TOPEKA — Former Kansas Congressman Steve Watkins has entered a diversion program to avoid trial over allegations that he voted illegally in a 2019 municipal election. Watkins, a Republican from Topeka who served only one term in the U.S. House, was facing three felony charges. He was accused ...
TOPEKA — Will Pope left an impression on the U.S. Capitol Police officer who tried to restrain the Topeka man inside the Capitol building during the Jan. 6 insurrection. The officer told federal investigators that he encountered Pope inside the Senate doors on the east side of the Capitol. ...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — An attorney for the family of a 5-year-old girl critically injured in a crash involving former Kansas City Chiefs assistant coach Britt Reid says the girl suffered a devastating brain injury that has left her unable to speak or walk. Ariel Young likely has permanent brain ...
WICHITA — Three Wichita, Kansas, police officers were injured by a shotgun blast when they checked out a vacant home, and authorities were investigating Sunday whether it had been rigged to fire when the door opened. Wichita Police said Sunday that "a modified, loaded shotgun" discharged as ...
A year into the pandemic, COVID-19 testing has become easier to get — just not necessarily cheaper. If you go to the right locations, though, you can get a test for free instead of shelling out $100 or more. For Kansas, sites that offer free testing are listed online, complete with ...
Topeka — Kiley Klug, flanked by her 13-year-old son, Owen, in a wheelchair, stood before Kansas lawmakers Wednesday and pleaded to let her treat her son’s hundreds of daily seizures with legal medicinal marijuana. At one point, she paused to tend to one of the boy’s seizures before ...
Earlier this month as rolling power blackouts crawled across Kansas, a couple of numbers stuck in the minds of residents: 20 below zero and 1 hour. The first was the outside temperature in many parts of the state. The second was the maximum amount of time that Evergy, the state’s largest ...
Lawrence resident Ben Turner’s most recent meal consisted of beans and cornbread, and his two kids have been relying mostly on the cafeteria food and small cartons of milk the school district has been handing out to families during the coronavirus pandemic. Like others, Turner has been ...
Wichita — For more than a decade, 22-year-old Valley Center native Braden Vining had plans to follow his brother into the military. He couldn’t have planned on the military career he’s about to have, though, because it didn’t exist. Vining is the first Kansan to be recruited into the ...
BELLE PLAINE — A foul-mouthed Kansas judge accused of bigotry who cursed at courthouse employees so often that a trial clerk kept a "swear journal" documenting his obscene outbursts was on Friday suspended from the bench for one year. The Kansas Supreme Court called Montgomery County Judge ...
TOPEKA — Former President Donald Trump has endorsed Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran for reelection in 2022, early backing that makes it unlikely the two-term Republican will face a serious challenge in the GOP primary. Trump's endorsement Thursday evening came less than two weeks after Moran voted ...
SHAWNEE — A high school student in the Kansas City, Kan., suburb of Shawnee was found with a handgun in his backpack at school, police and school officials there said. The gun and other contraband were found by Shawnee Mission Northwest High School staff Thursday morning in a search of the ...
WICHITA — Four men from Mississippi have been banned from hunting anywhere in the world and fined a total of $48,000 for violating wildlife laws in Kansas. Kenneth R. Britt Jr., 51; Tony Grant Smith, 26; Barney Leon Bairfield III, 28; and Dustin Corey Treadway, 28, were also sentenced to ...
TOPEKA — Roger Marshall’s unflinching support of former President Donald Trump helped him vault over a crowded field of Republican hopefuls in the race to succeed longtime Kansas U.S. Senator Pat Roberts. Roberts, like his successor, backed Trump and his administration almost without fail. ...
This story was updated at 4:10 p.m. Wednesday. TOPEKA — Kansas may have paid $600 million worth of bogus claims for unemployment benefits last year, a legislative audit said Wednesday, more than double an estimate from the state Department of Labor. The report from the Republican-controlled ...
Amid a flood of both legitimate and fraudulent unemployment claims following the onset of the coronavirus pandemic, the Kansas Department of Labor estimates that it paid out $290 million in fraudulent unemployment claims last year. The Department of Labor arrived at that number following an ...
TOPEKA — LGBTQ-rights advocates warned Kansas legislators Tuesday that their discussion of a proposed ban on transgender students in girls and women’s school sports would lead to bullying, and one group promised to sue the state if such a law is enacted. The state Senate Education ...
WICHITA — Hospitality businesses that got loans through an emergency relief fund in Kansas at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic will no longer have to repay the money, Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said Tuesday. Funding provided through the Hospitality Industry Relief Emergency Fund has been ...
Story updated at 6:04 p.m. Tuesday: Topeka — Top Kansas Republicans launched a new effort Tuesday to curb Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s power after months of criticizing her handling of the coronavirus pandemic and problems with the state’s unemployment system. GOP Attorney General ...
Updated at 3:40 p.m. Tuesday Qualifying faculty and staff members from Douglas County universities will soon be included in Phase 2 vaccine distribution, according to the county health department. George Diepenbrock, spokesperson for Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health, said that the ...