me dying,” she added, “he was wrong about my baby dying. That child is now 21 years old. And he is absolutely amazing. I wouldn’t trade a moment of time with him.”The House Federal and State Affairs Committee heard testimony on Schmoe’s bill, as well as&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://www.kslegislature.org/li/b2023_24/measures/hb2809/">House Bill 2809</a>, which is designed to funnel $5.8 million into efforts to pressure women not to terminate a pregnancy.Advocates of criminalizing coercion said women can be forced into choosing an abortion by an overbearing parent, a scared boyfriend, their trafficker, or, as Schmoe recounted, a doctor.Anytime someone uses threat of violence, or threat of harming your financial situation, threat of anything that has to do with how you function as a human being, and how you go about living your life, that is wrong,” Schmoe said.The only opponent to the bill, the Kansas Birth Justice Society, argued that the bill was too narrow in scope and should be broadened to address coercion related to contraception.<h2>‘Almost certain squandering’</h2>Prominent anti-abortion groups — Kansans for Life, Kansas Family Voice and the Kansas Catholic Conference — squared off with reproductive-rights groups over the merits of directing more money toward crisis pregnancy centers to deter abortions.HB 2809 is the latest in a series of bills that would provide similar funding mechanism exclusively tailored toward organizations that promote childbirth. The organizations would be paid to provide “medically accurate pregnancy-related information” and adoption marketing materials, as well as services that include counseling and developing parental skills.Those services would be discontinued to women who choose to have an abortion, or who have a miscarriage or stillbirth.Rep. Will Carpenter, an El Dorado Republican who chairs the committee, tried to tamp down heated debate by declaring “this bill is not about abortion.”Taylor Morton, lobbyist for Planned Parenthood Great Plains Votes, said the bill was written so that only crisis pregnancy centers would be eligible for state funding. Those organizations, she said, are widely considered to be unethical by health care professionals, including the American college of Obstetricians and Gynecologists and the American Medical Association.The centers “employ a myriad of misleading and harmful tactics to dissuade pregnant people from seeking abortion care,” Morton said.For example, she said, the centers misrepresent abortion safety and assert false risks of abortion. They also intentionally overestimate the stage of an individual’s pregnancy to falsely suggest they are too far along to access abortion.Some centers falsely represent themselves as a legitimate, regulated health care clinic, even though staff and volunteers have no medical qualifications, Morton said.Zack Gingrich-Gaylord, a spokesman for Trust Women Foundation, said the organization is “deeply concerned with the bill’s unnecessary and almost certain squandering of resources that could otherwise support existing state programs that directly benefit struggling families.”He said the proposal is “at least the third bill introduced in the Legislature this year that creates a channel for state taxpayer funds to be diverted into anti-abortion organizations, including crisis pregnancy centers and anti-abortion marketing firms.”Gingrich-Gaylord proposed lawmakers instead expand Medicaid, support birthing centers, remove barriers to contraceptives, expand access to doulas and midwives, and advocate for equitable maternal health care.

Kan. House committee considers abortion coercion bill, funding for anti-abortion services

JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says it has determined that an American-Israeli soldier who was believed taken into Gaza as a hostage was actually killed during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.

It was not clear how the military determined Itay Chen, 19, had been killed. Chen on active duty on the day of the attack.

Chen’s family has been prominent in the struggle by relatives of hostages to have their loved ones released. Chen’s father, Ruby, is American and had made repeated appearances in the media and met top U.S. officials.

U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was “devastated” to learn of Chen’s death, after meeting Chen’s father and brother at the White House in December.

“No one should have to endure even one day of what they have gone through,” said Biden, adding that the U.S. would keep working to secure the remaining hostages' release.

In a statement, Chen’s parents thanked the Biden administration and the American people for their support. They said they expect Israel and America’s leadership to do everything to bring back all the hostages still in Gaza, including their son’s remains.

Chen is the latest hostage to be declared dead by Israeli authorities. Israel says 34 of the hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip are dead, either killed during Hamas’ attack or while in captivity.

