RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — Rapid City police are searching for a 29-year-old Box Elder man in a fatal stabbing. 

Police were called early Thursday about a man lying in the grass in Rapid City. 

Police say the man had been stabbed in the chest. 

Officers began life-saving measures, and the man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. 

The name of the victim is being withheld until his relatives are notified. 

Police have identified a suspect and are asking for the public's help in finding him. But authorities caution that he may have a gun and should not be approached.

RAPID CITY, S.D. (AP) — Rapid City police are searching for a 29-year-old Box Elder man in a fatal stabbing. Police were called early Thursday about a man lying in the grass in Rapid City. Police say the man had been stabbed in the chest. Officers began life-saving measures, and the man was taken to a hospital, where he was pronounced dead. The name of the victim is being withheld until his relatives are notified. Police have identified a suspect and are asking for the public's help in finding him. But authorities caution that he may have a gun and should not be approached.

Rapid City police looking for man in fatal stabbing

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Gov. Pete Ricketts has signed an updated, $9.3 billion state budget with new money for 2019 flood relief and career scholarships for the University of Nebraska and state colleges. 

Ricketts approved the two-year spending plan with no line-item vetoes. In a statement, he praised lawmakers for their work crafting it. 

Lawmakers approved an additional $83.6 million earlier this year for the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. 

The legislative session is set to end next week, and lawmakers still have to give final approval to a package that would help lower property taxes.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Gov. Pete Ricketts has signed an updated, $9.3 billion state budget with new money for 2019 flood relief and career scholarships for the University of Nebraska and state colleges. Ricketts approved the two-year spending plan with no line-item vetoes. In a statement, he praised lawmakers for their work crafting it. Lawmakers approved an additional $83.6 million earlier this year for the state’s response to the coronavirus pandemic. The legislative session is set to end next week, and lawmakers still have to give final approval to a package that would help lower property taxes.

Gov. Ricketts signs budget with flood relief, scholarships

HOLTON, Kan. (AP) - A man from Omaha, Nebraska, died in a head-on crash involving a car and a semitrailer in northeastern Kansas, the Kansas Highway Patrol said.

The crash happened around 2 a.m. Thursday on U.S. 75 north of Holton, television station KAKE&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kake.com/story/42466984/man-killed-2-hurt-when-car-crashes-into-semi-on-kansas-highway" target="_blank">reported</a>.

A northbound car driven by Mohammad Alnosif, 24, of Omaha, veered into the southbound lanes and hit a tractor-trailer head-on, the patrol said. Alnosif was thrown from the car and died at the scene, according to investigators.

The patrol said the 38-year-old semi driver and a 66-year-old passenger with him were hospitalized for injuries.

HOLTON, Kan. (AP) - A man from Omaha, Nebraska, died in a head-on crash involving a car and a semitrailer in northeastern Kansas, the Kansas Highway Patrol said.The crash happened around 2 a.m. Thursday on U.S. 75 north of Holton, television station KAKE&nbsp;<a href="https://www.kake.com/story/42466984/man-killed-2-hurt-when-car-crashes-into-semi-on-kansas-highway" target="_blank">reported</a>.A northbound car driven by Mohammad Alnosif, 24, of Omaha, veered into the southbound lanes and hit a tractor-trailer head-on, the patrol said. Alnosif was thrown from the car and died at the scene, according to investigators.The patrol said the 38-year-old semi driver and a 66-year-old passenger with him were hospitalized for injuries.

Patrol: Nebraska man killed in head-on crash in Kansas

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

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A 28-year-old man faces charges of neglecting a vulnerable adult in his care after officers found a 76-year-old woman covered in feces and urine who had been abandoned at an Omaha motel, police said.

Police were called to the Relax Inn in Omaha on July 3 when a motel manager noticed a guest had not checked out and went to check the room, television station KETV&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/omaha-police-man-checked-76-year-old-woman-into-motel-left-her-in-soiled-diapers-for-days/33534025" target="_blank">reported</a>. He found the woman on a couch in the room covered in feces and urine. Trash and food also were scattered around the room, police said.

The woman was taken to a hospital, and medical staff said it appeared her adult diaper had not been changed for 48 hours, because of the feces had dried to her body. The man had checked the woman into the room on July 1, police said.

The couch where the woman was found was so contaminated it had to be thrown away, the motel manager said.

