SALINA, Kan. — Come January, soybean farmers in Kansas can unite in a new way to recognize good news in agriculture. The inaugural Kansas Soybean Celebration debuts January 31 in Salina and invites growers to join for an evening of awards, camaraderie and celebratory remarks.

“We are starting a new tradition at Kansas Soybean with the creation of the Kansas Soybean Celebration,” event co-chair Brett Neibling, Highland, says. “We feel Celebration better serves farmers with a more central location while still providing top notch education and entertainment.”

Over four decades, soybean growers gathered in Topeka each January for the Kansas Soybean Expo. The KSA-led Expo, made possible by checkoff funding, set attendees up for a successful year through expert presentations in research, economics, weather and more. To modernize outreach efforts and strategically align grower events, association directors saw an opportunity to transition away from the Expo format and name.

“For years, the board discussed how to better serve our members and reach more growers,” Neibling, KSA First Vice President, says. “The Kansas Soybean Expo has been great for reaching members, but things run their course. We are excited about this new event.”

Kansas Soybean Celebration follows Kansas Commodity Classic at Salina’s Hilton Garden Inn. The KSA annual member meeting begins at 2:30 p.m. in the hotel dining area followed by a social hour and networking with corporate sponsors and agronomic researchers. Celebration begins at 4:30 p.m. and features numerous food stations and continued conversation. A program of awards, organizational updates and a featured speaker comprise the evening’s agenda.

The Kansas Soybean Expo historically recognized KSA’s Friend of Soy and Meritorious Service recipients, honored farmer-leaders retiring from service and announced results of the Kansas Soybean Yield and Value Contests. These awards are now slated for presentation at Celebration.

Event registration is expected to open early December. Event details and updates are available at&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://sbfa8lkab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-3OCL-RUVcXd2zZTCI7y8OhoRimZyqZ9tgyFFrzmX67faLu4J45rf3ILO4qP_4kB-wSL0okqOtTO-LsHouP8JC8KxFT8ptFFPB-JbzpJ_SFsRFWNIpo_shzttdGpp-DEFHhIf1Ov8U-krhiB762s1W84dhBphfOVJwP_oyZ834A=&amp;c=W_uApkJLs9z0VMtvOFv_fiQGFzwtnLzn4_n_T8nn8XmQspZs6w0lsA==&amp;ch=qbd-oNZB94raNiSb7w593DmWWKMml9TqMapxyY6ynlctEFjrZQqFJw==">www.kansassoybeans.org/celebration</a>.&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/9/1727453289648.jpeg" alt="Kansas Soybean Celebration" />
 <figcaption>Kansas Soybean Celebration</figcaption>
 </figure>Kansas SoybeanSALINA, Kan. — Come January, soybean farmers in Kansas can unite in a new way to recognize good news in agriculture. The inaugural Kansas Soybean Celebration debuts January 31 in Salina and invites growers to join for an evening of awards, camaraderie and celebratory remarks.“We are starting a new tradition at Kansas Soybean with the creation of the Kansas Soybean Celebration,” event co-chair Brett Neibling, Highland, says. “We feel Celebration better serves farmers with a more central location while still providing top notch education and entertainment.”Over four decades, soybean growers gathered in Topeka each January for the Kansas Soybean Expo. The KSA-led Expo, made possible by checkoff funding, set attendees up for a successful year through expert presentations in research, economics, weather and more. To modernize outreach efforts and strategically align grower events, association directors saw an opportunity to transition away from the Expo format and name.“For years, the board discussed how to better serve our members and reach more growers,” Neibling, KSA First Vice President, says. “The Kansas Soybean Expo has been great for reaching members, but things run their course. We are excited about this new event.”Kansas Soybean Celebration follows Kansas Commodity Classic at Salina’s Hilton Garden Inn. The KSA annual member meeting begins at 2:30 p.m. in the hotel dining area followed by a social hour and networking with corporate sponsors and agronomic researchers. Celebration begins at 4:30 p.m. and features numerous food stations and continued conversation. A program of awards, organizational updates and a featured speaker comprise the evening’s agenda.The Kansas Soybean Expo historically recognized KSA’s Friend of Soy and Meritorious Service recipients, honored farmer-leaders retiring from service and announced results of the Kansas Soybean Yield and Value Contests. These awards are now slated for presentation at Celebration.Event registration is expected to open early December. Event details and updates are available at&nbsp;<a target="_blank" href="https://sbfa8lkab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp?f=001-3OCL-RUVcXd2zZTCI7y8OhoRimZyqZ9tgyFFrzmX67faLu4J45rf3ILO4qP_4kB-wSL0okqOtTO-LsHouP8JC8KxFT8ptFFPB-JbzpJ_SFsRFWNIpo_shzttdGpp-DEFHhIf1Ov8U-krhiB762s1W84dhBphfOVJwP_oyZ834A=&amp;c=W_uApkJLs9z0VMtvOFv_fiQGFzwtnLzn4_n_T8nn8XmQspZs6w0lsA==&amp;ch=qbd-oNZB94raNiSb7w593DmWWKMml9TqMapxyY6ynlctEFjrZQqFJw==">www.kansassoybeans.org/celebration</a>.&nbsp;

Kansas Soybean Celebration coming up in January

BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://missouriindependent.com/author/ashley-murray/">ASHLEY MURRAY</a>

WASHINGTON — With the clock ticking on former President Donald Trump’s signature 2017 tax law, and high housing, food and child care costs darkening Americans’ mood, tax cuts have become the star of the 2024 presidential contest between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump wants to overall extend his tax provisions beyond the 2025 expiration date and then some, promising to lower the corporate tax rate even further and lift the cap on the state and local taxes deduction.

He argues the loss in federal revenue will be made up by imposing steep tariffs on imported goods.

Tariff is a “beautiful word,” he told a crowd in Savannah, Georgia, Tuesday night, “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”

“We will take in hundreds of billions of dollars into our treasury and use that money to benefit the American citizens,” he said.

Harris is running on an “opportunity economy” platform that keeps the Biden administration’s promises to not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 and enact a “billionaire” tax.

The vice president has also vowed to give tax deductions and credits to budding entrepreneurs and first-time homebuyers, and permanently expand the Child Tax Credit.

“Under my plan, more than 100 million Americans will get a middle-class tax break that includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of their child’s life,” Harris said Wednesday at a campaign speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Whoever wins the Oval Office&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/racing-toward-election-day-control-us-senate-and-house-grabs%C2%A0" target="_blank">will need</a>&nbsp;a cooperative Congress to enact these policies — with the exception of tariffs, over which the president enjoys wide&nbsp;<a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11030" target="_blank">latitude</a>.

The barrage of proposals has kept economists busy with near-constant and evolving&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/issue-area/us-budget-watch-2024" target="_blank">analyses</a>&nbsp;of how much the&nbsp;<a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/8/26/harris-campaign-policy-proposals-2024?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">tax</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/8/26/trump-campaign-policy-proposals-2024?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">cut</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/research/federal-tax/2024-tax-plans/?utm_content=308246052&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;hss_channel=tw-16686673" target="_blank">promises</a>&nbsp;would add to the nation’s ballooning federal deficit and change the economy.

Both candidates’ plans come with a price tag in the trillions of dollars, though Trump’s is the more expensive of the two.

Models released in late August by the Penn Wharton Budget Model project Trump’s plan&nbsp;<a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/8/26/trump-campaign-policy-proposals-2024?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">would add</a>&nbsp;up to $5.8 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, while Harris’ plan would&nbsp;<a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/8/26/harris-campaign-policy-proposals-2024?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">increase</a>&nbsp;the deficit by up to $2 trillion over the same time period.

“I think that both candidates are missing the mark when it comes to fiscal responsibility and economic responsibility,” the Tax Foundation’s Erica York told States Newsroom in an interview Monday.

“Neither of them have really outlined a plan that would get us on a sustainable path in terms of debt and deficits, nor that would boost growth and opportunity in the economy. Both are likely to have a negative impact on the economy,” said York, senior economist and research director for the foundation, which generally favors lower taxes.

Trump, followed by Harris, has proposed to nix taxes on tipped workers — though Harris has suggested limiting the benefit to workers in the service and hospitality industries who earn less than $75,000.

She has also said the tax break would not apply to payroll taxes, meaning the contribution workers pay toward Social Security and Medicare. Trump has not detailed any limits on his proposal for tipped workers.

Economists across the board&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/trump-floats-plan-end-taxes-tips-though-experts-raise-doubts" target="_blank">warn</a>&nbsp;Trump’s plan could incentivize more tipped work. They also question whether Trump and Harris’ proposals would actually benefit low-income workers.

After all, tax benefits for lower income workers who have children phase in as the person earns income. Reporting less income means those taxpayers could ultimately see less help from the Child Tax Credit or the Earned Income Tax Credit.

“If you work and you report income, you get these provisions. But if you don’t, you don’t get these provisions. Well, you add exemptions into the tax code that reduces the amount of earned income that you report to the IRS, you could potentially reduce the value of these credits for very low-income households,” Kyle Pomerleau, senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told States Newsroom in an interview Monday.

For instance, a tipped worker who has one child and earns $24,000 annually, half of which comes from tips, could see a $300 decrease in refundable tax credits under this policy, Pomerleau and senior AEI fellows Alex Brill and Stan Veuger&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aei.org/economics/a-tip-exemption-is-not-sound-tax-policy/" target="_blank">wrote</a>&nbsp;in August.

The same principle for lower income taxpayers applies to Trump’s recent promise to eliminate taxes on overtime.

“There could be a negative effect there, depending on how this is structured,” Pomerleau said Monday.

The nonpartisan watchdog Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/donald-trumps-proposal-end-taxes-overtime" target="_blank">estimates</a>&nbsp;an elimination of taxes on all overtime would cost the country $1.7 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years. With no guardrails preventing workers switching from salaried to hourly, the price tag could reach up to $6 trillion in the most extreme case, CRFB estimates.

Economists monitoring the nation’s Social Security coffers continue to sound alarm bells on the program’s solvency — with little reaction on the campaign trail.

The fund that provides money to senior citizens and people with disabilities is on track to be depleted by 2035, and recipients would face an immediate 17% cut in benefits, as the Tax Foundation’s Alex Durante&nbsp;<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/social-security-reform-options/?utm_content=309361439&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;hss_channel=tw-16686673" target="_blank">wrote</a>&nbsp;Tuesday.

