KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KCTV) – A lot of eyes will be looking to the skies for fireworks tomorrow night. But clouds and rain in those skies have many asking if the show will go on.

The key is to plan ahead. Outside the World War I Museum and Memorial, the stage has been set up in advance because the show must go on. So, before you come out here, make a to-do list of stuff to bring and where to go to stay dry.

The stage is set, and so is the spot for fireworks. Kansas Citians are ready to celebrate another 4th of July with a bang.

“It’d be really good to get some family and have friends come along,” Jadon Walker of Kansas City said. “Bring them out and sounds like there will probably be a lot of community out here.”

Leaders of the Stars and Stripes Picnic have been working around the clock to set up the stage. They’ve prepared vendors to bring enough equipment so their setups can withstand any harsh weather.

“We’ve got a larger stage than we might have used before and it’s got a roof to protect the sound equipment that we’ve got set up for the day,” Matthew Naylor, President and CEO of the WWI Museum and Memorial, explained. “Then tomorrow early on the vendors will start coming in and they’ll be appropriately equipped with tents to ensure everything stays safe.”

Eventgoers also need to plan ahead in case the forecast doesn’t stay dry.

“My first thought is an umbrella but that seems kind of silly thinking about this whole group of people,” Walker thought. “Umbrella’s might be impractical. So, I don’t know I don’t have any clear thoughts on that.”

There won’t be an extra emergency shelter set up, they’re asking for festivalgoers to have fun but stay aware.

“We’ll rely on people to keep an eye on their weather apps,” President Naylor said. “That we’ll update people if there’s lightning coming or storms approaching. Then to take appropriate action. They know how to manage in wet weather if a threat presents itself.”

The National WWI Museum will also be open tomorrow from 10:00 a.m.-5:00 p.m. if you want to take a break from outside. But it’s not big enough to hold everyone in attendance. Remember to download the First Warn 5 Weather App where our team will have all the latest updates.

Copyright 2024 KCTV. All rights reserved.

TOPEKA, Kan. — A Kansas businessman has pleaded guilty to illegally exporting sensitive aviation technology to Russian companies in violation of U.S. sanctions.

Douglas Edward Robertson, who lives in the Kansas City suburb of Olathe, was the second Kansas business executive to plead guilty to charges after being accused of smuggling, money laundering, violating U.S. export regulations, submitting false or misleading information to export regulators and conspiring to commit crimes against the U.S., all for profit. Their arrests and the arrest of a Latvian associate in March 2023 came as the U.S. ramped up sanctions and financial penalties on Russia over its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine.

Robertson, 56, entered his plea Tuesday before U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree in Kansas City. The judge set his sentencing for Oct. 3. Robertson pleaded guilty to four of the 26 counts against him and could face up to 20 years in prison for either the money laundering or export violations convictions.

According to prosecutors, starting in October 2020, the defendants sought to sell electronics that included threat detection systems and flight, navigation and communications controls, to two Russian aircraft parts distributors, a Russian aircraft repair firm and a Russian aircraft services company. They sought to hide their unlicensed activities by going through companies and using bank accounts elsewhere, including Armenia, Cyprus, Germany, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and the United Arab Emirates.

“Those who seek to profit by illegally selling sophisticated U.S. technology to our adversaries are putting the national security of our country at risk,” Robert Wells, the executive assistant director of the FBI’s National Security Branch, said in a statement.

One of Robertson’s attorneys, Branden Bell, declined to comment when reached Wednesday.

U.S. export controls were meant to limit Russia’s access to computer chips and other products needed to equip a modern military. The indictment against Robertson said the electronics he and the other two men sought to export “could make a significant contribution” to another nation’s military.

Robertson, a commercial pilot, and Cyril Gregory Buyanovsky, an aviation engineer from Lawrence, operated the KanRus Trading Co. together and worked with Oleg Chistyakov, a Latvian citizen who frequently traveled to the UAE, according to prosecutors.

Buyanovsky pleaded guilty in December to one count of conspiring to launder money and one count of conspiring to commit crimes against the U.S., and his sentencing is set for Nov. 14. There is no indication of whether Chistyakov has been taken into custody, and he has yet to enter a plea, according to online court records.