Hamas-led militants took roughly 250 people captive into Gaza, among them men, women, children and older adults. Dozens were released during a temporary cease-fire in late November and about 100 people remain in captivity who are believed to be alive.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710266231699.png" alt="In November, Itay's father Ruby Chen testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/organization/?161/Middle-East">Middle East</a>, North Africa, and Central Asia. Witnesses emotionally detailed their last conversations with loved ones and urged Congress to help bring hostages home.-image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>In November, Itay's father Ruby Chen testified before the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on the&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/organization/?161/Middle-East">Middle East</a>, North Africa, and Central Asia. Witnesses emotionally detailed their last conversations with loved ones and urged Congress to help bring hostages home.-image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>JERUSALEM (AP) — The Israeli military says it has determined that an American-Israeli soldier who was believed taken into Gaza as a hostage was actually killed during the Hamas-led attack on Oct. 7.It was not clear how the military determined Itay Chen, 19, had been killed. Chen on active duty on the day of the attack.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Jill and I are devastated to learn that Itay Chen was killed by Hamas during its brutal terrorist assault on October 7. In December, Itay’s father and brother joined me at the White House to share the agony and uncertainty they’ve faced as they prayed for the safe return of…&mdash; President Biden (@POTUS) <a href="https://twitter.com/POTUS/status/1767578013615448110?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">March 12, 2024</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Chen’s family has been prominent in the struggle by relatives of hostages to have their loved ones released. Chen’s father, Ruby, is American and had made repeated appearances in the media and met top U.S. officials.U.S. President Joe Biden said Tuesday he was “devastated” to learn of Chen’s death, after meeting Chen’s father and brother at the White House in December.“No one should have to endure even one day of what they have gone through,” said Biden, adding that the U.S. would keep working to secure the remaining hostages' release.In a statement, Chen’s parents thanked the Biden administration and the American people for their support. They said they expect Israel and America’s leadership to do everything to bring back all the hostages still in Gaza, including their son’s remains.Chen is the latest hostage to be declared dead by Israeli authorities. Israel says 34 of the hostages remaining in the Gaza Strip are dead, either killed during Hamas’ attack or while in captivity.Hamas-led militants took roughly 250 people captive into Gaza, among them men, women, children and older adults. Dozens were released during a temporary cease-fire in late November and about 100 people remain in captivity who are believed to be alive.

White House: American-Israeli soldier, believed a hostage, is dead

NEW YORK (AP) — House Republicans are moving ahead with a bill that would require Chinese company ByteDance&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-bytedance-bill-divest-5b5a685e8f1e19d22182d62526bf19b8">to sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States</a>&nbsp;even as former President Donald Trump is voicing opposition to the effort.

House leadership has scheduled a vote on the measure for Wednesday. A Republican congressional aide not authorized to speak publicly said that’s still the plan and there has not been significant pushback to the bill from lawmakers.

A vote for the bill would represent an unusual break with the former president by House Republicans, but Speaker Mike Johnson and others have already forcefully come out in favor of the bill, and dropping it now would represent a significant reversal. “It’s an important bipartisan measure to take on China, our largest geopolitical foe, which is actively undermining our economy and security,” Johnson declared last week.

<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">Trump</a>&nbsp;said Monday that he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk but is opposed to banning the hugely popular app because doing so would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to lambast over his 2020 election loss.

“Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump said in a call-in interview with CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok you’re going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media.”

“When I look at it, I’m not looking to make Facebook double the size," he added. ”I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”

Trump has repeatedly complained about Facebook's role during the 2020 election, which he still refuses to concede he lost to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a>. That includes&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-mark-zuckerberg-election-donations-188810437774">at least $400 million</a>&nbsp;that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-mark-zuckerberg-election-donations-188810437774">donated</a>&nbsp;to two&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-elections-denver-mark-zuckerberg-election-2020-92257bbc1fefd9ed0e18861e5b5913f6">nonprofit organizations</a>&nbsp;that distributed grants to state and local governments to help them conduct the 2020 election at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The donations — which were fully permitted under campaign finance law — went to pay for things like equipment to process mail ballots and drive-thru voting locations.

TikTok, a video-sharing app, has emerged as a major issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. The platform has about 170 million users in the U.S., most of whom skew younger — a demographic that both parties are desperately trying to court ahead of November's general election. Younger voters have become especially hard for campaigns to reach as they gravitate away from traditional platforms like cable television.

