KPR Frequencies in Lawrence Will Go Silent for Part of the Week
LAWRENCE, Kan. (KPR) - Kansas Public Radio is planning to perform maintenance on its tower in Lawrence this week, which will require FM 91.5 and FM 96.1 to go off the air for a period of time. KANU, the station based in Lawrence, will go off the air for part of the day Tuesday and all day Wednesday (July 9 & 10), while tower crews perform service work to the station's antenna. Affected communities include, but are not limited to, Lawrence, Topeka and parts of the Kansas City metro. Maintenance was originally to take place Monday, July 8, but due to staffing delays, the work has been pushed back to Tuesday and Wednesday.
Other KPR stations - those in Emporia, Manhattan and Chanute - should not be affected.
Listeners can listen to KPR and KPR-2 online at KansasPublicRadio.org and by using the free KPR app.
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Federal Grant to Aid KanCare with School Health Care Services
UNDATED (KNS) – The Kansas Department of Health and Environment is working to expand health services in schools thanks to a federal grant. The Kansas News Service reports that Kansas is one of nine states to receive a grant for the implementation of more health services covered by Medicaid in schools. Bobbie Graff-Hendrixson, the state’s deputy Medicaid director, says they are in the early phases of planning and deciding what services they will offer. But one of the priorities will be to expand mental health care. “A child's coping skills need to be addressed when they occur, and many times those triggers occur during the school day,” Graff-Hendrixson says. She adds that by addressing mental health issues at school, emergency room visits could be reduced.
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Kansas City, Kansas Police Officer Stabbed; Suspect Remains at Large
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (WDAF) — Police in Kansas City, Kansas, are searching for a man who stabbed a police officer late Sunday night. The officer was starting his shift around 9:30 pm Sunday when a man approached him (near 47th and State Avenue), took out a sharp object and started stabbing the officer. WDAF TV reports that the officer suffered two stab wounds and is expected to recover. The suspect was still on the loose as of Monday morning. Anyone with information is asked to call the tips hotline at (816) 474-TIPS.
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Search Underway for Missing Northeast Kansas Man
MARSHALL COUNTY, Kan. (KPR) - A search is underway in northeast Kansas for a missing Native American man. The Kansas Bureau of Investigation says foul play IS suspected in the disappearance of 36-year-old Camoran Shoptese, of Blue Rapids, in Marshall County. He was last seen the night of July 4th.
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KC Fire Department Rescues Couple Lost in Cave 2,000 Feet Underground
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (WDAF) - Two people wandered into a cave system in Kansas City Saturday night. They became disoriented and got lost more than 2,000 feet underground. WDAF TV reports that the man and woman had trouble calling for help but eventually found a spot where they could get cell phone signal. Around 4 am Sunday, they were able to 911. The Kansas City Fire Department responded and used ropes to rescue the 30-year-old man and 22-year-old woman. They were unharmed and refused medical treatment.
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Crews Respond to 100+ Emergency Calls at Kenny Chesney Concert at Arrowhead Stadium
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KPR) - The heat and humidity have been taking a toll across Kansas and Missouri. Emergency crews responded to more than 100 calls for help during Saturday night's Kenny Chesney concert at Arrowhead Stadium. Fans were allowed to enter the stadium at 2 pm. The concert started at 5 pm. In all, the Kansas City Fire Department responded to 107 calls at the concert. All but four of them were handled by on-site staff. Four patients were taken to area hospitals for further treatment. The calls for service included heat-related issues, intoxication and various other ailments.
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Kansas Launches New Program Aimed at Attracting Residents Back to the State
TOPEKA, Kan. (KNS) - A new Kansas initiative is aimed at attracting workers by highlighting job opportunities and more affordable housing compared to other states. The state is trying to reverse so-called "brain drain" by bringing people back to their home state. The Kansas Department of Commerce campaign known as “Love, Kansas” will focus on people who already have ties to the state but left to work elsewhere. State officials are especially interested in attracting younger people back to the state.
The Kansas population is aging, suggesting young people are leaving for opportunities in other states. Bridgette Jobe, tourism director for the department, says bringing back former Kansans will help boost the economy. “We have many high-paying, high-quality jobs, and we need people to fill them.” Jobe says the Kansas Legislature provided $2 million for the program. And a majority of that funding will go to nationwide marketing.
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Education Summit Addresses Teacher Shortages in Western Kansas
HAYS, Kan. (KNS) - Fort Hays State University recently held an education summit to brainstorm ideas that could address teacher shortages in western Kansas. Two thirds of Kansas schools are experiencing teacher shortages, and it’s even worse in western Kansas. Rural schools in western Kansas have had a hard time recruiting teachers to socially isolated areas. At the summit in Hays, school districts shared information on what has been working.