Trump has mentioned Social Security during campaign rallies and on his social media platform, but in the context of eliminating taxes on the benefit payments.

While low-income recipients do not pay taxes on their benefits, others do and are projected to contribute $94 billion this year back into the fund.

Nixing those taxes could speed up Social Security’s insolvency by one year,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/donald-trumps-suggestion-end-taxation-social-security-benefits" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Promise: New corporate tax rates and tariffs

Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cleared Congress strictly along party lines, permanently lowered the top corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%.

Harris has vowed, if elected, she will bump the rate up to 28%.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/kamala-harris-proposal-raise-corporate-tax-rate-28" target="_blank">Analyses</a>&nbsp;from the CFRB, the Tax Foundation, Penn Wharton and the Yale Budget Lab estimate the increase would raise roughly $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade.

The former president wants to&nbsp;<a href="https://newjerseymonitor.com/2024/09/05/trump-promotes-raising-tariffs-corporate-tax-cut-in-battle-over-economy-with-harris/" target="_blank">cut</a>&nbsp;the rate even further to 15%, a&nbsp;<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/historical-corporate-tax-rates-brackets/" target="_blank">level</a>&nbsp;not seen in the U.S. since the 1930s. Economists&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/donald-trumps-proposal-lower-corporate-tax-rate-15" target="_blank">estimate</a>&nbsp;the cut would reduce revenue anywhere from $460 billion to $673 billion over 10 years.

“Here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth: I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America,” Trump said in Georgia Tuesday.

Trump has big plans for products imported into the U.S. He’s planning to impose up to 20% tariffs on most imports, reaching as high as 60% on Chinese goods and 100% on countries that turn away from the U.S. dollar.

That could cost the typical American household about $2,600 a year as costs on consumer goods would shift to the customer, particularly affecting those with lower incomes,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2024/trumps-bigger-tariff-proposals-would-cost-typical-american-household-over?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to economists Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Speaking at a farming roundtable in Pennsylvania Monday, Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?538599-1/president-trump-speaks-farming-roundtable-smithton-pennsylvania" target="_blank">publicly warned</a>&nbsp;John Deere that if the company moves manufacturing to Mexico, he’ll impose a 200% tariff on tractors coming back over the border.

Experts warn another downside is that the policy invites foreign retaliation.

“So if we are, say, exporting Kentucky bourbon to China, China may say, well, to retaliate for the 60% tax on imports, we’re going to place taxes on this export, and that’s going to have a direct impact on the incomes of Americans and make us poorer,” Pomerleau said.

A familiar refrain from Harris and the Biden administration is that billionaires and wealthy corporations should pay their “fair share.”

The U.S. individual tax rate already progresses with an earner’s income, meaning that the higher your income, the higher your tax rate.

Both Harris and Trump want to keep individual tax rates that were lowered across the board in the 2017 law, but Harris is seeking to increase taxes on long-term capital gains, and levy a minimum tax on unrealized capital gains for very high earners.

For those earning upwards of $1 million a year, Harris&nbsp;<a href="https://newjerseymonitor.com/2024/09/05/trump-promotes-raising-tariffs-corporate-tax-cut-in-battle-over-economy-with-harris/" target="_blank">proposed</a>&nbsp;raising taxes to 28%, up from 20%, on profits made from the sale of an asset, like stocks, bonds, or real estate, that have been held by the owner for more than a year.

The vice president also proposes quadrupling the&nbsp;<a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/how-the-u-s-taxes-stock-buybacks-and-dividends/" target="_blank">stock buyback tax</a>&nbsp;to 4%, up from 1%.

For ultra-wealthy households that have more than $100 million in assets, Harris follows Biden in proposing a 25% tax rate — sometimes referred to as the “billionaire tax.”

Those high-wealth individuals would need to calculate their regular income tax liability and compare it to their total net worth, meaning income plus unrealized capital gains, multiplied by 25%.

“Whichever is greater you pay,” Pomerleau explains. “So if you are in a situation where you have a low effective tax rate relative to this broader definition of income, the minimum tax will kick in and you’ll start paying increments.”

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/kamala-harris-plan-taxing-capital-income" target="_blank">estimates</a>&nbsp;the plan could raise $750 billion in revenue over ten years.

Ahead of a mid-September campaign rally on Long Island, New York, Trump pledged to abandon the cap in his 2017 law on the state and local tax deduction — simply known in tax parlance as SALT.

As the law stands now, taxpayers can only deduct up to $10,000 of their state and local tax bill from their federal tax liability.

A full SALT deduction is more valuable for higher income taxpayers, and prior to the 2017 cap, 91% of taxpayers who claimed it lived in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania, according to an&nbsp;<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/taxedu/glossary/salt-deduction/" target="_blank">analysis</a>&nbsp;by the Tax Foundation.

Eliminating the cap would cut taxes by an average of more than $140,000 for the highest earning 0.1% of households, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/repealing-salt-cap-would-overwhelmingly-benefit-those-high-incomes" target="_blank">modeling</a>&nbsp;by the Tax Policy Center, a collaboration between the left-leaning Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.