OMAHA, Neb. (AP) - A 28-year-old man faces charges of neglecting a vulnerable adult in his care after officers found a 76-year-old woman covered in feces and urine who had been abandoned at an Omaha motel, police said.Police were called to the Relax Inn in Omaha on July 3 when a motel manager noticed a guest had not checked out and went to check the room, television station KETV&nbsp;<a href="https://www.ketv.com/article/omaha-police-man-checked-76-year-old-woman-into-motel-left-her-in-soiled-diapers-for-days/33534025" target="_blank">reported</a>. He found the woman on a couch in the room covered in feces and urine. Trash and food also were scattered around the room, police said.The woman was taken to a hospital, and medical staff said it appeared her adult diaper had not been changed for 48 hours, because of the feces had dried to her body. The man had checked the woman into the room on July 1, police said.The couch where the woman was found was so contaminated it had to be thrown away, the motel manager said.

Man faces neglect charge for abandoning woman in Omaha motel

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

JACKSON COUNTY, Kan.— 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, Kan.— 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.-----

Nebraska man dead after head-on Kansas crash 

BILLINGS, Mont, (AP) — A Canadian company says two people working on the Keystone XL oil pipeline have tested positive for the coronavirus in northern Montana, prompting a temporary shut down of a pipe yard. 

Calgary-based TC Energy says the first pipe yard worker in Phillips County tested positive at a local clinic on July 28, Yellowstone Public Radio reported. 

Testing on six close contacts found a second worker with the virus. 

Native American tribes and others along the pipeline’s 1,200-mile (1,930-mile) route have raised concerns that workers could bring the virus into rural communities unable to handle an outbreak.

BILLINGS, Mont, (AP) — A Canadian company says two people working on the Keystone XL oil pipeline have tested positive for the coronavirus in northern Montana, prompting a temporary shut down of a pipe yard. Calgary-based TC Energy says the first pipe yard worker in Phillips County tested positive at a local clinic on July 28, Yellowstone Public Radio reported. Testing on six close contacts found a second worker with the virus. Native American tribes and others along the pipeline’s 1,200-mile (1,930-mile) route have raised concerns that workers could bring the virus into rural communities unable to handle an outbreak.

Two Keystone XL pipeline workers test positive for virus

NORFOLK, Neb. (AP) — A bomb squad and military experts had to be called to a northeastern Nebraska museum after live ordnance — including a World War II grenade and two artillery shells — were found in a museum storeroom. 

The Norfolk Daily News reports that staff at the Elkhorn Valley Museum in Norfolk discovered the grenade, ammunition and ordnance on Wednesday, shut down the museum and called Norfolk police.

 Officers were unable to determine if the vintage ordnance was live and called the Nebraska State Patrol bomb squad. 

The bomb squad determined that some of the items were live, and called the Nebraska Air National Guard explosive ordnance disposal team to help.

NORFOLK, Neb. (AP) — A bomb squad and military experts had to be called to a northeastern Nebraska museum after live ordnance — including a World War II grenade and two artillery shells — were found in a museum storeroom. The Norfolk Daily News reports that staff at the Elkhorn Valley Museum in Norfolk discovered the grenade, ammunition and ordnance on Wednesday, shut down the museum and called Norfolk police. Officers were unable to determine if the vintage ordnance was live and called the Nebraska State Patrol bomb squad. The bomb squad determined that some of the items were live, and called the Nebraska Air National Guard explosive ordnance disposal team to help.

Live grenade, artillery shells found inside Nebraska museum

NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association (NRA), the largest and most influential pro-gun organization in the nation. 

Attorney General James charges the organization with illegal conduct because of their diversion of millions of dollars away from the charitable mission of the organization for personal use by senior leadership, awarding contracts to the financial gain of close associates and family, and appearing to dole out lucrative no-show contracts to former employees in order to buy their silence and continued loyalty. The&nbsp;<a href="https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/final_nra_summons_complaint_08.06.20.pdf" target="_blank">suit specifically charges the NRA as a whole, as well as Executive Vice-President Wayne LaPierre, former Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Wilson “Woody” Phillips, former Chief of Staff and the Executive Director of General Operations Joshua Powell, and Corporate Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer with failing to manage the NRA’s funds and failing to follow numerous state and federal laws, contributing to the loss of more than $64 million in just three years for the NRA</a>.

In the complaint, Attorney General James lays out dozens of examples where the four individual defendants failed to fulfill their fiduciary duty to the NRA and used millions upon millions from NRA reserves for personal use, including trips for them and their families to the Bahamas, private jets, expensive meals, and other private travel. In addition to shuttering the NRA’s doors, Attorney General James seeks to recoup millions in lost assets and to stop the four individual defendants from serving on the board of any not-for-profit charitable organization in the state of New York again.

“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” said&nbsp;Attorney General James. “The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.”