Rachel Wentling, who organized summit, says rural districts need to get creative to attract teachers. She says some districts in southwest Kansas have acquired property and offered teachers free housing for their first year or two. Wentling says education leaders should also focus on recruiting students in the region who might become future teachers. She says it can be hard to attract new teachers to small towns because integrating into tight-knit rural communities isn’t easy. Rural school leaders left the summit with new ideas on how to market their schools and offer teachers extra benefits like help in finding affordable housing or mentors.
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Land Institute Works on Improving Kernza Crop Yields
UNDATED (KNS) – Scientists in Salina have sped up their work to create a commercially viable perennial grain. The Land Institute breeds kernza wheatgrass. Unlike other food and livestock feed grains, farmers don’t have to replant kernza each year. This reduces erosion and increases carbon storage in soil. But the yield per plant remains small. And the breeding process to change that is slow. The Kansas News Service reports that Salina scientists are now using LED lights to trick the plants into blooming twice a year. With faster breeding, scientists predict wheat-like yields by 2040, which would make it viable for more farmers to grow.
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Does Kansas Have Rare Earth Minerals? The Kansas Geological Survey Hopes to Find Out
LAWRENCE, Kan. (KPR/KSNT) - Does Kansas contain a quantity of rare Earth minerals underground? That's what the Kansas Geological Survey will try to find out when it starts drilling holes in Lyon County. Right now, scientists are searching for potential drilling sites, which could reveal new sources of rare Earth minerals. KSNT reports that the Kansas Geological Survey has partnered with Mull Companies, an independent oil and gas producer, to drill out a well in Lyon County to evaluate whether subterranean layers of rock contain minerals which can be used in electronics, lithium batteries and other advanced technologies. China and India are currently the world's largest suppliers of these materials.
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U.S. Adaptive Golf Underway in Kansas
NEWTON, Kan. (KPR) - The U.S. Adaptive Open golf championship gets underway today (MON) in south-central Kansas. Nearly 100 men and women golfers from 32 states, including Kansas, are taking part - as well as players from 11 different countries. The Adaptive Open, held at the Sand Creek Station course in Newton, is for golfers with disabilities.
For the first time in the three years of the event, there were qualifying rounds to even get into the championship field. Colton Dean, of the USGA, says the event’s growth has made qualifying rounds necessary. "We expected it to eventually get there with the U.S. Adaptive Open, but honestly the growth has been tremendous," he said. "We got there in Year Three, which we definitely weren’t expecting, but are super happy to see."
The only Kansan who qualified is Kirk Holmberg of Hutchinson, who’s in the neurological impairment category. The tournament will take place over the next three days.
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Former Reporter Settles Part of Her Lawsuit over Police Raid on Kansas Newspaper for $235,000
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A former reporter for a weekly Kansas newspaper has agreed to accept $235,000 to settle part of her federal lawsuit over a police raid on the paper that made a small community the focus of a national debate over press freedoms. The settlement removed the former police chief in Marion from the lawsuit filed by former Marion County Record reporter Deb Gruver, but it doesn't apply to two other officials she sued over the raid: the Marion County sheriff and the county's prosecutor. Gruver's lawsuit is among five federal lawsuits filed over the raid against the city, the county and eight current or former elected officials or law enforcement officers.
Gruver's attorney did not immediately respond to emails Friday seeking comment. An attorney for the city, its insurance company, the former chief and others declined to comment but released a copy of the June 25 settlement agreement after the Record filed an open records request. He also provided a copy to The Associated Press.
Former Police Chief Gideon Cody led the August 11, 2023, raid on the newspaper's office, the home of publisher Eric Meyer and the home of a then-city council member who had been critical of the then-mayor. Marion is a city of about 1,900 people set among rolling prairie hills about 150 miles southwest of Kansas City, Missouri, and the Record is known for its aggressive coverage of local government.
At the time, Cody said he had evidence that the newspaper, reporter Phyllis Zorn and the city council member had committed identity theft or other computer crimes in obtaining information about a local business owner's driving record. All of his targets said they did nothing illegal, and no charges were ever filed.
A federal lawsuit filed by Meyer and the newspaper alleges that the raid caused the death the next day of his 98-year-old mother, who lived with him, and he and the paper's attorney have suggested that the raid was Cody's response to the paper investigating his background. Cody seized Gruber's personal cellphone and had her desk searched; she had no connection to the driving record but was looking into Cody's past.
The raid sparked national outrage, and Cody resigned as chief in early October, less than two months after the raid. Legal experts have said the raid likely violated state or federal laws.
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Kansas Supreme Court Bolsters a State Right to Abortion, Striking Down 2 Anti-Abortion Laws
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’s highest court strongly reaffirmed Friday that the state constitution protects abortion access, striking down a ban on a common second-trimester procedure and laws regulating abortion providers more strictly than other health care providers.
