Articles written by John Hanna
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Viral video of Biden effigy beating prompts calls for top Kansas Republican leaders to resign
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two top Kansas Republican Party officials are facing internal calls to resign over a viral online video showing people at a fundraiser kicking and beating a mannequin wearing a mask of President Joe Biden, underscoring the...
Voters backed abortion rights. Yet Kansas could make doctors ask patients why they want abortions
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas moved closer Thursday to requiring abortion providers to ask patients why they want to terminate their pregnancies and report the answers to the state. It would join other states with Republican legislatures that ban...
Conspiracies hinder GOP's efforts in Kansas to cut the time for returning mail ballots
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A repeating of baseless election conspiracy theories in the Republican-controlled Kansas Legislature appears to have scuttled GOP lawmakers' efforts this year to shorten the time that voters have to return mail ballots. The stat...
A GOP split thwarted election conspiracy promoters in Kansas and sank tighter mail ballot rules
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A deep split among Republican lawmakers in Kansas on Tuesday doomed proposals from election conspiracy promoters to upend how the state conducts elections and also sank an effort with broader GOP support to shorten the time vote...
States offer services for disabled kids, then make their families wait 10 years for them
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — When Lilly Miller was in elementary school, teachers told her parents they needed to immediately sign up their youngest daughter, who has Down syndrome, for a wait list so the state would pay for a day program when she grew up....
Republican dissenters sink a GOP 'flat' tax plan in Kansas by upholding the governor's veto
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Republican plan to cut taxes in Kansas died Tuesday in the GOP-controlled Legislature when enough members concluded that it would favor wealthy taxpayers too much and upheld the Democratic governor's veto. The vote in the...
In the chaos of the Kansas City parade shooting, he's hit and doesn't know where his kids are
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Jacob Gooch was having what was sure to be the best day of his year, hanging out with his wife and children and friends in the massive, happy, high-fiving crowd of fellow Kansas City Chiefs fans at the parade celebrating...
At least 6 US states are considering tougher penalties for killing police dogs
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Lawmakers in at least six states are considering longer prison sentences or bigger fines for harming or killing police dogs, and the idea has bipartisan support despite questions about how the animals are used and a fraught...
Kansas' AG is telling schools they must out trans kids to parents, even with no specific law
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas' attorney general is telling public schools they're required to tell parents their children are transgender or nonbinary even if they're not out at home, though Kansas is not among the states with a law that explicitly sa...
Kansas lawmakers are allowing a 93% pay raise for themselves to take effect next year
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is set to nearly double state legislators' pay at the start of next year, making their compensation better than it is for their counterparts in a majority of states, including more populous ones like Georgia and Texas....
As long school funding lawsuit ends in Kansas, some fear lawmakers will backslide on education goals
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas' highest court has closed out a nearly 13-year-old lawsuit that repeatedly forced the Republican-controlled Legislature to boost funding for public schools, and Democrats predicted Wednesday that GOP colleagues soon...
Kansas is poised to expand tax credit for helping disabled workers after debate over low pay
Kansas is poised to expand an income tax credit for goods and services purchased from companies and nonprofits employing disabled workers, a year after a debate over how much the state should buck a national trend against paying those workers below...
Kansas lawmakers want a report on last year's police raid of a newspaper
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Dozens of Kansas lawmakers launched an effort Tuesday to direct the state's attorney general to release information from an investigation into a police raid last year on a weekly newspaper, but it wasn't clear that their...
GOP lawmakers approve a 'flat' income tax for Kansas, but a governor's veto looms
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Republican lawmakers in Kansas on Thursday passed a broad package of tax cuts promoted as widespread relief that the Democratic governor is likely to veto because she says it favors the wealthy and threatens the state's budget i...
Kansas attorney general urges county to keep ballots longer than is allowed to aid sheriff's probe
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Republican attorney general in Kansas has urged the state's most populous county to postpone a legally required destruction of old ballots because the sheriff there says his investigation of possible election crimes remains...
Kansas courts' computer systems are starting to come back online, 2 months after cyberattack
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The court system in Kansas has started bringing its computer system for managing cases back online, two months after a foreign cyberattack forced officials to shut it down along with public access to documents and other...
Kansas' top court says a GOP election law is vague and revives a lawsuit against it
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas law that makes it a felony to impersonate an elections official is vague enough that voting rights advocates can pursue a legal challenge, the state's highest court ruled Friday, reviving a lawsuit that a lower court...
Kansas is voting on a new license plate after complaints scuttled an earlier design
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas has opened voting on five proposed designs for a new license plate, including one that closely resembles a previous design criticized and pulled for being uninspired, reminding people of the University of Missouri and...
Kansas to appeal ruling blocking abortion rules, including a medication restriction
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Republican attorney general in Kansas is appealing a state judge's ruling that has blocked enforcement of multiple abortion restrictions, including a new limit on medication and an older rule forcing patients to wait 24 hour...
Kansas can't enforce new law on abortion pills or make patients wait 24 hours, judge rules
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas judge on Monday put a new state law on medication abortions on hold and blocked older restrictions that for years have spelled out what providers must tell patients and forced patients to wait 24 hours to end their...
Kansas is poised to boost legislators' pay by $28,000 in 2025, nearly doubling it
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas is poised to nearly double its lawmakers' pay in 2025 in hopes of attracting more diverse members, only months after the Legislature boosted the salaries of other state officials. A commission created by the...
Kansas agency investigated girl's family 5 times before she was killed, a report shows
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Child welfare officials investigated the family of a 5-year-old Kansas girl five times in the 13 months before she was raped and killed, but couldn't confirm allegations of neglect or drug use by her mother, and the family...
A security problem has taken down computer systems for almost all Kansas courts
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Computer systems for almost all of Kansas' courts have been offline for five days because of what officials call a "security incident," preventing them from accepting electronic filings and blocking public access to many of thei...
A homeless man is charged with capital murder and rape in the death of a 5-year-old Kansas girl
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A 25-year-old homeless man was charged Thursday in the rape and killing of a 5-year-old Kansas girl who died despite firefighters' efforts to save her life in a gas station parking lot. Mickel Cherry faces one count of capital...
Things to know about the resignation of a Kansas police chief who led a raid on a small newspaper
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas police chief who led an August raid on a small weekly newspaper seemed to have the support of most city leaders in the weeks since the search, despite public outcry and calls for his resignation. But that changed...