By TIM CARPENTER <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansas-attorney-general-asks-feds-to-ease-drivers-license-reinstatment/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA — The Kansas 
attorney general is part of a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys 
general requesting Congress offer financial incentives for states to 
reform laws that stand as obstacles to low-income people reinstating 
their driving privileges.

Attorney General Derek 
Schmidt, a Republican, signed onto a letter to the U.S. Senate 
requesting adoption of legislation that extended federal funding to 
states that repealed unreasonable license suspension laws. Forty percent
 of U.S. driver’s license suspensions are issued for conduct other than 
improper driving.

Nearly two-dozen state 
prosecutors, including those of Colorado and Iowa, argued for federal 
action to reward states that did away with laws leading to suspension of
 licenses for failure to pay unrelated fines and fees.

“Without a license or 
access to a strong system of public transportation, these individuals 
lack the means to get to their jobs, bring children to child car. And to
 get groceries, medical care and other necessities in the most 
cost-effective way,” the attorneys general said. “They end up in the 
loop of higher expenses and lower income, and potentially steeper 
fines.”

In the 2020 legislative 
session, a bill mirroring the federal reform sought by the attorneys 
general was introduced in the Kansas House but didn’t advance.

The Kansas Criminal 
Justice Reform Commission recommended legislation in 2019 to ease 
re-entry of inmates into their communities by making reinstatement of a 
license more practical.

Law enforcement officers 
devote valuable time to processing suspension orders, transporting a 
driver to jail and waiting for tow trucks when there was no reasonable 
suspicion the driver posed a threat to motorist. Loss of a license adds 
obstacles to going to work and completing basic household functions.

Tim Carpenter has reported on Kansas for 35 years. He covered the Capitol for 16 years at the Topeka Capital-Journal and previously worked for the Lawrence Journal-World and United Press International.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596812571786.jpeg" alt="Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt endorsed federal reform to make it easier for people to secure a driver's license. Similar legislation proposed in Kansas has failed to advance. (Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption>Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt endorsed federal reform to make it easier for people to secure a driver's license. Similar legislation proposed in Kansas has failed to advance. (Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure>By TIM CARPENTER <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/briefs/kansas-attorney-general-asks-feds-to-ease-drivers-license-reinstatment/">Kansas Reflector</a>TOPEKA — The Kansas 
attorney general is part of a bipartisan coalition of state attorneys 
general requesting Congress offer financial incentives for states to 
reform laws that stand as obstacles to low-income people reinstating 
their driving privileges.Attorney General Derek 
Schmidt, a Republican, signed onto a letter to the U.S. Senate 
requesting adoption of legislation that extended federal funding to 
states that repealed unreasonable license suspension laws. Forty percent
 of U.S. driver’s license suspensions are issued for conduct other than 
improper driving.Nearly two-dozen state 
prosecutors, including those of Colorado and Iowa, argued for federal 
action to reward states that did away with laws leading to suspension of
 licenses for failure to pay unrelated fines and fees.“Without a license or 
access to a strong system of public transportation, these individuals 
lack the means to get to their jobs, bring children to child car. And to
 get groceries, medical care and other necessities in the most 
cost-effective way,” the attorneys general said. “They end up in the 
loop of higher expenses and lower income, and potentially steeper 
fines.”In the 2020 legislative 
session, a bill mirroring the federal reform sought by the attorneys 
general was introduced in the Kansas House but didn’t advance.The Kansas Criminal 
Justice Reform Commission recommended legislation in 2019 to ease 
re-entry of inmates into their communities by making reinstatement of a 
license more practical.Law enforcement officers 
devote valuable time to processing suspension orders, transporting a 
driver to jail and waiting for tow trucks when there was no reasonable 
suspicion the driver posed a threat to motorist. Loss of a license adds 
obstacles to going to work and completing basic household functions.Tim Carpenter has reported on Kansas for 35 years. He covered the Capitol for 16 years at the Topeka Capital-Journal and previously worked for the Lawrence Journal-World and United Press International.

Kan. attorney general asks feds to ease driver’s license reinstatment

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump has ordered a sweeping but vague ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of popular social media apps&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/2d3064d67b71aad7ea35793f16109fae">TikTok</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/ab55806ba6e54456b4dadadbc795ccc5">WeChat</a>&nbsp;on security grounds, a move China’s government criticized as “political manipulation.”

The twin executive orders Thursday — one for each app — add to growing U.S.-Chinese conflict over technology and security. They take effect in 45 days and could bar the apps from the Apple and Google app stores, effectively removing them from U.S. distribution.

China’s foreign ministry said it opposed the move but gave no indication whether Beijing might retaliate.

Earlier, Trump threatened a deadline of Sept. 15 to “close down” TikTok in the United States unless Microsoft Corp. or another company acquires it.

TikTok, owned by Beijing-headquartered ByteDance Ltd., is popular for its short, catchy videos. The company says it has 100 million users in the United States and hundreds of millions worldwide.

The Trump administration has expressed concern Chinese social media services could provide American users’ personal information to Chinese authorities, though it has given no evidence TikTok did that.

Instead, officials point to the Communist Party’s ability to compel cooperation from Chinese companies. U.S. regulators cited similar security concerns last year when the Chinese owner of Grindr was ordered to sell the dating app.

In a statement, TikTok expressed shock at the order and complained it violates U.S. law. The company said it doesn’t store American user data in China and never has given it to Beijing or censored content at the government’s request.

TikTok said it spent nearly a year trying to reach a “constructive solution” but the Trump administration “paid no attention to facts” and tried improperly to insert itself into business negotiations. TikTok said it would “pursue all remedies” available to ensure the company and its users are “are treated fairly.”

Tencent and Microsoft declined to comment.

On Friday, shares of WeChat’s owner, Tencent Holding Ltd., declined 5% in trading in Hong Kong. Tencent, Asia’s most valuable tech company with a market capitalization of $650 million, makes most of its money from online games and entertainment in China.

On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced an expansion of the U.S. crackdown on Chinese technology to include barring Chinese apps from U.S. app stores, citing alleged security threats and calling out TikTok and WeChat by name.

The Chinese foreign ministry accused Washington of “political manipulation” and said the moves will hurt American companies and consumers.

“The United States is using national security as an excuse, frequently abuses national power and unreasonably suppresses companies of other countries,” said a ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin. “This is an outright hegemonic act. China is firmly opposed to it.”

Wang, who didn’t mention TikTok or any other company by name, called on the Trump administration to “correct its wrongdoing” but gave no indication how Beijing might respond.

Trump’s orders say the Chinese-owned apps “threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” They cite the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act and call on the Commerce secretary to define the banned dealings by Sept. 15.

WeChat, known in Chinese as Weixin, is a hugely popular messaging app that links to finance and other services. It has more than 1 billion users. Around the world, many people of Chinese descent use WeChat to stay in touch with friends and family and to conduct business in mainland China.

Within China, WeChat is censored and expected to adhere to content restrictions set by authorities. The Citizen Lab internet watchdog group in Toronto says WeChat monitors files and images shared abroad to aid its censorship in China.

Tencent also owns stakes in major game companies such as Epic Games, publisher of Fortnite, a major video game hit, and Riot Games, which is behind League of Legends.

The Trump administration already was embroiled in a tariff war with Beijing over its technology ambitions. Washington has blocked acquisitions of some U.S. assets by Chinese buyers and has cut off most access to American components and other technology for Huawei Technologies Ltd., a maker of smartphones and network equipment that is China’s first global tech brand.

China-backed hackers have been blamed for breaches of U.S. federal databases and the credit agency Equifax.

In China, the Communist Party limits what foreign tech companies can do and blocks access to the Google search engine, Facebook, Twitter and other social media, along with thousands of websites operated by news organizations and human rights, pro-democracy and other activist groups.

The ruling party has used the entirely state-controlled press to encourage public anger at Trump’s actions.

“I don’t want to use American products any more,” said Sun Fanyu, an insurance salesperson in Beijing. “I will support domestic substitute products.”

Leading mobile security experts say TikTok is no more intrusive in its harvesting of user data and monitoring of user activity than U.S. apps owned by Facebook and Google.

“The U.S. thinking is that anything that is Chinese is suspect,” said Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing. “They’re being targeted not because of what they’ve done, but who they are.”

The order doesn’t seem to ban Americans from using TikTok, which would be nearly impossible to enforce, said Kirsten Martin, a professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame.

“This is a pretty broad and pretty quick expansion of the technology Cold War between the U.S. and China,” said Steven Weber, faculty director for the Berkeley Center for Long Term Cybersecurity.