The pair of 5-1 decisions suggests that other restrictions — even ones decades on the books — might not withstand legal challenges. The court's dissenting justice, widely seen as its most conservative, warned that Kansas is headed toward “a legal regime of unrestricted access to abortion.”
“This is an immense victory for the health, safety, and dignity of people in Kansas and the entire Midwestern region, where millions have been cut off from abortion access,” said Nancy Northup, president and CEO of the Center for Reproductive Rights, which represented the abortion providers challenging the two laws.
The decisions came almost two years after an August 2022 statewide vote decisively affirming abortion rights, the first such vote after the U.S. Supreme Court's Dobbs decision in June 2022 that allowed states to ban abortion altogether. Kansas voters rejected a proposed change in the state constitution approved by the Republican-controlled Legislature to declare that the document provides no right to abortion.
Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach's office had argued that the 2022 vote didn’t matter in determining whether the two laws could stand. But Justice Evelyn Wilson, one of three justices appointed to the seven-member court after its landmark 2019 decision, said that while she might have dissented then, “The people spoke with their votes.”
“The results were accepted by the people, and Kansas showed the world how things are done in a successful democracy,” wrote Wilson, an appointee of Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly, a strong abortion rights supporter.
Neither law struck down by the court had been enforced because of the lawsuits against them by abortion providers.
Other lawsuits in lower state courts are challenging restrictions on medication abortions, a ban on doctors using teleconferences to meet with patients, rules for what doctors must tell patients before an abortion and a requirement that patients wait 24 hours after receiving information about a procedure to terminate their pregnancies.
Friday's rulings will be felt far outside Kansas since it has attracted thousands of patients from states where abortion is all but banned, most notably Oklahoma and Texas. The Guttmacher Institute, which supports abortion rights, projected last month that about 20,000 abortions were performed in Kansas in 2023 or 152% more than in 2020.
Abortion opponents argued ahead of the August 2022 vote that failing to change the state constitution would doom long-standing restrictions enacted under past Republican governors. Kansas saw a flurry of new restrictions under GOP Gov. Sam Brownback from 2011 through 2018.
“It hurts to say, ‘we told you so,’ to the many Kansans who were misled by the abortion industry’s assurances that it would still be ‘heavily regulated’ in our state if voters rejected the 2022 amendment,” Danielle Underwood, a spokesperson for Kansans for Life, the state's most influential anti-abortion group, said in a statement.
Justice K.J. Wall, a Kelly appointee, did not participate in either ruling on Friday while Justice Caleb Stegall was the lone dissenter. He was appointed by Brownback.
In his dissenting opinion in the clinic regulations case, Stegall said the majority’s actions will damage the court’s legitimacy “for years to come.” He said its declarations about bodily autonomy could affect a “massive swath” of health and safety regulations outside abortion, including licensing requirements for barbers.
“Surely the government does not have a compelling interest in who trims my beard?” Stegall wrote. “Let the lawsuits commence in this new target-rich environment. The majority has — perhaps unwittingly — put the entire administrative state on the chopping block of strict scrutiny.”
Justice Melissa Standridge, also a Kelly appointee and the justice writing the majority opinion in the clinic regulations case, called Stegall's comments “inappropriate and denigrating to women faced with decisions between childbirth and abortion.”
Kansas doesn’t ban most abortions until the 22nd week of pregnancy, but it requires minors to obtain the written consent of their parents or a guardian. Other requirements, including the 24-hour waiting period and what a provider must tell patients, have been put on hold. A lower court is considering a challenge to them by providers.
The health and safety rules aimed specifically at abortion providers were enacted in 2011. Supporters said they would protect women’s health — though there was no evidence provided then that such rules elsewhere had led to better health outcomes. Providers said the real goal was to force them out of business.
Standridge said in the majority's opinion on the clinic regulations that not only was there no evidence the rules would improve patients' health, but in some cases, it “affirmatively contradicts” that position.
She wrote that even the state's expert in the case agreed that "existing abortion care is extremely safe” and comparable to care not covered by the regulations.
The other law struck down by the court would have banned a certain type of dilation and evacuation, also known as D&E. It was the first state ban of its kind when it was enacted in 2015.
According to state health department statistics, about 600 D&E procedures were done in Kansas in 2022, accounting for 5% of the state’s total abortions. About 88% of the state’s abortions occurred in the first trimester. The state has yet to release statistics for 2023.
The procedure ban would have forced providers to use alternative methods that the Center for Reproductive Rights has said are riskier for the patient and more expensive.
Justice Eric Rosen, an appointee of former Democratic Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, said in the majority's opinion on the ban that lower-court evidence showed it would force patients to undergo alternative procedures “that are rarely used, are untested and are sometimes more dangerous or impossible.”
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