Biden's 2024 campaign officially&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-tiktok-campaign-taylor-swift-c686631206fdadbc1038c2521a669375">joined TikTok last month</a>, even though he has expressed his own national security concerns over the platform, banned it on federal devices and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-tiktok-ban-house-china-aaa884d8c974f0a35856af5ee6aa4e99">on Friday endorsed the legislation</a>&nbsp;that could lead to its ban.

The bill being considered by the House&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-bytedance-bill-divest-5b5a685e8f1e19d22182d62526bf19b8">would require</a>&nbsp;the Chinese firm ByteDance to divest TikTok and other applications it owns within six months of the bill’s enactment in order to avoid a nationwide ban. The legislation also creates a process that lets the executive branch prohibit access to other apps that pose a threat to national security.

“This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs," TikTok said last week as a House committee took up the bill, passing it on a 50-0 vote.

Some advocacy groups and members that often align with Trump said Monday they disagreed with him on the TikTok bill.

“He’s wrong,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, on Trump. “And by the way, he had his own executive orders and actions he was doing. Now he’s suddenly flipped around on that.”

Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy group, said it would include the vote in its scorecard grading members.

“The legislation establishes an important national security standard for social media companies: Don't be controlled by a foreign adversary,” the group said.

And, showing the issue sparks strong opinions across party lines, Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said he opposed this “masked effort that will most likely result in TikTok being banned.”

“I think it's going to have drastic impacts for businesses, content creators and a lot of folks in our country,” Frost said.

Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he's still confident about the bill's prospects in the House.

“It's going to sail, and then it will be up to the Senate,” McCaul said. “And the White House has already acknowledged that they're going to sign it into law. So I think this is a real positive step.”

The bill will likely need support from at least 60 senators to make it across the finish line and be signed into law. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he would encourage colleagues to vote for it. Also, Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican who is often aligned with Trump, said of TikTok that “the amount of data and information they have on Americans is very concerning” and could get in the wrong hands.

As president, Trump attempted to ban TikTok&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/global-trade-ap-top-news-politics-asia-business-719d8c83f689929c9c9d8c9aa5593fc8">through an executive order</a>&nbsp;that called “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China)” a threat to “the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.” The courts, however,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-courts-a526c144fad9f0ebc37bf2d49a97740a">blocked the action</a>&nbsp;after TikTok sued, arguing such actions would violate free speech and due process rights.

Biden in 2022 banned the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.performance.gov/pma/workforce/">4 million employees</a>&nbsp;on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes.

Both the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-bytedance-china-biden-administration-14ef5f93dc2114e4ade110b2e85433fd">FBI and the Federal Communications Commission</a>&nbsp;have warned that TikTok owner ByteDance could share user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with China’s authoritarian government. TikTok said it has never done that and wouldn’t do so if asked. The U.S. government also hasn’t provided evidence of that happening.

House lawmakers are expected to receive a briefing Tuesday on TikTok from the FBI, Justice Department and intelligence officials, according to a congressional aide, who was granted anonymity to disclose details of the briefing that has not yet been made public.

Trump, in the interview, said he had not discussed the company with Jeff Yass, a TikTok investor and a major GOP donor. Trump said the two had recently met “very briefly" but that Yass “never mentioned TikTok."