NEW YORK (AP) — President Donald Trump has ordered a sweeping but vague ban on dealings with the Chinese owners of popular social media apps&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/2d3064d67b71aad7ea35793f16109fae">TikTok</a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/ab55806ba6e54456b4dadadbc795ccc5">WeChat</a>&nbsp;on security grounds, a move China’s government criticized as “political manipulation.”The twin executive orders Thursday — one for each app — add to growing U.S.-Chinese conflict over technology and security. They take effect in 45 days and could bar the apps from the Apple and Google app stores, effectively removing them from U.S. distribution.China’s foreign ministry said it opposed the move but gave no indication whether Beijing might retaliate.Earlier, Trump threatened a deadline of Sept. 15 to “close down” TikTok in the United States unless Microsoft Corp. or another company acquires it.TikTok, owned by Beijing-headquartered ByteDance Ltd., is popular for its short, catchy videos. The company says it has 100 million users in the United States and hundreds of millions worldwide.The Trump administration has expressed concern Chinese social media services could provide American users’ personal information to Chinese authorities, though it has given no evidence TikTok did that.Instead, officials point to the Communist Party’s ability to compel cooperation from Chinese companies. U.S. regulators cited similar security concerns last year when the Chinese owner of Grindr was ordered to sell the dating app.In a statement, TikTok expressed shock at the order and complained it violates U.S. law. The company said it doesn’t store American user data in China and never has given it to Beijing or censored content at the government’s request.TikTok said it spent nearly a year trying to reach a “constructive solution” but the Trump administration “paid no attention to facts” and tried improperly to insert itself into business negotiations. TikTok said it would “pursue all remedies” available to ensure the company and its users are “are treated fairly.”Tencent and Microsoft declined to comment.On Friday, shares of WeChat’s owner, Tencent Holding Ltd., declined 5% in trading in Hong Kong. Tencent, Asia’s most valuable tech company with a market capitalization of $650 million, makes most of its money from online games and entertainment in China.On Wednesday, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced an expansion of the U.S. crackdown on Chinese technology to include barring Chinese apps from U.S. app stores, citing alleged security threats and calling out TikTok and WeChat by name.The Chinese foreign ministry accused Washington of “political manipulation” and said the moves will hurt American companies and consumers.“The United States is using national security as an excuse, frequently abuses national power and unreasonably suppresses companies of other countries,” said a ministry spokesman, Wang Wenbin. “This is an outright hegemonic act. China is firmly opposed to it.”Wang, who didn’t mention TikTok or any other company by name, called on the Trump administration to “correct its wrongdoing” but gave no indication how Beijing might respond.Trump’s orders say the Chinese-owned apps “threaten the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States.” They cite the International Emergency Economic Powers Act and the National Emergencies Act and call on the Commerce secretary to define the banned dealings by Sept. 15.WeChat, known in Chinese as Weixin, is a hugely popular messaging app that links to finance and other services. It has more than 1 billion users. Around the world, many people of Chinese descent use WeChat to stay in touch with friends and family and to conduct business in mainland China.Within China, WeChat is censored and expected to adhere to content restrictions set by authorities. The Citizen Lab internet watchdog group in Toronto says WeChat monitors files and images shared abroad to aid its censorship in China.Tencent also owns stakes in major game companies such as Epic Games, publisher of Fortnite, a major video game hit, and Riot Games, which is behind League of Legends.The Trump administration already was embroiled in a tariff war with Beijing over its technology ambitions. Washington has blocked acquisitions of some U.S. assets by Chinese buyers and has cut off most access to American components and other technology for Huawei Technologies Ltd., a maker of smartphones and network equipment that is China’s first global tech brand.China-backed hackers have been blamed for breaches of U.S. federal databases and the credit agency Equifax.In China, the Communist Party limits what foreign tech companies can do and blocks access to the Google search engine, Facebook, Twitter and other social media, along with thousands of websites operated by news organizations and human rights, pro-democracy and other activist groups.The ruling party has used the entirely state-controlled press to encourage public anger at Trump’s actions.“I don’t want to use American products any more,” said Sun Fanyu, an insurance salesperson in Beijing. “I will support domestic substitute products.”Leading mobile security experts say TikTok is no more intrusive in its harvesting of user data and monitoring of user activity than U.S. apps owned by Facebook and Google.“The U.S. thinking is that anything that is Chinese is suspect,” said Andy Mok, a senior research fellow at the Center for China and Globalization in Beijing. “They’re being targeted not because of what they’ve done, but who they are.”The order doesn’t seem to ban Americans from using TikTok, which would be nearly impossible to enforce, said Kirsten Martin, a professor of technology ethics at the University of Notre Dame.“This is a pretty broad and pretty quick expansion of the technology Cold War between the U.S. and China,” said Steven Weber, faculty director for the Berkeley Center for Long Term Cybersecurity.___

Trump issues ban on Chinese owners of TikTok, WeChat apps

<a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-08-05/what-a-pending-football-game-says-about-covid-19-the-fate-small-colleges-and-college-towns">Kansas News Service</a>

STERLING —&nbsp;There’s a lot riding on a kickoff set for 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12.

The
 Sterling College Warriors are scheduled to take on the McPherson 
College Bulldogs at home. If that familiar thud of shoe against football
 and cheer from the stands doesn’t happen, the college that keeps the 
central Kansas town’s economy humming, that gives it cultural vitality, 
and that separates Sterling from the hollowing out that defines so many 
other small Midwestern towns, might not survive.

The school, after
 133 years, could die and doom the town that takes such pride in the 
football squad and embraces the student body like family.

“If 
COVID defeats the athletic season this year, it will probably defeat a 
lot of small colleges,” said Jeb Miller, a non-traditional senior at 
Sterling College. “And, as a result, harm a lot of small towns. Badly.”

Hundreds
 of small colleges dotting the country rely on students paying tens of 
thousands of dollars a year in exchange for a distinctive, personal, 
high-touch college experience.

Many of those colleges hung on 
year-to-year even before the pandemic. Now COVID-19 threatens to cut off
 the oxygen sustaining these schools, and the sports programs that drive
 enrollment.

But the very thing small colleges need to stay afloat
 — students coming in, spending money, playing sports — also poses a 
major risk to relatively isolated little towns that, so far, have dodged
 major coronavirus outbreaks.

Only about 2,200 people live in 
Sterling out on the flat, flat plains of south-central Kansas. But this 
small city boasts an almost idyllic downtown. New office buildings. Two 
good coffee shops. A nice grocery store, a bowling alley, you name it.

Sterling
 has good schools, competitive sports teams. Locals say school plays, 
games and concerts draw big crowds. Without the college, the money, 
diversity and energy that defines life in Sterling could evaporate 
quickly.

“There is just so much overlap,” said Kyler Comley, a 
Sterling College senior who’s lived in the town all his life. “The 
community supports the college. The college supports the community. You 
know, you just see how everything’s intertwined and how people are just 
so overly giving and involved.”

Every student attending Sterling 
College gets paired with a family in town. Those families speak 
endearingly about their adopted scholars.

The students left in 
March. Most haven’t come back. Like many people here, Sterling criminal 
justice professor Mark Tremaine said that starting classes up again in 
person this month is make or break for Sterling College.

“The 
bottom line is, we’ve got to get students back to campus. If we’re going
 to survive,” he said.“We have to accept whatever the risks are and do 
it.”

And that’s the plan. Sterling doesn’t have much of a choice.

“We
 have committed to open up in the fall,” Sterling College President 
Scott Rich said. “With face to face classes, face-to-face coursework, 
dorms and activities and full swing. But we’re committed to doing it 
safely.”

Rich said the school will quarantine students coming back to the 
dorms, test them liberally, and isolate those who come down sick in 
local hotels.

Rich said the freshman class looks strong, with 
about 200 new students. But he is desperately trying to woo 50 or so 
upperclassmen who haven’t signed on this year. The school needs them 
because, like many other small institutions, Sterling College scrapes by
 from year to year.

“We’re always dependent upon enrollment, 
always dependent upon that next year, always dependent upon persistence 
or retention,” Rich said. “We have to get students to come back.”

Other small-town schools across the country, and the communities tied to their fate, face the same existential crisis.

“Some
 of the people I know are looking at hundreds of colleges going out of 
business within the next several years, if this pandemic continues and 
if the economic devastation associated with it continues,” said Scott 
Carlson with the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Small liberal arts
 colleges have been shaky for years. Enrollments have slumped, 
endowments have been drained. Many schools have piled on debt in a 
building boom fueled by competition for students.

Most offer 
courses online, but online classes don’t pay the bills. Small schools 
survive only by providing an expensive, in-person college experience. 
And Carlson said the pandemic shreds that business model, and threatens 
to trigger the higher education equivalent of a mass extinction.

“It’s
 kind of sad," he said. "These colleges are unique, little entities all 
on their own, and each one of them provides a unique spin on higher 
education.”

Sterling College, 
for instance, leans heavily on a particular interpretation of 
Christianity. Guarding the front door of the classic, old limestone 
building that anchors campus is a statue of Christ — not being tortured 
on the cross, but humbly washing the feet of a disciple. “Servant 
leadership,” as anyone here will tell you, guides the campus ethic.

But Jesus doesn’t keep the lights on here. Football does.

“We
 do have a good football team,” said Sterling’s athletic director, Scott
 Downing. “They’ve been fairly successful the last dozen years and been 
to the national playoffs, won the conference championship.”

The team helps bring the students together, but more importantly, it drives enrollment.

“With
 a football team number of about 125 to 135 student-athletes, quite a 
bit of our student body is involved in that sport,” Downing said.

That’s
 an understatement. There are only about 500 students on campus in a 
given year, one in four is on the football team. And there are 20 other 
sports.

The chance to play college sports is a major selling point
 for schools like Sterling. It drives enrollment. But in a pandemic, 
sports can be vectors for disease. And Jed Miller, who’s finishing his 
degree at Sterling online next year, says that’s another vulnerability.

“If
 COVID defeats the athletic season this year, it will probably defeat a 
lot of small colleges,” he said. “And as a result, hurt a lot of small 
towns ... badly.”

So, the same colleges that keep some small towns vibrant now pose a particular threat to public health.

“The
 college probably is the most dangerous element for us in terms of 
COVID,” said Kristina Darnauer, a family practice doctor in Sterling. 
“It potentially brings back students from all over the US who have 
variable levels of exposure.”

Darnauer is torn. She loves 
Sterling, loves the college, and fully appreciates how important it is 
to the school and the town that college ramp almost as normal this fall.

But
 she’s got patients to care for. And she said this county, with only one
 hospital and no intensive care unit is not ready for a cluster of 
coronavirus cases.

“If we have a huge outbreak,” Darnauer said, “we’re going to be out of resources very quickly.”

Small colleges and college towns across much of the country face the same worries.

But
 some analysts say that a pruning of universities may prove inevitable, 
and that the coronavirus has only sped up the thinning of the higher 
education herd.

“I actually see the future of higher education, 
broadly speaking, as entering a new golden age,” said Richard Price, a 
research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute. It’s a think tank 
that presses for dramatic change in institutions.

Price said the 
pandemic may hasten the evolution to better online classes, and a public
 education system that’s much more accessible and equitable.

“The 
traditional model, it was originally for the landed elite and it wasn’t 
for all genders,” Price said. “It wasn’t for all races. And that is 
slowly getting phased out along with some older business models that 
aren’t pivoting well.”

