GOVERNOR’S RACE TURNS NASTY AS LEAD DWINDLES
KAN.» Kansas Secretary TOPEKA, of State Kris Kobach said Thursday he will remove himself from the counting of votes while his Republican primary battle with Gov. Jeff Colyer hangs in the balance, describing it as a “symbolic” step in response to a public demand from Colyer.
The governor publicly accused Kobach, the state’s top elections official, of giving county election officials information about the handling of yet-uncounted ballots “inconsistent with Kansas law.” He demanded the state’s attorney general do it instead.
The contest between the embattled governor and a conservative lightning rod took another acrimonious turn as Kobach’s tiny lead shrank from 191 votes to 121 out of 311,000 ballots cast, after two counties reported discrepancies between their tallies and what Kobach’s office reported.
Mayor pro tem pleads guilty to accepting bribes.
DALLAS» Mayor pro tem Dwaine Caraway accepted more than $450,000 in kickbacks and bribes, in part through a phony consulting agreement, gambling money and trips to Las Vegas and elsewhere, federal prosecutors said Thursday.
Caraway, the secondhighest-ranking elected official in Dallas, pleaded guilty to two federal charges in the public corruption case and resigned from the Dallas City Council. Federal court records show he received kickback funds from Robert Leonard, president and owner of Force Multiplier Solutions, and Leonard’s business associate.
NOAA says chance for major hurricane looks less likely.
MIAMI» The chances of a major hurricane happening this year have dropped dramatically, forecasters said Thursday.
That revised prediction comes just as the Atlantic hurricane season typically heats up. The reasons for the dwindling possibilities: Cooler surface temperatures in the Atlantic Ocean, non-conducive wind patterns and warmer Pacific Ocean waters are creating a hostile environment for hurricanes in the Atlantic and Caribbean basins.
All that adds up to a less likely chance of major storms forming through the end of hurricane season on Dec. 1, according to a top researcher at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Meet the newest U.S. citizens: Melania Trump’s parents.
YORK» First NEW lady Melania Trump’s parents were sworn in as U.S. citizens Thursday, completing a legal path to citizenship that their son-inlaw has suggested eliminating.
Viktor and Amalija Knavs, both in their 70s, took the citizenship oath at a private ceremony in New York. The Slovenian immigrants, a former car dealer and textile factory worker, had been living in the U.S. as permanent residents.
The Knavses slipped in and out of a side entrance at a Manhattan federal building, flanked by Department of Homeland Security police.
Some workers inside didn’t know what was going on. The couple said little, other than Viktor telling a reporter “thank you” when asked how they felt about becoming Americans.
Thousands sign petition calling for LeBron James to replace Betsy DeVos.
LeBron James or Betsy DeVos? If you could pick from two candidates to be the nation’s secretary of education and those were your candidates, whom would you pick?
That is the point of an online petition posted late Tuesday on Care2.com and titled “LeBron James for Secretary of Education.” By midday Thursday, there were 11,348 signatures, and the surge of signatures caused organizers to keep increasing their goal.
James, one of the best professional basketball players in the world, has been in the news recently for more than just his NBA move from the Cleveland Cavaliers to the Los Angeles Lakers. His family foundation recently helped fund and open a public school for at-risk children in Akron, Ohio, a move that public education advocates applauded.
1,600 evacuated as flash floods threaten campsites.
PARIS» Hundreds of rescuers backed by helicopters evacuated about 1,600 people, most of them campers, in three regions of southern France where heavy rain caused flash flooding and transformed rivers and streams into torrents, the interior minister said Thursday.
Hit hardest was the Gard region, where 119 children, many of them from Germany, were evacuated from their campsite at SaintJulien-de-Peyrolas, Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said in a news release.
About 750 people in all were evacuated in Gard, mainly from campsites, a top district official, Thierry Dousset, told France’s BFM-TV news channel.