Pilot Killed in Small Plane Crash in Cloud County
CONCORDIA, Kan. (WIBW-TV) — One person was killed when a small plane crashed Sunday evening in Cloud County, in north central Kansas. The crash was reported around 7:30 near the town of Concordia. The Kansas Highway Patrol says the single-engine plane had just taken off from the Concordia airport when a possible mechanical issue occurred. WIBW-TV reports the plane lost altitude and crashed into the ground. The pilot, 76-year-old David Kadel of Concordia, was pronounced dead at the scene. The Kansas Highway Patrol says the crash remains under investigation.
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Johnson County Election Commissioner Says Push to End Mail-In Voting Could Delay Ballot Results
UNDATED (KCUR) — Johnson County’s election commissioner says a new push from President Donald Trump to end mail-in voting would not result in more accurate elections. The president has long claimed without evidence that voting by mail and voting machines contribute to fraud and inaccurate ballot counts. But Fred Sherman, who oversees elections in Kansas’s most populous county, told KCUR that the move would affect how quickly Kansas can release election results. “It would probably slow things down. We’d probably have a little longer wait line aspect of it, voters having to basically bubble-in a full-sized paper ballot,” he explained.
Sherman says turnout would also likely drop without mail-in voting. About 14% of voters in Johnson County cast their ballots by mail last November. Trump announced his new priority on social media last week.
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Federal Student Aid Application Appears to Be on Schedule for First Time in Years
UNDATED (KNS) — The application for federal student aid appears to be on schedule for the first time in three years. The Kansas News Service reports that the U.S. Department of Education says it plans to release the Free Application for Federal Student Aid, or FAFSA, by October 1st. The form allows college students to access federal aid and scholarships each year. The agency is beta testing the form through September. Students can request to join the beta test now on the FAFSA website. Rachel Schmeidler is a college and career counselor at Wichita's North High School. She says students can contact their counseling office for help. "This office is setting them up for success and giving them their options because a lot of them, since they are first-gen, don't know what those options are at this point," Schmeidler explained. This year’s beta testing comes after a series of glitches and delays derailed the FAFSA process last year.
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KCK Pharma CEO on Leave After Domestic Violence Accusations
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (KC Star) — The CEO of a Kansas City, Kansas-based pharmaceutical company has been placed on leave after being accused of domestic violence. Shane Schaffer is the CEO of Cingulate, a company that develops treatments for Attention Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder. Court documents say Schaffer is accused of strangling and hitting a woman he was in a relationship with earlier this month. Schaffer is 51. He was charged with aggravated domestic battery, a felony, in Johnson County District Court. The Kansas City Star reports Shaffer was allegedly involved in another domestic violence incident with the same woman last September.
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Kansas Supreme Court Upholds Manhattan Man's Murder Conviction
TOPEKA, Kan. (Manhattan Mercury) — The Kansas Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of a man from Manhattan, Kansas, who was found guilty of murdering his wife. The Riley County District Court convicted Kamahl Bobian in November 2023 of premeditated first-degree murder and other counts. Although the high court agreed that the district court made errors in giving jury instructions, the justices ruled the errors were not sufficient to warrant a new trial. The Manhattan Mercury reports the supreme court ordered the case back to the district court for sentencing. Bobian had argued that he had been drinking for hours and had “blacked out” prior to the killing.
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Executive Order on Homelessness Funding Raises Concern Among Kansas Advocates
UNDATED (KNS) — President Donald Trump wants to end federal support for housing-first programs to address homelessness. The Kansas News Service reports that Kansas advocates say that could make homelessness worse. Trump recently issued an executive order that withholds federal funding to programs that provide shelter to homeless people before addressing behavioral health issues like substance use. Trump instead wants to support housing that requires participants to already be receiving treatment. But Molly Mendenhall of the Kansas Statewide Homeless Coalition says the policy change will not help because it does not increase access to those treatment programs. “The wait lists are just going to get longer and people are going to wait longer and longer to get, you know, the support that they need,” she added. Mendenhall says housing-first programs work because people need the safety of shelter before they can fight off problems like drug addiction.
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Lawrence Schools Weigh Adding E-Sports
LAWRENCE, Kan. (LJW) — Students in the Lawrence school district may soon be able to sign up for competitive video gaming as an extracurricular activity. The Kansas State High School Activities Association voted last spring to sanction e-sports as an interscholastic activity beginning this fall. The Lawrence School Board will meet Monday to consider allowing the district’s middle and high schools to establish their own e-sports teams. The Lawrence Journal-World reports most schools in the district are already equipped with computer labs or classrooms that could support e-sports with only minor upgrades. According to the Interstate Scholastic E-Sports Alliance, over 65,000 students at 2,000 schools in K through 12 nationwide play competitive e-sports.