NEW YORK (AP) — House Republicans are moving ahead with a bill that would require Chinese company ByteDance&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-bytedance-bill-divest-5b5a685e8f1e19d22182d62526bf19b8">to sell TikTok or face a ban in the United States</a>&nbsp;even as former President Donald Trump is voicing opposition to the effort.House leadership has scheduled a vote on the measure for Wednesday. A Republican congressional aide not authorized to speak publicly said that’s still the plan and there has not been significant pushback to the bill from lawmakers.A vote for the bill would represent an unusual break with the former president by House Republicans, but Speaker Mike Johnson and others have already forcefully come out in favor of the bill, and dropping it now would represent a significant reversal. “It’s an important bipartisan measure to take on China, our largest geopolitical foe, which is actively undermining our economy and security,” Johnson declared last week.<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/donald-trump">Trump</a>&nbsp;said Monday that he still believes TikTok poses a national security risk but is opposed to banning the hugely popular app because doing so would help its rival, Facebook, which he continues to lambast over his 2020 election loss.“Frankly, there are a lot of people on TikTok that love it. There are a lot of young kids on TikTok who will go crazy without it,” Trump said in a call-in interview with CNBC's “Squawk Box.” “There’s a lot of good and there’s a lot of bad with TikTok. But the thing I don’t like is that without TikTok you’re going to make Facebook bigger, and I consider Facebook to be an enemy of the people, along with a lot of the media.”“When I look at it, I’m not looking to make Facebook double the size," he added. ”I think Facebook has been very bad for our country, especially when it comes to elections.”Trump has repeatedly complained about Facebook's role during the 2020 election, which he still refuses to concede he lost to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/joe-biden">President Joe Biden</a>. That includes&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-mark-zuckerberg-election-donations-188810437774">at least $400 million</a>&nbsp;that its founder, Mark Zuckerberg, and his wife&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/fact-checking-mark-zuckerberg-election-donations-188810437774">donated</a>&nbsp;to two&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/technology-elections-denver-mark-zuckerberg-election-2020-92257bbc1fefd9ed0e18861e5b5913f6">nonprofit organizations</a>&nbsp;that distributed grants to state and local governments to help them conduct the 2020 election at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.The donations — which were fully permitted under campaign finance law — went to pay for things like equipment to process mail ballots and drive-thru voting locations.TikTok, a video-sharing app, has emerged as a major issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. The platform has about 170 million users in the U.S., most of whom skew younger — a demographic that both parties are desperately trying to court ahead of November's general election. Younger voters have become especially hard for campaigns to reach as they gravitate away from traditional platforms like cable television.Biden's 2024 campaign officially&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-tiktok-campaign-taylor-swift-c686631206fdadbc1038c2521a669375">joined TikTok last month</a>, even though he has expressed his own national security concerns over the platform, banned it on federal devices and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/biden-tiktok-ban-house-china-aaa884d8c974f0a35856af5ee6aa4e99">on Friday endorsed the legislation</a>&nbsp;that could lead to its ban.The bill being considered by the House&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-bytedance-bill-divest-5b5a685e8f1e19d22182d62526bf19b8">would require</a>&nbsp;the Chinese firm ByteDance to divest TikTok and other applications it owns within six months of the bill’s enactment in order to avoid a nationwide ban. The legislation also creates a process that lets the executive branch prohibit access to other apps that pose a threat to national security.“This legislation will trample the First Amendment rights of 170 million Americans and deprive 5 million small businesses of a platform they rely on to grow and create jobs," TikTok said last week as a House committee took up the bill, passing it on a 50-0 vote.Some advocacy groups and members that often align with Trump said Monday they disagreed with him on the TikTok bill.“He’s wrong,” said Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, on Trump. “And by the way, he had his own executive orders and actions he was doing. Now he’s suddenly flipped around on that.”Heritage Action, a conservative advocacy group, said it would include the vote in its scorecard grading members.“The legislation establishes an important national security standard for social media companies: Don't be controlled by a foreign adversary,” the group said.And, showing the issue sparks strong opinions across party lines, Democratic Rep. Maxwell Frost of Florida said he opposed this “masked effort that will most likely result in TikTok being banned.”“I think it's going to have drastic impacts for businesses, content creators and a lot of folks in our country,” Frost said.Rep. Michael McCaul, the Republican chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, said he's still confident about the bill's prospects in the House.“It's going to sail, and then it will be up to the Senate,” McCaul said. “And the White House has already acknowledged that they're going to sign it into law. So I think this is a real positive step.”The bill will likely need support from at least 60 senators to make it across the finish line and be signed into law. Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said he would encourage colleagues to vote for it. Also, Sen. Eric Schmitt, a Missouri Republican who is often aligned with Trump, said of TikTok that “the amount of data and information they have on Americans is very concerning” and could get in the wrong hands.As president, Trump attempted to ban TikTok&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/global-trade-ap-top-news-politics-asia-business-719d8c83f689929c9c9d8c9aa5593fc8">through an executive order</a>&nbsp;that called “the spread in the United States of mobile applications developed and owned by companies in the People’s Republic of China (China)” a threat to “the national security, foreign policy and economy of the United States.” The courts, however,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/donald-trump-courts-a526c144fad9f0ebc37bf2d49a97740a">blocked the action</a>&nbsp;after TikTok sued, arguing such actions would violate free speech and due process rights.Biden in 2022 banned the use of TikTok by the federal government’s nearly&nbsp;<a href="https://www.performance.gov/pma/workforce/">4 million employees</a>&nbsp;on devices owned by its agencies, with limited exceptions for law enforcement, national security and security research purposes.Both the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/tiktok-ban-bytedance-china-biden-administration-14ef5f93dc2114e4ade110b2e85433fd">FBI and the Federal Communications Commission</a>&nbsp;have warned that TikTok owner ByteDance could share user data — such as browsing history, location and biometric identifiers — with China’s authoritarian government. TikTok said it has never done that and wouldn’t do so if asked. The U.S. government also hasn’t provided evidence of that happening.House lawmakers are expected to receive a briefing Tuesday on TikTok from the FBI, Justice Department and intelligence officials, according to a congressional aide, who was granted anonymity to disclose details of the briefing that has not yet been made public.Trump, in the interview, said he had not discussed the company with Jeff Yass, a TikTok investor and a major GOP donor. Trump said the two had recently met “very briefly" but that Yass “never mentioned TikTok."