The indictment charging the three men lists nine exports of aviation electronics to Russian companies from February 2021 through December 2022 and attempts to export electronics once in February 2022 and twice in March 2023.

Prosecutors have said the U.S. government seized $450,000 in electronics blocked from export the day before Buyanovsky and Robertson were arrested.

“Robertson’s guilty plea is reflective of the strong evidence gathered against him by federal investigators and the solid case presented by federal prosecutors,” Kate E. Brubacher, the chief federal prosecutor in Kansas, said in a statement.

From Thursday to Monday, we all saw a lot of consequences play out, plain as day.

We saw the consequence of two parties choosing men manifestly unfit to run for president. One a direct threat to our United States of America, the other barely able to string sentences together and staring blankly into the distance as if trying to process how he arrived there.

We saw the consequences of a U.S. Supreme Court packed with hard-right appointees, eager to hand over practically unchecked power to the man they (likely correctly) assume will be the next president.

Most of all, we’ve seen the consequences of a nation that has for too long gorged itself on cheap cynicism and infantile entertainment.

We picked Trump and Biden. We elected the U.S. representatives and senators who pass budgets and confirm nominees. We have gone along with all of this and have allowed our government to reach this exigency. Changing the situation doesn’t require magic. It requires civic engagement and participation on a level with which most of us are unfamiliar.

I can lay out what I think should happen.

Yes, obviously President Joe Biden needs to drop out. Yes, obviously Republicans should have never countenanced Donald Trump as their nominee after he attempted to overthrow the government he led. One of these situations can still be addressed, while the other one appears set in stone. So Democratic leaders need to decide where they stand.

The Supreme Court’s decision on presidential immunity can be understood as either dire or limited. I’ve read chunks of Chief Justice John Robert’s majority opinion, as well as Associate Justice Sonia Sotomayor’s dissent. They seem to be writing from different universes, never mind different planets. We have no way to know the consequences without time passing and observing how our presidents and courts react.

No one can change that. At least not right away.

Unfortunately, Kansas has a limited role to play in this upcoming national election. The state will almost certainly vote for the Republican presidential nominee, as it has done in every election since 1964. That’s what happens when the nation still abides by the absurd Electoral College system.

Yet we all have roles to play when it comes to our own state and communities. Elections at these levels matter, and local candidates can present stark choices. But you won’t know about your options unless you pay attention.

Kansas Reflector reporters are interviewing candidates for statewide office. We will be running stories about candidates and what they hope to do.

Read them. Read stories in your local newspaper or news website.

Last month, I wrote about the grimness that hovered over the Kansas Legislature’s not-so-special session. You remember that, right? When all the state lawmakers came back to pass a tax cut plan and big tax incentive packages for sports team?

That session was a consequence, too. So was the dogged refusal of leaders to allow votes on Medicaid expansion or marijuana legalization.

Kansans elected those people. They supported leaders who would rather line the pockets of billionaires than look out for the 12% of Kansans who live in poverty. Every one of those people could be helped, if Kansans decided they wanted to do so. But we haven’t.

No, here in the Sunflower State, voters hand over their brains and willpower to the various dark money groups sending out glossy mailers. In any other situation, in any other area of life, would you believe a piece of mail that arrives at your home from someone you don’t know telling obvious lies about someone else? Of course not. It boggles my mind that these pieces of junk hold such sway in the world of Kansas politics.

They only hold that sway, of course, because voters let them.

The hateful inertia of Kansas politics and the blazing Dumpster fire of the presidential election are one and the same story.

They are both the story of politicians and voters too vacuous to challenge one another to do better. They are both the story of big money interests doing all they can to dominate the discussion and eliminate dissent. They are both the story of business conglomerates pumping us full of literal and figurative narcotics — anything to dull our realization that we have made these choices and bear responsibility for this world.

We can’t fix this mess alone. But we can demand better from those hoping to represent us.

Not tomorrow, not after the next election, not when it’s our turn.

Now.

Clay Wirestone is Kansas Reflector opinion editor. Through its opinion section, Kansas Reflector works to amplify the voices of people who are affected by public policies or excluded from public debate. Find information, including how to submit your own commentary, here.