And Price thinks many little colleges will 
adapt. Lots of them have cheated death before. But he said there’s 
little doubt that this time next year the United States will have many 
fewer colleges. Folks in Sterling, Kansas, hope and, yes, pray, that 
Sterling College is among the survivors.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596722865321.png" alt="A local gospel quintet entertains Sterling residents on a recent Tuesday evening. Frank Morris photo" />
 <figcaption>A local gospel quintet entertains Sterling residents on a recent Tuesday evening. Frank Morris photo</figcaption>
 </figure><a href="https://www.kcur.org/news/2020-08-05/what-a-pending-football-game-says-about-covid-19-the-fate-small-colleges-and-college-towns">Kansas News Service</a>STERLING —&nbsp;There’s a lot riding on a kickoff set for 6 p.m. Saturday, Sept. 12.The
 Sterling College Warriors are scheduled to take on the McPherson 
College Bulldogs at home. If that familiar thud of shoe against football
 and cheer from the stands doesn’t happen, the college that keeps the 
central Kansas town’s economy humming, that gives it cultural vitality, 
and that separates Sterling from the hollowing out that defines so many 
other small Midwestern towns, might not survive.The school, after
 133 years, could die and doom the town that takes such pride in the 
football squad and embraces the student body like family.“If 
COVID defeats the athletic season this year, it will probably defeat a 
lot of small colleges,” said Jeb Miller, a non-traditional senior at 
Sterling College. “And, as a result, harm a lot of small towns. Badly.”<h2>Small town institutions</h2>Hundreds
 of small colleges dotting the country rely on students paying tens of 
thousands of dollars a year in exchange for a distinctive, personal, 
high-touch college experience.Many of those colleges hung on 
year-to-year even before the pandemic. Now COVID-19 threatens to cut off
 the oxygen sustaining these schools, and the sports programs that drive
 enrollment.But the very thing small colleges need to stay afloat
 — students coming in, spending money, playing sports — also poses a 
major risk to relatively isolated little towns that, so far, have dodged
 major coronavirus outbreaks.Only about 2,200 people live in 
Sterling out on the flat, flat plains of south-central Kansas. But this 
small city boasts an almost idyllic downtown. New office buildings. Two 
good coffee shops. A nice grocery store, a bowling alley, you name it.Sterling
 has good schools, competitive sports teams. Locals say school plays, 
games and concerts draw big crowds. Without the college, the money, 
diversity and energy that defines life in Sterling could evaporate 
quickly.“There is just so much overlap,” said Kyler Comley, a 
Sterling College senior who’s lived in the town all his life. “The 
community supports the college. The college supports the community. You 
know, you just see how everything’s intertwined and how people are just 
so overly giving and involved.”Every student attending Sterling 
College gets paired with a family in town. Those families speak 
endearingly about their adopted scholars.The students left in 
March. Most haven’t come back. Like many people here, Sterling criminal 
justice professor Mark Tremaine said that starting classes up again in 
person this month is make or break for Sterling College.“The 
bottom line is, we’ve got to get students back to campus. If we’re going
 to survive,” he said.“We have to accept whatever the risks are and do 
it.”And that’s the plan. Sterling doesn’t have much of a choice.<h2>Staying alive</h2>“We
 have committed to open up in the fall,” Sterling College President 
Scott Rich said. “With face to face classes, face-to-face coursework, 
dorms and activities and full swing. But we’re committed to doing it 
safely.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596722974216.png" alt="Sterling College President Scot Rich. Frank Morris photo" />
 <figcaption>Sterling College President Scot Rich. Frank Morris photo</figcaption>
 </figure>Rich said the school will quarantine students coming back to the 
dorms, test them liberally, and isolate those who come down sick in 
local hotels.Rich said the freshman class looks strong, with 
about 200 new students. But he is desperately trying to woo 50 or so 
upperclassmen who haven’t signed on this year. The school needs them 
because, like many other small institutions, Sterling College scrapes by
 from year to year.“We’re always dependent upon enrollment, 
always dependent upon that next year, always dependent upon persistence 
or retention,” Rich said. “We have to get students to come back.”Other small-town schools across the country, and the communities tied to their fate, face the same existential crisis.“Some
 of the people I know are looking at hundreds of colleges going out of 
business within the next several years, if this pandemic continues and 
if the economic devastation associated with it continues,” said Scott 
Carlson with the Chronicle of Higher Education.Small liberal arts
 colleges have been shaky for years. Enrollments have slumped, 
endowments have been drained. Many schools have piled on debt in a 
building boom fueled by competition for students.Most offer 
courses online, but online classes don’t pay the bills. Small schools 
survive only by providing an expensive, in-person college experience. 
And Carlson said the pandemic shreds that business model, and threatens 
to trigger the higher education equivalent of a mass extinction.“It’s
 kind of sad," he said. "These colleges are unique, little entities all 
on their own, and each one of them provides a unique spin on higher 
education.”<h2>‘Servant leadership’</h2>Sterling College, 
for instance, leans heavily on a particular interpretation of 
Christianity. Guarding the front door of the classic, old limestone 
building that anchors campus is a statue of Christ — not being tortured 
on the cross, but humbly washing the feet of a disciple. “Servant 
leadership,” as anyone here will tell you, guides the campus ethic.But Jesus doesn’t keep the lights on here. Football does.“We
 do have a good football team,” said Sterling’s athletic director, Scott
 Downing. “They’ve been fairly successful the last dozen years and been 
to the national playoffs, won the conference championship.”The team helps bring the students together, but more importantly, it drives enrollment.“With
 a football team number of about 125 to 135 student-athletes, quite a 
bit of our student body is involved in that sport,” Downing said.That’s
 an understatement. There are only about 500 students on campus in a 
given year, one in four is on the football team. And there are 20 other 
sports.The chance to play college sports is a major selling point
 for schools like Sterling. It drives enrollment. But in a pandemic, 
sports can be vectors for disease. And Jed Miller, who’s finishing his 
degree at Sterling online next year, says that’s another vulnerability.“If
 COVID defeats the athletic season this year, it will probably defeat a 
lot of small colleges,” he said. “And as a result, hurt a lot of small 
towns ... badly.”So, the same colleges that keep some small towns vibrant now pose a particular threat to public health.“The
 college probably is the most dangerous element for us in terms of 
COVID,” said Kristina Darnauer, a family practice doctor in Sterling. 
“It potentially brings back students from all over the US who have 
variable levels of exposure.”Darnauer is torn. She loves 
Sterling, loves the college, and fully appreciates how important it is 
to the school and the town that college ramp almost as normal this fall.But
 she’s got patients to care for. And she said this county, with only one
 hospital and no intensive care unit is not ready for a cluster of 
coronavirus cases.“If we have a huge outbreak,” Darnauer said, “we’re going to be out of resources very quickly.”<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596723019769.png" alt="An aging note on a door at the University of Missouri Kansas City promises a speedy reopening. Frank Morris photo" />
 <figcaption>An aging note on a door at the University of Missouri Kansas City promises a speedy reopening. Frank Morris photo</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>A new era</h2>Small colleges and college towns across much of the country face the same worries.But
 some analysts say that a pruning of universities may prove inevitable, 
and that the coronavirus has only sped up the thinning of the higher 
education herd.“I actually see the future of higher education, 
broadly speaking, as entering a new golden age,” said Richard Price, a 
research fellow at the Clayton Christensen Institute. It’s a think tank 
that presses for dramatic change in institutions.Price said the 
pandemic may hasten the evolution to better online classes, and a public
 education system that’s much more accessible and equitable.“The 
traditional model, it was originally for the landed elite and it wasn’t 
for all genders,” Price said. “It wasn’t for all races. And that is 
slowly getting phased out along with some older business models that 
aren’t pivoting well.”And Price thinks many little colleges will 
adapt. Lots of them have cheated death before. But he said there’s 
little doubt that this time next year the United States will have many 
fewer colleges. Folks in Sterling, Kansas, hope and, yes, pray, that 
Sterling College is among the survivors.

What a football game says about COVID-19, fate of small colleges

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A top Republican legislator in Kansas was hospitalized last month after testing positive for the novel coronavirus and didn’t disclose it to colleagues until this week. The state’s Democratic governor declared Thursday that she’ll get tested because the two of them attended a meeting together after he was hospitalized.

Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr.’s delayed acknowledgment of his hospitalization — in an email to fellow House Republicans after Tuesday’s primary — concerned colleagues, particularly Democrats. Gov. Laura Kelly called his decision to attend a July 29 meeting at the Statehouse “reckless and dangerous.”

Ryckman, from the Kansas City area, is the highest-ranking official in Kansas known to have been infected.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b7f0791859d371ed8e8bb6bbe2173d87">Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt</a>&nbsp;of Oklahoma tested positive last month.

Ryckman said in an interview that he tested positive on July 13, began showing symptoms that evening and was hospitalized for about a week starting July 16. He said he remained isolated, both at home and in the hospital and was cleared by a doctor to attend of the State Finance Council on July 29. The governor and eight top legislative leaders make up the council, and state law has required it to review orders from Kelly to deal with the pandemic.

“I was hospitalized, have followed doctor’s orders, and self-isolated during that time,” Ryckman, a Kansas City-area Republican, said in his email to colleagues. “I am now past what doctors consider the contagious stage and am on the road to recovery.”

Ryckman’s disclosure roiled Kansas politics immediately after it was first reported Thursday by the Sunflower State Journal. Kelly spokesman Sam Coleman said the governor’s office “was not aware” of Ryckman’s positive test and that Kelly will get tested “as soon as we can set it up.”

The governor said she wishes Ryckman good health and is glad he is recovering but added that she was “dismayed” to learn that he’d been infected.

“Speaker Ryckman’s decision to attend the State Finance Council meeting after being released from the hospital, while concealing his diagnosis from those of us in the room and taking his mask off, was reckless and dangerous,” Kelly said in a statement. “As elected officials, we have a unique responsibility to set the right example for the people of Kansas, and to follow the commonsense guidance from medical experts.”

Ryckman later accused Kelly in&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/RonRyckman/status/1291568153118617600" target="_blank">a tweet&nbsp;</a>of “fear mongering and public shaming” and said he’d told people with whom he’d been in contact. He said his personal precautions went beyond state and federal COVID-19 guidelines and that he opted to share his story more broadly later to “help reduce the stigma” faced by people who’ve been infected.

Kansas saw its reported coronavirus cases reach nearly 30,000 as of Wednesday after increasing almost 93% in July, according to state health department statistics. The state also is reporting 368 COVID-19-related deaths.

The University of Kansas is requiring all students, faculty and staff returning to its campuses in Lawrence and the Kansas City area to take a free COVID-19 test before the fall semester begins Aug. 24,&nbsp;<a href="https://www2.ljworld.com/news/ku/2020/aug/05/ku-will-mandate-initial-covid-19-testing-for-campus-community-girod-says/" target="_blank">The Lawrence Journal-World reported.</a>&nbsp;Meanwhile, health officials in Wabaunsee County west of Topeka are encouraging anyone who attended the county fair on July 24-27 to monitor themselves for symptoms because one person who attended tested positive.