A bill that could lead to a nation-wide TikTok ban is gaining momentum

JOHNSON COUNTY —One person died in an accident just before 9p.m. Monday in Johnson County.

A motorcyclist later identified as&nbsp;Jeffrey M. Jaques, 26,&nbsp; Kansas City, Missouri, was northbound on Interstate 35 Highway towards the Interstate 635 Highway Bridge, according to Overland Park Police Officer John Lacy.

According to several witnesses, the motorcyclist was traveling at a high rate of speed prior to crash. Witnesses stated the motorcyclist started to lose control as the vehicle entered a curve on the roadway. 

The motorcycle traveled off the roadway, down a graded slope, went airborne and struck a tree. EMS pronounced Jaques deceased on scene, according to Lacy.

The Overland Park Police Traffic Safety Unit is investigating the crash.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710257483787.png" alt="First responders at the scene of the crash -image KC Scout camera" />
 <figcaption>First responders at the scene of the crash -image KC Scout camera</figcaption>
 </figure>JOHNSON COUNTY —One person died in an accident just before 9p.m. Monday in Johnson County.A motorcyclist later identified as&nbsp;Jeffrey M. Jaques, 26,&nbsp; Kansas City, Missouri, was northbound on Interstate 35 Highway towards the Interstate 635 Highway Bridge, according to Overland Park Police Officer John Lacy.According to several witnesses, the motorcyclist was traveling at a high rate of speed prior to crash. Witnesses stated the motorcyclist started to lose control as the vehicle entered a curve on the roadway. The motorcycle traveled off the roadway, down a graded slope, went airborne and struck a tree. EMS pronounced Jaques deceased on scene, according to Lacy.The Overland Park Police Traffic Safety Unit is investigating the crash.&nbsp;

Mo. man dies in Kansas crash after motorcycle strikes a tree

SHAWNEE COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on multiple allegations after an arrest.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/3/1710163723771.png" alt="Brown-photo Shawnee Co." />
 <figcaption>Brown-photo Shawnee Co.</figcaption>
 </figure>SHAWNEE COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on multiple allegations after an arrest.just after 11:00 a.m. Sunday, police responded to a report of a robbery to an individual that had just occurred in the 1300 block of SW 6th Street in Topeka, according to Police Lt. Matt Danielson. The victim was reportedly battered, and personal items were taken from them.The victim provided police with a suspect description and responding officers located an individual matching that description walking away from the area.&nbsp; Police took 29-year-old Robyn Brown of Topeka into custody. She had some of the victim’s items.Brown was jailed on requested charges of&nbsp;Aggravated Robbery, Battery and Theft, according to Danielson.