By Amanda Watford Flock Safety is tightening privacy and oversight controls for its nationwide network of automated license plate readers as more communities pull back from the technology and lawmakers across the political spectrum push for new restrictions. The company announced Thursday that it will recommend that police agencies retain license plate reader data for seven days, down from 30, while adding tools to restrict data sharing between agencies and detect potentially abusive searches. Flock also plans to require law enforcement users to associate searches with case codes and automatically suspend users whose activity is flagged as abnormal. The changes come amid…
Author: Kansas Reflector
By Sherman Smith TOPEKA — Phyllis Zorn, the reporter whose acts of journalism served as an excuse for the August 2023 police raid of the Marion County Record, will get $850,000 from the city of Marion to settle her federal lawsuit over the raid. Attorneys for Zorn and the city filed a motion Tuesday, exactly three years after the raid, to dismiss the case. Kansas Reflector reviewed a copy of the settlement agreement, which has not been entered into the court record. Zorn said her long national nightmare is over. “I’ve always been a fairly private person,” Zorn said. “It’s…
Beatty: Trump’s endorsement pivotal to Masterson’s primary victory By Tim Carpenter TOPEKA — Roger Marshall and Adam Hamilton will test in November the legacy of nearly a century of partisan dominance by Republicans over Democrats in U.S. Senate elections in Kansas. Marshall, the Republican seeking reelection as a loyalist of President Donald Trump, easily brushed aside his August primary opponent. He faces a serious general election challenge from Hamilton, who founded the largest United Methodist church in the United States, proved to be a prolific political fundraiser and won the 11-candidate Democratic primary. Slotting Hamilton against Marshall on the November…
By Morgan Chilson TOPEKA — Kansas is on course for its smallest winter wheat harvest since the 1950s, with a July report showing the state’s farmers are expected to produce almost half the number of bushels they did at the same time last year, an expert said. A July 10 report from the U.S. Department of Agriculture projected 196 million bushels for the Kansas winter wheat harvest, down from nearly 347 million last year, said Dan O’Brien, agricultural economist and Kansas State University professor. Nationally, winter wheat production is expected to be 471 million bushels, O’Brien said, compared with last…
By Anna Kaminiski TOPEKA — Where traditional polling has been quiet, online prediction markets ahead of Kansas’ primary election show who is favored to win key races, offering a glimpse into voter behavior hours before polls close. Polymarket and Kalshi — the two largest platforms where bettors can weigh the likelihood of candidates’ success — show people have wagered almost $800,000 on Kansas primary races. Across both platforms, people thought Ty Masterson would be the Republican gubernatorial primary winner, Cindy Holscher the Democratic gubernatorial winner, and Adam Hamilton the Democratic winner in the U.S. Senate primary. Across just those three…
Suit alleges city’s Flock surveillance network violates Kansas Constitution By Tim Carpenter TOPEKA — Machinist Mason Grimmett criticized the Wichita Police Department’s reliance on high-speed equipment that reads, logs and converts into searchable files the license plate of everyone driving in range of nearly 200 specialized cameras in the city. Last month, Grimmett used his five-minute public comment slot at a June meeting of the Wichita City Council to express apprehension about local law enforcement’s deployment of cameras capable of capturing images of plates on moving vehicles day or night. The city’s warrantless effort to document routine movement of street…
TOPEKA — Gov. Laura Kelly voted Tuesday morning, offering a laughing “halleleujah” when she was asked about seeing a ballot that didn’t have her name on it. “I have told you that I would never run again for an office, and, other than school board, I’m going to stick to that,” she said. “I will see how that goes as time goes on. This is the first time I voted in 22 years, 23 years, my name has not been on the ballot, and it’s nice.” Kelly spoke to reporters after voting at the Shawnee County Election Office. She began…
Adam Hamilton says Church of the Resurrection ‘wanted to get it right’ after abuse was reported at church camp in 2005 By Anna Kaminski, Sherman Smith and Tim Carpenter LEAWOOD — Former employees of megachurch pastor and U.S. Senate candidate Adam Hamilton say he was a caring but demanding boss, and some scrutinize his response to the first report of child sex abuse at a church camp 21 years ago. But even his critics describe him as a “brilliant” theological mind, “smart” and “charismatic.” And they would rather vote for him than Republican U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall. “Not voting is…
State also approves settlement in firing of National Guard employee on deployment By Morgan Chilson TOPEKA — A Kansas man wrongfully convicted of murdering his infant nephew will receive $614,205 from the state of Kansas after spending more than nine years in prison. Christopher Dale Lyman was convicted of first-degree murder and child abuse in the 2013 death of the baby, deputy attorney general Robert Hutchison told the State Finance Council on Tuesday. Lyman was accused of shaking the baby, causing his death, and in February, a Kansas court overturned the conviction. The council, composed of Gov. Laura Kelly and…
By Baya Burgess TOPEKA — While a Democratic State Board of Education candidate believes all Kansas families should choose public school, her Republican opponent for the south-central district homeschools her three children. And both candidates have different approaches to improving literacy, public school funding and cellphone use in the classroom. The Republican running to represent the board’s 7th District, Alana McWilliams of Abilene, said public schools failed to meet her children’s reading needs and that she wants to reform how schools teach literacy. Student literacy is declining in Kansas and the nation, according to the National Assessment of Educational Progress.…