Kelly and Republican lawmakers have been at odds for months over how best to check the spread of the coronavirus, with the GOP preferring to allow local officials make decisions because the number of reported cases per 1,000 residents continues to vary widely. After weeks of complaints that Kelly was moving too slowly to reopen the state’s coronavirus-battered economy, she&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/a5e30a0ec7a5943ada9f03af22ee1970">lifted statewide restrictions</a>&nbsp;on businesses and public gatherings on May 26.

The state’s 105 counties now set the rules and most have opted of a July 2 order from Kelly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/f218e1a38cce6b2af63c1cd23f1d234e">requiring people to wear masks&nbsp;</a>in public. Also, the Republican-controlled State Board of Education&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/6a64799654f6a9ccb944299898f8d367">blocked a plan</a>&nbsp;from Kelly to delay the reopening of public and private K-12 schools from mid-August until after Labor Day, leaving the start of fall classes to 286 locally elected school boards.

Kansas House Democrats reacted angrily to the news of Ryckman’s coronavirus infection, tweeting on their official account that he had “knowingly putting lives at risk.”

“Not alerting every member of the House and Senate is indefensible,” they tweeted. “He must be held accountable for his negligence.”

And Heather Scanlon, chief of staff for House Democratic Leader Tom Sawyer, sent The Associated Press a July 29 text that said was in response to news from a staffer that Ryckman intended to phone into the Finance Council meeting. She asked whether Ryckman was doing OK, and the reply was, “Oh he’s doing fine.”

Scanlon tweeted back, “Oh ok good. I heard he had covid.” She got no reply to that message, she said.

Ryckman said he was notified July 10 by phone by that he’d been in contact with someone who might have the virus and began self-isolating. He said that person did not have coronavirus, and his family also did not get infected.

As for the House Democrats’ criticism of him, he said in a text to The AP that he understand that the unknowns surrounding COVID-19 “make people uncomfortable.”

“That’s why I listened to my doctor for my medical care and clearance before end(ing) self-isolating,” he said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596795733282.png" alt="House Speaker Ron Ryckman, Jr.&nbsp;is the highest-ranking official in Kansas known to have been infected- photo courtesy Kansas House of Representatives" />
 <figcaption>House Speaker Ron Ryckman, Jr.&nbsp;is the highest-ranking official in Kansas known to have been infected- photo courtesy Kansas House of Representatives</figcaption>
 </figure>By JOHN HANNATOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A top Republican legislator in Kansas was hospitalized last month after testing positive for the novel coronavirus and didn’t disclose it to colleagues until this week. The state’s Democratic governor declared Thursday that she’ll get tested because the two of them attended a meeting together after he was hospitalized.Kansas House Speaker Ron Ryckman Jr.’s delayed acknowledgment of his hospitalization — in an email to fellow House Republicans after Tuesday’s primary — concerned colleagues, particularly Democrats. Gov. Laura Kelly called his decision to attend a July 29 meeting at the Statehouse “reckless and dangerous.”Ryckman, from the Kansas City area, is the highest-ranking official in Kansas known to have been infected.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b7f0791859d371ed8e8bb6bbe2173d87">Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt</a>&nbsp;of Oklahoma tested positive last month.Ryckman said in an interview that he tested positive on July 13, began showing symptoms that evening and was hospitalized for about a week starting July 16. He said he remained isolated, both at home and in the hospital and was cleared by a doctor to attend of the State Finance Council on July 29. The governor and eight top legislative leaders make up the council, and state law has required it to review orders from Kelly to deal with the pandemic.“I was hospitalized, have followed doctor’s orders, and self-isolated during that time,” Ryckman, a Kansas City-area Republican, said in his email to colleagues. “I am now past what doctors consider the contagious stage and am on the road to recovery.”<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">The Governor’s public response to my personal experience with COVID is fear mongering and public shaming. I informed everyone I came into contact with &amp; took precautions far beyond CDC &amp; KDHE guidelines. Today, I opted to share my story more broadly. Here are the facts. <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/ksleg?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#ksleg</a> <a href="https://t.co/jDCN2nuutN">pic.twitter.com/jDCN2nuutN</a>&mdash; Speaker Ryckman (@RonRyckman) <a href="https://twitter.com/RonRyckman/status/1291568153118617600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 7, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Ryckman’s disclosure roiled Kansas politics immediately after it was first reported Thursday by the Sunflower State Journal. Kelly spokesman Sam Coleman said the governor’s office “was not aware” of Ryckman’s positive test and that Kelly will get tested “as soon as we can set it up.”The governor said she wishes Ryckman good health and is glad he is recovering but added that she was “dismayed” to learn that he’d been infected.“Speaker Ryckman’s decision to attend the State Finance Council meeting after being released from the hospital, while concealing his diagnosis from those of us in the room and taking his mask off, was reckless and dangerous,” Kelly said in a statement. “As elected officials, we have a unique responsibility to set the right example for the people of Kansas, and to follow the commonsense guidance from medical experts.”Ryckman later accused Kelly in&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/RonRyckman/status/1291568153118617600" target="_blank">a tweet&nbsp;</a>of “fear mongering and public shaming” and said he’d told people with whom he’d been in contact. He said his personal precautions went beyond state and federal COVID-19 guidelines and that he opted to share his story more broadly later to “help reduce the stigma” faced by people who’ve been infected.Kansas saw its reported coronavirus cases reach nearly 30,000 as of Wednesday after increasing almost 93% in July, according to state health department statistics. The state also is reporting 368 COVID-19-related deaths.The University of Kansas is requiring all students, faculty and staff returning to its campuses in Lawrence and the Kansas City area to take a free COVID-19 test before the fall semester begins Aug. 24,&nbsp;<a href="https://www2.ljworld.com/news/ku/2020/aug/05/ku-will-mandate-initial-covid-19-testing-for-campus-community-girod-says/" target="_blank">The Lawrence Journal-World reported.</a>&nbsp;Meanwhile, health officials in Wabaunsee County west of Topeka are encouraging anyone who attended the county fair on July 24-27 to monitor themselves for symptoms because one person who attended tested positive.Kelly and Republican lawmakers have been at odds for months over how best to check the spread of the coronavirus, with the GOP preferring to allow local officials make decisions because the number of reported cases per 1,000 residents continues to vary widely. After weeks of complaints that Kelly was moving too slowly to reopen the state’s coronavirus-battered economy, she&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/a5e30a0ec7a5943ada9f03af22ee1970">lifted statewide restrictions</a>&nbsp;on businesses and public gatherings on May 26.The state’s 105 counties now set the rules and most have opted of a July 2 order from Kelly&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/f218e1a38cce6b2af63c1cd23f1d234e">requiring people to wear masks&nbsp;</a>in public. Also, the Republican-controlled State Board of Education&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/6a64799654f6a9ccb944299898f8d367">blocked a plan</a>&nbsp;from Kelly to delay the reopening of public and private K-12 schools from mid-August until after Labor Day, leaving the start of fall classes to 286 locally elected school boards.Kansas House Democrats reacted angrily to the news of Ryckman’s coronavirus infection, tweeting on their official account that he had “knowingly putting lives at risk.”“Not alerting every member of the House and Senate is indefensible,” they tweeted. “He must be held accountable for his negligence.”And Heather Scanlon, chief of staff for House Democratic Leader Tom Sawyer, sent The Associated Press a July 29 text that said was in response to news from a staffer that Ryckman intended to phone into the Finance Council meeting. She asked whether Ryckman was doing OK, and the reply was, “Oh he’s doing fine.”Scanlon tweeted back, “Oh ok good. I heard he had covid.” She got no reply to that message, she said.Ryckman said he was notified July 10 by phone by that he’d been in contact with someone who might have the virus and began self-isolating. He said that person did not have coronavirus, and his family also did not get infected.As for the House Democrats’ criticism of him, he said in a text to The AP that he understand that the unknowns surrounding COVID-19 “make people uncomfortable.”“That’s why I listened to my doctor for my medical care and clearance before end(ing) self-isolating,” he said.

Kan. House speaker had coronavirus; governor to get tested

WASHINGTON – To assist Farm Storage Facility Loan (FSFL) borrowers experiencing financial hardship from the pandemic and other challenges in production agriculture, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) is offering a one-time annual installment payment deferral option.

 No fees or prepayment penalties apply&nbsp; for borrowers who choose this FSFL loan flexibility option.

“Farmers are facing challenging times because of the pandemic, and FSA is constantly looking for ways to offer flexibilities to our customers to help alleviate financial stressors,” said FSA Administrator Richard Fordyce. 

“This storage facility loan servicing option affords eligible borrowers more time to make a payment and may stop loan acceleration, foreclosure or liquidation.”

Eligible borrowers can request a one-time only annual installment payment deferral for loans having terms of three, five, seven or ten years. The installment deferral option is not available for 12-year term loans.

The FSFL installment payments will remain the same, except for the last year. The original loan interest rate and annual payment due date will remain the same. However, because the installment payment deferral is a one-year loan term extension, the final payment will be higher due to additional accrued interest.

Borrowers interested in exercising the one-time annual installment deferral option should contact FSA to make the request and to obtain, complete and sign required forms.

FSFLs provide low-interest financing for producers to store, handle and transport eligible commodities.

In addition to offering flexibilities for FSFLs, FSA has also made other flexibilities to help producers impacted by the pandemic, including relaxing the loan-making process for farm operating and ownership loans and implementing the Disaster Set-Aside provision that enables an upcoming installment on a direct loan to be set aside for the year. 

More information on these flexibilities can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUZVecJWRiiDopnLiHg3TjJ-2FtTxI9D3oE1zQ6bpOViCoGXIBS_r-2BDMsuWuYVmb7-2F1Mu1QL1I-2FJ8-2BHR91nNNNGTTc38Ah21KHordUO1d7zhLCFR0YP4W2h34kGvaUJG9DcNaDLY4wTxXaVbw1sBFaBaBxdAvVXKdYUjMuNf9y5EWR4zHayI312JdWytQZKG7mexolfEwTNFDm2WK-2FnLKftkk3jRhFoseQkDeRBLO-2BwPn9dBxZMklXy6cuBGt2yiV6nThkFP-2BK-2BJp961iQo113wsA3-2Bum-2B-2F-2FydkUCLW78-2BF4-2BWutjttr7EEXQX2-2FAKaVECWwai-2FzCOdmbq742luHKxVJnfSWxJzI-2FUOlMiitoLDYMEVW0CCoIfnc3r3wLCx9aL4Nvz-2B7-2BYjeZCC3TTac-2F9eVm2fC0kA-3D" target="_blank">farmers.gov/coronavirus</a>.

