WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court will continue allowing residents of Arizona and Kansas to register to vote using a federal form without having to provide proof of citizenship.
The justices on Monday rejected an appeal from Republican officials in those two states who have sought to enforce laws requiring new voters to submit a birth certificate, passport or other papers documenting U.S. citizenship.
Supporters of the laws have said that they prevent noncitizens from voting, particularly those living in the U.S. illegally. Critics have said incidents of noncitizens registering to vote are extremely rare, and that such Republican-backed laws hurt voter registration efforts and disenfranchise voters from certain groups that tend to vote Democrat, including minorities and college students.
NEWTON- Police Officers were called to assist a Newton family over the weekend who found more than a run-of-the-mill firework this close to the fourth of July.
According to police The family was cleaning out a deceased relative’s residence, and discovered a live hand grenade.
The relative, a WWII veteran, had apparently kept the device as a souvenir.
Officers arrived on scene and promptly called the Wichita Police Department Bomb Squad to respond and assist.
Members of the bomb squad were able to safely remove the device from the residence and transport it in a blast proof trailer to the Harvey County Land Fill where it was detonated.
No injuries were reported, however roads were blocked in the area during the investigation.
In an effort to raise awareness and help combat veterans living in Hays, the American Legion is distributing free yard signs in advance of the Fourth of July celebration.
The signs — “Combat Veteran Lives Here. Please Be Courteous With Fireworks” — will be available Tuesday and Wednesday at the Legion, 1305 Canterbury.
“It’s not to say no fireworks. It’s just to be courteous. The biggest thing is preparing that veteran that may have PTSD that this is coming up,” said Legion Manager Lisa VanHorn. “It just helps them not be caught off-guard.”
VanHorn said 50 signs were ordered, “not knowing how many suffer from PTSD.” She expected more will be ordered next year.
The noise and even the smell of sulfur can be triggers to combat vets suffering from PTSD, VanHorn added.
The message has been spread extensively via social media (click HERE for the Legion’s Facebook page), she added, noting the community has shown extensive support for the signs — and those who have served.
“The support of this community is just phenomenal…absolutely overwhelming,” VanHorn said. “I’m just amazed.”
The word has spread so far, in fact, that a woman in Georgia inquired about having a sign shipped to a friend in Salina — a task VanHorn was taking on Monday morning.
The Legion is closed today, as well as Thursday, as Legion members will be helping withe security at Wild West Festival.
VanHorn said the signs will be available at the National Guard booth at the event.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — The University of Kansas will offer a meditation and reflection room for people of all faiths and beliefs, beginning this fall.
The room will be non-denominational and encourage tolerance of all faiths, spiritual beliefs and practices.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports the room will be in a small conference room in the Kansas Union. It will be a temporary reflection room until a permanent one can be established.
The Students Senate said in a statement that the room is a small but important step toward making the university more inclusive and diverse.
Establishing the room was a yearlong process led in part by Shegufta Huma, a Muslim who says students of her faith met in small spaces across campus for 10-to-15-minute prayer sessions they hold several times a day.
TOPEKA — The Kansas District Magistrate Judges’ Association, an organization open to all state district magistrate court judges, last week elected officers to serve the organization in the fiscal year that begins July 1.
District Magistrate Judge Guy R. Steier was elected president of the association. He has been a district magistrate judge in Cloud County since February 2005. Cloud County is in the 12th judicial district with Jewell, Lincoln, Mitchell, Republic, and Washington counties.
Before he became a district magistrate judge, Steier was in a private law practice with Gantenbein & Frasier and with Frasier & Steier, both in Beloit. Prior to that, he was a research attorney for Judge Corwin C. Spencer of the Kansas Court of Appeals.
Marty K. Clark
Steier is a graduate of Washburn University and Washburn University School of Law in 1982. He served a term on the Kansas Supreme Court Judicial Education Advisory Committee and currently serves on the Governor’s Behavioral Health Services Advisory Committee, 12th Judicial District Juvenile Services/Community Corrections Advisory Board, 12th Judicial District Supervised Visitation and Exchange Services board, and the Executive Board of the Coronado Area Council, Boy Scouts of America. He is a member and past president of the Clyde Lions Club and a member of the Clyde Community Development Resource Committee and the Knights of Columbus.
Other officers elected:
District Magistrate Judge Taylor J. Wine is first vice president and legislative chair. He is from Osage County in the 4th judicial district.
District Magistrate Judge Marty K. Clark is second vice president. He is from Russell County in the 20th judicial district.
District Magistrate Judge Philip J. Moore is third vice president. He is from Clark County in the 16th judicial district.
District Magistrate Judge Roseanna K. Mathis is treasurer. She is from Kingman County in 30th judicial district.
District Magistrate Judge Debra S. Anderson is secretary. She is from Norton County in the 17th judicial district.