Since 1871, the NRA has operated as a New York-registered 501(c)(4) not-for-profit, charitable corporation. Under state law not-for-profit, charitable corporations are required to register and file annual financial reports with the Charities Bureau in the Office of the Attorney General (OAG). The assets are required to be used in a way that serves the interests of NRA membership and that advance the organization’s charitable mission. However, as today’s complaint lays out, the NRA is alleged to have fostered a culture of noncompliance and disregard for internal controls that led to the waste and loss of millions in assets and contributed to the NRA reaching its current deteriorated financial state. The NRA’s internal policies were repeatedly not followed and were even blatantly ignored by senior leaders. Furthermore, the NRA board’s audit committee was negligent in its duty to ensure appropriate, competent, and judicious stewardship of assets by NRA leadership. Specifically, the committee failed to assure standard fiscal controls, failed to respond adequately to whistleblowers, affirmatively took steps to conceal the nature and scope of whistleblower concerns from external auditors, and failed to review potential conflicts of interest for employees.

NRA’s Culture of Self-Dealing, Mismanagement, and Negligence

The lawsuit alleges that the four men instituted a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement, and negligent oversight at the NRA that was illegal, oppressive, and fraudulent. They overrode and evaded internal controls to allow themselves, their families, favored board members, employees, and vendors to benefit through reimbursed expenses, related party transactions, excess compensation, side deals, and waste of charitable assets without regard to the NRA’s best interests.

When board members challenged LaPierre and others over their financial governance and leadership of the NRA, LaPierre retaliated and turned the board against those who attempted to challenge the illegal behavior.

The complaint lays out numerous other instances in which LaPierre, Phillips, Powell, Frazer, and other executives and board members at the NRA abused their power and illegally diverted or facilitated the diversion of tens of millions of dollars from the NRA. These funds were in addition to millions of dollars the four individual defendants were already receiving in grossly excessive salaries and bonuses that were not in line with the best practices and prudent standards for evaluating and determining compensation.

Wayne LaPierre – Executive Vice-President

In his nearly three decades as executive vice-president, Wayne LaPierre ran the day-to-day operations of the NRA and exploited the organization for his and his family’s financial benefit, and the benefit of a close circle of NRA staff, board members, and vendors. Of note, LaPierre:

The complaint alleges that as executive vice-president, LaPierre handpicked individuals in senior staff positions at the NRA that have shown themselves to be loyal to LaPierre as an individual, rather than to the organization. Time and time again, LaPierre has shown that loyalty, more than competence and responsibility, is integral to his staffing picks, which led him to personally hire Phillips, Powell, and Frazer — some chosen despite failing to meet the necessary skills or experience for their respective roles and responsibilities.

Wilson “Woody” Phillips – Former Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer

Woody Phillips — the former treasurer and CFO, who was responsible for managing the books and financial operations of the NRA — engaged in practices that violated NRA policy, lied on financial disclosure forms, and set up a deal worth more than $1 million that benefitted his girlfriend. Just before his retirement in 2018, Phillips obtained a contract for himself worth $1.8 million, purportedly for monthly consulting services to the incoming treasurer, even though the current treasurer knew nothing about this contract and has confirmed that “Woody [Phillips] never consulted for me.” Phillips, having served in the capacity as the chief steward of the organization's finances, also oversaw the financial practices that allowed millions of dollars in entertainment and travel expenses incurred by NRA executives to be fraudulently billed to the NRA as disbursements by the NRA’s largest vendor: Ackerman McQueen, an Oklahoma-based advertising and public relations firm. Furthermore, the complaint asserts that Phillips consistently eschewed his fiduciary duties time and time again, as evidenced by his failure to seriously respond to whistleblower complaints about alleged fiscal improprieties and his readiness to unilaterally authorize payments and contracts outside of the NRA adopted purchasing and contracting policies and procedures.

Joshua Powell – Former Chief of Staff and Executive Director of General Operations

Joshua Powell, the chief of staff to LaPierre, was terminated after just 3.5 years for, among other things, misappropriating NRA funds during his tenure. Powell, who is known as a LaPierre loyalist, received sudden and substantial salary increases almost immediately after starting his position. Within a month, his salary was doubled retroactively to the beginning of his tenure with the NRA to $500,000. After less than a year, Powell’s salary increased to $650,000. A little over two years into the job, Powell’s salary more than tripled from the original $250,000 to $800,000, despite numerous complaints of abusive behavior and evidence of illegal conduct and inappropriate spending. Further, Powell abused the NRA’s policy on housing and relocation reimbursements, pocketing in excess of $100,000 more than NRA rules allowed.

Powell’s tenure was marked by nepotism. LaPierre, Phillips, and Powell also signed off on the hiring of fundraising consultant McKenna &amp; Associates outside of the NRA’s contract process and without going through any approval process. The NRA paid the company more than $5 million over the course of five years. For all of 2018, Powell’s wife was hired as a consultant by McKenna &amp; Associates, and her entire $30,000 monthly consulting fee was passed through the NRA. The hiring of Powell’s wife was hidden from the NRA’s general counsel, in an effort to not draw attention to and affirmatively hide the conflict of interest, and her role was not pre-approved by the NRA board, as the organization’s policy requires. Additionally, Powell requested an NRA vendor to add his father to a rotation of paid photographers, resulting in more than $90,000 in compensation for his father, an expense which was completely passed through to the NRA.