All USDA Service Centers are open for business, including some that are open to visitors to conduct business in person by appointment only. All Service Center visitors wishing to conduct business with the FSA, Natural Resources Conservation Service or any other Service Center agency should call ahead and schedule an appointment. 

Service Centers that are open for appointments will pre-screen visitors based on health concerns or recent travel, and visitors must adhere to social distancing guidelines. Visitors may also be required to wear a face covering during their appointment. 

Field work will continue with appropriate social distancing. Our program delivery staff will be in the office, and they will be working with our producers in office, by phone and using online tools. More information can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUZVecJWRiiDopnLiHg3TjJ-2FtTxI9D3oE1zQ6bpOViCoGdYbQ_r-2BDMsuWuYVmb7-2F1Mu1QL1I-2FJ8-2BHR91nNNNGTTc38Ah21KHordUO1d7zhLCFR0YP4W2h34kGvaUJG9DcNaDLY4wTxXaVbw1sBFaBaBxdAvVXKdYUjMuNf9y5EWR4zHayI312JdWytQZKG7mexolfEwTNFDm2WK-2FnLKftkk3jRhFoseQkDeRBLO-2BwPn9dBxZMkMeY1OPi3gVOFH4amy4Oq9xdxS-2F7P8Pjwdf-2FglDxwpDCEf9ml2ihSaoLZK10-2FkCU8QNXg3WnI5tgaSFxOMBoAQVU4GuJx-2ByqTrW5qtNm-2FP3hbX5m1EAweWGHv6jIUUzQerLpRdJEcHlFhUacN-2BfqwbuMkFRESlQTAJmPMzYWE-2Bxs-3D" target="_blank">farmers.gov/coronavirus</a>.

For more information, contact your local USDA Service Center. To locate your local FSA office, visit&nbsp;<a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUZVecJWRiiDopnLiHg3TjJ-2FrOTMBAWxcmfvek2TFz37HmPMswIuXsTulqCAX8Y8bCQ-3D-3DNu2B_r-2BDMsuWuYVmb7-2F1Mu1QL1I-2FJ8-2BHR91nNNNGTTc38Ah21KHordUO1d7zhLCFR0YP4W2h34kGvaUJG9DcNaDLY4wTxXaVbw1sBFaBaBxdAvVXKdYUjMuNf9y5EWR4zHayI312JdWytQZKG7mexolfEwTNFDm2WK-2FnLKftkk3jRhFoseQkDeRBLO-2BwPn9dBxZMkrUBkrRpAXo1GFiyQb-2B9Q9fLii9CxVK80-2Bbe02GV7R-2FEJ0WFRz6Qz-2FOhccuwD78yzMkI7SRCqKpr-2FaS7-2F5u9BX2-2B-2FDhZA3Avj6yhE1z29aJ0LLo7BAW084QDZqLGTeDtstAulOUnupNLHnBEnbQocUB3xv27L0tmG1PMWz8L8GnA-3D" target="_blank">farmers.gov/service-center-locator</a>.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596807915701.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>USDA WASHINGTON – To assist Farm Storage Facility Loan (FSFL) borrowers experiencing financial hardship from the pandemic and other challenges in production agriculture, USDA’s Farm Service Agency (FSA) is offering a one-time annual installment payment deferral option. No fees or prepayment penalties apply&nbsp; for borrowers who choose this FSFL loan flexibility option.“Farmers are facing challenging times because of the pandemic, and FSA is constantly looking for ways to offer flexibilities to our customers to help alleviate financial stressors,” said FSA Administrator Richard Fordyce. “This storage facility loan servicing option affords eligible borrowers more time to make a payment and may stop loan acceleration, foreclosure or liquidation.”Eligible borrowers can request a one-time only annual installment payment deferral for loans having terms of three, five, seven or ten years. The installment deferral option is not available for 12-year term loans.The FSFL installment payments will remain the same, except for the last year. The original loan interest rate and annual payment due date will remain the same. However, because the installment payment deferral is a one-year loan term extension, the final payment will be higher due to additional accrued interest.Borrowers interested in exercising the one-time annual installment deferral option should contact FSA to make the request and to obtain, complete and sign required forms.FSFLs provide low-interest financing for producers to store, handle and transport eligible commodities.In addition to offering flexibilities for FSFLs, FSA has also made other flexibilities to help producers impacted by the pandemic, including relaxing the loan-making process for farm operating and ownership loans and implementing the Disaster Set-Aside provision that enables an upcoming installment on a direct loan to be set aside for the year. More information on these flexibilities can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUZVecJWRiiDopnLiHg3TjJ-2FtTxI9D3oE1zQ6bpOViCoGXIBS_r-2BDMsuWuYVmb7-2F1Mu1QL1I-2FJ8-2BHR91nNNNGTTc38Ah21KHordUO1d7zhLCFR0YP4W2h34kGvaUJG9DcNaDLY4wTxXaVbw1sBFaBaBxdAvVXKdYUjMuNf9y5EWR4zHayI312JdWytQZKG7mexolfEwTNFDm2WK-2FnLKftkk3jRhFoseQkDeRBLO-2BwPn9dBxZMklXy6cuBGt2yiV6nThkFP-2BK-2BJp961iQo113wsA3-2Bum-2B-2F-2FydkUCLW78-2BF4-2BWutjttr7EEXQX2-2FAKaVECWwai-2FzCOdmbq742luHKxVJnfSWxJzI-2FUOlMiitoLDYMEVW0CCoIfnc3r3wLCx9aL4Nvz-2B7-2BYjeZCC3TTac-2F9eVm2fC0kA-3D" target="_blank">farmers.gov/coronavirus</a>.All USDA Service Centers are open for business, including some that are open to visitors to conduct business in person by appointment only. All Service Center visitors wishing to conduct business with the FSA, Natural Resources Conservation Service or any other Service Center agency should call ahead and schedule an appointment. Service Centers that are open for appointments will pre-screen visitors based on health concerns or recent travel, and visitors must adhere to social distancing guidelines. Visitors may also be required to wear a face covering during their appointment. Field work will continue with appropriate social distancing. Our program delivery staff will be in the office, and they will be working with our producers in office, by phone and using online tools. More information can be found at&nbsp;<a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUZVecJWRiiDopnLiHg3TjJ-2FtTxI9D3oE1zQ6bpOViCoGdYbQ_r-2BDMsuWuYVmb7-2F1Mu1QL1I-2FJ8-2BHR91nNNNGTTc38Ah21KHordUO1d7zhLCFR0YP4W2h34kGvaUJG9DcNaDLY4wTxXaVbw1sBFaBaBxdAvVXKdYUjMuNf9y5EWR4zHayI312JdWytQZKG7mexolfEwTNFDm2WK-2FnLKftkk3jRhFoseQkDeRBLO-2BwPn9dBxZMkMeY1OPi3gVOFH4amy4Oq9xdxS-2F7P8Pjwdf-2FglDxwpDCEf9ml2ihSaoLZK10-2FkCU8QNXg3WnI5tgaSFxOMBoAQVU4GuJx-2ByqTrW5qtNm-2FP3hbX5m1EAweWGHv6jIUUzQerLpRdJEcHlFhUacN-2BfqwbuMkFRESlQTAJmPMzYWE-2Bxs-3D" target="_blank">farmers.gov/coronavirus</a>.For more information, contact your local USDA Service Center. To locate your local FSA office, visit&nbsp;<a href="https://u7061146.ct.sendgrid.net/ls/click?upn=4tNED-2FM8iDZJQyQ53jATUZVecJWRiiDopnLiHg3TjJ-2FrOTMBAWxcmfvek2TFz37HmPMswIuXsTulqCAX8Y8bCQ-3D-3DNu2B_r-2BDMsuWuYVmb7-2F1Mu1QL1I-2FJ8-2BHR91nNNNGTTc38Ah21KHordUO1d7zhLCFR0YP4W2h34kGvaUJG9DcNaDLY4wTxXaVbw1sBFaBaBxdAvVXKdYUjMuNf9y5EWR4zHayI312JdWytQZKG7mexolfEwTNFDm2WK-2FnLKftkk3jRhFoseQkDeRBLO-2BwPn9dBxZMkrUBkrRpAXo1GFiyQb-2B9Q9fLii9CxVK80-2Bbe02GV7R-2FEJ0WFRz6Qz-2FOhccuwD78yzMkI7SRCqKpr-2FaS7-2F5u9BX2-2B-2FDhZA3Avj6yhE1z29aJ0LLo7BAW084QDZqLGTeDtstAulOUnupNLHnBEnbQocUB3xv27L0tmG1PMWz8L8GnA-3D" target="_blank">farmers.gov/service-center-locator</a>.

USDA offers deferral option for farm storage facility loan borrowers

WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic leaders launched a last-ditch effort to revive collapsing Washington talks on vital COVID-19 rescue money, summoning Trump administration negotiators to the Capitol on Friday in hopes of generating progress.

Both sides said the future of the negotiations was uncertain after a combative meeting on Thursday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Friday afternoon. President Donald Trump says he is considering executive orders to address evictions and unemployment insurance, but they appear unlikely to have much impact.

A breakdown in the talks would put at risk&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/2b554a392e8bb6785deba6371cfa7900">more than $100 billion to help reopen schools</a>, a fresh round of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/61b3d38360745d64a98a2ab813501b13">$1,200 direct payments</a>&nbsp;to most people and hundreds of billions of dollars for state and local governments to help them avoid furloughing workers and cutting services as tax revenues shrivel.

Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., emerged from Thursday’s meeting to give a pessimistic update about the chances for an agreement.

“We’re very far apart. It’s most unfortunate,” Pelosi said then. In a news conference Friday she said she offered a major concession to Republicans.

“We’ll go down $1 trillion, you go up $1 trillion,” Pelosi said. She said that her latest offer is in the $2.7 trillion neighborhood; a series of GOP offers issued privately has brought the White House offer into the $1.5 trillion range.

Both sides have adopted a hard line in the talks, though the Trump team has been more open in disclosing a handful of its proposed compromises. Republicans were late to agree to the talks and have become frustrated by the inflexible tactics of Pelosi and Schumer, who have been exuding confidence in a political and legislative landscape that appeared tilted in their favor.