Outgoing president is District Magistrate Judge Sheila P. Hochhauser is from Riley County in the 21st judicial district.
The new officers were elected at a statewide conference for judges conducted June 18 and 19 in Overland Park.
PHILLIPSBURG — The Phillipsburg Rodeo grounds sports two improvements to its grounds.
Newly built on the west side is a concessions and restroom building. Measuring 50-by-60 feet, the building will house a new concessions area and men’s and women’s restrooms.
New WW chutes were welded into place at the Phillipsburg rodeo grounds last month. The old bucking chutes will be donated to the Mid-Plains Community College rodeo program in McCook, Neb.
The building will include a storage area for food and drink, and the women’s bathroom has sixteen stalls, a vast improvement over the five that it used to have.
The building is air conditioned, and was paid for in part by the Morgan Foundation, grants, and “a lot of sweat and donated labor,” said J.D. Shelton, a rodeo committee member and the electrician working on the building. “We strive to give our rodeo fans the best facilities possible,” Shelton said.
On the east side, fans will see new bucking chutes. They were installed in May, and they are the WW brand, a high quality product. “They’re top-notch chutes,” said Steve Christy, Phillipsburg rodeo board member. “They’re made a lot heavier than the old ones. They’re an upgrade for us.” They are already welded down but more welding is being done before they will be complete.
The old chutes will be donated to the Mid-Plains Community College rodeo program in McCook, Neb. The WW chutes are made similarly to the Priefert brand of chutes, which is the brand used at the Wrangler National Finals Rodeo.
The public will notice the red color of the chutes, Christy said, but they, especially the women, will appreciate the increase in the number of restroom stalls. “Hopefully there won’t be as big of lines this year,” he said. Before 1964, the only restroom facilities at the rodeo grounds were two outhouses, each “four-holers”, and following each rodeo, the committee would receive a stack of complaint letters. In 1964, restrooms were finally constructed on the east side of the arena, and the current building on the east, which also has a meeting room, was built in 2003.
A new concessions and restroom building is completed on the west side of the Phillipsburg rodeo grounds and will offer more storage and serving space for concessions and more stalls in the restrooms.
The rodeo committee is appreciative of all the people who have made the new building and new chutes possible. “We want to thank all who donated to this project,” Shelton said. “Without Phillipsburg and Phillips County people, projects like this would not be possible.”
This year’s rodeo is July 30-August 1. Tickets go on sale July 1 at Heritage Insurance, 685 Third Street in Phillipsburg (785-543-2448). For more information, visit the website at KansasBiggestRodeo.com.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) â A child advocacy group says children in a third of Kansas counties don’t have access to summer food programs.
Many sites across the state provide the federally funded summer meals. But the Kansas Appleseed Center for Law and Justice says 35 counties don’t have any meal locations in the summer.
For example, Rebekah Gaston, an attorney for the group, says no sites are available north and west of Hays.
The Topeka Capital-Journal reports state education officials note 100 new meal sites were added this year, many in rural counties.
Obstacles to providing the meals in rural areas include finding community locations and partners willing to help and the long distances families would travel to reach the meal sites.
“Ted 2” is a Seth MarFarlane-directed live-action comedy. Unfortunately, that sentence is losing a little of its luster. Don’t misunderstand, I love Seth MarFarlane’s sense of humor and the content that he produces; however, “Ted 2” suffers from many of the same problems that plagued “Ted,” in many cases, to a greater degree.
There are laughs, there is irreverence and there is referentiality, in spades. Those qualities together do not a great comedy make. Shock value is almost unattainable by MarFarlane at this point. He’s known as one of the most offensive comics out there and going for shock-value laughs is a dangerous game. Replacing quality with shock value is kind of like the comedic equivalent of substituting a cute dog for a good story (see “Max” review).
“Ted 2” certainly has its charms, but I doubt they will age well. A film like “A Million Ways to Die in the West” has grown on me since its release, “Ted” hasn’t and “Ted 2” certainly won’t. Seth MarFarlane is an fantastic producer and actor; however, his skill as a director hasn’t yet been fully realized. There are dramatic and comedic lulls in “Ted 2” that are distracting and break the momentum of the film.
Furthermore, there is something different about film comedy and television comedy. It’s somewhat easier for a television show to set up running gags and callback jokes when the distance between the original joke and the callback is great enough to make the callback seem like seeing an old friend again. In film, the time distance is much smaller and therefore the callback isn’t as novel and if the original joke was a less-than-stellar, the callback is wasted effort. My point being, MarFarlane is crossing the streams. His movies try to use television comedy approaches and sometimes it lands and other times it bounces off. “Ted 2” is about half and half.
It’s old news by now that mountain lions (aka cougars) were finally confirmed in Kansas s few years back.
