Kansas Officer Dies from Injuries After Being Shot While Responding to Car Theft
MISSION, Kan. (FOX NEWS / KCTV) — A Kansas police officer who was shot over the weekend while responding to a suspected car theft has died from his injuries. The Fairway Police Department announced Monday that 29-year-old officer Jonah Oswald died after he was critically wounded in a shooting Sunday morning. Fox News reports that Oswald leaves behind a wife and two young children. He was a four-year veteran of the police department.
"I am heartbroken at the tragic loss of Officer Jonah Oswald, who made the ultimate sacrifice while carrying out his oath to serve and protect," Fairway Chief of Police J.P. Thurlo said in a statement. "Officer Oswald was an integral part of our team and made significant contributions to our department and to the Fairway community. We will remember him as a warm-hearted individual whose hard work and passion touched the lives of many."
KCTV reports that Lenexa police responded to reports of a stolen car at a QuikTrip convenient store located at 95th Street and Interstate 35 in Lenexa around 7:30 am Sunday. When officers arrived, the suspect driving the stolen vehicle allegedly struck a police car and drove off heading north on I-35. The driver arrived at another QuikTrip location on Lamar Avenue and the two people in the vehicle ran inside. Multiple law enforcement agencies responded to the incident, including the Fairway Police Department, Kansas Highway Patrol and the Mission Police Department.
A shooting took place between the suspects and law enforcement, which is when Oswald was struck by gunfire. He was transported to a hospital in critical condition and was pronounced dead on Monday.
One of the suspects, 40-year-old Shannon Wayne Marshall, was shot and killed. The other suspect, 32-year-old Andrea Rene Cothran, was arrested and charged with aggravated assault. The case remains under investigation.
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District Court to Hear Arguments on Kansas Medication Abortion Law
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A district court judge will hear arguments today in a case where providers are looking to block a new restriction on how they dispense abortion medications. The court will also review older rules governing what doctors must tell patients and a required 24-hour wait between the first in-person consultation and the abortion procedure.
In Kansas, the impact of the overturning of Roe remains unsettled as the GOP-controlled legislature pushes to tighten laws surrounding abortion while the doctors and clinics who provide them wage fierce court battles.
Kansas has become an outlier on abortion among states with Republican-controlled Legislatures because of a 2019 decision by the state Supreme Court declaring access a matter of bodily autonomy and a “fundamental” right under the state constitution. Voters in 2022 decisively affirmed that abortion rights would remain protected — after anti-abortion groups warned that many of the state’s existing restrictions could fall.
The new law, which took effect July 1, requires providers to tell patients that a medication abortion can be stopped once it is started with a regimen that major medical groups call unproven and potentially dangerous. The state and the providers mutually agreed that the new law wouldn’t be enforced at least until the state court could decide the matter.
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In Utah and Kansas, State Courts Flex Power over New Laws Regulating Abortion Post-Roe
OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — State courts have become hot spots in the national abortion debate, with Utah's top court and a Kansas judge considering Tuesday whether their state constitutions require them to block or invalidate laws regulating the procedure more than a year after Roe v. Wade was overturned.
The U.S. Supreme Court's June 2022 decision in Dobbs v. Jackson transformed what was long a debate over the U.S. Constitution, immediately limiting the pathways abortion advocates could take in challenging restrictions from one state to the next.
“State courts are incredibly important in this moment when patients are having difficulty accessing abortion because many states have banned it entirely so patients are traveling hundreds or even thousands of miles,” Alice Wang, a Center for Reproductive Rights attorney, told reporters after arguing providers' case in a courtroom in the Kansas City area.
In Kansas, the legal battle is over how providers dispense abortion medications, what they must tell patients and a required 24-hour wait for an abortion after information required by the state is provided to the patient.
Questions about those restrictions hinge on the state constitution — and on the Kansas Supreme Court's 2019 decision declaring bodily autonomy a “fundamental” right that protects abortion access. Kansas doesn't ban most abortions until the 22nd week of pregnancy.