The Democratic pair say the federal coronavirus aid package needs to be huge to meet the moment:&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/e3081a60a6abf62effa2e6030556ee30">a surge in cases and deaths</a>, double-digit joblessness and the threat of poverty for millions of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/f3caeadfc8c7f88900470ac96820a36c">the newly unemployed</a>.

“We believe the patient needs a major operation while Republicans want to apply just a Band-Aid,” Schumer said. “We won’t let them just pass the Band-Aid, go home and leave America bleeding.”

On Friday, the two&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/e0aca194f0f4870b01280049ca567a87">pointed to the July jobs report</a>&nbsp;to try to bolster their proposals. The report showed that the U.S. added 1.8 million jobs last month, a much lower increase than in May and June.

“The latest jobs report shows that the economic recovery spurred by the investments Congress has passed is losing steam and more investments are still urgently needed to protect the lives and livelihoods of the American people,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement.

Senate Republicans have been split, with roughly half of McConnell’s rank and file opposed to another rescue bill at all. Four prior coronavirus response bills totaling almost $3 trillion have passed on bipartisan votes despite intense wrangling, but conservatives recoiled at the prospect of another Pelosi-brokered agreement with a whopping deficit-financed cost.

The White House is also promising that Trump will attempt to use executive orders to address elements of the congressional package involving evictions and jobless benefits. But there’s no evidence that the strategy would have much impact or be anything close to what’s necessary, and Pelosi appeared unimpressed at a morning news conference.

“I don’t think they know what they’re talking about,” Pelosi said dismissively Thursday.

Pelosi and Schumer staked out a firm position to extend a lapsed $600-per-week bonus jobless benefit, demanded generous child care assistance and reiterated their insistence for food stamps and assistance to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/833d91877e2f0fa913c5258978a9e83c">renters and homeowners facing eviction or foreclosure</a>.

“Don’t nickel and dime our children,” Pelosi said. “Don’t say, ‘We want to give a tax break to a business lunch and not give more money for children to have food stamps.’”

Pelosi was referring to a GOP proposal to increase the deduction for business meals from 50% to 100%. The idea seems likely to die, along with Trump’s efforts to cut&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b3ef7ed649eca2c3ee6438408243df8a">the Social Security payroll tax</a>. But Schumer and Pelosi continue to push to restore a tax break for state and local taxes paid mostly by wealthier people with high incomes and valuable homes.

McConnell, R-Ky., is likely to have to assume a higher profile if the talks are to come to a successful close, but he issued a grim assessment of the situation Thursday, again complaining that Pelosi and Schumer are not negotiating in good faith.

“Day after day, they’ve stonewalled the president’s team. Day by day, they’ve tried to invent new euphemisms to create the illusion of progress,” McConnell said.

Frustration was palpable among Republican senators shuttling in and out of a GOP lunch session, some of whom say Schumer is intent on using the situation as a hammer against Republicans. Schumer is desperate to win the Senate majority just as Republicans are in trying to hold on in a terrible political year.

“As long as they calculate that they’re better off politically doing nothing, it’s going to be hard for us to move forward,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “And that’s the calculation they’ve made, it appears.”

McConnell is sending the Senate home rather than forcing impatient senators to bide their time while Democrats play hardball. That suggests a vote won’t come until late next week or even after.

White House negotiators made some concessions on jobless benefits and aid to state and local governments in a Tuesday session — and then promptly got scalded by Republicans after details leaked out.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington talks on vital COVID-19 rescue money are teetering on the brink of collapse after a marathon meeting in the Capitol generated lots of recriminations but little progress on the top issues confronting negotiators.

“There’s a handful of very big issues that we are still very far apart” on, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He talked of impasses on aid to states and local governments and renewing&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/0255528817e87bcee9087f4b8649b571">supplemental unemployment benefits</a>&nbsp;in the Thursday night meetings.

Both sides said the future of the talks is uncertain. President Donald Trump is considering executive orders to address evictions and unemployment insurance, but they appear unlikely to have much impact.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York emerged to give a pessimistic update about the chances for an agreement.

“We’re very far apart. It’s most unfortunate,” Pelosi said.

Both sides have adopted a hard line in the talks, though the Trump team is more open in disclosing a handful of its proposed compromises. Republicans were late to agree to the talks and have become frustrated by the inflexible tactics of Pelosi and Schumer, who have been exuding confidence in a political and legislative landscape that’s tilted in their favor.

Senate Republicans have been split, with roughly half of McConnell’s rank and file opposed to another rescue bill at all. Four prior coronavirus response bills totaling almost $3 trillion have passed on bipartisan votes despite intense wrangling. But Trump and McConnell want a bill and discussed the topic at the White House on Thursday morning.

“I don’t think they know what they’re talking about,” Pelosi said dismissively.

Pelosi and Schumer staked out a firm position to extend a lapsed $600-per-week bonus jobless benefit, demanded generous child care assistance and reiterated their demand for food stamps and assistance to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/833d91877e2f0fa913c5258978a9e83c">renters and homeowners facing eviction or foreclosure</a>.

“Day after day, they’ve stonewalled the president’s team. Day by day, they’ve tried to invent new euphemisms to create the illusion of progress,” McConnell said Thursday.

McConnell is sending the Senate home rather than forcing impatient senators to bide their time while Democrats play hardball. That suggests a vote won’t come until late next week or even after. Progress has been scant in the talks despite more than a week of negotiation.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596796356877.png" alt="House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke to reporters after Thursday's negotiation session. "We're very far apart." -image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>House Speaker Nancy Pelosi spoke to reporters after Thursday's negotiation session. "We're very far apart." -image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — Democratic leaders launched a last-ditch effort to revive collapsing Washington talks on vital COVID-19 rescue money, summoning Trump administration negotiators to the Capitol on Friday in hopes of generating progress.Both sides said the future of the negotiations was uncertain after a combative meeting on Thursday. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was meeting with Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows Friday afternoon. President Donald Trump says he is considering executive orders to address evictions and unemployment insurance, but they appear unlikely to have much impact.A breakdown in the talks would put at risk&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/2b554a392e8bb6785deba6371cfa7900">more than $100 billion to help reopen schools</a>, a fresh round of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/61b3d38360745d64a98a2ab813501b13">$1,200 direct payments</a>&nbsp;to most people and hundreds of billions of dollars for state and local governments to help them avoid furloughing workers and cutting services as tax revenues shrivel.Pelosi, D-Calif., and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., emerged from Thursday’s meeting to give a pessimistic update about the chances for an agreement.“We’re very far apart. It’s most unfortunate,” Pelosi said then. In a news conference Friday she said she offered a major concession to Republicans.“We’ll go down $1 trillion, you go up $1 trillion,” Pelosi said. She said that her latest offer is in the $2.7 trillion neighborhood; a series of GOP offers issued privately has brought the White House offer into the $1.5 trillion range.Both sides have adopted a hard line in the talks, though the Trump team has been more open in disclosing a handful of its proposed compromises. Republicans were late to agree to the talks and have become frustrated by the inflexible tactics of Pelosi and Schumer, who have been exuding confidence in a political and legislative landscape that appeared tilted in their favor.The Democratic pair say the federal coronavirus aid package needs to be huge to meet the moment:&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/e3081a60a6abf62effa2e6030556ee30">a surge in cases and deaths</a>, double-digit joblessness and the threat of poverty for millions of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/f3caeadfc8c7f88900470ac96820a36c">the newly unemployed</a>.“We believe the patient needs a major operation while Republicans want to apply just a Band-Aid,” Schumer said. “We won’t let them just pass the Band-Aid, go home and leave America bleeding.”On Friday, the two&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/e0aca194f0f4870b01280049ca567a87">pointed to the July jobs report</a>&nbsp;to try to bolster their proposals. The report showed that the U.S. added 1.8 million jobs last month, a much lower increase than in May and June.“The latest jobs report shows that the economic recovery spurred by the investments Congress has passed is losing steam and more investments are still urgently needed to protect the lives and livelihoods of the American people,” Pelosi and Schumer said in a joint statement.Senate Republicans have been split, with roughly half of McConnell’s rank and file opposed to another rescue bill at all. Four prior coronavirus response bills totaling almost $3 trillion have passed on bipartisan votes despite intense wrangling, but conservatives recoiled at the prospect of another Pelosi-brokered agreement with a whopping deficit-financed cost.The White House is also promising that Trump will attempt to use executive orders to address elements of the congressional package involving evictions and jobless benefits. But there’s no evidence that the strategy would have much impact or be anything close to what’s necessary, and Pelosi appeared unimpressed at a morning news conference.“I don’t think they know what they’re talking about,” Pelosi said dismissively Thursday.Pelosi and Schumer staked out a firm position to extend a lapsed $600-per-week bonus jobless benefit, demanded generous child care assistance and reiterated their insistence for food stamps and assistance to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/833d91877e2f0fa913c5258978a9e83c">renters and homeowners facing eviction or foreclosure</a>.“Don’t nickel and dime our children,” Pelosi said. “Don’t say, ‘We want to give a tax break to a business lunch and not give more money for children to have food stamps.’”Pelosi was referring to a GOP proposal to increase the deduction for business meals from 50% to 100%. The idea seems likely to die, along with Trump’s efforts to cut&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b3ef7ed649eca2c3ee6438408243df8a">the Social Security payroll tax</a>. But Schumer and Pelosi continue to push to restore a tax break for state and local taxes paid mostly by wealthier people with high incomes and valuable homes.McConnell, R-Ky., is likely to have to assume a higher profile if the talks are to come to a successful close, but he issued a grim assessment of the situation Thursday, again complaining that Pelosi and Schumer are not negotiating in good faith.“Day after day, they’ve stonewalled the president’s team. Day by day, they’ve tried to invent new euphemisms to create the illusion of progress,” McConnell said.Frustration was palpable among Republican senators shuttling in and out of a GOP lunch session, some of whom say Schumer is intent on using the situation as a hammer against Republicans. Schumer is desperate to win the Senate majority just as Republicans are in trying to hold on in a terrible political year.“As long as they calculate that they’re better off politically doing nothing, it’s going to be hard for us to move forward,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “And that’s the calculation they’ve made, it appears.”McConnell is sending the Senate home rather than forcing impatient senators to bide their time while Democrats play hardball. That suggests a vote won’t come until late next week or even after.White House negotiators made some concessions on jobless benefits and aid to state and local governments in a Tuesday session — and then promptly got scalded by Republicans after details leaked out.-----WASHINGTON (AP) — Washington talks on vital COVID-19 rescue money are teetering on the brink of collapse after a marathon meeting in the Capitol generated lots of recriminations but little progress on the top issues confronting negotiators.“There’s a handful of very big issues that we are still very far apart” on, said Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. He talked of impasses on aid to states and local governments and renewing&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/0255528817e87bcee9087f4b8649b571">supplemental unemployment benefits</a>&nbsp;in the Thursday night meetings.Both sides said the future of the talks is uncertain. President Donald Trump is considering executive orders to address evictions and unemployment insurance, but they appear unlikely to have much impact.A breakdown in the talks would put at risk&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/2b554a392e8bb6785deba6371cfa7900">more than $100 billion to help reopen schools</a>, a fresh round of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/61b3d38360745d64a98a2ab813501b13">$1,200 direct payments</a>&nbsp;to most people and hundreds of billions of dollars for state and local governments to help them avoid furloughing workers and cutting services as tax revenues shrivel.House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and top Senate Democrat Chuck Schumer of New York emerged to give a pessimistic update about the chances for an agreement.“We’re very far apart. It’s most unfortunate,” Pelosi said.Both sides have adopted a hard line in the talks, though the Trump team is more open in disclosing a handful of its proposed compromises. Republicans were late to agree to the talks and have become frustrated by the inflexible tactics of Pelosi and Schumer, who have been exuding confidence in a political and legislative landscape that’s tilted in their favor.The Democratic pair say the federal coronavirus aid package needs to be huge to meet the moment:&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/e3081a60a6abf62effa2e6030556ee30">a surge in cases and deaths</a>, double-digit joblessness and the threat of poverty for millions of&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/f3caeadfc8c7f88900470ac96820a36c">the newly unemployed</a>.“We believe the patient needs a major operation while Republicans want to apply just a Band-Aid,” Schumer said. “We won’t let them just pass the Band-Aid, go home and leave America bleeding.”Senate Republicans have been split, with roughly half of McConnell’s rank and file opposed to another rescue bill at all. Four prior coronavirus response bills totaling almost $3 trillion have passed on bipartisan votes despite intense wrangling. But Trump and McConnell want a bill and discussed the topic at the White House on Thursday morning.The White House is also promising that Trump will attempt to use executive orders to address elements of the congressional package involving evictions and jobless benefits. But there’s no evidence that the strategy would have much impact or be anything close to what’s necessary, and Pelosi appeared unimpressed at a morning news conference.“I don’t think they know what they’re talking about,” Pelosi said dismissively.Pelosi and Schumer staked out a firm position to extend a lapsed $600-per-week bonus jobless benefit, demanded generous child care assistance and reiterated their demand for food stamps and assistance to&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/833d91877e2f0fa913c5258978a9e83c">renters and homeowners facing eviction or foreclosure</a>.“Don’t nickel and dime our children,” Pelosi said. “Don’t say, ‘We want to give a tax break to a business lunch and not give more money for children to have food stamps.’”Pelosi was referring to a GOP proposal to increase the deduction for business meals from 50% to 100%. The idea seems likely to die, along with Trump’s efforts to cut&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/b3ef7ed649eca2c3ee6438408243df8a">the Social Security payroll tax</a>. But Schumer and Pelosi continue to push to restore a tax break for state and local taxes paid mostly by wealthier people with high incomes and valuable homes.McConnell, R-Ky., is likely to have to assume a higher profile if the talks are to come to a successful close, but he issued a grim assessment of the situation Thursday, again complaining that Pelosi and Schumer are not negotiating in good faith.“Day after day, they’ve stonewalled the president’s team. Day by day, they’ve tried to invent new euphemisms to create the illusion of progress,” McConnell said Thursday.Frustration was palpable among Republican senators shuttling in and out of a GOP lunch session, some of whom say Schumer is intent on using the situation as a hammer against Republicans. Schumer is desperate to win the Senate majority just as Republicans are in trying to hold on in a terrible political year.“As long as they calculate that they’re better off politically doing nothing, it’s going to be hard for us to move forward,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla. “And that’s the calculation they’ve made, it appears.”McConnell is sending the Senate home rather than forcing impatient senators to bide their time while Democrats play hardball. That suggests a vote won’t come until late next week or even after. Progress has been scant in the talks despite more than a week of negotiation.White House negotiators made some concessions on jobless benefits and aid to state and local governments in a Tuesday session — and then promptly got scalded by Republicans after details leaked out.

