11 years ago
Kansas faces a court-imposed deadline to make its arguments as a judge considers whether to explicitly strike down the state's ban on same-sex marriages. The state has asked the court to dismiss as moot the lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union challenging the ban. Kansas contends it has recognized such unions since a U.S. ...

11 years ago
A former executive of the firm managing part of the privatized Medicaid program in Kansas is ending a lawsuit alleging she was fired after protesting potentially improper cost cutting moves. A one-sentence stipulation filed Tuesday in federal court notes former Sunflower Vice President Jacqueline Leary and defendants Sunflower State Health Plan Inc., its parent Centene Corporation  ...

11 years ago
Faced with dwindling state funding, the Kansas Bioscience Authority is laying off several staff members and scaling back operations. The KBA invests public money in the biotech industry to foster startups and attract investment in Kansas. But state funding for the agency has been cut significantly since 2012. Statute allows for the KBA to receive up to ...

11 years ago
Gov. Sam Brownback's campaign recently approached a Westar Energy official for a campaign debt donation while the utility is in the process of seeking a  rate increase. The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that a Brownback campaign official contacted Mark Schreiber, Westar's government affairs vice president, more than a week ago looking for help retiring debt from the ...

11 years ago
Kansas legislative researchers say the state's cash balance could be smaller next June than lawmakers realized when they approved increases in sales and tobacco taxes to fill a $400 million budget gap. The Wichita Eagle reports the nonpartisan Legislative Research Department says Kansas will have about $67 million in its reserves by the end of the ...

11 years ago
A bail bonds scam deceives a second victim in Salina. Police report that a 21-year-old man who had recently bonded out of the Saline County Jail after a DUI charge through Midwest Bonding - was duped by a phone call from a criminal for more money. Captain Mike Sweeney tells KSAL News that someone claiming to be ...

11 years ago
A long running dispute that boiled over in a Salina front yard leads to an arrest. Police Captain Mike Sweeney tells KSAL News that officers were called to the 200 block of S. 11th Street around 10pm on July 12th after 19-year-old Tanner Wheeler allegedly pointed a speargun at a teenage male. Police say an ongoing dispute ...

11 years ago
Education authorities are raising concerns about new rules for the Kansas Public Employees Retirement System that they say could discourage retirees from teaching in Kansas classrooms. Under former rules, a teacher or school administrator could retire, draw a KPERS benefit and work full time for a new school district or his or her same school district. New ...

11 years ago
A pair of Kansas shoe store employees are being lauded for their actions after one of them found a 2-year-old locked inside a sweltering car in the parking lot. 16-year-old Porscha Bland had just left a Famous Footwear store in Merriam on Saturday afternoon when she saw the child in a car, covered in sweat and ...

11 years ago
A 54-year-old former employee of a Wichita surgery center has been found guilty of computer fraud for a mass transfer of emails that included information of 317 patients. April Galvan was found guilty Monday of seven counts of computer fraud. Authorities say that around 11:30 a.m. June 12, 2013, Galvan had been fired from Cypress Surgery Center. ...

11 years ago
President Barack Obama has signed a federal disaster declaration that will free up federal funds to help Kansas recover from recent spring storms. The federal money will go toward repairing damage to infrastructure and services damaged by May and June storms that included tornadoes, straight-line winds and flooding. Obama signed the disaster declaration Monday. Federal funding is ...