Author: KMAN Staff

Kansas 66th District Representative Sydney Carlin announced that she has filed for reelection. She says doing so required driving to Topeka. Carlin says she feels she brings a lot of experience to the table as a politician. Carlin has represented the 66th District in the Kansas House of Representatives since being elected in 2000. She will be up for reelection this November. The deadline for filing for election is June 1.

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TOPEKA (AP)- The spread of the coronavirus across Kansas is touching prisons, ranchers and the state’s revenue. Kansas reported at least 168 confirmed cases of the coronavirus Thursday, with three deaths. Unemployment also has spiked because of the economic fallout from the pandemic, with the unemployment claims last week 12 times as high as the previous week. Gov. Laura Kelly said the state’s tax collections likely are already being affected by the virus. Also Thursday, Sedgwick County said about 200 inmates have been released from the county jail. The state also asked farmers and ranchers to reduce the number of…

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Members of the Manhattan Alliance for Peace and Justice called for the resignation of Riley County Commissioner Marvin Rodriguez during Thursday’s Riley County commission meeting. This is due to the comments Rodriguez made during the special meeting on March 18. These comments are being seen as racist since he says the risk of COVID-19 is low in the county due to “not having any Chinese.” One of the members, Fanny Fang, is the daughter of Chinese immigrants and has been living in Manhattan for most of her life. “When I heard of Commissioner Rodriguez’s racist remarks, it only reminds of…

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UPDATE AS OF 4:30 PM (3/26/2020): Riley County now has two confirmed positive cases of COVID-19. The first patient is a 57 year-old Manhattan woman who visited the Kansas City area last weekend and returned to her private residence in Topeka, where she remains in home isolation. “She was tested in Topeka on Monday and has been in isolation in that location ever since. She did not travel anywhere in the Manhattan area since being exposed,” Riley County Health Department Director Julie Gibbs said Thursday at her daily news conference. The second patient is a Fort Riley soldier who resides…

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MEDICINE LODGE, Kan. — The Kansas National Guard has sent two helicopters to help local firefighters battle wildfires burning about 20-25 miles southwest of Medicine Lodge in Barber County. The agency says in a news release that the UH-60 Black Hawk helicopters from the Kansas National Guard’s 1st Battalion, 108th Aviation out of Salina are equipped with collapsible 660-gallon water buckets. The Kansas Forest Service has also deployed an air tanker to make water drops. Gov. Laura Kelly has issued a disaster declaration for the fires.

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TOPEKA, Kan. — The number of jobless workers in Kansas who filed initial unemployment claims last week was 12 times as high as it was the week before as measures to control the spread of the new coronavirus took their toll on the economy. The U.S. Department of Labor reported Thursday that Kansas had almost 23,700 initial claims for unemployment for the seven-day period ending Saturday. The department said the figure for the previous week was less than 1,800. The increase was 1,250%. It was easily the largest percentage jump in at least 20 years. Some 60% of the state’s…

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The USD 383 Manhattan/Ogden School Board approved an emergency purchase Wednesday of Internet hot spots and iPad insurance, during a special meeting. Doing so will allow students in the district without Internet be able to complete necessary school work to finish out the year from home. This purchase is part of the continuous learning program. Director of Business Services Lew Faust says the district is using contingency funds. “We have adequate funds there and should be able to replenish those funds at the end of the year when we get the year-end balances. We have a lot of unknowns right…

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