Editor Brian Harrod Provides Comprehensive up-to-date news coverage, with aggregated news from sources all over the world from the Roundup Newswires Network
The question as Kansas kicks off its annual legislative session this week isn't whether lawmakers will raise taxes but rather which taxes - or more precisely, whose? The state faces a projected budget shortfall of more than $900 million for the next 18 months. There's broad consensus among lawmakers that tax increases will play some role in the solution.
The day has barely started, but Mary Stewart is already worried about one homeless student and others who arrive at her Kansas City, Kansas, high school in below-freezing temperatures with no winter coats. The principal never knows what's happened at home for these students - when they last ate, when they last slept, when they last were warm.
The Shawnee County legislative delegation placed all three senators on the chamber's budget committee and at least three House members were assigned to committees pivotal to work on tax, judicial, agriculture, energy and budget issues.
Blame game - As the state's fiscal crisis continues to deteriorate and the Legislature moves toward the center, the Brownback administration has shifted into full blame-deflection mode. A recent newsletter from the Governor's Office attacked Democrats and "the media" but didn't mention all the Republicans who are demanding change.
Donald Trump has won the presidency after narrowly carrying a few states to put him above 270 electoral votes.But according... Senate Republicans refused to give President Obama's pick to replace Supreme Court Justice Scalia even the courtesy of a... One bright bit from the 2016 elections is that there really does appear to be a limit to how badly you can screw up a state's economy before voters have had enough. Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has been testing the theory mightily during his tenure, slashing taxes for corporations and the rich, cutting state services, and creating gargantuan state deficits while promising magic ponies that continually fail to arrive.
A Kansas bank vice president and former adviser at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security has been appointed to be state bank commissioner by Gov. Sam Brownback. On Tuesday, Brownback said he was nominating Miki Bowman, of Council Grove, to lead Kansas' regulation of state-chartered banks and trust companies, savings and loan companies, mortgage businesses, supervised lenders and money transmitters.
Thousands of Kansans with intellectual and developmental disabilities are languishing on a seven-year waiting list to get services that would allow them to live independently, according to NPR. Kansas officials must address the waiting list with all possible speed, fulfilling our obligation to offer a safety net to our most vulnerable citizens.
In selecting Kansas Republican Rep. Mike Pompeo to lead the CIA, President-elect Donald Trump has chosen a strong supporter of aggressive interrogation and surveillance as a means of keeping Americans safe. If the Senate confirms Pompeo to lead a sprawling agency with 21,500 employees and an annual budget of $15 billion, Trump will have someone who reflects his views on national security.
Kansas congresswoman Lynn Jenkins will be leaving a position on the House Republicans' leadership team when the newly elected Congress convenes in January. Jenkins said Wednesday that she is stepping down as GOP conference vice chairwoman to focus on health care and tax reform legislation.
Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state whose hard-line immigration stance has caught the attention of President-elect Donald Trump, could be a candidate for attorney general. Kobach, already a member of Trump's transition team, advised Trump on immigration policy, one of the Republican's top priorities, throughout the campaign and added Trump's promise to build a wall along the southern border to the Republican Party's national platform.
Three of the president-elect's four adult children are on the team, including Ivanka Trump. Her husband, Jared Kushner, a publisher and, like Ivanka, an heir to a real estate fortune, is also on the team.
Tens of thousands of campaign mailers are flooding Kansas homes in advance of the Tuesday election. Direct mail raising "I'm-a-better-Catholic" rhetoric in incumbent Republican Sen. Jake LaTurner's bid to fight off Democratic challenger Lynn Grant, widow of former House member Bob Grant, reveals how ugly messages can be late in a campaign.
Gov. Sam Brownback has not taken a public position on efforts to oust four Supreme Court justices this fall. But his political action committee has given $65,000 to one of the organizations leading those efforts.
On such topics as foreign policy and immigration, clear policy disagreements separate the three candidates for Congress in the state's 2nd District. U.S. Rep. Lynn Jenkins, a Republican campaigning for a fifth term in Congress, is being challenged by Britani Potter, an Ottawa Democrat, and James Houston Bales, a Libertarian who lives in Lawrence.
The new Kansas home for the American Royal horse and livestock exhibition is being planned as a $160 million project that includes arenas, a museum and an agricultural education centre. American Royal officials and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback announced Tuesday that the Royal plans to move from Kansas City, Missouri, to the Kansas side of the metropolitan area.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback answers a question from a reporter during a news conference, Monday, Oct. 17, 2016, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan. The Republican governor is not ruling out a tax increase to help balance the state's budget, though he thinks it would be harmful with the state facing what he calls a rural recession less Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback answers a question from a reporter during a news conference, Monday, Oct. 17, 2016, at the Statehouse in Topeka, Kan.
The August primary already is having a positive impact: The Legislature is expected to hold hearings and vote next session on Medicaid expansion - and it could pass. It remains to be seen whether Gov. Sam Brownback will loosen his opposition to expansion - or whether the loss of more of his allies in the Nov. 8 general election is needed to help change his priorities.