Kansas Senate passes plan to cut sales tax on groceries

The Senate voted 25-14 to pass the tax plan after failing to reach an agreement with House members over a dispute about how much of a sales tax increase should be renewed. The Senate plan keeps the state sales tax rate at 6.3 percent but would slice it on groceries to 4.95 percent. It now goes to the House, where approval is questionable.

The Buzz

Brownback to Kansas Legislature: Shut it down

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has seen enough. In a terse, four-sentence news release Wednesday, the governor demanded that lawmakers end the 2013 session. “The Kansas Legislature has accomplished a great deal of work during the 2013 session,” he said.

Kansas Senate passes plan to cut sales tax on groceries

The Senate voted 25-14 to pass the tax plan after failing to reach an agreement with House members over a dispute about how much of a sales tax increase should be renewed. The Senate plan keeps the state sales tax rate at 6.3 percent but would slice it on groceries to 4.95 percent. It now goes to the House, where approval is questionable.

Obama nominates Latina to federal personnel agency

President Barack Obama says he will nominate Katherine Archuleta, a former top campaign aide, as director of the Office of Personnel Management. Archuleta would be the first Hispanic to direct the agency, which oversees and sets policies for the federal government's civil service workforce.

U.S. for first time acknowledges role in deaths of Americans in drone strikes

The Obama administration confirmed for the first time on Wednesday that four Americans have died in U.S. drone strikes since 2009, but it sought to justify the killing of only one – a senior leader of al Qaida’s Yemen-based affiliate – and said nothing about the other three except to acknowledge indirectly that they’d been killed by accident.

Former U.S. attorney Todd Graves files tea party lawsuit against the IRS

The suit by the former U.S. attorney for western Missouri was filed Monday in the district that’s home to the IRS office embroiled in a national controversy for its targeting of conservative political groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status. He said it was the first suit to be filed in connection with the much-criticized handling of applications for 501 (c)(4) status.