Judge K. Christopher Jayaram was skeptical of parts of those requirements, including provisions in place for years, but did not rule from the bench. He repeatedly questioned an attorney for the anti-abortion Alliance Defending Freedom who was arguing for the state.
The new Kansas law, which took effect July 1, requires providers to tell patients a medication abortion can be stopped once it is started with a regimen that major medical groups call unproven and potentially dangerous. While the state is free to regulate an area of medical “uncertainty,” Jayaram told the alliance's attorney, Denise Harle, that the medical literature he's read suggests there's no good, valid study supporting the regimen.
“I'm concerned about that,” he said.
The state and the providers mutually agreed that the new law wouldn’t be enforced at least until Jayaram decides whether to block the law and the other requirements while a trial of the providers' lawsuit against it goes forward.
Harle said those requirements don't limit bodily autonomy but bolster it by giving patients more information.
“It's not a right to unregulated abortion,” she said in court.
In Utah, the state's attorneys want the state Supreme Court to overrule a lower court's decision to put a 2020 state law banning most abortions on hold. They argued the “original public meaning” of the state constitution drafted in the Mormon Pioneer era in 1895 didn’t guarantee a right to abortion.
“There is no constitutional text, history or common law tradition that can support it, and yet the state’s law has been under way for one year and 28 days, allowing thousands of abortions to proceed," said Taylor Meehan, Utah's outside counsel, echoing an argument Kansas made before the 2019 decision of its highest court.
Planned Parenthood Association of Utah’s attorney Camila Vega argued that the right to an abortion aligned with the court's prior rulings on the Utah Constitution, fell under a broadly defined right to bodily autonomy and ensured other protected rights could be equally guaranteed to men and women.
In Kansas, providers argued that bans in other states only heighten the harm caused by the state's restrictions because patients are traveling much farther for care. Outside the courthouse in Salt Lake City, Planned Parenthood of Utah CEO Kathryn Boyd said if the trigger law takes effect, "Thousands will be forced to flee their communities for basic health care or carry pregnancies to term against their will.”
The Kansas and Utah cases reflect how the impact of the overturning of Roe remains unsettled 13 months later. Republican-controlled legislatures, including in Utah and Kansas, have since pushed to tighten laws surrounding abortion, prompting fierce court battles from the doctors and clinics providing them.
Kansas voters scrambled the national debate last year by decisively rejecting a proposed change in the state constitution sought by GOP lawmakers to say it doesn't grant a right to abortion. Anti-abortion groups warned that without the change — and its rebuke of the Kansas Supreme Court — the state's existing restrictions could fall.
Kentucky also voted to protect abortion rights last year, and Ohio voters on Tuesday went to the polls to vote on requirements to amend the state's constitution.
Utah is one of at least five states in which laws restricting abortion have been put on hold amid litigation. In Utah, the result is that abortion isn't banned until the 18th week of pregnancy, but lawmakers subsequently passed additional legislation striking licensing provisions for abortion clinics from state code in an effort to phase them out.
In arguments Tuesday, Utah's majority-women Supreme Court appeared skeptical of the state's claims that the lower court abused its power in putting an abortion law on hold last year. The panel probed Utah's attorneys about arguments that the state's Planned Parenthood affiliate had not raised “serious issues” enough to merit delaying the law.
In the days or weeks ahead, the Utah justices are expected to decide whether to maintain the lower court's hold on the abortion law or take the matter into their own hands due to the state constitutional questions at stake.
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15-Year-Old Kansas Boy Killed After Pickup Crashes into Bridge Rail
COUNCIL GROVE, Kan. (KAKE) — A 15-year-old Kansas boy died over the weekend after the pickup truck he was driving crashed into a bridge rail. KAKE TV reports that Kolter Litke, of Council Grove, was taken to a local hospital where he was later pronounced dead. The Morris County Sheriff's Office was notified just before 11 am Sunday about a crash south of Wilsey. A deputy arrived to find a wrecked Chevy truck. The deputy began performing CPR on the driver but to no avail. The investigation indicates the pickup went off the roadway and hit a concrete bridge rail. It's unclear what caused the vehicle to leave the road.