John Frazer – Corporate Secretary and General Counsel

John Frazer was chosen by LaPierre to serve as general counsel and also served as corporate secretary at the NRA. Between 2014 and 2018, Frazer repeatedly failed to comply with board governance procedures, make necessary changes, or advise others that governance changes needed to be made; failed to ensure that financial transactions were being addressed by NRA officers and directors in accordance with law; failed to enforce compliance with the NRA’s conflict of interest policy; and failed to ensure that the NRA was in compliance with laws and policies governing whistleblowers. Additionally, Frazer repeatedly certified false or misleading annual statements.

Ackerman McQueen – NRA’s Public Relations and Advertising Firm

A practice decades-old between LaPierre and Ackerman McQueen’s co-founder — that would continue until the two companies severed ties in 2019 — ensured that Ackerman McQueen would pay for a variety of non-contractual, out-of-pocket expenses for LaPierre and other NRA executives and pass those expenses through to the NRA. The NRA leadership regularly used this pass-through arrangement — where expenses would be paid for by the NRA without written approvals, receipts, or supporting business purpose documentation — to conceal private travel and other costs that were largely personal in nature. Ackerman McQueen would aggregate the expenses into a lump sum amount and provide no details on the nature or purpose of the expenses when billing the NRA for them. The invoices only typically included a one-line description that read “out-of-pocket expenses” and included an invoice total amount. The expenses billed to the NRA for out-of-pocket expenses did not comply with IRS requirements, and, as a result, all such expenses should have been included by the NRA in taxable personal income for LaPierre and other recipients.

Ackerman McQueen was paid more than $70 million in just 2017 and 2018 for “public relations and advertising” services and for “out-of-pocket expenditures” that really went to entertainment and travel incurred by NRA executives and associates without scrutiny from within the organization, including millions for private planes, luxury hotels, memberships to private clubs, special events, fancy meals, and even personal hair and makeup services for LaPierre’s wife.

Under New York law, the NRA’s audit committee is responsible for overseeing the accounting and financial reporting processes of the organization and the audit of its financial statements, but the culture of noncompliance and disregard for the internal controls is evident within the audit committee. The committee failed to serve as an independent check on LaPierre, his senior staff, and the NRA as a whole, and basically served as a rubber stamp for the organization’s illicit behavior, when it did review finances.

For example, the audit committee is charged with reviewing any contract that has the appearance of a conflict of interest, such as a contracts with insiders referred to as related-party transactions, and must not only perform certain considerations, but also document its deliberations. The committee routinely approved related-party transactions after LaPierre or senior staff entered into such agreements. In fact, in 2018, the audit committee approved seven related-party transactions after the fact, including a contract between the NRA’s then incoming president and Ackerman McQueen. At the time this contract was executed, the terms were known to LaPierre and Phillips, but the audit committee had no knowledge of it. Then, again in 2019 and 2020, the audit committee purportedly approved, retroactively, many other existing NRA contracts, some of which dated back 15 years.

The audit committee’s chair testified during a deposition with the OAG that he had no knowledge of New York law governing audit committees, whistleblowers, or conflicts of interest, and that he could not recall the last time he had seen the audit committee charter that specifically states the audit committee “overs[ees] the integrity of financial information” at the NRA. In fact, the committee chair testified that, in his view and contrary to the charter, the audit committee had no role in oversight of internal controls and that “there is no internal auditing” within the NRA and there hadn’t been one in the whole 19 years he served on the NRA board.

Unsurprisingly, during numerous occasions, the audit committee failed to respond adequately to whistleblowers, failed to appropriately review and approve related-party transactions and conflicts of interest, and failed to adequately oversee external auditors.

Extensive Violations of Fundamental Not-for-Profit Law

Attorney General James alleges in her complaint that the NRA violated multiple laws, including the laws governing the NRA’s charitable status, false reporting on annual filings with the IRS and with the OAG’s Charities Bureau, improper expense documentation, improper wage reporting, improper income tax withholding, failure to make required excise tax reporting and payments, payments in excess of reasonable compensation to disqualified persons, and waste of NRA assets; in direct violation of New York’s Estates, Powers &amp; Trusts Laws; New York’s Not-for-Profit Corporation Law; the New York Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act; and New York’s Executive Law. The illegal nature of the four individual defendants’ action also violated multiple rules of the NRA’s bylaws, the NRA’s employee handbook, and the NRA’s policy manual.