The Committee for a Responsible Budget&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/salt-cap-expiration-could-be-costly-mistake#:~:text=Some%20policymakers%20have%20suggested%20allowing,%241.2%20trillion%20over%20a%20decade." target="_blank">estimates</a>&nbsp;the move could cost $1.2 trillion over a ten-year budget window.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/8/1724867447394.png" alt="Photo Associated Press" />
 <figcaption>Photo Associated Press</figcaption>
 </figure>BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://missouriindependent.com/author/ashley-murray/">ASHLEY MURRAY</a>WASHINGTON — With the clock ticking on former President Donald Trump’s signature 2017 tax law, and high housing, food and child care costs darkening Americans’ mood, tax cuts have become the star of the 2024 presidential contest between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.Trump wants to overall extend his tax provisions beyond the 2025 expiration date and then some, promising to lower the corporate tax rate even further and lift the cap on the state and local taxes deduction.He argues the loss in federal revenue will be made up by imposing steep tariffs on imported goods.Tariff is a “beautiful word,” he told a crowd in Savannah, Georgia, Tuesday night, “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”“We will take in hundreds of billions of dollars into our treasury and use that money to benefit the American citizens,” he said.Harris is running on an “opportunity economy” platform that keeps the Biden administration’s promises to not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 and enact a “billionaire” tax.The vice president has also vowed to give tax deductions and credits to budding entrepreneurs and first-time homebuyers, and permanently expand the Child Tax Credit.“Under my plan, more than 100 million Americans will get a middle-class tax break that includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of their child’s life,” Harris said Wednesday at a campaign speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.Whoever wins the Oval Office&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/racing-toward-election-day-control-us-senate-and-house-grabs%C2%A0" target="_blank">will need</a>&nbsp;a cooperative Congress to enact these policies — with the exception of tariffs, over which the president enjoys wide&nbsp;<a href="https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/IF/IF11030" target="_blank">latitude</a>.<h2>What would it cost?</h2>The barrage of proposals has kept economists busy with near-constant and evolving&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/issue-area/us-budget-watch-2024" target="_blank">analyses</a>&nbsp;of how much the&nbsp;<a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/8/26/harris-campaign-policy-proposals-2024?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">tax</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/8/26/trump-campaign-policy-proposals-2024?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">cut</a>&nbsp;<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/research/federal-tax/2024-tax-plans/?utm_content=308246052&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;hss_channel=tw-16686673" target="_blank">promises</a>&nbsp;would add to the nation’s ballooning federal deficit and change the economy.Both candidates’ plans come with a price tag in the trillions of dollars, though Trump’s is the more expensive of the two.Models released in late August by the Penn Wharton Budget Model project Trump’s plan&nbsp;<a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/8/26/trump-campaign-policy-proposals-2024?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">would add</a>&nbsp;up to $5.8 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, while Harris’ plan would&nbsp;<a href="https://budgetmodel.wharton.upenn.edu/issues/2024/8/26/harris-campaign-policy-proposals-2024?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">increase</a>&nbsp;the deficit by up to $2 trillion over the same time period.“I think that both candidates are missing the mark when it comes to fiscal responsibility and economic responsibility,” the Tax Foundation’s Erica York told States Newsroom in an interview Monday.“Neither of them have really outlined a plan that would get us on a sustainable path in terms of debt and deficits, nor that would boost growth and opportunity in the economy. Both are likely to have a negative impact on the economy,” said York, senior economist and research director for the foundation, which generally favors lower taxes.<h2>Promise: No taxes on tips, overtime</h2>Trump, followed by Harris, has proposed to nix taxes on tipped workers — though Harris has suggested limiting the benefit to workers in the service and hospitality industries who earn less than $75,000.She has also said the tax break would not apply to payroll taxes, meaning the contribution workers pay toward Social Security and Medicare. Trump has not detailed any limits on his proposal for tipped workers.Economists across the board&nbsp;<a href="https://www.newsfromthestates.com/article/trump-floats-plan-end-taxes-tips-though-experts-raise-doubts" target="_blank">warn</a>&nbsp;Trump’s plan could incentivize more tipped work. They also question whether Trump and Harris’ proposals would actually benefit low-income workers.After all, tax benefits for lower income workers who have children phase in as the person earns income. Reporting less income means those taxpayers could ultimately see less help from the Child Tax Credit or the Earned Income Tax Credit.“If you work and you report income, you get these provisions. But if you don’t, you don’t get these provisions. Well, you add exemptions into the tax code that reduces the amount of earned income that you report to the IRS, you could potentially reduce the value of these credits for very low-income households,” Kyle Pomerleau, senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told States Newsroom in an interview Monday.For instance, a tipped worker who has one child and earns $24,000 annually, half of which comes from tips, could see a $300 decrease in refundable tax credits under this policy, Pomerleau and senior AEI fellows Alex Brill and Stan Veuger&nbsp;<a href="https://www.aei.org/economics/a-tip-exemption-is-not-sound-tax-policy/" target="_blank">wrote</a>&nbsp;in August.The same principle for lower income taxpayers applies to Trump’s recent promise to eliminate taxes on overtime.“There could be a negative effect there, depending on how this is structured,” Pomerleau said Monday.The nonpartisan watchdog Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/donald-trumps-proposal-end-taxes-overtime" target="_blank">estimates</a>&nbsp;an elimination of taxes on all overtime would cost the country $1.7 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years. With no guardrails preventing workers switching from salaried to hourly, the price tag could reach up to $6 trillion in the most extreme case, CRFB estimates.<h2>Promise: No taxes on Social Security</h2>Economists monitoring the nation’s Social Security coffers continue to sound alarm bells on the program’s solvency — with little reaction on the campaign trail.The fund that provides money to senior citizens and people with disabilities is on track to be depleted by 2035, and recipients would face an immediate 17% cut in benefits, as the Tax Foundation’s Alex Durante&nbsp;<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/research/all/federal/social-security-reform-options/?utm_content=309361439&amp;utm_medium=social&amp;utm_source=twitter&amp;hss_channel=tw-16686673" target="_blank">wrote</a>&nbsp;Tuesday.Trump has mentioned Social Security during campaign rallies and on his social media platform, but in the context of eliminating taxes on the benefit payments.While low-income recipients do not pay taxes on their benefits, others do and are projected to contribute $94 billion this year back into the fund.Nixing those taxes could speed up Social Security’s insolvency by one year,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/donald-trumps-suggestion-end-taxation-social-security-benefits" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.<h2>Promise: New corporate tax rates and tariffs</h2>Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cleared Congress strictly along party lines, permanently lowered the top corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%.Harris has vowed, if elected, she will bump the rate up to 28%.&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/kamala-harris-proposal-raise-corporate-tax-rate-28" target="_blank">Analyses</a>&nbsp;from the CFRB, the Tax Foundation, Penn Wharton and the Yale Budget Lab estimate the increase would raise roughly $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade.The former president wants to&nbsp;<a href="https://newjerseymonitor.com/2024/09/05/trump-promotes-raising-tariffs-corporate-tax-cut-in-battle-over-economy-with-harris/" target="_blank">cut</a>&nbsp;the rate even further to 15%, a&nbsp;<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/data/all/federal/historical-corporate-tax-rates-brackets/" target="_blank">level</a>&nbsp;not seen in the U.S. since the 1930s. Economists&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/donald-trumps-proposal-lower-corporate-tax-rate-15" target="_blank">estimate</a>&nbsp;the cut would reduce revenue anywhere from $460 billion to $673 billion over 10 years.“Here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth: I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America,” Trump said in Georgia Tuesday.Trump has big plans for products imported into the U.S. He’s planning to impose up to 20% tariffs on most imports, reaching as high as 60% on Chinese goods and 100% on countries that turn away from the U.S. dollar.That could cost the typical American household about $2,600 a year as costs on consumer goods would shift to the customer, particularly affecting those with lower incomes,&nbsp;<a href="https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/2024/trumps-bigger-tariff-proposals-would-cost-typical-american-household-over?te=1&amp;nl=the-morning&amp;emc=edit_nn_20240903" target="_blank">according</a>&nbsp;to economists Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.Speaking at a farming roundtable in Pennsylvania Monday, Trump&nbsp;<a href="https://www.c-span.org/video/?538599-1/president-trump-speaks-farming-roundtable-smithton-pennsylvania" target="_blank">publicly warned</a>&nbsp;John Deere that if the company moves manufacturing to Mexico, he’ll impose a 200% tariff on tractors coming back over the border.Experts warn another downside is that the policy invites foreign retaliation.“So if we are, say, exporting Kentucky bourbon to China, China may say, well, to retaliate for the 60% tax on imports, we’re going to place taxes on this export, and that’s going to have a direct impact on the incomes of Americans and make us poorer,” Pomerleau said.<h2>Promise: A billionaire tax</h2>A familiar refrain from Harris and the Biden administration is that billionaires and wealthy corporations should pay their “fair share.”The U.S. individual tax rate already progresses with an earner’s income, meaning that the higher your income, the higher your tax rate.Both Harris and Trump want to keep individual tax rates that were lowered across the board in the 2017 law, but Harris is seeking to increase taxes on long-term capital gains, and levy a minimum tax on unrealized capital gains for very high earners.For those earning upwards of $1 million a year, Harris&nbsp;<a href="https://newjerseymonitor.com/2024/09/05/trump-promotes-raising-tariffs-corporate-tax-cut-in-battle-over-economy-with-harris/" target="_blank">proposed</a>&nbsp;raising taxes to 28%, up from 20%, on profits made from the sale of an asset, like stocks, bonds, or real estate, that have been held by the owner for more than a year.The vice president also proposes quadrupling the&nbsp;<a href="https://bipartisanpolicy.org/explainer/how-the-u-s-taxes-stock-buybacks-and-dividends/" target="_blank">stock buyback tax</a>&nbsp;to 4%, up from 1%.For ultra-wealthy households that have more than $100 million in assets, Harris follows Biden in proposing a 25% tax rate — sometimes referred to as the “billionaire tax.”Those high-wealth individuals would need to calculate their regular income tax liability and compare it to their total net worth, meaning income plus unrealized capital gains, multiplied by 25%.“Whichever is greater you pay,” Pomerleau explains. “So if you are in a situation where you have a low effective tax rate relative to this broader definition of income, the minimum tax will kick in and you’ll start paying increments.”The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/kamala-harris-plan-taxing-capital-income" target="_blank">estimates</a>&nbsp;the plan could raise $750 billion in revenue over ten years.<h2>Promise: No SALT cap</h2>Ahead of a mid-September campaign rally on Long Island, New York, Trump pledged to abandon the cap in his 2017 law on the state and local tax deduction — simply known in tax parlance as SALT.As the law stands now, taxpayers can only deduct up to $10,000 of their state and local tax bill from their federal tax liability.A full SALT deduction is more valuable for higher income taxpayers, and prior to the 2017 cap, 91% of taxpayers who claimed it lived in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania, according to an&nbsp;<a href="https://taxfoundation.org/taxedu/glossary/salt-deduction/" target="_blank">analysis</a>&nbsp;by the Tax Foundation.Eliminating the cap would cut taxes by an average of more than $140,000 for the highest earning 0.1% of households, according to&nbsp;<a href="https://www.taxpolicycenter.org/taxvox/repealing-salt-cap-would-overwhelmingly-benefit-those-high-incomes" target="_blank">modeling</a>&nbsp;by the Tax Policy Center, a collaboration between the left-leaning Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.The Committee for a Responsible Budget&nbsp;<a href="https://www.crfb.org/blogs/salt-cap-expiration-could-be-costly-mistake#:~:text=Some%20policymakers%20have%20suggested%20allowing,%241.2%20trillion%20over%20a%20decade." target="_blank">estimates</a>&nbsp;the move could cost $1.2 trillion over a ten-year budget window.

Taxes: Where do Trump and Harris stand?

MCPHERSON, Kan. — PBT Bancshares, Inc., the holding company of Peoples Bank and Trust Company, and KANZA Financial Corporation, the holding company of KANZA Bank, have jointly announced Friday the signing of a stock purchase agreement whereby PBT Bancshares, Inc. will acquire KANZA Bank. Following the closing of the transaction, KANZA Bank will be merged with and into Peoples Bank and Trust Company with Peoples Bank and Trust Company as the surviving entity. The transaction has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025, subject to customary closing conditions including shareholder and regulatory approvals.

Based on the most recent reported financials, the combined institution is expected to have approximately $1.5 billion in total assets and 21 banking offices across central Kansas.

With the announcement, Peoples Bank and Trust Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Pruitt, commented,&nbsp;“We are excited by the opportunity to build upon our long-standing relationship with KANZA Bank through the merger of our organizations. John and Clark Boyer have cultivated an exceptional team at KANZA Bank, and we look forward to the value they will provide to our customers, both new and existing, as we expand our footprint within the Wichita market and central Kansas more broadly. As we grow, our local communities remain our highest priority and we continue to explore ways to better serve these communities. Our partnership with KANZA Bank is an important step towards this goal.”

“We look forward to joining the Peoples Bank and Trust Company organization and the opportunities that this new chapter will create; this is a perfect partnership, forged under a shared vision and passion for community banking.” said John E. Boyer, IV, Chairman.&nbsp; “We are convinced our customers, employees, and communities will benefit greatly from the expanded products, services and additional resources Peoples Bank and Trust Company offers.” added, Clark Boyer, President and Chief Executive Officer.&nbsp; &nbsp;

Olsen Palmer LLC served as financial advisor to PBT Bancshares, Inc., and Armstrong Teasdale LLP served as its legal counsel. CC Capital Advisors served as financial advisor to KANZA Financial Corporation, and Stinson LLP served as its legal counsel.

About Peoples Bank and Trust Company

Peoples Bank and Trust Company, the wholly-owned banking subsidiary of PBT Bancshares, Inc., was founded in downtown McPherson, Kansas in 1898 as Peoples State Bank. Still based in McPherson, Peoples Bank and Trust Company has grown into a $1.2 billion financial institution with 17 branches across central Kansas and 202 employees. Peoples Bank and Trust Company offers a wide variety of services for businesses and consumers and is a leader in commercial business, small business, and real estate lending. For more information, please visit www.peoples.bank.