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Deadline Looms for Veterans to Apply for Retroactive Health Care Benefits
WICHITA, Kan. (KNS/KMUW) — Veterans have until Wednesday to apply for backdated health and disability benefits offered by a new law. The PACT Act expands health care and benefits for veterans who were exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances used in war. The substances can cause cancer and respiratory illnesses. President Joe Biden signed the act into law last year. Veterans can still apply after August 9th, but they won’t be eligible for benefits backdated by up to one year. David Jackson, with the Wichita Veteran's Affairs office, says veterans should apply quickly. "I’ve seen retroactive payments of tens of thousands or even a hundred thousand dollars for people having conditions. That’s life changing for a veteran," he said. The act means veterans no longer have to prove that exposure to toxic substances during their service caused certain health conditions. Visit va.gov to learn more.
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New App Seeks to Help Declining Bee Populations
UNDATED (KNS) — Scientists hope to speed up research on pollinators with artificial intelligence and the public’s help. The new Bee Machine app identifies bees that people photograph in the wild with their smartphones. This could help scientists track increasingly hard-to-find species, like the American Bumblebee, and identify tricky species that look similar to each other.
Kansas State University entomologist Brian Spiesman created Bee Machine and says the app is still learning to identify many lesser-known bees. “Probably a lot of the general public doesn't even realize they’re bees, because they're so small," says Spiesman. "They're very important no only for agriculture, but for our natural ecosystem." Native bees pollinate many plants that European honeybees cannot.
Many insect species are declining globally and scientists are scrambling to piece together a better picture of what’s happening.
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Conservation Group Sues Kansas to Enforce Quivira Water Rights
TOPEKA, Kan. (TCJ) — A lawsuit filed last month in Shawnee County District Court seeks to force the state to enforce the water rights for the Quivira National Wildlife Refuge. According to the Topeka Capital-Journal, Audubon of Kansas filed a motion seeking to enforce the refuge's water right at the expense of farmers and other landowners in the Rattlesnake Creek Basin in south-central Kansas.
Negotiations between the refuge and landowners have been ongoing for several years, but the conservation group says a lack of progress led to the filing. The latest lawsuit comes on the heels of an earlier suit filed in U.S. District Court. A federal appeals court dismissed that lawsuit earlier this year.
Many areas of the state have been hit by a drought, and the water table in the Quivira area has declined slightly. Audubon says that drought buts thousands of birds at risk, including numerous endangered species, that migrate through the area each year. The Quivira National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1955 and is listed as a Wetland of Global Importance.
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Report: More than 50% of Rural Hospitals At-Risk of Closing
WICHITA, Kan. (KWCH) — More than half of the rural hospitals in Kansas are at risk of closing. Kansas Governor Laura Kelly says the issue is now at a crisis level. KWCH TV reports that 60 of the state's 104 rural hospitals are at-risk of closing. Twenty-nine of those hospitals are at immediate risk of closing.
The governor thinks the best way to fix the problem is by expanding Medicaid, just as most states - including the four surrounding Kansas - have done. Kansas is one of 10 states that has not. Kelly has presented a bill to expand Medicaid to state lawmakers five times already, but it’s failed each time. “I’m not going to give up. I will be presenting to the legislature my 6th proposal when they come back in January. I will continue to advocate aggressively for Medicaid expansion," she said.
Expanding Medicaid would raise the cutoff for income requirements which would allow more people to use it. Kelly says if the state expanded the program, about 150,000 more Kansans would be eligible. The Federal Government would pay 90% of the costs of the program, the state would cover the other 10%.
Under Medicaid expansion, a would need to make less than $20,000 a year to qualify. For households with more people, the income requirement goes up.
Expanding Medicaid wouldn’t just help low-income Kansans. Brian Barta, the CEO of William Newton Hospital in Winfield, said it would also take pressure off hospital systems to come up with the money if a person can’t afford to pay for services and doesn’t have health insurance. “The cost of us providing care for uninsured and under-insured individuals is about 2 and a half million dollars, and that’s our cost just to break even." she said. "So, expanding the coverage to individuals, it’s not going to solve our problems but it’s going to help reduce that burden,” he said.
