By Heather Hollingsworth TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The lesson on diversity started slowly in a first-grade classroom in Topeka, where schools were at the center of the case that struck down segregated education. “I like broccoli. Do you like broccoli?” Marie Carter, a Black school library worker, asked broccoli-hating librarian Amy Gugelman, who is white. The students in the sunny, book-filled room were comparing what makes them the same and what makes them different. It’s part of their introduction to Brown v. Board of Education, a ruling commemorated at a national historic site in a former all-Black school just down the…
Author: AP News
By Will Pry IOWA TRIBE OF KANSAS AND NEBRASKA RESERVATION, Kansas (AP) — When one of the elders in the Iowa Tribe of Kansas and Nebraska asked if he could keep bees on the reservation, Tim Rhodd’s answer was straightforward: “Absolutely.” Soon, the bees started buzzing in the alfalfa fields. Then they started pollinating. Then they all died. “Once we started looking into it, we found there was a chemical (class) called neonicotinoid that caused the death of these bees,” said Rhodd, the tribe’s chairperson. “That was the very, very first part of what I had seen that we were…
BY JOE REEDY Netflix and the NFL announced a three-year deal Wednesday to stream games on Christmas Day. The streaming giant will carry two games this year and at least one game in 2025 and ‘26. Defending Super Bowl champion Kansas City will face Pittsburgh in the first game, followed by Baltimore at Houston. The NFL has played a total of 30 games on Christmas Day since 1971, including three last year. It has stayed away from midweek games, though, until this year’s Christmas slate. Hans Schroeder, the executive vice president of NFL Media, said team owners meeting in March were…
BY DAVID A. LIEB Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed a measure Wednesday that could have earmarked up to $5 million for gun-detection systems in schools while expressing concern that it could have benefitted only one particular company. Kelly’s line-item veto leaves in place $5 million for school safety grants but deletes specific wording that she said would have essentially converted the program “into a no-bid contract” by eliminating “nearly all potential competition.” The company that stood to benefit is ZeroEyes, a firm founded by military veterans after the fatal shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida. ZeroEyes uses surveillance cameras and artificial intelligence…
BY HANNAH FINGERHUT AND GEOFF MULVIHILL A new abortion clinic will open in southeast Kansas this fall, bolstering the state’s role as a regional hub for reproductive health services whose neighbors have severely restricted access since the U.S. Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade. Comprehensive Health of Planned Parenthood Great Plains announced Tuesday that Pittsburg, Kansas, will be home to a new facility providing abortion procedures and pills, as well as pregnancy services, contraception, and testing and treatment for sexually transmitted diseases. After the Roe reversal, Kansas was the first state where voters weighed in on abortion at the ballot box, resoundingly rejecting a constitutional amendment that…
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker railed against Pride month, working women, President Biden’s leadership during the COVID-19 pandemic and abortion during a commencement address at Benedictine College last weekend. The three-time Super Bowl champion delivered the roughly 20-minute address Saturday at the Catholic private liberal arts school in Atchison, Kansas, which is located about 60 miles north of Kansas City. Butker, who has made his conservative Catholic beliefs well known, began his address by attacking what he called “dangerous gender ideologies” in an apparent reference to Pride month, which has been celebrated in June…
BY ALICIA RANCILIO While his superstar girlfriend Taylor Swift resumes her world Eras tour, Travis Kelce is keeping busy. The NFL player has joined the cast of “American Horror Story: Grotesquerie.” Late Tuesday, cast member Niecy Nash posted a series of videos to Instagram featuring her on set with Kelce. “Guys, guess who I am working with on ‘Grotesquerie’?” Kelce pops into frame and says, “Jumpin’ into new territory with Niecy.” A later video where she wrote “late night shenanigans” showed the two in what appeared to be a red convertible. “Look at this guy,” she says. “Buckle up!” added Kelce. And a final…
DALLAS (AP) — Kansas City Chiefs receiver Rashee Rice is suspected of assault in Dallas a little over a month after he was one of the speeding drivers in a chain-reaction crash that led to multiple charges, according to a newspaper report Tuesday. Law enforcement officials told The Dallas Morning News that Rice was suspected of assaulting a person at a downtown nightclub early Monday, and that the person went to a hospital after the encounter. Dallas police did not name Rice as the suspect in detailing a report of the incident to The Associated Press. Officers were dispatched to the nightclub…
BY ALEXA ST. JOHN, JIM SALTER AND SEAN MURPHY OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — Tornadoes touched down Monday evening in rural Oklahoma and large hail pelted parts of Kansas as an outbreak of dangerous storms brought the possibility of strong twisters staying on the ground for many miles. Forecasters have issued a rare high-risk weather warning for the two states. “You can’t rely on waiting to see tornadoes before sheltering tonight,” the National Weather Service said. At least four tornadoes had been spotted in north central Oklahoma, including one about a 45-minute drive north of Tulsa. The National Weather Service office there issued a tornado…
Republican legislators in Kansas have failed to override the Democratic governor’s veto of a proposed ban on gender-affirming care for transgender minors. The state House voted 82-43 to reverse Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto, but that was two votes shy of the necessary two-thirds majority. Two Republicans who’d backed the bill earlier voted against overriding the veto, citing their concerns about provisions that included one that would have barred state employees from advocating social transitioning for transgender youth. The House’s vote came after the Senate voted 27-13 to override the veto, with the exact two-thirds majority required in that chamber.