KANZA Bank, the subsidiary bank of KANZA Financial Corporation, was founded in 1905. Headquartered in Kingman, Kansas, KANZA now holds $270.4 million in assets and operates 4 branches across Kingman, Anthony, and Wichita with 41 employees. For more information, please visit www.kanza.bank.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2020/3/1583268195295.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>People's Bank and TrustMCPHERSON, Kan. — PBT Bancshares, Inc., the holding company of Peoples Bank and Trust Company, and KANZA Financial Corporation, the holding company of KANZA Bank, have jointly announced Friday the signing of a stock purchase agreement whereby PBT Bancshares, Inc. will acquire KANZA Bank. Following the closing of the transaction, KANZA Bank will be merged with and into Peoples Bank and Trust Company with Peoples Bank and Trust Company as the surviving entity. The transaction has been approved by the board of directors of each company and is expected to close in the second quarter of 2025, subject to customary closing conditions including shareholder and regulatory approvals.Based on the most recent reported financials, the combined institution is expected to have approximately $1.5 billion in total assets and 21 banking offices across central Kansas.With the announcement, Peoples Bank and Trust Company’s President and Chief Executive Officer, Tom Pruitt, commented,&nbsp;“We are excited by the opportunity to build upon our long-standing relationship with KANZA Bank through the merger of our organizations. John and Clark Boyer have cultivated an exceptional team at KANZA Bank, and we look forward to the value they will provide to our customers, both new and existing, as we expand our footprint within the Wichita market and central Kansas more broadly. As we grow, our local communities remain our highest priority and we continue to explore ways to better serve these communities. Our partnership with KANZA Bank is an important step towards this goal.”“We look forward to joining the Peoples Bank and Trust Company organization and the opportunities that this new chapter will create; this is a perfect partnership, forged under a shared vision and passion for community banking.” said John E. Boyer, IV, Chairman.&nbsp; “We are convinced our customers, employees, and communities will benefit greatly from the expanded products, services and additional resources Peoples Bank and Trust Company offers.” added, Clark Boyer, President and Chief Executive Officer.&nbsp; &nbsp;Olsen Palmer LLC served as financial advisor to PBT Bancshares, Inc., and Armstrong Teasdale LLP served as its legal counsel. CC Capital Advisors served as financial advisor to KANZA Financial Corporation, and Stinson LLP served as its legal counsel.About Peoples Bank and Trust CompanyPeoples Bank and Trust Company, the wholly-owned banking subsidiary of PBT Bancshares, Inc., was founded in downtown McPherson, Kansas in 1898 as Peoples State Bank. Still based in McPherson, Peoples Bank and Trust Company has grown into a $1.2 billion financial institution with 17 branches across central Kansas and 202 employees. Peoples Bank and Trust Company offers a wide variety of services for businesses and consumers and is a leader in commercial business, small business, and real estate lending. For more information, please visit www.peoples.bank.About KANZA BankKANZA Bank, the subsidiary bank of KANZA Financial Corporation, was founded in 1905. Headquartered in Kingman, Kansas, KANZA now holds $270.4 million in assets and operates 4 branches across Kingman, Anthony, and Wichita with 41 employees. For more information, please visit www.kanza.bank.

Peoples Bank acquires KANZA Bank

In nearly two years, Kansas has received $18.2 million in taxes from sports books

BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/tim-carpenter/">TIM CARPENTER</a> <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>

TOPEKA — The Kansas budget director said Thursday passage of a proposed Missouri constitutional amendment in November allowing legal sports wagering would cut into Kansas’ gaming tax revenue.

Adam Proffitt, who serves as secretary of the Kansas Department of Administration and as budget director under Gov. Laura Kelly, said adoption of the Missouri amendment would carve into cross-border betting by Missouri residents. He didn’t offer an estimate of the revenue shift.

“I would be naive to say that it wouldn’t have any impact,” Proffitt said during an economic outlook conference at Washburn University. “We’d like to keep that money in Kansas.”

Under Kansas law, people placing the bets must be present in Kansas even if making the wager through an online platform through DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, ESPN BET, Fanatics or Caesars.

“I live in the Kansas City metro and on some Sunday mornings about 11:30, if I drive toward State Line (Road), there’s a host of cars literally lined up on the Kansas side — they’re on their phones placing bets on football games,” Proffitt said.

On Sept. 1, 2022, Kelly placed the first legal sports bet in Kansas. She wagered $15 — to match quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ jersey number — on the Kansas City Chiefs winning Super Bowl LVII. On Feb. 12, 2023, Kelly proved herself an adept sports gambler. The Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles for the championship, and the governor won $150.

In nearly two years of government-sanctioned sports wagering in Kansas, the state has drawn $18.2 million in tax revenue. Tax in Kansas during August was $657,000, an increase from $484,000 in August 2023.

Gambling platforms authorized to operate in Kansas have documented revenue of $182 million on $4.1 billion in wagering since launching in 2022.

Proponents of Missouri Amendment 2 released an economic study indicating total tax revenue in the state would total $4.7 million in the initial year of operation, but grow to $38.7 million in the fifth year.

Missouri voters will decide the sports betting constitutional initiative Nov. 5. If approved, Missouri regulators would be directed to set up a sports gambling network by December 2024.

Overall, Proffitt said the state general fund in the current fiscal year had authorized expenditures of $10.5 billion on forecasted revenue of $9.7 billion. The state’s cash reserves would cushion that spending hit, he said.

“So, we’re spending more than we take in,” he said. “Really critical to note, we had a lot of one-time projects scheduled. We have a strong ending balance.”

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/9/1727472070746.jpeg" alt=" Adam Proffitt, the budget director under Gov. Laura Kelly, said during an economic outlook conference at Washburn University that passage of a Missouri constitutional amendment legalizing sports wagering would reduce Kansas' gambling revenue once Missouri residents in the Kansas City area had an alternative to driving across the state line to place online bets. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)" />
 <figcaption> Adam Proffitt, the budget director under Gov. Laura Kelly, said during an economic outlook conference at Washburn University that passage of a Missouri constitutional amendment legalizing sports wagering would reduce Kansas' gambling revenue once Missouri residents in the Kansas City area had an alternative to driving across the state line to place online bets. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)</figcaption>
 </figure><h2>In nearly two years, Kansas has received $18.2 million in taxes from sports books</h2>BY:&nbsp;<a href="https://kansasreflector.com/author/tim-carpenter/">TIM CARPENTER</a> <a href="https://kansasreflector.com/">Kansas Reflector</a>TOPEKA — The Kansas budget director said Thursday passage of a proposed Missouri constitutional amendment in November allowing legal sports wagering would cut into Kansas’ gaming tax revenue.Adam Proffitt, who serves as secretary of the Kansas Department of Administration and as budget director under Gov. Laura Kelly, said adoption of the Missouri amendment would carve into cross-border betting by Missouri residents. He didn’t offer an estimate of the revenue shift.“I would be naive to say that it wouldn’t have any impact,” Proffitt said during an economic outlook conference at Washburn University. “We’d like to keep that money in Kansas.”Under Kansas law, people placing the bets must be present in Kansas even if making the wager through an online platform through DraftKings, FanDuel, BetMGM, ESPN BET, Fanatics or Caesars.“I live in the Kansas City metro and on some Sunday mornings about 11:30, if I drive toward State Line (Road), there’s a host of cars literally lined up on the Kansas side — they’re on their phones placing bets on football games,” Proffitt said.On Sept. 1, 2022, Kelly placed the first legal sports bet in Kansas. She wagered $15 — to match quarterback Patrick Mahomes’ jersey number — on the Kansas City Chiefs winning Super Bowl LVII. On Feb. 12, 2023, Kelly proved herself an adept sports gambler. The Chiefs defeated the Philadelphia Eagles for the championship, and the governor won $150.In nearly two years of government-sanctioned sports wagering in Kansas, the state has drawn $18.2 million in tax revenue. Tax in Kansas during August was $657,000, an increase from $484,000 in August 2023.Gambling platforms authorized to operate in Kansas have documented revenue of $182 million on $4.1 billion in wagering since launching in 2022.Proponents of Missouri Amendment 2 released an economic study indicating total tax revenue in the state would total $4.7 million in the initial year of operation, but grow to $38.7 million in the fifth year.Missouri voters will decide the sports betting constitutional initiative Nov. 5. If approved, Missouri regulators would be directed to set up a sports gambling network by December 2024.Overall, Proffitt said the state general fund in the current fiscal year had authorized expenditures of $10.5 billion on forecasted revenue of $9.7 billion. The state’s cash reserves would cushion that spending hit, he said.“So, we’re spending more than we take in,” he said. “Really critical to note, we had a lot of one-time projects scheduled. We have a strong ending balance.”

Passage of Mo. sports betting amendment will squeeze Kan. gaming revenue

LONDON (AP) — Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89.

Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital.

“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs.

Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.

She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that “when you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.”

Smith drily summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques,” including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my pension.”

Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of “Suddenly Last Summer,” said she was “intellectually the smartest actress I’ve ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith.”

"Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969.

Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986, and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988.

She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in “Othello,” “Travels with My Aunt,” “Room with a View” and “Gosford Park,” and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in “Tea with Mussolini.” On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.”

Her work in 2012 netted three Golden Globe nominations for the globally successful “Downton Abbey” TV series and the films “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and “Quartet.”

Smith had a reputation for being difficult, and sometimes upstaging others.

Richard Burton remarked that Smith didn’t just take over a scene in “The VIPs” with him: “She commits grand larceny.” However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasn’t “remotely difficult unless she’s among idiots. She’s very hard on herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be hard on other people, too.”

Smith conceded that she could be impatient at times.

“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.”

Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of “Lettice and Lovage,” praised Smith as “the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as ‘Have you no marmalade?’ until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde.”

Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line — “This haddock is disgusting” — in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever.”

“But unfortunately the critics mentioned it, and after that it never got a laugh,” she recalled. “The moment you say something is funny it’s gossamer. It’s gone, really.”

Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on Dec. 28, 1934. She summed up her life briefly: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting.”

Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship.

“I did so many things, you know, round the universities there. ... If you were kind of clever enough and I suppose quick enough, you could almost do weekly rep because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times,” she said in a BBC interview.

She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theater.

Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of “Othello.”

Smith said two directors, Ingmar Bergman and William Gaskill, both in National Theatre productions, were important influences.

Alan Bennett, preparing to film the monologue “A Bed Among the Lentils,” said he was wary of Smith’s reputation for becoming bored. As the actor Jeremy Brett put it, “she starts divinely and then goes off, rather like a cheese.”

“So the fact that we only just had enough time to do it was an absolute blessing really because she was so fresh and just so into it,” said Bennett, who also wrote a starring role for Smith in “The Lady in the Van.”

However extravagant she may have been on stage or before the cameras, Smith was known to be intensely private.

Simon Callow, who acted with her in “A Room with a View,” said he ruined their first meeting by spouting compliments.

“I blurted out various kinds of rubbish about her and she kind of withdrew. She doesn’t like that sort of thing very much at all,” Callow said in a film portrait of the actress. “She never wanted to talk about acting. Acting was something she was terrified to talk about because if she did, it would disappear.”

Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, in 1990.

She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.