After years of reports and much speculation (some folks even believing that Kansas Wildlife and Parks had transplanted mountain lions here in Kansas to help control burgeoning whitetail deer populations,) cougar sightings in Kansas were confirmed.
The first confirmed mountain lion sighting in modern times occurred in 2007 when one was shot in Barber County in south-central Kansas, and 9 more sightings have been confirmed by Wildlife and Parks since. The last documented cougar sighting in KS prior to that was in Ellis County in 1904.
Settlers on the Kansas plains would have found gray wolves, (aka timber wolves) living here, but by the turn of the century they had been totally eradicated from the state. In December 2012 coyote hunters in northwest Kansas brought down what appeared to be an extremely large coyote weighing around 80 pounds.
Tissue samples taken by the US Fish and Wildlife Service confirmed that the animal was in fact a gray wolf from the Great Lakes population. Gray wolves have been known to wander into Missouri and Nebraska from northern states but this was the first confirmed gray wolf in Kansas since 1900.
American black bears were also once common in eastern Kansas, but they too were exterminated from the state by the late 1800’s. About a week ago, a black bear was spotted at a couple locations in Cherokee County in the far south- eastern corner of Kansas.
Black bear sightings in that part of the state have become more frequent because of a growing population in the Ozarks since Arkansas initiated a restoration program there 50 years ago, but Missouri and parts of Oklahoma also support black bear populations. An occasional black bear also wanders into extreme southwestern Kansas also, probably from populations in Colorado and New Mexico. Grizzly bears also roamed Kansas during the same time frame as black bears and they too were gone by the late 1800’s and have never been seen here since.
Although a grey wolf sighting in Kansas is unusual, my point to all this is that we should not be surprised to see occasional black bears and cougars in Kansas given the fact that there are viable populations of them in most surrounding states. After all it has become fairly common to see a dead armadillo along the road now and then because they have moved north over the past few years.
So far the cougars and black bears seen here have probably been young males wandering through, and no evidence has surfaced that there are breeding populations of either in Kansas yet.
There are no hunting seasons in Kansas for wolves, bears or mountain lions and although they can be shot if a landowner feels their property or family is in danger, all attempts should be made to scare them away first. Just like us humans who occasionally wander from place-to-place as our populations increase or because we desire different surroundings, so also does wildlife wander, especially young males of the species as they seek breeding territories of their own.
As I see it, even more reasons to Explore Kansas Outdoors! (Carefully)
Steve Gilliland, Inman, can be contacted by email at [email protected].
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — The state-run program that administers Medicaid is seeking volunteer ombudsman for Kansas City, Johnson County and Wichita.
The KanCare Ombudsman office says it needs the volunteers to answer residents’ questions about the program and help with appeals or complaints.
Currently there is only KanCare ombudsman Kerrie Bacon, who is based in Topeka. She says she mostly deals with questions through phone calls and e-mails, and it will help to have volunteer ombudsmen see clients in person.
Bacon told The Wichita Eagle most of the calls she answers come from Kansas City and Wichita.
A 30-hour training course for the three volunteer locations begins Aug. 1.
HOWARD CITY, Neb. (AP) — Authorities say five people have been injured in an accident at a tractor pull near Grand Island.
The Grand Island Independent reports the incident happened Sunday afternoon in Howard City, leaving four men and woman injured. Two of them were critically injured.
According to a press release from Howard County Sheriff Tom Busch, a tractor and sled collided with event staff, participants and multiple vehicles.
The victims were transported to CHI Health St. Francis in Grand Island. The cause of the accident is under investigation.
Author Seth Kastle will make an appearance at the Hays Public Library at 4 p.m. Monday, June 29.
Kastle is the author of “Why is Dad So Mad?” The book is for children in military families whose father battles with combat related post-traumatic stress disorder.
Highs will warm to around the 100 degree mark for Tuesday and Wednesday. A pattern change will bring increasing chances for thunderstorms after Wednesday with slightly cooler temps.
Today Sunny, with a high near 95. North wind 5 to 8 mph. Tonight Mostly clear, with a low around 64. North northeast wind around 7 mph becoming south southwest after midnight.
Tuesday Mostly sunny and hot, with a high near 100. South southwest wind 7 to 10 mph.
Tuesday NightPartly cloudy, with a low around 72. South wind around 11 mph.
WednesdayA slight chance of showers and thunderstorms between 11am and 2pm. Partly sunny and hot, with a high near 100. Southwest wind 9 to 13 mph becoming north in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 20%.
Wednesday NightPartly cloudy, with a low around 68.
ThursdayA 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny, with a high near 89.
Thursday NightA 30 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly cloudy, with a low around 65.
FridayA 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms. Mostly sunny, with a high near 88.
Friday NightPartly cloudy, with a low around 63.
Independence DayMostly sunny, with a high near 91.