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Black Hills Energy Plans To Merge With Another Power Company
UNDATED (Kansas Reflector) — Black Hills Energy has announced plans to merge with NorthWestern Energy. Black Hills is a natural gas utility that serves southwestern and south-central Kansas. NorthWestern is an electric and natural gas company with customers in South Dakota, Nebraska, and Montana. The merger requires approval from multiple regulators. The Kansas Reflector reports the merged company will have a new name and trade under a new stock ticker. The company will be headquartered in Rapid City, South Dakota, where Black Hills’ head office is currently located.
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Topeka Zoo Mourns Death of Giraffe
TOPEKA, Kan. (KSNT) — The Topeka Zoo is mourning the loss of one of its giraffes. The zoo posted on social media that the giraffe, named Liz, died Saturday night. Liz was born at the zoo in 2018. KSNT reports the cause of the animal’s death is unknown, pending test results.
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Smithsonian Exhibition Opens Kansas Tour in Lawrence
LAWRENCE, Kan. (KPR) — A new traveling exhibition from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian kicked off its tour of Kansas at the Watkins Museum of History in Lawrence on Saturday. "Americans" examines how Native Americans have been portrayed in popular culture. “Native American people are a part of American culture,” explains Watkins director Steve Nowak, “and they are intertwined in the lives we live everyday.”
"Americans" will be on display at the Watkins Museum through October 5. It then continues its Kansas tour with stops in Highland, Wichita, Mayetta, Salina, Liberal, and Bonner Springs.
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Kansas Congressional Delegation Supports Governor's Aid Request
WASHINGTON, D.C. (KNS) — The Kansas congressional delegation is asking President Trump to offer federal help after severe storms hit the state in June. The storms brought hail, tornadoes, and flooding that damaged roads, bridges and utilities in sixteen counties, mostly in eastern and south-central Kansas. Governor Laura Kelly is asking Trump for a disaster declaration that would open the door to federal resources. The full congressional delegation is supporting her request and says Kansas could qualify for $7.5 million in funding. Kelly’s office is also working on a similar request related to the torrential rain that battered northeast Kansas in July.
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Drones Now Aid Farmers with Monitoring Corn Crop
LIBERAL, Kan. (KNS) — Drones flying over corn fields are helping older Kansas farmers keep a closer eye on the health of their crops. The Kansas News Service reports that the average age of farmers in Kansas is almost 60, and the average farm is 800 acres. It can be hard for aging farmers to keep up with the workload. The drones can help monitor the health of their crops through thermal or infrared imagery. Deepak Joshi has studied this as the Precision Ag Specialist for K-State Research and Extension, and says drone use “...can help ease of the grower to do any task very quickly, so it will be less time consuming. Like we don't need to go walk into the field.” Around this time of year, farmers can use drones to check cornfields for pests, weeds or water stress.
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Kansas City-Area Teacher Admits to Producing Sexually-Explicit Videos of Children
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (KSHB) — A Kansas City-area elementary school teacher has admitted to producing sexually-explicit videos of minors - as recently as last month - at an area elementary school. Federal prosecutors say 28-year-old Dennis Hernandez has been charged with creating and possessing child pornography.
KSHB TV reports that Hernandez was a first-grade teacher at Fairmount Elementary School in Independence, Missouri. He was also a substitute teacher in the North Kansas City School District. According to a LinkedIn profile for Hernandez, he had been working as an educator since at least 2021 at Guadalupe Center Schools and North Kansas City in 2024.
Federal investigators conducted a search warrant Wednesday morning, after which Hernandez was arrested. During an interview with detectives, Hernandez admitted to recording minor victims who were "in his care at multiple local elementary schools and locker rooms for the past few years."
Hernandez also admitted to working as a counselor (at Camp Takajo) a summer camp for boys in Maine. He told detectives that's where his "sexual attraction" to minors began.
The North Kansas City School District distributed a letter to families Thursday, in which it said Hernandez worked at several elementary schools in the district, including Crestview, Fox Hill, Nashua and the EEC. He also worked in the summer school-age child care programs at Chapel Hill, Meadowbrook and Oakwood Manor. Meadowbrook and Chapel Hill are both in Gladstone.
The FBI is seeking to identify any potential victims of Hernandez. Anyone who has information or could be a victim is asked to call 1800-CALL-FBI.
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Pittsburg State University to Host Dyslexia Conference
PITTSBURG, Kan. (KRPS) — The Learning Disabilities Association of America says one in five school children nationally has a learning disability like dyslexia. KRPS reports that conference coming to Pittsburg, Kansas, is focused on the learning disability. Pittsburg State University is hosting the Missouri-Kansas branch of the International Dyslexia Association Conference in September. The two-day event will bring together families, educators and school leaders to explore structured literacy and dyslexia awareness. Jane Hayes, Vice President of the International Dyslexia Association, says the learning disability is genetic. "If it is dyslexia, then we also know that we probably have a brother, a sister, an aunt and uncle, Mom, Dad, Grandma, Grandpa, somebody else in that child's history...may or may not have been diagnosed with dyslexia," she noted. September’s conference will be at the Bicknell Center for Performing Arts and will include researchers and experts on the learning disability.
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