Associated Press writer Robert Barr contributed biographical material to this obituary before his death in 2018.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/9/1727444010447.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>LONDON (AP) — Maggie Smith, the masterful, scene-stealing actor who won an Oscar for “The Prime of Miss Jean Brodie” in 1969 and gained new fans in the 21st century as the dowager Countess of Grantham in “Downton Abbey” and Professor Minerva McGonagall in the Harry Potter films, died Friday. She was 89.Smith's sons, Chris Larkin and Toby Stephens, said in a statement that Smith died early Friday in a London hospital.“She leaves two sons and five loving grandchildren who are devastated by the loss of their extraordinary mother and grandmother,” they said in a statement issued through publicist Clair Dobbs.Smith was frequently rated the preeminent British female performer of a generation that included Vanessa Redgrave and Judi Dench, with a clutch of Academy Award nominations and a shelf full of acting trophies.She remained in demand even in her later years, despite her lament that “when you get into the granny era, you’re lucky to get anything.”Smith drily summarized her later roles as “a gallery of grotesques,” including Professor McGonagall. Asked why she took the role, she quipped: “Harry Potter is my pension.”Richard Eyre, who directed Smith in a television production of “Suddenly Last Summer,” said she was “intellectually the smartest actress I’ve ever worked with. You have to get up very, very early in the morning to outwit Maggie Smith.”"Jean Brodie," in which she played a dangerously charismatic Edinburgh schoolteacher, brought her the Academy Award for best actress, and the British Academy Film Award (BAFTA) as well in 1969.Smith added a supporting actress Oscar for “California Suite” in 1978, Golden Globes for “California Suite” and “Room with a View,” and BAFTAs for lead actress in “A Private Function” in 1984, “A Room with a View” in 1986, and “The Lonely Passion of Judith Hearne” in 1988.She also received Academy Award nominations as a supporting actress in “Othello,” “Travels with My Aunt,” “Room with a View” and “Gosford Park,” and a BAFTA award for supporting actress in “Tea with Mussolini.” On stage, she won a Tony in 1990 for “Lettice and Lovage.”Her work in 2012 netted three Golden Globe nominations for the globally successful “Downton Abbey” TV series and the films “The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel” and “Quartet.”Smith had a reputation for being difficult, and sometimes upstaging others.Richard Burton remarked that Smith didn’t just take over a scene in “The VIPs” with him: “She commits grand larceny.” However, the director Peter Hall found that Smith wasn’t “remotely difficult unless she’s among idiots. She’s very hard on herself, and I don’t think she sees any reason why she shouldn’t be hard on other people, too.”Smith conceded that she could be impatient at times.“It’s true I don’t tolerate fools, but then they don’t tolerate me, so I am spiky,” Smith said. “Maybe that’s why I’m quite good at playing spiky elderly ladies.”Critic Frank Rich, in a New York Times review of “Lettice and Lovage,” praised Smith as “the stylized classicist who can italicize a line as prosaic as ‘Have you no marmalade?’ until it sounds like a freshly minted epigram by Coward or Wilde.”Smith famously drew laughs from a prosaic line — “This haddock is disgusting” — in a 1964 revival of Noel Coward’s “Hay Fever.”“But unfortunately the critics mentioned it, and after that it never got a laugh,” she recalled. “The moment you say something is funny it’s gossamer. It’s gone, really.”Margaret Natalie Smith was born in Ilford, on the eastern edge of London, on Dec. 28, 1934. She summed up her life briefly: “One went to school, one wanted to act, one started to act, one’s still acting.”Her father was assigned in 1939 to wartime duty in Oxford, where her theater studies at the Oxford Playhouse School led to a busy apprenticeship.“I did so many things, you know, round the universities there. ... If you were kind of clever enough and I suppose quick enough, you could almost do weekly rep because all the colleges were doing different productions at different times,” she said in a BBC interview.She took Maggie as her stage name because another Margaret Smith was active in the theater.Laurence Olivier spotted her talent, invited her to be part of his original National Theatre company and cast her as his co-star in a 1965 film adaptation of “Othello.”Smith said two directors, Ingmar Bergman and William Gaskill, both in National Theatre productions, were important influences.Alan Bennett, preparing to film the monologue “A Bed Among the Lentils,” said he was wary of Smith’s reputation for becoming bored. As the actor Jeremy Brett put it, “she starts divinely and then goes off, rather like a cheese.”“So the fact that we only just had enough time to do it was an absolute blessing really because she was so fresh and just so into it,” said Bennett, who also wrote a starring role for Smith in “The Lady in the Van.”However extravagant she may have been on stage or before the cameras, Smith was known to be intensely private.Simon Callow, who acted with her in “A Room with a View,” said he ruined their first meeting by spouting compliments.“I blurted out various kinds of rubbish about her and she kind of withdrew. She doesn’t like that sort of thing very much at all,” Callow said in a film portrait of the actress. “She never wanted to talk about acting. Acting was something she was terrified to talk about because if she did, it would disappear.”Smith was made a Dame Commander of the British Empire, the equivalent of a knight, in 1990.She married fellow actor Robert Stephens in 1967. They had two sons, Christopher and Toby, and divorced in 1975. The same year she married the writer Beverley Cross, who died in 1998.___Associated Press writer Robert Barr contributed biographical material to this obituary before his death in 2018.

‘Downton Abbey,’ ‘Harry Potter’ actress Maggie Smith has died

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The&nbsp;Rotary&nbsp;Club of Hutchinson will hold its next meeting Monday, Sept. 30 at noon at the Stringer Fine Arts Center on the campus of Hutchinson Community College. The public is invited to attend.

The speaker will be Dr. Nataliya Biskup, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Hutchinson Clinic. She will share her story about her mission trips to Ukraine to&nbsp;operate on wounded soldiers and kids with cleft lip.

Dr. Nataliya Biskup is a board-certified plastic surgeon. She has completed a comprehensive, integrated plastic surgery program in Southern California. She then went on to complete a fellowship in Cleft, Craniofacial, and pediatric plastic surgery at the prestigious Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. She specializes in Cleft, Craniofacial, and pediatric plastic surgery, including complex craniomaxillofacial reconstruction. She is proud to serve as the Director of the Kansas Cleft and Craniofacial Center. 

In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Biskup is a Clinical Assistant Professor for the Department of Surgery and participates in the education and training of surgical residents at the University of Kansas School of Medicine - Wichita (UKSM-W). She participates in and facilitates research studies for students and residents interested in plastic surgery.

<a href="https://hutchpost.com/download" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a>&nbsp;to download the Hutch Post mobile app. <a href="https://hutchpost.com/posts/5e73b532afae0f4d5f5d90ea" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a>&nbsp;to sign up for the daily Hutch Post email news update.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/4/1713098420809.jpeg" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>Rotary Club of Hutchinson&nbsp;HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The&nbsp;Rotary&nbsp;Club of Hutchinson will hold its next meeting Monday, Sept. 30 at noon at the Stringer Fine Arts Center on the campus of Hutchinson Community College. The public is invited to attend.The speaker will be Dr. Nataliya Biskup, a plastic and reconstructive surgeon at the Hutchinson Clinic. She will share her story about her mission trips to Ukraine to&nbsp;operate on wounded soldiers and kids with cleft lip.Dr. Nataliya Biskup is a board-certified plastic surgeon. She has completed a comprehensive, integrated plastic surgery program in Southern California. She then went on to complete a fellowship in Cleft, Craniofacial, and pediatric plastic surgery at the prestigious Cincinnati Children’s Hospital. She specializes in Cleft, Craniofacial, and pediatric plastic surgery, including complex craniomaxillofacial reconstruction. She is proud to serve as the Director of the Kansas Cleft and Craniofacial Center. In addition to her clinical work, Dr. Biskup is a Clinical Assistant Professor for the Department of Surgery and participates in the education and training of surgical residents at the University of Kansas School of Medicine - Wichita (UKSM-W). She participates in and facilitates research studies for students and residents interested in plastic surgery.<a href="https://hutchpost.com/download" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a>&nbsp;to download the Hutch Post mobile app. <a href="https://hutchpost.com/posts/5e73b532afae0f4d5f5d90ea" target="_blank">CLICK HERE</a>&nbsp;to sign up for the daily Hutch Post email news update.&nbsp; &nbsp; &nbsp;&nbsp;

Biskup to speak to Rotary Monday

WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress on Wednesday passed a temporary measure that keeps government agencies funded into December, avoiding a shutdown for now while punting final spending decisions until after the Nov. 5 election.

The Senate approved the measure by a vote of 78-18 shortly after the House easily approved it. Kansas U.S. Senator Jerry Moran voted with the majority. Senator Roger Marshall voted against punting the spending decisions to December.&nbsp; In the House&nbsp;Representative Tracey Mann and Fourth District Representative Ron Estes voted against the bill.  Kansas 2nd District Representative Jake LaTurner and Democrat Representative Sharice Davids voted to approve the measure.

The bill generally funds agencies at current levels through Dec. 20. But an additional $231 million was included to bolster the Secret Service after the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-shooting-gunshots-florida-f62f8378d3a8ce7b2e99d6a8fb40aba9">two assassination attempts</a>&nbsp;against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Money was also added to aid with the presidential transition, among other things.

The bill now goes to President Joe Biden's desk to be signed into law.

“This bipartisanship is a good outcome for America,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said moments before the vote. “I hope it sets the tone for more constructive, bipartisan work when we return in the fall.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., billed the measure as doing “only what's absolutely necessary," a statement directed at members of his own conference concerned about spending levels.

Still, it was a no-go for some Republicans, which forced House GOP leadership to rely on Democratic votes to pass the bill through a process that requires at least two-thirds support from voting members. The final vote was 341-82, with Republicans supplying all the no votes in both chambers. Johnson said the only alternative to the continuing resolution at this stage would have been a government shutdown.

“It would be political malpractice to shut the government down," Johnson said. "I think everyone understands that.”

The House floor was largely empty during debate on the measure. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, was the lone critic among the speakers, saying, “We end up in a vicious circle every year, the same vicious circle.”

Lawmakers in both chambers are anxious to return to their home states and districts to campaign, smoothing the path for passage of the temporary funding fix. But more arduous fiscal negotiations await them at the end of the year.

Under terms of a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/debt-limit-deal-biden-mccarthy-default-01657c829be119850cd65ab9ffb0626a">previous deal</a>&nbsp;to avoid a federal default and allow the government to continue paying its bills, spending for defense and nondefense programs would rise 1% next year.

The Senate has been charting a course to go above that level, while House Republicans have been voting for steep cuts to many nondefense programs, and they have attached policy mandates to the spending bills that Democrats overwhelmingly oppose. So a final agreement will be difficult to reach.

In the meantime, the temporary bill will mostly fund the government at current levels, with a few exceptions like the funding infusion for the Secret Service.

The $231 million for the Secret Service does come with strings attached. It's contingent upon the agency complying with congressional oversight. The bill also allows the Secret Service to spend its allocations faster if needed.