The failure of the NRA to comply with multiple fiduciary responsibilities and state and federal laws resulted in the NRA seeing substantial losses on its balance sheet: going from a surplus of $27,802,714 in 2015 to a net deficit of $36,276,779 in 2018 — contributing to a total loss of more than $64 million in just three years.

As a result of all the allegations mentioned above, Attorney General James seeks to dissolve the NRA; asks the court to order LaPierre, Phillips, Powell, and Frazer to make full restitution for funds they unlawfully profited and salaries earned while employees; pay penalties; recover illegal and unauthorized payments to the four individuals; remove LaPierre and Frazer from the NRA’s leadership (Phillips and Powell are no longer employed by the NRA); and ensure none of the four individual defendants can ever again serve on the board of a charity in New York.

Attorney General James began her inquiry into the NRA in February 2019.

The matter was led by Bureau Chief James Sheehan and Bureau Co-Chief of the Enforcement Section Emily Stern, with a team of attorneys, legal assistants, and accountants, including Assistant Attorney General and Special Counsel of the Litigation Bureau Monica Connell; Assistant Attorneys General William Wang, Sharon Sash, Jonathan Conley, Stephen Thompson, and Erica James — all of the Charities Bureau; with additional assistance from Chief Accountant Judith Welsh-Liebross, Associate Accountant Darren Beauchamp, and Associate Accountant Charles Aganu; in addition to numerous other individuals at the OAG.&nbsp;The Charities Bureau is part of the Division for Social Justice, which is supervised by Chief Deputy Attorney General Meghan Faux and First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/8/1596729533353.png" alt="New York Attorney General Letitia James during Thursday's announcement&nbsp;" />
 <figcaption>New York Attorney General Letitia James during Thursday's announcement&nbsp;</figcaption>
 </figure>NEW YORK – New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to dissolve the National Rifle Association (NRA), the largest and most influential pro-gun organization in the nation. Attorney General James charges the organization with illegal conduct because of their diversion of millions of dollars away from the charitable mission of the organization for personal use by senior leadership, awarding contracts to the financial gain of close associates and family, and appearing to dole out lucrative no-show contracts to former employees in order to buy their silence and continued loyalty. The&nbsp;<a href="https://ag.ny.gov/sites/default/files/final_nra_summons_complaint_08.06.20.pdf" target="_blank">suit specifically charges the NRA as a whole, as well as Executive Vice-President Wayne LaPierre, former Treasurer and Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Wilson “Woody” Phillips, former Chief of Staff and the Executive Director of General Operations Joshua Powell, and Corporate Secretary and General Counsel John Frazer with failing to manage the NRA’s funds and failing to follow numerous state and federal laws, contributing to the loss of more than $64 million in just three years for the NRA</a>.<div><blockquote class="twitter-tweet"><a href="https://twitter.com/hashtag/BREAKING?src=hash&amp;ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">#BREAKING</a>: I filed a lawsuit to dissolve the National Rifle Association for years of self-dealing and illegal conduct. The <a href="https://twitter.com/NRA?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">@NRA</a> is fraught with fraud and abuse. No organization is above the law.&mdash; NY AG James (@NewYorkStateAG) <a href="https://twitter.com/NewYorkStateAG/status/1291397976200548353?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">August 6, 2020</a></blockquote> <script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></div>In the complaint, Attorney General James lays out dozens of examples where the four individual defendants failed to fulfill their fiduciary duty to the NRA and used millions upon millions from NRA reserves for personal use, including trips for them and their families to the Bahamas, private jets, expensive meals, and other private travel. In addition to shuttering the NRA’s doors, Attorney General James seeks to recoup millions in lost assets and to stop the four individual defendants from serving on the board of any not-for-profit charitable organization in the state of New York again.“The NRA’s influence has been so powerful that the organization went unchecked for decades while top executives funneled millions into their own pockets,” said&nbsp;Attorney General James. “The NRA is fraught with fraud and abuse, which is why, today, we seek to dissolve the NRA, because no organization is above the law.”Since 1871, the NRA has operated as a New York-registered 501(c)(4) not-for-profit, charitable corporation. Under state law not-for-profit, charitable corporations are required to register and file annual financial reports with the Charities Bureau in the Office of the Attorney General (OAG). The assets are required to be used in a way that serves the interests of NRA membership and that advance the organization’s charitable mission. However, as today’s complaint lays out, the NRA is alleged to have fostered a culture of noncompliance and disregard for internal controls that led to the waste and loss of millions in assets and contributed to the NRA reaching its current deteriorated financial state. The NRA’s internal policies were repeatedly not followed and were even blatantly ignored by senior leaders. Furthermore, the NRA board’s audit committee was negligent in its duty to ensure appropriate, competent, and judicious stewardship of assets by NRA leadership. Specifically, the committee failed to assure standard fiscal controls, failed to respond adequately to whistleblowers, affirmatively took steps to conceal the nature and scope of whistleblower concerns from external auditors, and failed to review potential conflicts of interest for employees.NRA’s Culture of Self-Dealing, Mismanagement, and NegligenceThe lawsuit alleges that the four men instituted a culture of self-dealing, mismanagement, and negligent oversight at the NRA that was illegal, oppressive, and fraudulent. They overrode and evaded internal controls to allow themselves, their families, favored board members, employees, and vendors to benefit through reimbursed expenses, related party transactions, excess compensation, side deals, and waste of charitable assets without regard to the NRA’s best interests.When board members challenged LaPierre and others over their financial governance and leadership of the NRA, LaPierre retaliated and turned the board against those who attempted to challenge the illegal behavior.The complaint lays out numerous other instances in which LaPierre, Phillips, Powell, Frazer, and other executives and board members at the NRA abused their power and illegally diverted or facilitated the diversion of tens of millions of dollars from the NRA. These funds were in addition to millions of dollars the four individual defendants were already receiving in grossly excessive salaries and bonuses that were not in line with the best practices and prudent standards for evaluating and determining compensation.Wayne LaPierre – Executive Vice-PresidentIn his nearly three decades as executive vice-president, Wayne LaPierre ran the day-to-day operations of the NRA and exploited the organization for his and his family’s financial benefit, and the benefit of a close circle of NRA staff, board members, and vendors. Of note, LaPierre:<ul>
