WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Local government officials in the second most populous county in Kansas are grappling with a challenge by atheists to a decades-old practice of opening meetings with prayer, prompting a Sedgwick County Commissioner to say during a public meeting Tuesday that if they don't believe in God, he doesn't care if they "go to hell."

Sedgwick County commissioners are planning to meet with their attorney behind closed doors in the wake of a letter from the Freedom From Religion Foundation, a group based in Madison, Wisconsin, that advocates for separation of church and state.

The Wi...