Salina Rep. Steven Howe was among Republican conservatives in the Kansas House skeptical about COVID-19 vaccines, but encouragement of trusted friends and family convinced him to accept Pfizer’s vaccine in August.
Photo by MChe Lee on Unsplash
As COVID-19 case counts rise just a week into the school year, students in Lawrence schools have been directed to isolate after potential exposure to the virus. That’s problematic for learning — and for students who need meals.
Tim Carpenter/Kansas Reflector
People testifying to 20 legislators Friday at the University of Kansas’ business school requested congressional maps not be recast by the Republican-led Legislature for the purpose of unseating U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids, and they asked for lawmakers to turn aside map proposals that harmed representation in communities of color.
Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector
A group of Kansas lawmakers will be in Lawrence on Friday to hold a public hearing and gather community input ahead of efforts to redraw legislative districts before the 2022 election.
Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector
Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson warned state and federal guidance aimed at countering spread of a more hostile variant of COVID-19 could damage the state’s economic recovery and unnecessarily confuse Kansans who managed to reclaim normalcy in their lives.
Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez said Tuesday that she won’t prosecute anyone under a new state law that caused nonprofits to halt voter registration efforts at the start of July, but the groups won’t immediately resume engaging with voters.
Mackenzie Clark / The Lawrence Times
Douglas County District Attorney Suzanne Valdez announced Tuesday that she would not prosecute violations of a newly effective law in the state of Kansas that makes it a felony for individuals to engage in conduct that would make a person think they are an elections worker.
Noah Tabora/Kansas Reflector
Kansas lawmakers are praising a new law that creates the crime of sexual extortion and removes a spousal exemption to sexual battery. It also prohibits a court from ordering a victim of a crime to undergo a psychological evaluation.
Noah Taborda/Kansas Reflector
“The state has long prided itself on its status as the home to the voter roll police, but it has among the worst list maintenance procedures in the country given its failure to use any technology that allows it to check its rolls against the rolls of other states — a far cry from the state’s public image,” Jessica Huseman writes.
Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector
Only 27 of 165 Kansas legislators holding office in 2010 — a mere 16% — have been able to harness the desire, persuasiveness, money or luck to still hold seats in the House or Senate.