 <li>Spent hundreds of thousands of dollars of the NRA’s charitable assets for private plane trips for himself and his family, including extended family when he was not present.</li><li>Visited the Bahamas by private air charter at least eight times in an approximate three-year period with his family, at a cost of more than $500,000 to the NRA. On many of those trips, LaPierre and his family were gifted the use of a 107-foot yacht owned by an NRA vendor.</li><li>Traveled to Africa with his wife for all-expense paid safaris, gifted by an NRA vendor.</li><li>Spent millions on unwarranted travel consultants for decades, including for the booking of luxury black car services — spending more than $3.6 million in the last two years alone.</li><li>Secured a post-employment contract for himself with the NRA, without board approval, currently valued at more than $17 million.</li><li>Allotted several millions of dollars annually in NRA funds for private security costs for himself and his family without sufficient oversight on their use.</li><li>Received more than $1.2 million in expense reimbursements in just a four-year period for expenditures that included gifts for favored friends and vendors; travel expenses for himself and his family; and membership fees at golf clubs, hotels, and other member clubs.</li><li>Secured lucrative consulting contracts for ex-employees and board members worth millions.</li>
 </ul>The complaint alleges that as executive vice-president, LaPierre handpicked individuals in senior staff positions at the NRA that have shown themselves to be loyal to LaPierre as an individual, rather than to the organization. Time and time again, LaPierre has shown that loyalty, more than competence and responsibility, is integral to his staffing picks, which led him to personally hire Phillips, Powell, and Frazer — some chosen despite failing to meet the necessary skills or experience for their respective roles and responsibilities.Wilson “Woody” Phillips – Former Treasurer and Chief Financial OfficerWoody Phillips — the former treasurer and CFO, who was responsible for managing the books and financial operations of the NRA — engaged in practices that violated NRA policy, lied on financial disclosure forms, and set up a deal worth more than $1 million that benefitted his girlfriend. Just before his retirement in 2018, Phillips obtained a contract for himself worth $1.8 million, purportedly for monthly consulting services to the incoming treasurer, even though the current treasurer knew nothing about this contract and has confirmed that “Woody [Phillips] never consulted for me.” Phillips, having served in the capacity as the chief steward of the organization's finances, also oversaw the financial practices that allowed millions of dollars in entertainment and travel expenses incurred by NRA executives to be fraudulently billed to the NRA as disbursements by the NRA’s largest vendor: Ackerman McQueen, an Oklahoma-based advertising and public relations firm. Furthermore, the complaint asserts that Phillips consistently eschewed his fiduciary duties time and time again, as evidenced by his failure to seriously respond to whistleblower complaints about alleged fiscal improprieties and his readiness to unilaterally authorize payments and contracts outside of the NRA adopted purchasing and contracting policies and procedures.Joshua Powell – Former Chief of Staff and Executive Director of General OperationsJoshua Powell, the chief of staff to LaPierre, was terminated after just 3.5 years for, among other things, misappropriating NRA funds during his tenure. Powell, who is known as a LaPierre loyalist, received sudden and substantial salary increases almost immediately after starting his position. Within a month, his salary was doubled retroactively to the beginning of his tenure with the NRA to $500,000. After less than a year, Powell’s salary increased to $650,000. A little over two years into the job, Powell’s salary more than tripled from the original $250,000 to $800,000, despite numerous complaints of abusive behavior and evidence of illegal conduct and inappropriate spending. Further, Powell abused the NRA’s policy on housing and relocation reimbursements, pocketing in excess of $100,000 more than NRA rules allowed.Powell’s tenure was marked by nepotism. LaPierre, Phillips, and Powell also signed off on the hiring of fundraising consultant McKenna &amp; Associates outside of the NRA’s contract process and without going through any approval process. The NRA paid the company more than $5 million over the course of five years. For all of 2018, Powell’s wife was hired as a consultant by McKenna &amp; Associates, and her entire $30,000 monthly consulting fee was passed through the NRA. The hiring of Powell’s wife was hidden from the NRA’s general counsel, in an effort to not draw attention to and affirmatively hide the conflict of interest, and her role was not pre-approved by the NRA board, as the organization’s policy requires. Additionally, Powell requested an NRA vendor to add his father to a rotation of paid photographers, resulting in more than $90,000 in compensation for his father, an expense which was completely passed through to the NRA.John Frazer – Corporate Secretary and General CounselJohn Frazer was chosen by LaPierre to serve as general counsel and also served as corporate secretary at the NRA. Between 2014 and 2018, Frazer repeatedly failed to comply with board governance procedures, make necessary changes, or advise others that governance changes needed to be made; failed to ensure that financial transactions were being addressed by NRA officers and directors in accordance with law; failed to enforce compliance with the NRA’s conflict of interest policy; and failed to ensure that the NRA was in compliance with laws and policies governing