Last-ditch virus aid talks; Trump team heads back to Capitol

SEDGWICK COUNTY —A Kansas man accused in the fatal stabbing of his nephew made his first appearance in court Wednesday.

David Staley, 57, Wichita, was charged with voluntary manslaughter, according to the Sedgwick County District Attorney's office.

Just after 3 a.m. Sunday police responded to a stabbing call at a home in the 2300 block of South Pinecrest in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson.

 Upon arrival, officers located 34-year-old Ryan Speight of Wichita with a stab wound to the chest. &nbsp;He was pronounced deceased on the scene. 

Police also contacted Staley at the scene.&nbsp;

The investigation revealed a party occurred at the home. After party attendees had left, an argument ensured between Staley and his nephew Speight, who both live at the home.&nbsp;

During the argument, Staley stabbed Speight, causing his fatal injuries, according to Davidson.

Police arrested Staley without incident.&nbsp;Staley is due back in court on Aug. 13. <a href="https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=232076">He remains jailed on a </a>$100,000 bond, according to online jail records.

SEDGWICK COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal stabbing and have one suspect in custody.

Police also contacted 57-year-old David Staley at the scene.&nbsp;

Police arrested Staley without incident. He is being held on a requested charge of <a href="https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=232076">2nd-degree murder,</a> according to online jail records.

The case will be presented to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s office.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596409102140.png" alt="Staley-photo Sedgwick County" />
 <figcaption>Staley-photo Sedgwick County</figcaption>
 </figure>SEDGWICK COUNTY —A Kansas man accused in the fatal stabbing of his nephew made his first appearance in court Wednesday.David Staley, 57, Wichita, was charged with voluntary manslaughter, according to the Sedgwick County District Attorney's office.Just after 3 a.m. Sunday police responded to a stabbing call at a home in the 2300 block of South Pinecrest in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson. Upon arrival, officers located 34-year-old Ryan Speight of Wichita with a stab wound to the chest. &nbsp;He was pronounced deceased on the scene. Police also contacted Staley at the scene.&nbsp;The investigation revealed a party occurred at the home. After party attendees had left, an argument ensured between Staley and his nephew Speight, who both live at the home.&nbsp;During the argument, Staley stabbed Speight, causing his fatal injuries, according to Davidson.Police arrested Staley without incident.&nbsp;Staley is due back in court on Aug. 13. <a href="https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=232076">He remains jailed on a </a>$100,000 bond, according to online jail records.---------SEDGWICK COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal stabbing and have one suspect in custody.Just after 3 a.m. Sunday police responded to a stabbing call at a home in the 2300 block of South Pinecrest in Wichita, according to officer Charley Davidson. Upon arrival, officers located 34-year-old Ryan Speight of Wichita with a stab wound to the chest. &nbsp;He was pronounced deceased on the scene. Police also contacted 57-year-old David Staley at the scene.&nbsp;The investigation revealed a party occurred at the home. After party attendees had left, an argument ensured between Staley and his nephew Speight, who both live at the home.&nbsp;During the argument, Staley stabbed Speight, causing his fatal injuries, according to Davidson.Police arrested Staley without incident. He is being held on a requested charge of <a href="https://ssc.sedgwickcounty.org/sheriffinmates/SheriffInmateDetail.aspx?nameId=232076">2nd-degree murder,</a> according to online jail records.The case will be presented to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s office.&nbsp;

Kan. man charged in fatal stabbing of his nephew 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republicans brimmed with newfound confidence Wednesday about keeping an open Senate seat in Kansas after establishment-backed&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/6646c990bce8bd3d93e2722015de87f0">Rep. Roger Marshall won&nbsp;</a>the party’s nomination, advancing to face an unusually formidable Democrat in a tough year for the GOP.

Marshall’s first tasks were quickly refilling his campaign treasury and rebuilding Republican unity after an often-bitter primary campaign. But he and other Republicans immediately previewed the fall campaign in which they are expected to use the threat of Democrats capturing a Senate majority to try and blunt Barbara Bollier’s efforts to woo GOP-leaning independent voters and moderate Republicans.

Republicans are trying to keep their 53-47 Senate majority with competitive races in other states such as Arizona, Colorado and Maine and the coronavirus pandemic causing President Donald Trump’s standing with voters to slide. GOP leaders had feared that the Kansas seat would be in play if lightning-rod conservative Kris Kobach won the nomination after losing the 2018 Kansas governor’s race.

But Marshall prevailed comfortably and won 85 of the state’s 105 counties, including four of its five most populous ones. Trump,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/34a6a9737f0e78ceed84cf312234ab25">who had refused to intervene</a>&nbsp;in the primary despite prodding from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1290952940602130437" target="_blank">tweeted</a>&nbsp;his “Complete and Total Endorsement” of Marshall early Wednesday morning.

“It not only landed butter-side up, but I think it was toasted and had a little cinnamon on it — cinnamon toast,” said retiring four-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, who had endorsed Marshall. “We avoided a situation where it would be very difficult for us.”

Bollier, a state senator and retired Kansas City-area anesthesiologist, raised more than $8.2 million through July; her campaign said the total is now $9 million and that she began the fall campaign with $4.5 million cash. Marshall, a two-term congressman for western and central Kansas, said he had about $600,000 in cash when Tuesday’s polls closed, after raising about $2.9 million ahead of the primary.

Marshall can count on a more-robust statewide Republican organization, and registered GOP voters outnumber Democrats by more than 3-to-2. The GOP has won every Senate race in Kansas since 1932, and Roberts won a contentious race in 2014 by nearly 11 percentage points largely by arguing that Republicans couldn’t recapture a Senate majority that year without his reelection.

“THE issue is who controls the Senate majority. It’s going to be razor-thin one way or the other,” Marshall said. “We have to have a Republican senator from Kansas to keep the Senate majority.”