“Everybody understands that's critically important right now,” Johnson said of the Secret Service money.

Trump thanked lawmakers for the extra Secret Service funding at a campaign event Wednesday. He had earlier called on Republicans not to move forward on a spending bill without also including a requirement that people&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-funding-speaker-johnson-b77fc73b1474cbee5213219358985f71">provide proof of citizenship</a>&nbsp;when registering to vote. That legislation failed in the House last week.

In a recent letter, the Secret Service told lawmakers that a funding shortfall was not the reason for lapses in Trump’s security when a gunman&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-assassination-attempt-fbi-secret-service-a382e3ec081dd13e85eaa9e726cca02c">climbed onto an unsecured roof</a>&nbsp;on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and opened fire. But acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr., also made clear the agency had “immediate needs” and that he’s talking to Congress.

“The Secret Service has asked for this additional funding. It's absolutely essential as they deal with the increased threat environment,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.

The continuing resolution is needed because Congress is nowhere close to completing work on the dozen annual appropriations bills that fund much of the federal government. The House has passed five of the 12 bills, mostly along party lines. The Senate has passed zero.

Republicans blame the impasse on Senate Democrats for not putting the dozen appropriations bills on the Senate floor for a vote, where they then could be reconciled with the House bills during negotiations. But Democrats counter that House Republicans are acting in bad faith, bogging the process down by undercutting the agreement that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with the White House over spending caps for the 2024 and 2025 budget years.

Rep.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/rosa-delauro">Rosa DeLauro</a>, the top Democratic member of the House Appropriations Committee, said her party will accept nothing less than the 1% increase specified in that agreement. Also, if Republicans seek more than that for defense, there must be “dollar for dollar parity for nondefense," she said.

The White House called on both chambers to pass the stopgap bill, while cautioning that it did not provide adequate funding to help communities recover from natural disasters and failed to include enough funding for health care provided through the Department of Veterans Affairs.

Johnson warned that when the temporary extension expires in December, he will not support a massive, catchall bill to fund the government, referred to as an omnibus, so another stopgap may be needed that would allow the new president and Congress to have the final say on fiscal year 2025 spending levels.

“I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition,” Johnson said.

Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, urged House Republicans not to “follow the loudest voices on the far right” in the negotiations for the full-year bill.

“You cannot strike a deal to govern with people who do not really want to govern," Murray said.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/9/1727307762286.png" alt="Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, -We have voted to avoid an unnecessary government shutdown at the end of the month. The government will stay open. image courtesy CSPAN" />
 <figcaption>Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said, -We have voted to avoid an unnecessary government shutdown at the end of the month. The government will stay open. image courtesy CSPAN</figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — Congress on Wednesday passed a temporary measure that keeps government agencies funded into December, avoiding a shutdown for now while punting final spending decisions until after the Nov. 5 election.The Senate approved the measure by a vote of 78-18 shortly after the House easily approved it. Kansas U.S. Senator Jerry Moran voted with the majority. Senator Roger Marshall voted against punting the spending decisions to December.&nbsp; In the House&nbsp;Representative Tracey Mann and Fourth District Representative Ron Estes voted against the bill. Kansas 2nd District Representative Jake LaTurner and Democrat Representative Sharice Davids voted to approve the measure. The bill generally funds agencies at current levels through Dec. 20. But an additional $231 million was included to bolster the Secret Service after the&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-shooting-gunshots-florida-f62f8378d3a8ce7b2e99d6a8fb40aba9">two assassination attempts</a>&nbsp;against Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump. Money was also added to aid with the presidential transition, among other things.The bill now goes to President Joe Biden's desk to be signed into law.“This bipartisanship is a good outcome for America,” Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer said moments before the vote. “I hope it sets the tone for more constructive, bipartisan work when we return in the fall.”House Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., billed the measure as doing “only what's absolutely necessary," a statement directed at members of his own conference concerned about spending levels.Still, it was a no-go for some Republicans, which forced House GOP leadership to rely on Democratic votes to pass the bill through a process that requires at least two-thirds support from voting members. The final vote was 341-82, with Republicans supplying all the no votes in both chambers. Johnson said the only alternative to the continuing resolution at this stage would have been a government shutdown.“It would be political malpractice to shut the government down," Johnson said. "I think everyone understands that.”The House floor was largely empty during debate on the measure. Rep. Chip Roy, R-Texas, was the lone critic among the speakers, saying, “We end up in a vicious circle every year, the same vicious circle.”Lawmakers in both chambers are anxious to return to their home states and districts to campaign, smoothing the path for passage of the temporary funding fix. But more arduous fiscal negotiations await them at the end of the year.Under terms of a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/debt-limit-deal-biden-mccarthy-default-01657c829be119850cd65ab9ffb0626a">previous deal</a>&nbsp;to avoid a federal default and allow the government to continue paying its bills, spending for defense and nondefense programs would rise 1% next year.The Senate has been charting a course to go above that level, while House Republicans have been voting for steep cuts to many nondefense programs, and they have attached policy mandates to the spending bills that Democrats overwhelmingly oppose. So a final agreement will be difficult to reach.In the meantime, the temporary bill will mostly fund the government at current levels, with a few exceptions like the funding infusion for the Secret Service.The $231 million for the Secret Service does come with strings attached. It's contingent upon the agency complying with congressional oversight. The bill also allows the Secret Service to spend its allocations faster if needed.“Everybody understands that's critically important right now,” Johnson said of the Secret Service money.Trump thanked lawmakers for the extra Secret Service funding at a campaign event Wednesday. He had earlier called on Republicans not to move forward on a spending bill without also including a requirement that people&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/government-shutdown-funding-speaker-johnson-b77fc73b1474cbee5213219358985f71">provide proof of citizenship</a>&nbsp;when registering to vote. That legislation failed in the House last week.In a recent letter, the Secret Service told lawmakers that a funding shortfall was not the reason for lapses in Trump’s security when a gunman&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-assassination-attempt-fbi-secret-service-a382e3ec081dd13e85eaa9e726cca02c">climbed onto an unsecured roof</a>&nbsp;on July 13 at a rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, and opened fire. But acting Secret Service Director Ronald Rowe Jr., also made clear the agency had “immediate needs” and that he’s talking to Congress.“The Secret Service has asked for this additional funding. It's absolutely essential as they deal with the increased threat environment,” said Sen. Susan Collins, the top Republican on the Senate Appropriations Committee.The continuing resolution is needed because Congress is nowhere close to completing work on the dozen annual appropriations bills that fund much of the federal government. The House has passed five of the 12 bills, mostly along party lines. The Senate has passed zero.Republicans blame the impasse on Senate Democrats for not putting the dozen appropriations bills on the Senate floor for a vote, where they then could be reconciled with the House bills during negotiations. But Democrats counter that House Republicans are acting in bad faith, bogging the process down by undercutting the agreement that former Speaker Kevin McCarthy negotiated with the White House over spending caps for the 2024 and 2025 budget years.Rep.&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/hub/rosa-delauro">Rosa DeLauro</a>, the top Democratic member of the House Appropriations Committee, said her party will accept nothing less than the 1% increase specified in that agreement. Also, if Republicans seek more than that for defense, there must be “dollar for dollar parity for nondefense," she said.The White House called on both chambers to pass the stopgap bill, while cautioning that it did not provide adequate funding to help communities recover from natural disasters and failed to include enough funding for health care provided through the Department of Veterans Affairs.Johnson warned that when the temporary extension expires in December, he will not support a massive, catchall bill to fund the government, referred to as an omnibus, so another stopgap may be needed that would allow the new president and Congress to have the final say on fiscal year 2025 spending levels.“I have no intention of going back to that terrible tradition,” Johnson said.Sen. Patty Murray, the Democratic chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, urged House Republicans not to “follow the loudest voices on the far right” in the negotiations for the full-year bill.“You cannot strike a deal to govern with people who do not really want to govern," Murray said.

Moran votes yes, Marshall no on funding gov't into December

WASHINGTON (AP) — The acting director of the Secret Service was incensed at what had happened that July evening. “What I saw made me ashamed,” Ronald Rowe Jr. said. “I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”

<a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/USSS-HSGAC-Interim-Report-Executive-Summary.pdf">Click here to read </a>the full report

The unguarded roof, easily within shooting distance of the rally stage, is just one of the myriad questions behind the worst Secret Service security failure in decades. The more that investigators unpack from that day, the more missed opportunities that could have prevented the attack are revealed.

As the United States grapples with a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-fbi-assassination-attempt-fee81d8bcf737bfcde2ee8e5cea88465">second attempt</a>&nbsp;on Donald Trump’s life, in Florida, there remains a reckoning to be done from the Pennsylvania shooting on July 13 that killed one man and wounded three — the ex-president among them.

The Secret Service is a well-funded, historically elite force with a mission to keep presidents and other higher-ups safe — whether they're out for a bicycle ride, attending a world summit, visiting a war zone or campaigning.

But at the farm show grounds, a young nursing home aide with a rifle he borrowed from his dad outmaneuvered authorities for more than 90 minutes before firing the shots that came millimeters from killing Trump. More than two months later, everyone still wants to know:

—When rallygoers reported a man skittering on the squat rooftop of a nearby building, why didn’t anyone in law enforcement move faster?

—Why did the Secret Service exclude that building from its security perimeter, leaving it to local police, and why did the local force not station someone on the roof?

—Why could local law enforcement agencies not communicate in real time with Secret Service agents when they’re supposed to be working together?

—Why did the Secret Service decline offers by local police to use their surveillance drone at the site? And why did Secret Service agents not deploy a system that would have told them an unauthorized drone was aloft — the gunman's — until it was too late?

One overarching question may never be answered. And in these poisonous times, with the November presidential election closing in and a second attempt on Trump’s life just days in the past, it is urgent: What possessed 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to try to kill the former president? The public is no closer to that answer than in the immediate aftermath.

This anatomy of an attempted assassination is based on an AP review of dozens of documents, text messages and video, a congressional report and a Secret Service report on the failures, plus interviews on the record and from law enforcement officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss investigations that are still getting going.

Rowe sat there under the bright lights, his mouth pressed into a thin line. His voice was thick with anger as senators laid into him and his agents — questioning how on Earth some guy was able to get on top of a nearby roof as the rally was going on and fire off eight rounds, grazing Trump’s ear and ripping into three others, killing one of them.