whistleblowers. Additionally, Frazer repeatedly certified false or misleading annual statements.Ackerman McQueen – NRA’s Public Relations and Advertising FirmA practice decades-old between LaPierre and Ackerman McQueen’s co-founder — that would continue until the two companies severed ties in 2019 — ensured that Ackerman McQueen would pay for a variety of non-contractual, out-of-pocket expenses for LaPierre and other NRA executives and pass those expenses through to the NRA. The NRA leadership regularly used this pass-through arrangement — where expenses would be paid for by the NRA without written approvals, receipts, or supporting business purpose documentation — to conceal private travel and other costs that were largely personal in nature. Ackerman McQueen would aggregate the expenses into a lump sum amount and provide no details on the nature or purpose of the expenses when billing the NRA for them. The invoices only typically included a one-line description that read “out-of-pocket expenses” and included an invoice total amount. The expenses billed to the NRA for out-of-pocket expenses did not comply with IRS requirements, and, as a result, all such expenses should have been included by the NRA in taxable personal income for LaPierre and other recipients.Ackerman McQueen was paid more than $70 million in just 2017 and 2018 for “public relations and advertising” services and for “out-of-pocket expenditures” that really went to entertainment and travel incurred by NRA executives and associates without scrutiny from within the organization, including millions for private planes, luxury hotels, memberships to private clubs, special events, fancy meals, and even personal hair and makeup services for LaPierre’s wife.NRA Audit Committee’s Failure to AuditUnder New York law, the NRA’s audit committee is responsible for overseeing the accounting and financial reporting processes of the organization and the audit of its financial statements, but the culture of noncompliance and disregard for the internal controls is evident within the audit committee. The committee failed to serve as an independent check on LaPierre, his senior staff, and the NRA as a whole, and basically served as a rubber stamp for the organization’s illicit behavior, when it did review finances.For example, the audit committee is charged with reviewing any contract that has the appearance of a conflict of interest, such as a contracts with insiders referred to as related-party transactions, and must not only perform certain considerations, but also document its deliberations. The committee routinely approved related-party transactions after LaPierre or senior staff entered into such agreements. In fact, in 2018, the audit committee approved seven related-party transactions after the fact, including a contract between the NRA’s then incoming president and Ackerman McQueen. At the time this contract was executed, the terms were known to LaPierre and Phillips, but the audit committee had no knowledge of it. Then, again in 2019 and 2020, the audit committee purportedly approved, retroactively, many other existing NRA contracts, some of which dated back 15 years.The audit committee’s chair testified during a deposition with the OAG that he had no knowledge of New York law governing audit committees, whistleblowers, or conflicts of interest, and that he could not recall the last time he had seen the audit committee charter that specifically states the audit committee “overs[ees] the integrity of financial information” at the NRA. In fact, the committee chair testified that, in his view and contrary to the charter, the audit committee had no role in oversight of internal controls and that “there is no internal auditing” within the NRA and there hadn’t been one in the whole 19 years he served on the NRA board.Unsurprisingly, during numerous occasions, the audit committee failed to respond adequately to whistleblowers, failed to appropriately review and approve related-party transactions and conflicts of interest, and failed to adequately oversee external auditors.Extensive Violations of Fundamental Not-for-Profit LawAttorney General James alleges in her complaint that the NRA violated multiple laws, including the laws governing the NRA’s charitable status, false reporting on annual filings with the IRS and with the OAG’s Charities Bureau, improper expense documentation, improper wage reporting, improper income tax withholding, failure to make required excise tax reporting and payments, payments in excess of reasonable compensation to disqualified persons, and waste of NRA assets; in direct violation of New York’s Estates, Powers &amp; Trusts Laws; New York’s Not-for-Profit Corporation Law; the New York Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act; and New York’s Executive Law. The illegal nature of the four individual defendants’ action also violated multiple rules of the NRA’s bylaws, the NRA’s employee handbook, and the NRA’s policy manual.The failure of the NRA to comply with multiple fiduciary responsibilities and state and federal laws resulted in the NRA seeing substantial losses on its balance sheet: going from a surplus of $27,802,714 in 2015 to a net deficit of $36,276,779 in 2018 — contributing to a total loss of more than $64 million in just three years.Proposed ResolutionAs a result of all the allegations mentioned above, Attorney General James seeks to dissolve the NRA; asks the court to order LaPierre, Phillips, Powell, and Frazer to make full restitution for funds they unlawfully profited and salaries earned while employees; pay penalties; recover illegal and unauthorized payments to the four individuals; remove LaPierre and Frazer from the NRA’s leadership (Phillips and Powell are no longer employed by the NRA); and ensure none of the four individual defendants can ever again serve on the board of a charity in New York.Attorney General James began her inquiry into the NRA in February 2019.The matter was led by Bureau Chief James Sheehan and Bureau Co-Chief of the Enforcement Section Emily Stern, with a team of attorneys, legal assistants, and accountants, including Assistant Attorney General and Special Counsel of the Litigation Bureau Monica Connell; Assistant Attorneys General William Wang, Sharon Sash, Jonathan Conley, Stephen Thompson, and Erica James — all of the Charities Bureau; with additional assistance from Chief Accountant Judith Welsh-Liebross, Associate Accountant Darren Beauchamp, and Associate Accountant Charles Aganu; in addition to numerous other individuals at the OAG.&nbsp;The Charities Bureau is part of the Division for Social Justice, which is supervised by Chief Deputy Attorney General Meghan Faux and First Deputy Attorney General Jennifer Levy.

