Kansas manager’s missive – which claimed workers were calling out ‘at a staggering rate’ – caused an uproar online
A manager of an Olive Garden restaurant in Kansas was out of a job after warning subordinates to look for other work if they requested time off.
In an unusually harsh message that went viral online, the manager – whose name was not publicly released – complained that staffers at her eatery in Overland Park were staying off work “at a staggering rate”.
Continue reading...Allison Fluke-Ekren’s children told the court that their mother had a ‘lust for control and power’ and deserved the maximum sentence
A Kansas woman who led an all-female Islamic State battalion when she lived in Syria has been sentenced to 20 years in prison – the maximum possible sentence – after her own children denounced her in court and detailed the horrific circumstances and abuse she heaped on them.
Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, admitted that she led the Khatiba Nusaybah, a battalion in which roughly 100 women and girls – some as young as 10 years old – learned how to use automatic weapons and detonate grenades and suicide belts.
Continue reading...Program has been paused as the court considers a motion filed by six Republican-led states
Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans has been temporarily halted by a federal appeals court as it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the program.
The eighth circuit court of appeals issued the temporary stay on Friday, ordering the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal.
Continue reading...The strategies that worked in Kansas – countering misinformation, building a broad coalition – offers lessons for other ballot measures
In February, long before organizers in Kansas had made the hundreds of thousands of calls, knocked on the tens of thousands of doors; or did the thousands of media interviews needed to win a monumental race against an anti-abortion amendment, they started having parties.
Sometimes they were small parties: parties where tea and cookies were handed out, and people sat in living rooms getting to know one another. Other times, they sat around a dinner table, drinking wine with strangers.
Continue reading...Following her visit to Taiwan and China’s furious response, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi has reiterated her commitment to standing up for the country and said it’s shared by lawmakers across the US Congress.
“Our Congressional delegation’s visit should be seen as a strong statement that America stands with Taiwan. We came to Taiwan to listen to, learn from and show our support for the people of Taiwan, who have built a thriving Democracy that stands as one of the freest and most open in the world,” Pelosi said in a statement after the trip.
Continue reading...Kansas is the first state to put abortion rights to a vote since the supreme court overturned Roe v Wade
Kansans secured a huge win for abortion rights in the US on Tuesday night when they voted to continue to protect abortion in the state constitution.
The race was called by a host of US groups including NBC News, the New York Times and Decision Desk HQ.
Continue reading...The ballot measure is the first of many across the country that will decide where and how women can preserve reproductive rights
In the first of a wave of referendums across the country on abortion rights, Kansas voters will decide on Tuesday whether the state’s constitution protects the right to terminate a pregnancy.
Should Kansans pass the ballot measure, it would give state lawmakers leeway to ban the procedure, which they appear likely to do.
Continue reading...Thousands are without power after a suspected twister tore through parts of the state on Friday evening
A suspected tornado that barrelled through parts of Kansas damaged multiple buildings, injured several people and left more than 6,500 people without power, officials said.
Officials said the suspected twister moved though parts of south-east Wichita and Andover on Friday evening. Andover fire chief, Chad Russell, said during a news conference on Saturday morning that 50 to 100 buildings were damaged in Sedgwick County, though it was not immediately known how many buildings were damaged in Andover.
Continue reading...Getting a place right shouldn’t be hard, so why does TV show Somebody Somewhere’s accurate depiction of the midwest feel like a miracle?
One Saturday last fall, my husband and I bought an antique clawfoot bathtub in Manhattan, Kansas. After loading it from a stranger’s backyard into the bed of our truck, we walked to The Chef, a downtown diner, figuring we might be seated quickly with half the town tailgating at the Kansas State University football game.
We drank bloody Marys on the patio among white, Black and brown diners while purple school flags waved in the autumn breeze. Our server pointed to a pile of blankets in case I got chilly.
Continue reading...Bob Dole, the long-time Kansas senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1996, has died at the age of 98. Born in Russell, Kansas in 1923, Dole served in the US infantry in the second world war, suffering serious wounds in Italy and winning a medal for bravery.
In 1976 he was the Republican nominee for vice-president to Gerald Ford, in an election the sitting president lost to Jimmy Carter. Two decades later, aged 73, Dole won the nomination to take on Bill Clinton, to whom he lost.
Continue reading...Bob Dole, the long-time Kansas senator who was the Republican nominee for president in 1996, has died. He was 98.
In a statement, the Elizabeth Dole Foundation – founded by Dole’s wife, a former North Carolina senator and cabinet official – said: “It is with heavy hearts we announced that Senator Robert Joseph Dole died earlier this morning in his sleep. At his death at age 98 he had served the United States of America faithfully for 79 years.”
Continue reading...Lisa Montgomery pronounced dead on Wednesday morning after supreme court cleared path for her death
A Kansas woman was executed early on Wednesday, the first time in nearly seven decades that the US government has put to death a female inmate.
Lisa Montgomery, 52, was pronounced dead at 1.31am after receiving a lethal injection at the federal prison complex in Terre Haute, Indiana. She was the 11th prisoner to receive a lethal injection there since July when Donald Trump, an ardent supporter of capital punishment, resumed federal executions after a 17-year hiatus.
Continue reading...Experts predict an increase in deaths across the region, made significantly worse by lawmakers who question the value of face coverings
Three months ago, the Republican governor of Missouri chose not to wear a mask in a shop, because he said he wasn’t going to let the government tell him what to do. Mike Parson visited a hardware store to celebrate its reopening after he lifted Missouri’s coronavirus lockdown over the objections of health professionals and mayors of major cities.
Parson said the worst of the pandemic was past and the economic impact of the shutdown was worse than the virus. As for masks, the governor dismissively claimed “there was a lot of information on both sides” over whether to wear one so he wasn’t going to require people to do so.
Continue reading...Merrick adopted after benefactor paid $3,000 for his photograph to appear on a giant billboard
A dog who waited more than five and a half years in a Kansas City shelter for adoption has found a permanent home after a benefactor paid $3,000 for his photograph to appear on a giant billboard.
Merrick, a six-year-old mixed breed, sat for dozens of photoshoots and videos in a prolonged but unsuccessful social media campaign to find him a home during more than 2,000 days’ confinement at the Humane Society shelter.
Continue reading...The US secretary of state, Mike Pompeo, launched a personal Twitter account on Saturday with simple message about the big football game of the day: #GoArmyBeatNavy.
Related: What has Mike Pompeo got to swagger about and why is he doing it in Kansas?
Continue reading...There has been a spate of tornadoes in the US over the last two weeks as a volatile mix of warm, moist air from the south-east and persistent cold from the Rocky Mountains clashes over the midwest
Continue reading...Sweltering heat, storms and possible twisters were expected to hit the southern plains and south-eastern states on Memorial Day, on the heels of deadly tornadoes and flooding.
Related: Are hurricanes getting stronger – and is the climate crisis to blame?
Continue reading...A tiger mauled a zookeeper at the Topeka Zoo in north-eastern Kansas on Saturday.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reported the incident happened around 9.30am, when a Sumatran tiger named Sanjiv tackled the worker in an enclosed outdoor space.
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