Rowe’s voice grew louder at the July 30 Senate hearing as he squared off with lawmakers who wanted him to fire somebody — anybody — who had been on the ground that day. It wasn’t enough for them that the agency's chief, Kim Cheatle, had resigned a week earlier. But Rowe dug in.

“I will not rush to judgment," he said, snapping at a senator. “People will be held accountable, and I will do so with integrity.”

He wasn’t blaming anyone in particular, though he did throw some not-so-subtle shade at the Pennsylvania police officers who were supposed to be guarding the building complex in question.

But he also wasn’t trying to play down his agency's epic failure as it became slowly clearer to local officers that Crooks wasn’t just an oddball with a backpack. Local police did finger-pointing of their own, citing communications breakdowns that began when the face-to-face meeting the Secret Service said would happen with them before the event never did.

Secret Service agents in the line of duty have been equipped since the 1940s with various gadgets enabling them to communicate remotely in real time. Back when everyday people had to find a phone booth, these agents could be seen wearing wired earbuds or talking up their sleeves.

Yet when a man outside the perimeter of metal detectors and Secret Service scrutiny raised suspicions, then fears, then his rifle on the roof, the agency's local police backups could not get word directly to the agents closest to Trump or the federal snipers on other rooftops in time to hustle him off the stage or take down the gunman.

Last week, the Secret Service released a five-page document summarizing conclusions in a report not yet completed. Among the findings: The Secret Service did not give clear guidance to local law enforcement partners at the rally. It did not correct line-of-sight problems that left Trump open to sniper fire. And some of the agents on duty that day were complacent.

A bipartisan report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee made public Wednesday was more blunt if not scathing. It found “USSS failures in planning, communications, security, and allocation of resources for the July 13, 2024, Butler rally were foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt that day.”

Before the shooting, everything felt typical

It was designed to be a typical Trump rally — outdoors at the Butler Farm Show grounds with big red barns, wide-open fields and bleacher seating.

Butler County, on the western edge of a presidential swing state, is a Trump stronghold. In a place where turnout hovers around an impressive 80%, Trump won with about 66% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. The rural area north of Pittsburgh has notoriously bad cell service, which made police communications even worse in the crisis to come. The Secret Service did not bring a system to boost device signals in such places.

Three days after the rally was announced, Crooks registered to attend. He also searched online for “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”

Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, while he was riding in an open convertible. Oswald concealed himself on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. The Warren Commission determined he was 265.3 feet from Kennedy when he fired the fatal shot.

Crooks would fire from about double that distance. But guns have evolved since then, and the AR-style weapon Crooks borrowed from his father shoots faster and more easily than anything Oswald had on him.

On July 7, Crooks made the trip from his Bethel Park home, just south of Pittsburgh, to the Butler Farm Show grounds, and was there for about 20 minutes. FBI investigators say he was casing the area. The day before the rally, he practiced shooting at a local sports club.

On July 13, he returned to the grounds and stayed for about 70 minutes before going home. At 1:30 p.m., his dad gave him the rifle, thinking his son was headed back to the club to practice shooting. Twenty-five minutes later Crooks was buying 50 rounds of ammunition.

He parked at a gas station lot about a third of a mile from the rally, dressed in camo shorts, a black belt and a gray T-shirt with the logo of a YouTube channel dedicated to firearms. He rode a bicycle to the grounds and carried a big backpack.

Agents have cracked into his phone, searched his laptop and interviewed hundreds of people. Yet the FBI says his motive remains unknown.

Crooks was described by classmates at Bethel Park High School as smart but standoffish, often seen wearing headphones and sitting alone at lunch looking at his phone. Some said he was often mocked by other students for the clothes he wore, which included hunting outfits, and for wearing a mask even after the COVID-19 pandemic had subsided.

“He sat by himself, didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t even try to make conversation,” said 17-year-old Liam Campbell, echoing the comments of classmates who remembered the shooter. “He was an odd kid,” but nothing about him seemed dangerous, he added. “Just a normal person who seemed like he didn’t like talking to people."

After graduating high school in 2022, Crooks went on to the Community College of Allegheny County, earning an associate’s degree with honors in engineering science this past May. He also worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide.

Crooks had been registered as a Republican voter, according to state records. But there was also a $15 donation to a progressive group recorded under “Thomas Crooks” in January 2021.

Authorities received many reports beforehand

There were roughly 155 law enforcement officers at the rally that day. That included a Secret Service counter-sniper team, a Butler County SWAT team and uniformed officers. Hundreds of Trump supporters gathered to hear him speak.

The FBI says that after Crooks turned up at the site on that sunny Saturday afternoon, he flew a drone for about 11 minutes up and around the area and was getting the view directly on the controller he used. The Secret Service did not deploy its drone-detection system until later in the afternoon. And the advance team that scouts the venue ahead of time requested additional technology before the rally, but those requests were denied.

The first reported sighting of Crooks was at 4:26 p.m., more than 1½ hours before Trump would begin speaking. A Beaver County sniper team member noticed Crooks at a picnic table, thought he was acting suspiciously, and alerted other local snipers who were posted inside the AGR building complex. “He knows you guys are up there,” the sniper texted the others. “He’s sitting to the direct right on a picnic table about 50 yards from the exit.”

At 5:38 p.m., a Beaver County sniper, stationed inside the building where Crooks would later shoot from the roof, sent photos of Crooks to the local team’s group chat. "I did see him with a rangefinder looking towards the stage. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.” He also said there was a bike with a backpack nearby that wasn’t seen earlier.

Secret Service sniper teams were posted on the roof closest to where Trump was to speak, but officials say the teams were never notified.

At 5:45 p.m., a local sniper recommended that the command post, where team leaders were stationed, be alerted about Crooks. There were two posts; the Secret Service agents were only in one.

