Sorted by date Results 1 - 13 of 13
BELLE PLAINE, Kan. (AP) — The top election official in Kansas violated the state's open records law by refusing to release the names of people who cast provisional ballots or say whether their votes were counted, according to a lawsuit filed Wednesday. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas sued Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab in Shawnee County District Court seeking a court order that would force him to disclose the information. ACLU filed the lawsuit on behalf of Loud Light, a non-profit group whose mission is to increase voter t...
BELLE PLAINE, Kan. (AP) — A civil rights group on Thursday launched "The Clemency Project" to try to secure the release of Kansas prisoners whose medical conditions make them vulnerable to the coronavirus, following a stinging defeat in court. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas filed the first round of what it anticipates will be dozens of individualized clemency petitions seeking relief for their clients from the state parole board and Gov. Laura Kelly. The move comes days after Leavenworth District Judge David King threw out the g...
BELLE PLAINE, Kan. (AP) — Kansas harvester Mike Keimig is growing increasingly anxious about whether the foreign seasonal workers he needs to run his nine combines and drive his grain trucks will arrive in time for the start of the winter wheat harvest, which is just weeks away. His regular crew mostly comprises farm kids from South Africa who return to work for him every year, but they are stuck overseas. The paperwork for about half of the 20 agricultural worker visas he has applied for remains in limbo at the shuttered U.S. Consulate in J...
BELLE PLAINE, Kan. (AP) — Kansas ranchers eager to prepare their land for cattle grazing have mostly brushed off the plea from state health officials to voluntarily cut back this spring's prairie burning to reduce air pollution during the coronavirus pandemic. With the potential of the pandemic overwhelming the state's medical facilities, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment on March 26 encouraged land owners and managers to reduce burned acres this spring in an effort to mitigate respiratory concerns connected to breathing the s...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A civil rights group asked the Kansas Supreme Court on Thursday to immediately release prisoners who have preexisting medical conditions that make them vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas filed the class action petition on behalf of seven inmates being housed at Lansing Correctional Facility, the Ellsworth Correctional Facility and the Topeka Correctional Facility. They are seeking an expedited hearing before the state's highest court on the request by the named plaintiffs and o...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas man awarded more than $1.5 million on Monday after spending 23 years in prison for a double murder he did not commit plans to continue his fight against those responsible for his nightmare, his attorney said. In addition to the monetary compensation, Lamonte McIntyre of Kansas City, Kansas, also received on Monday a certificate of innocence from Shawnee County District Judge Teresa L. Watson as part of a resolution of a mistaken-conviction lawsuit McIntyre filed last year. "Today, Lamonte McIntyre has been d...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The U.S. House Judiciary Committee on Thursday questioned the adequacy of the protections against workplace harassment and misconduct in the judicial branch after a federal judge in Kansas was publicly reprimanded for sexually harassing female employees and having an extramarital affair with an offender. The Judicial Council for the 10th U.S. Circuit admonished U.S. District Judge Carlos Murguia last September for subjecting employees to sexually suggestive comments, inappropriate text messages and excessive, non-work c...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Ninety-three percent of the Kansas Highway Patrol's traffic stops in 2017 involved cars with out-of-state plates, according to a lawsuit challenging the practice as an infringement on motorists' constitutional rights. In an amended lawsuit filed Thursday on behalf of three plaintiffs, including two Oklahoma brothers who initially filed the complaint, the American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas and a Kansas City, Missouri, law firm contend that the traffic stop statistics show that the Kansas Highway Patrol specifically t...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A man who claims he was banished from Kansas as a condition of a plea deal could be allowed back in the state under an agreement reached Monday, although a county prosecutor disputes that he was ever banned from returning. The American Civil Liberties Union of Kansas said in a news release that it has agreed to drop a civil lawsuit brought on behalf of Bo Dana Rupert in exchange for an amended Montgomery County plea agreement in a related criminal case against him. Court transcripts show Rupert pleaded no contest in 2017 t...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A group that supports abortion rights on Thursday filed a lawsuit challenging a Kansas ban on telemedicine abortions, a practice that allows women in rural areas to get abortion pills without an in-office consultation in a city clinic. The Center for Reproductive Rights contends the anti-abortion section in the Kansas Telemedicine Act is unconstitutional because it treats women seeking abortions differently from other patients seeking medical care through telemedicine. It also argues the provision creates an undue burden t...
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A federal judge ruled Monday that Kansas cannot require documentary proof of U.S. citizenship to register to vote, finding such laws violate the constitutional right to vote in a ruling with national implications for voting rights. The ruling by U.S. District Judge Julie Robinson is the latest setback for Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach, who has championed such laws and led President Donald Trump's now-defunct voter fraud commission. The 118-page decision consolidated two cases challenging a Kansas voter r...
HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — Crews grappling with vexing wildfires that have charred hundreds of square miles of land in four states and killed six people soon may get a bit of a break: Winds are forecast to ease from the gusts that whipped the flames. Bill Bunting, forecast operations chief for the Oklahoma-based Storm Prediction Center, said Tuesday the powerful wind gusts that fanned the wildfires in Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas should diminish to about 10 to 20 mph on Wednesday. He said temperatures should top in the 70s, with a...
GARDEN CITY, Kan. (AP) — Dr. Scarlett Gard's passion for humanitarian work took her to India and Bangladesh. After finishing her medical training, she set off for a place she knew had a diverse population in need of doctors: western Kansas. Gard came to the meatpacking town of Garden City to work with Somali immigrants — a population that's become the cornerstone of an effort by a growing network of rural hospitals to entice doctors to come practice in sparsely populated hamlets across western Kansas. The innovative recruiting effort grew out...
