In brief: Court rules Kansas must take name off ballot
TOPEKA, Kan. – Kansas must remove the name of the Democratic candidate for the U.S. Senate from the ballot, the state Supreme Court ruled unanimously Thursday, in a decision that could make it harder for three-term Sen. Pat Roberts to win re-election in November as part of a Republican drive to win a Senate majority.
The court’s decision means that Roberts could be left with one major opponent, independent Greg Orman, who Democrats believe has a better shot at defeating the 78-year-old incumbent than their own candidate.
Republicans need a net gain of six Senate seats to take the majority from Democrats, and Kansas is one of about a dozen races nationally that could determine the outcome. Recent opinion polls suggested Roberts may be vulnerable in a head-to-head race with Orman.
Some Democrats nudged party nominee Chad Taylor out of the race earlier this month to avoid a major split of anti-Roberts votes. Taylor announced that he was withdrawing, but Secretary of State Kris Kobach, a conservative Republican publicly backing Roberts, declared that Taylor didn’t comply with a state election law limiting when nominees can withdraw. Taylor petitioned the Supreme Court to remove his name from the ballot.
Police lock down airport during manhunt
PHOENIX – The busiest terminal at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport was on lockdown for more than three hours Thursday as police searched for a suspect in a shooting in nearby Tempe before making the arrest.
Flights out of Terminal 4 were grounded for a brief time as hundreds of law-enforcement officers, some armed with assault rifles, looked for a man believed to be hiding in the parking garage.
He eventually was taken into custody and the terminal was reopened to passengers about 6 p.m.
Sky Harbor is among the nation’s 10 busiest airports, with more than 1,200 planes and 100,000 passengers arriving and departing daily.
Flights out of terminals 2 and 3 operated normally during the police search, which began after a shooting at a Tempe gasoline station about 2:45 p.m.
Tempe police said a man was shot in the upper body for an unknown reason and three suspects fled in a car. That began a high-speed chase that ended at the airport when the suspects bailed from the vehicle.
Police arrested a man and woman and believed the third suspect ran into Terminal 4’s parking garage.
Man kills daughter, 6 grandchildren, self
BELL, Fla. – A once-convicted felon killed six of his grandchildren, including an infant, his adult daughter and himself in a shooting at the man’s home in a small North Florida town Thursday, a sheriff said.
Gilchrist County Sheriff Robert Schultz at a news conference identified the shooter as 51-year-old Don Spirit. He would not say if the woman killed was the mother of any of the two boys and four girls, some of whom spent a lot of time at the rural home.
Schultz said a deputy who arrived after Spirit called 911 to say he might harm himself and others made contact with the man, who then committed suicide. Authorities then found the other seven bodies.
Schultz said Spirit was the only suspect and that some people were left alive at the home. Schultz also said Spirit had a criminal history. According to the Florida Department of Corrections website, Spirit was released from a prison sentence on a gun charge in February 2006.
According to a story published in 2003 by the Orlando Sentinel, a 40-year-old Don Spirit pleaded guilty to possession of a firearm by a convicted felon in the fatal shooting of his 8-year-old son, Kyle, in a 2001 hunting accident. He was sentenced to three years in prison.