Gov. Laura Kelly called the "foreign adversary" legislation overly broad and said implementation of the bill could open up the state to constitutional violations. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly condemned a land property bill stemming from Republican fear of foreign country intrusion as overly broad and unconstitutional. Kelly on Friday vetoed Senate Bill 172, which attempted to restrict “foreign adversary” companies’ real estate ownership in Kansas. The legislation would have blocked people and businesses from “countries of concern,” such as China and Iran, from ac ..read more

Reproductive rights advocates hold up signs during a Monday, April 29, 2024 rally in the Statehouse. Despite widespread Kansan support for reproductive rights, lawmakers continue to chip away at abortion protections in the state. (Rachel Mipro/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly used her veto pen on legislation that would have opened up a pathway for child support claims to be made on behalf of fetuses, characterizing the legislation as a blatant attempt by extreme politicians to “take more control over women.” Senate Bill 232, supported by anti-abortion lobbying organizations, would ..read more

Kansas Supreme Court Justice Melissa Taylor Standridge, center, authored the court's decision that a Reno County District Court judge violated the constitutional rights of a defendant by striking his testimony from the court record. Appeals in the case resulted in overturning all the defendant's convictions. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — John R. Cantu was placed on trial in Reno County District Court for stalking, violation of a protection order, property damage, trespass and criminal threat charges after allegedly terrorizing a woman and children in their home by throwing a cinde ..read more

It’s been one year since the U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved the first over-the-counter birth control pill, Opill, and less than two months since it hit store shelves. Advocates celebrate its availability but say access is still lacking in terms of cost barriers and insurance coverage. (Justin Sullivan/Getty Images) Sriha Srinivasan remembers how surprised her mom was two years ago when she learned that birth control pills weren’t sold in stores without a prescription in the United States. “My parents are immigrants from India, and it’s been over the counter there since my mom can ..read more

Members of the NAACP on June 24, 1964, in Washington, D.C., protest the disappearance of three civil rights activists from Mississippi. (Archive Photos/Getty Images) As we approach the 60th anniversary of Freedom Summer, the similarities between that era and today are striking. Voting rights, the cause that drew about 1,000 white, affluent students from across the country to volunteer in rural Mississippi, remains under assault in state legislatures, including ours. Anti-war protests continue to boil across American college campuses and battalions of police have been sent in to quash tho ..read more

Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas participates in a fireside chat with Mike L. Sena during the National Fusion Center Association 11th Annual Training Event on March 28, 2024, at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, D.C. (Tia Dufour/DHS) WASHINGTON — The Biden administration announced Thursday it’s proposing changes to the asylum system that would allow immigration officials to reject asylum seekers who have a criminal record that poses a threat to national security or public safety and quickly remove them. Those changes will occur during the initial screening stages, a senior ..read more

A Wichita man has been charged with threatening the president, following two social media posts and an encounter with police officers. (Getty Images) TOPEKA — A Wichita man with severe developmental delays and mental health issues faces 21 months in jail after he threatened to kill President Joe Biden. The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Kansas announced the sentencing of 28-year-old Cody McCormick on Wednesday. McCormick pleaded guilty to one count of making a threat against the president of the United States. McCormick is accused of sending a Wichita television station a Facebook ..read more

Rep. Kristey Williams, the Augusta Republican and chairperson of the House K-12 Budget Committee, negotiated a budget bill offering state-funded incentives to school districts that hired a Pennsylvania security vendor, but not that company's rival vendors, to provide artificial intelligence services capable of identifying gun-toting people in school buildings. (Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector) TOPEKA — Firearm detection software company ZeroEyes hired lobbyists in Kansas and more than a dozen other states this year to improve prospects of cornering the market on multimillion-dollar school dist ..read more

"El Arco," a sculpture by Armando Minjárez Monárrez, was erected in Garden City last year. (Brett Crandall for Kansas Reflector) In Garden City — the rural heart of the high plains — stands “El Arco,” a 14-foot-tall sculpture erected in 2023. You can find the artwork on 8th Street, in Garden City’s historic downtown, across from Central Cup Coffee House. Clad in a yellow-orange ombre of ceramic tiles printed with a “photo album” of the city that helped mold the artist — Armando Minjárez Monárrez — the sculpture both reflects the life of the artist and our own lives and times. It suggests both ..read more

Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, R-La., right, and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., stand for the national anthem during the statue dedication ceremony for civil rights leader Daisy Bates in Statuary Hall at the U.S. Capitol on May 8, 2024, in Washington, D.C. Bates was a civil rights activist from Arkansas who was a mentor to the Little Rock Nine, a group of Black students who desegregated schools in Arkansas. The statue of Bates is replacing one of Uriah M. Rose, an attorney and former president of the Arkansas Bar Association. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images) WASHINGTON — Effor ..read more