"We have a lot of facilities that are currently at-risk of closing," Barta said. "We’ve seen a number of them close over the last five, six years. We expect there to be more."
Many Republican lawmakers remain opposed to Medicaid expansion. Most of them cite the cost of expansion as the main reason for their opposition.
A 2022 survey by Fort Hays State University indicated more than 70% of Kansans support Medicaid expansion.
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Kansas Governor Launches PAC to Support Democrats; Moderate Republicans
TOPEKA, Kan. (LT) — Democratic Governor Laura Kelly is seeking to support select Republican legislative candidates through a political action committee she launched this week. According to the Lawrence Times, Kelly will use the Middle of the Road PAC to support both Democratic and moderate Republicans in an effort to weaken the conservative coalition that currently enjoys a two-thirds majority in the Legislature. That majority overrode several of Kelly's vetoes last session. There are 165 seats available in the 2024 election. The newly launched PAC would support candidates Kelly deems moderate in both the August primary and November general elections.
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Kansas Bar Where Gunfire Wounded 9 Last Month Closes Permanently
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The Wichita bar where nine people were wounded by gunfire last month has permanently closed. An attorney for City Nightz told the Wichita Eagle that the club owner felt he had no choice but to close because of all the negative publicity and because police blamed the bar for the shooting. The city suspended City Nightz's liquor license for 30 days after the shooting, and the year-old club never reopened.
Nine people were shot July 2 and two others trampled in the chaos afterward. No one died. Police have said that the seven men and two women who were shot ranged in age from 22 to 34. Several people have been arrested but the investigation continues.
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$1,000 Grants for Educational Help Available for Kansas Students
TOPEKA, Kan. (KPR) — As a new school year approaches, the state of Kansas is giving away $1,000-per-student to eligible families to help them pay for school supplies and other education materials. Kansas recently expanded a program that can help families save money on a multitude of educational goods and services. The Kansas Educational Enrichment Program, or KEEP, provides each student with a one-time $1,000 award. The money can be used to purchase a variety of academic enrichment goods and services, including educational materials, school supplies, or tutoring. The money can even be used for musical instruments and lessons. Income guidelines apply. More information can be found online at keep.ks.gov.
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KU Men's Hoops Loses First Exhibition Game Since 2012 to Bahamian National Team
BAYAMON, Puerto Rico (AP) — The University of Kansas had its 35-game exhibition winning streak in men's basketball snapped Monday by the Bahamian national team, which got big performances from NBA stars Buddy Hield and Eric Gordon in an 87-81 victory at Ruben Rodriguez Coliseum.
Hield scored 19 points and Gordon had 12 for the Bahamas, which is preparing for the upcoming FIBA World Cup.
The Jayhawks, who had not lost an exhibition since 2012, routed a select team from Puerto Rico to begin a three-game tour of the Caribbean last Thursday. Their new-look lineup led by Michigan transfer Hunter Dickinson and returning starters Dajuan Harris Jr., KJ Adams Jr. and Kevin McCullar Jr. proceeded to hold off the Bahamas 92-87 in their second game Saturday.
Gordon, who signed with the Suns last month, joined the Bahamian squad for the matchup Monday. He previously played for the U.S. in international competition but has been cleared to play for the Bahamas because his mother is originally from Nassau.
Harris scored 23 points and McCullar had 19 in the tour finale for the Jayhawks, who are expected to be No. 1 when the preseason AP Top 25 is released later this year. Dickinson added 16 points and nine rebounds while Nicolas Timberlake scored 13.
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This summary of area news is curated by KPR news staffers, including J. Schafer, Laura Lorson, Tom Parkinson and Kaye McIntyre. Our headlines are generally posted by 10 am weekdays and updated throughout the day. These ad-free headlines are made possible by KPR members. Become one today. You can also follow KPR News on Twitter.