Bollier said Wednesday that it didn’t matter to her which GOP candidate won the primary because she is running as an independent and commonsense moderate who can work with Republicans. She was a lifelong GOP moderate until she switched parties at the end of 2018.

Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokeswoman Helen Kalla called Marshall “an underwhelming candidate” who is “stumbling into the general election.” McConnell’s first choice for the GOP nominee was U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former Wichita-area congressman, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/3ed4092dc1c21261dcb008672d5fc131">Pompeo definitively declined</a>&nbsp;to enter the race in January.

“The bottom line is, I will be a person who listens and I am a voice of reason,” Bollier said Wednesday. “They’re (voters) going to have a very definitive choice.”

Bollier’s fundraising has worried Republicans because she has raised more than the top GOP candidates combined — and more than enough for a competitive race in a low-cost media state like Kansas. She has seen a flood of donations from outside Kansas, indicating that Democrats nationwide are eager to flip the seat.

The late date of the state’s primary gives Republicans a limited amount of time for attacks on Bollier to sink in with voters well after she’s used her own ads to build a positive profile. The GOP primary also featured a political action committee with Democratic ties spending more than $4 million on ads that aggressively attacked Marshall as a “swamp creature” and “fake, fake, fake.”

“What happened yesterday is that Republicans lived to fight another day,” said Josh Holmes, a former McConnell chief of staff and campaign manager. “Regardless of how red Kansas is, the Democrat has been running unopposed for practically a year. And there will have to be a concerted effort to make sure Marshall is heavily fortified.”

But many Democrats saw Kobach as easier for Bollier to beat, thanks to a longtime advocacy of tough immigration restrictions and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/c51d18affef34e919d63c19612d767f2">brash style</a>&nbsp;that alienate independent and moderate GOP voters.

“Marshall does not have a caustic personality,” said Joan Wagnon, a former Kansas Democratic Party chairwoman and Topeka mayor. “He doesn’t engender that ‘Oh, God, we’ve got to get rid of him,’ like even the Republicans were feeling about Kobach.”

Kobach on Wednesday attributed his defeat to attacks by PACs aligned with McConnell and the GOP establishment. But he said his supporters will back Marshall instead not voting in November.

“Of course, they’ll be going to vote for President Trump, so staying home’s not an option,” Kobach said.

Kelly Arnold, a former Kansas Republican Party chairman, predicted that Republicans will unite quickly behind Marshall because of the threat to the party’s Senate majority. He said Marshall’s nomination “successfully stopped” Democrats from flipping the seat.

“It deflates the Democrats’ balloon,” Arnold said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596742060060.png" alt="Rep. Roger Marshall listens to a congratulatory phone call from President Trump on election night-photo courtesy Marshall for Senate" />
 <figcaption>Rep. Roger Marshall listens to a congratulatory phone call from President Trump on election night-photo courtesy Marshall for Senate</figcaption>
 </figure>By JOHN HANNATOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republicans brimmed with newfound confidence Wednesday about keeping an open Senate seat in Kansas after establishment-backed&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/6646c990bce8bd3d93e2722015de87f0">Rep. Roger Marshall won&nbsp;</a>the party’s nomination, advancing to face an unusually formidable Democrat in a tough year for the GOP.Marshall’s first tasks were quickly refilling his campaign treasury and rebuilding Republican unity after an often-bitter primary campaign. But he and other Republicans immediately previewed the fall campaign in which they are expected to use the threat of Democrats capturing a Senate majority to try and blunt Barbara Bollier’s efforts to woo GOP-leaning independent voters and moderate Republicans.Republicans are trying to keep their 53-47 Senate majority with competitive races in other states such as Arizona, Colorado and Maine and the coronavirus pandemic causing President Donald Trump’s standing with voters to slide. GOP leaders had feared that the Kansas seat would be in play if lightning-rod conservative Kris Kobach won the nomination after losing the 2018 Kansas governor’s race.But Marshall prevailed comfortably and won 85 of the state’s 105 counties, including four of its five most populous ones. Trump,&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/34a6a9737f0e78ceed84cf312234ab25">who had refused to intervene</a>&nbsp;in the primary despite prodding from Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell,&nbsp;<a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1290952940602130437" target="_blank">tweeted</a>&nbsp;his “Complete and Total Endorsement” of Marshall early Wednesday morning.“It not only landed butter-side up, but I think it was toasted and had a little cinnamon on it — cinnamon toast,” said retiring four-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, who had endorsed Marshall. “We avoided a situation where it would be very difficult for us.”Bollier, a state senator and retired Kansas City-area anesthesiologist, raised more than $8.2 million through July; her campaign said the total is now $9 million and that she began the fall campaign with $4.5 million cash. Marshall, a two-term congressman for western and central Kansas, said he had about $600,000 in cash when Tuesday’s polls closed, after raising about $2.9 million ahead of the primary.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet">Congratulations to <a href="https://twitter.com/RogerMarshallMD?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@RogerMarshallMD</a> on winning the Kansas Senate primary! Roger will be a great fighter for conservative values and <a href="https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@realDonaldTrump</a> in the Senate! <a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/kssen?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#kssen</a> <a href="https://t.co/lWLI7QB7PV">pic.twitter.com/lWLI7QB7PV</a>&mdash; Ronna McDaniel (@GOPChairwoman) <a href="https://twitter.com/GOPChairwoman/status/1290849680998440960?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 5, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>Marshall can count on a more-robust statewide Republican organization, and registered GOP voters outnumber Democrats by more than 3-to-2. The GOP has won every Senate race in Kansas since 1932, and Roberts won a contentious race in 2014 by nearly 11 percentage points largely by arguing that Republicans couldn’t recapture a Senate majority that year without his reelection.“THE issue is who controls the Senate majority. It’s going to be razor-thin one way or the other,” Marshall said. “We have to have a Republican senator from Kansas to keep the Senate majority.”Bollier said Wednesday that it didn’t matter to her which GOP candidate won the primary because she is running as an independent and commonsense moderate who can work with Republicans. She was a lifelong GOP moderate until she switched parties at the end of 2018.Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee spokeswoman Helen Kalla called Marshall “an underwhelming candidate” who is “stumbling into the general election.” McConnell’s first choice for the GOP nominee was U.S. Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, a former Wichita-area congressman, but&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/3ed4092dc1c21261dcb008672d5fc131">Pompeo definitively declined</a>&nbsp;to enter the race in January.“The bottom line is, I will be a person who listens and I am a voice of reason,” Bollier said Wednesday. “They’re (voters) going to have a very definitive choice.”Bollier’s fundraising has worried Republicans because she has raised more than the top GOP candidates combined — and more than enough for a competitive race in a low-cost media state like Kansas. She has seen a flood of donations from outside Kansas, indicating that Democrats nationwide are eager to flip the seat.The late date of the state’s primary gives Republicans a limited amount of time for attacks on Bollier to sink in with voters well after she’s used her own ads to build a positive profile. The GOP primary also featured a political action committee with Democratic ties spending more than $4 million on ads that aggressively attacked Marshall as a “swamp creature” and “fake, fake, fake.”“What happened yesterday is that Republicans lived to fight another day,” said Josh Holmes, a former McConnell chief of staff and campaign manager. “Regardless of how red Kansas is, the Democrat has been running unopposed for practically a year. And there will have to be a concerted effort to make sure Marshall is heavily fortified.”But many Democrats saw Kobach as easier for Bollier to beat, thanks to a longtime advocacy of tough immigration restrictions and&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/c51d18affef34e919d63c19612d767f2">brash style</a>&nbsp;that alienate independent and moderate GOP voters.“Marshall does not have a caustic personality,” said Joan Wagnon, a former Kansas Democratic Party chairwoman and Topeka mayor. “He doesn’t engender that ‘Oh, God, we’ve got to get rid of him,’ like even the Republicans were feeling about Kobach.”Kobach on Wednesday attributed his defeat to attacks by PACs aligned with McConnell and the GOP establishment. But he said his supporters will back Marshall instead not voting in November.“Of course, they’ll be going to vote for President Trump, so staying home’s not an option,” Kobach said.Kelly Arnold, a former Kansas Republican Party chairman, predicted that Republicans will unite quickly behind Marshall because of the threat to the party’s Senate majority. He said Marshall’s nomination “successfully stopped” Democrats from flipping the seat.“It deflates the Democrats’ balloon,” Arnold said.___

Rep. Marshall’s primary win in Kansas buoys GOP Senate hopes

JACKSON COUNTY— One person died in an accident just before 2a.m. Thursday in Jackson County.&nbsp;

&nbsp;The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2014 Ford Fiesta driven by Mohammad Mohsin S. Alnosif, 24, Omaha, was northbound on U.S. 75. 

The Ford traveled left of center into the southbound lane and struck a 2021 Kenworth semi driven by William H. Barfield, Kileen, TX., head-on. 

Alnosif&nbsp;was ejected approximately 20 yards out of the vehicle into the east ditch and pronounced dead at the scene.&nbsp;

EMS transported Barfield and a passenger Randy J. Solomon, 66, Albuquerque, NM., to the Jackson Co. Hospital.&nbsp;

JACKSON COUNTY— One person died in an accident just before 2a.m. Thursday in Jackson County.&nbsp;&nbsp;The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2014 Ford Fiesta driven by Mohammad Mohsin S. Alnosif, 24, Omaha, was northbound on U.S. 75. The Ford traveled left of center into the southbound lane and struck a 2021 Kenworth semi driven by William H. Barfield, Kileen, TX., head-on. Alnosif&nbsp;was ejected approximately 20 yards out of the vehicle into the east ditch and pronounced dead at the scene.&nbsp;EMS transported Barfield and a passenger Randy J. Solomon, 66, Albuquerque, NM., to the Jackson Co. Hospital.&nbsp;Alnosif was not wearing a seat belt, according to the KHP.-----JACKSON COUNTY— One person died in an accident early Thursday in Jackson County.&nbsp;A passenger vehicle was northbound at 278th Road on U.S. 75. It crossed the center line and struck a southbound semi, according to Sheriff Tim Morse.The driver and only occupant of the car was ejected and&nbsp; pronounced deceased on scene.EMS transported two occupants of the semi to area hospitals for evaluation. Authorities closed U.S. Highway 75 between 286th and 254th roads. The accident was reported at 1:40 a.m., according to Morse.Check the Post for additional details as they become available.