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Kansas adopting new vehicle license plate design, jettisoning eroded embossed tags
TOPEKA — A Kansas license plate with dark text on a blazing yellow background will replace in 2024 the peeling raised-letter tags that years ago became an impediment to law enforcement officers trying to quickly identify vehicles. “Many of the embossed plates out on the road have become difficult to read due to significant deterioration,” […]
Kansas, Nebraska universities to collaborate on adding teachers of color in public schools
TOPEKA — A three-year, $3.9 million federal grant will enable Kansas State University and University of Nebraska-Lincoln to collaborate on a project to diversify the teacher workforce in the Dodge City, Kansas, school district and five school districts in Nebraska. The initiative to increase the number of teachers of color serving culturally and linguistically diverse […]
Kansas Press Association considers AG’s opinion a threat to government transparency
TOPEKA — Attorney General Kris Kobach issued a legal opinion declaring cities in Kansas with populations ranging from 2,000 to 15,000 had the right to exempt themselves from state law requiring official city business notices to be printed by a designated newspaper. Kobach’s nonbinding analysis said cities could adopt ordinances that allowed them to inform […]
Kansas commission seeks magistrate’s perspective on Marion search warrant complaint
TOPEKA, Kansas — The Kansas Commission on Judicial Conduct requested Marion County District Court Magistrate Judge Laura Viar to explain her decision to authorize search warrants used in controversial raids of the Marion newspaper office, the publisher’s home and a city council member’s residence. The August searches were based on allegations advanced by local police […]
Federal judge upends court order allowing transgender Kansans to alter birth certificates
TOPEKA — A federal judge granted Attorney General Kris Kobach’s request Thursday to significantly undermine provisions of a 2019 consent judgment granting transgender individuals born in Kansas the right to amend birth certificates to match their gender identities. Kobach sought the U.S. District Court’s intervention after the Kansas Legislature approved a law defining women and […]
Marion newspaper’s lawyer chastises police for treating newspaper as ‘drug cartel,’ ‘street gang’
TOPEKA — An attorney representing the Marion County Record in wake of a raid of the newspaper’s office urged Marion law enforcement officials to stop short of examining computers and other seized property pending a court hearing on whether the search violated legal standards. Bernie Rhodes, a lawyer from Kansas City, Missouri, said in a […]
Kansas State University president diagnosed with throat, tongue cancer
TOPEKA — Kansas State University President Richard Linton said Tuesday a diagnosis of throat and tongue cancer would require daily treatment for several months at the University of Kansas Cancer Center in Kansas City, Kansas. Linton was named 15th president of Kansas State in December 2021 and began work on the Manhattan campus in February […]
Massive oil spill distorts Kansas couple’s confidence in the integrity of Keystone pipeline
WASHINGTON, Kan. — Chris and Bill Pannbacker stood atop a steep sandstone hill adjacent to the spot on the family farm where a major break in TC Energy’s Keystone pipeline showered thousands of barrels of black-as-night crude on livestock grazing land and into nearby Mill Creek. They were involuntarily drawn into the environmental nightmare Dec. […]
Celebration marks completion of $1.2 billion NBAF lab for studying animal-to-human pathogens
MANHATTAN — National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility researcher Lisa Hensley’s career took her from laboratory to laboratory and country to country to study the alphabet soup of ghastly pathogens such as SARs, monkeypox, MERs and Marburg. But she said an Ebola outbreak in the West Africa country of Liberia brought home what it meant to […]
Western Kansas’ economy threatened by reliance on irrigating crops with Ogallala Aquifer
TOPEKA, Kansas — Tentacles of the irrigation-based agriculture economy of Kansas extend far from fields of lush, tall corn, to the ethanol producers, dairy and beef facilities, meatpacking plants and finally the homes of people living in the state’s rural areas. Earl Lewis, chief engineer of water resources with the Kansas Department of Agriculture, told […]
FBI moves to seize bank deposits in alleged $10 million fraud of Kansas foster care provider
TOPEKA — Federal prosecutors acting on disclosures of a whistleblower moved to seize $700,000 in a civil asset forfeiture case alleging a former information technology employee defrauded Saint Francis Ministries of millions of dollars while the nonprofit was under contract with the state of Kansas to provide foster care and adoption services. Federal court documents […]