NY attorney general files lawsuit to dissolve NRA

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Gov. Kristi Noem is using COVID-19 restrictions in other states to lure businesses to relocate to South Dakota.

 In an online ad, Noem tells business owners to “grow their company” in South Dakota where government will stay out of their way. 

“When it comes to supporting growth and eliminating government heavy-handed interference, South Dakota means business,” Noem said in the ad from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. 

The Republican governor says Minnesota’s COVID-19-related restrictions, including a mandate to wear face masks in public buildings, has created an opportunity for businesses there to cross the border to South Dakota. 

Noem says in South Dakota, people’s individual rights are respected and businesses won’t be shut down.

PIERRE, S.D. (AP) — Gov. Kristi Noem is using COVID-19 restrictions in other states to lure businesses to relocate to South Dakota. In an online ad, Noem tells business owners to “grow their company” in South Dakota where government will stay out of their way. “When it comes to supporting growth and eliminating government heavy-handed interference, South Dakota means business,” Noem said in the ad from the Governor’s Office of Economic Development. The Republican governor says Minnesota’s COVID-19-related restrictions, including a mandate to wear face masks in public buildings, has created an opportunity for businesses there to cross the border to South Dakota. Noem says in South Dakota, people’s individual rights are respected and businesses won’t be shut down.

Noem uses COVID-19 restrictions elsewhere to lure business

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — As the pandemic affects the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, one local community organization is doing everything it can to help people stay at home. 

The leadership of Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation fears that the pandemic could take a disproportionate toll on an elderly population that maintains the language and culture of the tribe. Before the pandemic, the organization worked to teach the Lakota language to children. 

The organization says fewer than 3% of the community is fluent in the language. But many elders who are still fluent in the language are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. (AP) — As the pandemic affects the Oglala Sioux Tribe in South Dakota, one local community organization is doing everything it can to help people stay at home. The leadership of Thunder Valley Community Development Corporation fears that the pandemic could take a disproportionate toll on an elderly population that maintains the language and culture of the tribe. Before the pandemic, the organization worked to teach the Lakota language to children. The organization says fewer than 3% of the community is fluent in the language. But many elders who are still fluent in the language are especially vulnerable to COVID-19.