The nation in brief

Kansas to mail ballots without Democrat

TOPEKA, Kan. -- Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach on Friday reversed course and directed county election officials to start mailing ballots to voters overseas today without having a Democratic nominee listed for the U.S. Senate race.

Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out of the race against three-term Republican Sen. Pat Roberts at the urging of some party leaders who wanted to improve the chances that independent candidate Greg Orman would defeat the incumbent. The race in Republican-leaning Kansas recently emerged as a battleground in the national fight over control of the Senate.

The state Supreme Court ruled Thursday that Kobach, a Republican, must honor Taylor's request to be removed from the Nov. 4 ballot.

Kobach said Thursday during a news conference that state law requires party committees to fill candidacy vacancies. The court specifically declined to address that question in Thursday's decision.

On Friday, Kobach spokesman Samantha Poetter confirmed that the secretary of state had decided against delaying the mailing of ballots to military personnel and other U.S. citizens overseas. That was a change from his statement Thursday that the deadline for starting the mailings would be pushed back to Sept. 27.

Fence jumper makes it into White House

WASHINGTON -- A man jumped over the fence of the White House on Friday and made it into the presidential residence before officers managed to apprehend him, the U.S. Secret Service said. President Barack Obama and his family were not home at the time.

Omar Gonzalez, 42, of Copperas Cove, Texas, was taken into custody just inside the North Portico doors, Secret Service spokesman Ed Donovan said. He was placed under arrest and was transported to a Washington hospital after complaining of chest pain.

Donovan said Gonzalez appeared to be unarmed to officers who spotted him jumping the fence, and a search turned up no weapons.

The incident prompted a rare evacuation of much of the campus. White House staff members and journalists inside the West Wing were evacuated by Secret Service officers. Those evacuated were later allowed back into the White House, but the area remained closed to pedestrians.

Oklahoma OKs Commandments at Capitol

OKLAHOMA CITY -- The privately funded Ten Commandments monument on the grounds of the Oklahoma Capitol does not violate the state constitution and can stay there, an Oklahoma County judge said Friday in a ruling that attorneys who filed the lawsuit vowed to appeal to the state Supreme Court.

District Judge Thomas Prince granted a motion filed on behalf of the Oklahoma Capitol Preservation Commission to block the lawsuit from going to trial.

The 6-foot-tall granite monument was authorized by the Legislature in 2009 and was erected in 2012 after Republican state Rep. Mike Ritze and his family paid nearly $10,000 for it. The monument's placement has led others to seek their own on the Capitol grounds, including a satanic group that earlier this year unveiled designs for a 7-foot-tall statue of Satan.

The American Civil Liberties Union filed the suit on behalf of the Rev. Bruce Prescott of Norman, a Baptist minister, and others who allege the monument's location violated the state constitution's ban against using public property to support "any sect, church, denomination or system of religion."

Prince disagreed, ruling that the monument serves a secular -- not religious -- purpose and occupies a small plot on the north side of the state Capitol that's part of a 100-acre complex which has 51 other monuments.

Ex-governor convicted in corruption case

HARTFORD, Conn. -- Former Gov. John Rowland, who resigned from office a decade ago in a corruption scandal, was convicted Friday of federal charges that he conspired to hide payment for work on two congressional campaigns.

Rowland, once a rising star for the Republican Party, served 10 months in prison for taking illegal gifts while in office and now as a repeat offender faces the possibility of a much stiffer sentence.

Rowland, 57, was convicted in New Haven federal court of all seven counts, including conspiracy, falsifying records in a federal investigation, causing false statements to be made to the Federal Election Commission and causing illegal campaign contributions.

Rowland's lawyer, Reid Weingarten, said he would appeal.

The maximum possible prison sentence is more than 50 years, but Rowland likely will receive much less time under federal sentencing guidelines. Sentencing is scheduled for Dec. 12.

A Section on 09/20/2014

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