<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/9/1727276767876.png" alt="" />
 <figcaption></figcaption>
 </figure>WASHINGTON (AP) — The acting director of the Secret Service was incensed at what had happened that July evening. “What I saw made me ashamed,” Ronald Rowe Jr. said. “I cannot defend why that roof was not better secured.”<a href="https://www.hsgac.senate.gov/wp-content/uploads/USSS-HSGAC-Interim-Report-Executive-Summary.pdf">Click here to read </a>the full reportThe unguarded roof, easily within shooting distance of the rally stage, is just one of the myriad questions behind the worst Secret Service security failure in decades. The more that investigators unpack from that day, the more missed opportunities that could have prevented the attack are revealed.As the United States grapples with a&nbsp;<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-fbi-assassination-attempt-fee81d8bcf737bfcde2ee8e5cea88465">second attempt</a>&nbsp;on Donald Trump’s life, in Florida, there remains a reckoning to be done from the Pennsylvania shooting on July 13 that killed one man and wounded three — the ex-president among them.The Secret Service is a well-funded, historically elite force with a mission to keep presidents and other higher-ups safe — whether they're out for a bicycle ride, attending a world summit, visiting a war zone or campaigning.<figure>
 <img src="https://media.eaglewebservices.com/public/2024/7/1720913971898.png" alt="Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)" />
 <figcaption>Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump is surrounded by U.S. Secret Service agents at a campaign rally, Saturday, July 13, 2024, in Butler, Pa. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)</figcaption>
 </figure>But at the farm show grounds, a young nursing home aide with a rifle he borrowed from his dad outmaneuvered authorities for more than 90 minutes before firing the shots that came millimeters from killing Trump. More than two months later, everyone still wants to know:—When rallygoers reported a man skittering on the squat rooftop of a nearby building, why didn’t anyone in law enforcement move faster?—Why did the Secret Service exclude that building from its security perimeter, leaving it to local police, and why did the local force not station someone on the roof?—Why could local law enforcement agencies not communicate in real time with Secret Service agents when they’re supposed to be working together?—Why did the Secret Service decline offers by local police to use their surveillance drone at the site? And why did Secret Service agents not deploy a system that would have told them an unauthorized drone was aloft — the gunman's — until it was too late?One overarching question may never be answered. And in these poisonous times, with the November presidential election closing in and a second attempt on Trump’s life just days in the past, it is urgent: What possessed 20-year-old Thomas Matthew Crooks to try to kill the former president? The public is no closer to that answer than in the immediate aftermath.This anatomy of an attempted assassination is based on an AP review of dozens of documents, text messages and video, a congressional report and a Secret Service report on the failures, plus interviews on the record and from law enforcement officials who spoke to AP on condition of anonymity to discuss investigations that are still getting going.<h2>The Secret Service faces a reckoning</h2>Rowe sat there under the bright lights, his mouth pressed into a thin line. His voice was thick with anger as senators laid into him and his agents — questioning how on Earth some guy was able to get on top of a nearby roof as the rally was going on and fire off eight rounds, grazing Trump’s ear and ripping into three others, killing one of them.Rowe’s voice grew louder at the July 30 Senate hearing as he squared off with lawmakers who wanted him to fire somebody — anybody — who had been on the ground that day. It wasn’t enough for them that the agency's chief, Kim Cheatle, had resigned a week earlier. But Rowe dug in.“I will not rush to judgment," he said, snapping at a senator. “People will be held accountable, and I will do so with integrity.”He wasn’t blaming anyone in particular, though he did throw some not-so-subtle shade at the Pennsylvania police officers who were supposed to be guarding the building complex in question.But he also wasn’t trying to play down his agency's epic failure as it became slowly clearer to local officers that Crooks wasn’t just an oddball with a backpack. Local police did finger-pointing of their own, citing communications breakdowns that began when the face-to-face meeting the Secret Service said would happen with them before the event never did.Secret Service agents in the line of duty have been equipped since the 1940s with various gadgets enabling them to communicate remotely in real time. Back when everyday people had to find a phone booth, these agents could be seen wearing wired earbuds or talking up their sleeves.Yet when a man outside the perimeter of metal detectors and Secret Service scrutiny raised suspicions, then fears, then his rifle on the roof, the agency's local police backups could not get word directly to the agents closest to Trump or the federal snipers on other rooftops in time to hustle him off the stage or take down the gunman.Last week, the Secret Service released a five-page document summarizing conclusions in a report not yet completed. Among the findings: The Secret Service did not give clear guidance to local law enforcement partners at the rally. It did not correct line-of-sight problems that left Trump open to sniper fire. And some of the agents on duty that day were complacent.A bipartisan report from the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee made public Wednesday was more blunt if not scathing. It found “USSS failures in planning, communications, security, and allocation of resources for the July 13, 2024, Butler rally were foreseeable, preventable, and directly related to the events resulting in the assassination attempt that day.”<h2>Before the shooting, everything felt typical</h2>It was designed to be a typical Trump rally — outdoors at the Butler Farm Show grounds with big red barns, wide-open fields and bleacher seating.Butler County, on the western edge of a presidential swing state, is a Trump stronghold. In a place where turnout hovers around an impressive 80%, Trump won with about 66% of the vote in both 2016 and 2020. The rural area north of Pittsburgh has notoriously bad cell service, which made police communications even worse in the crisis to come. The Secret Service did not bring a system to boost device signals in such places.Three days after the rally was announced, Crooks registered to attend. He also searched online for “how far away was Oswald from Kennedy?”Lee Harvey Oswald shot and killed President John F. Kennedy in Dallas on Nov. 22, 1963, while he was riding in an open convertible. Oswald concealed himself on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository. The Warren Commission determined he was 265.3 feet from Kennedy when he fired the fatal shot.Crooks would fire from about double that distance. But guns have evolved since then, and the AR-style weapon Crooks borrowed from his father shoots faster and more easily than anything Oswald had on him.On July 7, Crooks made the trip from his Bethel Park home, just south of Pittsburgh, to the Butler Farm Show grounds, and was there for about 20 minutes. FBI investigators say he was casing the area. The day before the rally, he practiced shooting at a local sports club.On July 13, he returned to the grounds and stayed for about 70 minutes before going home. At 1:30 p.m., his dad gave him the rifle, thinking his son was headed back to the club to practice shooting. Twenty-five minutes later Crooks was buying 50 rounds of ammunition.He parked at a gas station lot about a third of a mile from the rally, dressed in camo shorts, a black belt and a gray T-shirt with the logo of a YouTube channel dedicated to firearms. He rode a bicycle to the grounds and carried a big backpack.Agents have cracked into his phone, searched his laptop and interviewed hundreds of people. Yet the FBI says his motive remains unknown.Crooks was described by classmates at Bethel Park High School as smart but standoffish, often seen wearing headphones and sitting alone at lunch looking at his phone. Some said he was often mocked by other students for the clothes he wore, which included hunting outfits, and for wearing a mask even after the COVID-19 pandemic had subsided.“He sat by himself, didn’t talk to anyone, didn’t even try to make conversation,” said 17-year-old Liam Campbell, echoing the comments of classmates who remembered the shooter. “He was an odd kid,” but nothing about him seemed dangerous, he added. “Just a normal person who seemed like he didn’t like talking to people."After graduating high school in 2022, Crooks went on to the Community College of Allegheny County, earning an associate’s degree with honors in engineering science this past May. He also worked at a nursing home as a dietary aide.Crooks had been registered as a Republican voter, according to state records. But there was also a $15 donation to a progressive group recorded under “Thomas Crooks” in January 2021.<h2>Authorities received many reports beforehand</h2>There were roughly 155 law enforcement officers at the rally that day. That included a Secret Service counter-sniper team, a Butler County SWAT team and uniformed officers. Hundreds of Trump supporters gathered to hear him speak.The FBI says that after Crooks turned up at the site on that sunny Saturday afternoon, he flew a drone for about 11 minutes up and around the area and was getting the view directly on the controller he used. The Secret Service did not deploy its drone-detection system until later in the afternoon. And the advance team that scouts the venue ahead of time requested additional technology before the rally, but those requests were denied.The first reported sighting of Crooks was at 4:26 p.m., more than 1½ hours before Trump would begin speaking. A Beaver County sniper team member noticed Crooks at a picnic table, thought he was acting suspiciously, and alerted other local snipers who were posted inside the AGR building complex. “He knows you guys are up there,” the sniper texted the others. “He’s sitting to the direct right on a picnic table about 50 yards from the exit.”At 5:38 p.m., a Beaver County sniper, stationed inside the building where Crooks would later shoot from the roof, sent photos of Crooks to the local team’s group chat. "I did see him with a rangefinder looking towards the stage. If you wanna notify SS snipers to look out. I lost sight of him.” He also said there was a bike with a backpack nearby that wasn’t seen earlier.Secret Service sniper teams were posted on the roof closest to where Trump was to speak, but officials say the teams were never notified.At 5:45 p.m., a local sniper recommended that the command post, where team leaders were stationed, be alerted about Crooks. There were two posts; the Secret Service agents were only in one.“They’re asking for a direction of travel,” one local sniper says.“Not sure,” Beaver County SWAT sniper Gregory Nicol responded in a message at 6 p.m., about 11 minutes before Crooks would fire. “He was up against the building. If I had to guess toward the back. Away from the event.”“I assumed that there would be somebody coming out to — you know, to speak with this individual or, you know, find out what’s going on,” Nicol later told ABC News.The AGR (American Glass Research) complex is a warren of buildings, and Crooks eventually got to the roof of the building closest to the rally site. Nicol was trying to shadow Crooks from within the buildings but lost sight of him.Footage shows Crooks walking back to his car, parked near where the other local snipers were parked. There were improvised explosive devices inside the car, but no one knew.Bystanders saw Crooks again shortly after. They took mobile phone video of him pulling himself up to the top of the roof and slithering into position. They called the cops. These rally-goers were on alert for what the authorities either hadn't noticed or hadn't treated with the urgency that might have made a difference. You could say security in this moment was crowdsourced.By 6:08 p.m., law enforcement had eyes on Crooks again. A Secret Service counter sniper saw law local officers running toward the building with their guns drawn, but he didn't think to alert Trump's protective detail to pull the GOP candidate from the stage.Three minutes later, a local officer was hoisted up the squat roof by another officer, who saw Crooks with the rifle, laying down and pointing the weapon toward him. “He’s armed,” the officer radioed to his squad. “He’s got a long gun.”That message did not make it to key Secret Service officials. The shots were fired 30 seconds later.<h2>Trump changed — and didn't — after the attack</h2>Days after the shooting, Trump spent more than 10 minutes of his speech to the Republican National Convention giving vivid detail of what happened to him on the “warm, beautiful day in the early evening in Butler Township in the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”The crowd was rapt. Some in it would later don ear bandages like his in a show of support. Even some of Trump's fiercest critics conceded his turn on the stage in Butler had been masterful — raising his fist as blood trickled down his face, mouthing “fight” as he was hustled away.That episode joins the history books on pages inhabited by Teddy Roosevelt, who was shot in the chest on his way to a campaign address in Milwaukee in 1912 and insisted on giving his&nbsp;<a href="https://www.theodoreroosevelt.org/content.aspx?page_id=22&amp;club_id=991271&amp;module_id=338394">90-minute speech</a>&nbsp;before going to the hospital — an audacious display of Bull Mooseness.In another 90-minute speech in Milwaukee more than a century later, Trump told his convention “the assassin’s bullet came within a quarter of an inch of taking my life.” It was not an exaggeration, or at least not much of one.Those who tuned in at the start of his speech saw a man trying, for once, to reach a wider audience than his MAGA millions. “The discord and division in our society must be healed,” Trump said. “We must heal it quickly.”He proclaimed: “I am running to be president for all of America, not half of America, because there is no victory in winning for half of America.”That didn't last long. Most of the rest of his speech returned to standard operating procedure — the bombast, the falsehoods, the depictions of a United States rotting under Democrats.President Joe Biden, who often cast Trump as a threat to democracy given his refusal to accept his 2020 election loss and his stoking of supporters who rampaged at the Capitol, asked Americans to turn the temperature down.“Disagreement is inevitable in American democracy,” Biden said from the Oval Office, but politics should never devolve into a “killing field.”“While we may disagree, we are not enemies,” Biden went on.The temperature has not cooled since. After the episode at the golf course, Trump and his allies now are trying to lay blame directly on Democratic rhetoric for making him a literal target.In that case, officials said, the suspect did not get off any shots, never had Trump in his line of sight and fled from the scene after a Secret Service agent spotted and fired at him. He was later captured.By those measures, it was a more successful security operation than in Butler. Yet the Secret Service, once again, has much to answer for. The man was able to lurk on the perimeter of Trump's property for nearly 12 hours, police said, evading detection as he lay in wait with a rifle, scope, video camera and food.<h2>The investigation goes on</h2>Investigators have done more than 1,000 interviews. They’ve fielded more than 2,000 tips. In addition to getting into Crooks' phone, they've searched his home and sent the explosive devices found in his car to a lab for testing.Yet deputy FBI Director Paul Abbate says authorities have had to grapple with a “general absence of other information to date." That means no motive has been identified, no co-conspirators found. The Secret Service shot and killed the gunman on the scene.Law enforcement officers are trained to look for and assess suspicious-looking people. But they don’t arrest everyone they deem suspicious; most are harmless. On the day of the rally, they were tracking other people as well.Crooks’ behavior didn’t rise to the level of alarm at first. Secret Service officers only were told about a suspicious person the local authorities were worried about. The counter sniper who saw the officers running with guns drawn never make the connection to get Trump off the stage. In these moments, officers are listening for escalatory words like “threat” or “gun.”Such words came later, in the final seconds, but the message didn't land. There was no one radio frequency all the multi-agency officers could hop on. Instead, local officers had to radio the joint command center, where the Secret Service would relay messages to Trump's detail.Even that failed, Rowe told lawmakers. "None of that information ever made it over our net.”Jason Woods, team leader for Beaver County’s Emergency Services Unit and SWAT sniper section, told ABC News his people had no contact with the agents on Trump’s security detail. “We were supposed to get a face-to-face briefing with the Secret Service members whenever they arrived, and that never happened,” Woods said. “So I think that was probably a pivotal point, where I started thinking things were wrong because it never happened. We had no communication — not until after the shooting.”<a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-assassination-attempt-senate-report-secret-service-50af5692ca1489771144ac399d491e5e">The Senate committee report</a>&nbsp;is only preliminary and promises more details, but plainly states the massive Secret Service failures.Congressional inquiries are bound to escalate in the hothouse of the presidential campaign and as law enforcement learns more. At the first one, Rowe, the acting Secret Service chief, implied that the local officers might bear some responsibility for the failure, too.“Controlling high ground is something that’s a must for us whenever we go into a location,” Rowe said. “We made an assumption” that local teams were covering the AGR building.“If they had just held their post and looked left," Rowe said, his voice trailing off. “Maybe.”He didn't press the point much. Later, he told a news conference: “This was a Secret Service failure.”