Free Republic

Kansas appears on the verge of becoming among the most welcoming states to people who want to pack heat. A bill promising Kansans the ability to carry concealed firearms — without taking safety training or weathering the background checks required in most of the country — won initial approval in the state Senate on Wednesday. The change, expected to pass Thursday to a likely receptive House, would make Kansas a “constitutional carry” state. That would mean citizens would not need a permit to carry a hidden gun. The bill would maintain the current permit process for people who want to...

SAN JOSE, California (AP) -- Small earthquakes shaking Oklahoma and southern Kansas daily and linked to energy drilling are dramatically increasing the chance of bigger and dangerous quakes, federal research indicates. This once stable region is now just as likely to see serious damaging and potentially harmful earthquakes as the highest risk places east of the Rockies such as New Madrid, Missouri, and Charleston, South Carolina, which had major quakes in the past two centuries. Still it's a low risk, about a 1 in 2,500 years' chance of happening, according to geophysicist William Ellsworth of the U.S. Geological Survey.

During a House Oversight Committee hearing Thursday, Secretaries of State Kris Kobach from Kansas and Jon Husted of Ohio warned that a loophole in President Obama's executive action on illegal immigration could lead to millions of non-citizens obtaining the ability to vote in U.S. elections. "I want to bring to your attention my concern that the President’s recent Immigration Accountability Executive Actions will make it more difficult for elections officials to determine if all voters meet the primary standard for voting – U.S. citizenship. I am not here to debate immigration policy or the President’s executive actions. However, I am...

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback signed an executive order Tuesday rescinding a protection for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender state workers put into place eight years ago by then-Gov. Kathleen Sebelius. Sebelius’ executive order in 2007 said state workers could not be discriminated against, fired or harassed because of their gender identity or sexual orientation. Brownback, a Republican, issued an additional executive order affirming that state employees could not be discriminated against because of their race, religion, gender, age or country of national origin. “This Executive Order ensures that state employees enjoy the same civil rights as all Kansans without creating...

HOUSTON — The political operation of potential 2016 presidential candidate Ted Cruz continued to beef up Monday as a top aide to former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich signed onto the senator’s team. Rick Tyler, Gingrich’s longtime spokesman who served as a top strategist to a super PAC that supported Gingrich’s 2012 presidential campaign, will join Cruz’s campaign-in-waiting to serve as a senior communications adviser. “I am honored to come on board with Sen. Cruz and join the effort to make D.C. listen to the American people,” Tyler said in a statement. “I believe he will emerge as the...

<p>Lawmakers are considering bill that would make it easier to charge and prosecute teachers with distributing harmful material to minors.</p> <p>Proponents say that would give needed protection to students. Opponents say it could criminalize the teaching of biology or controversial works of literature and that communication is a better option.</p>

WICHITA, Kan. – The leader of a Kansas commune that prosecutors say lived off of insurance payouts following the deaths of group members is set to stand trial for murder in the 2003 drowning of one of them — a young mother whose death he allegedly foretold weeks before it happened. Daniel U. Perez, a 55-year-old self-proclaimed seer, is charged with first-degree premeditated murder in the death of 26-year-old Patricia Hughes at the group's compound in the Wichita suburb of Valley Center. Jury selection begins Monday in Sedgwick County District Court. Authorities have investigated several deaths linked to the group,...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton announced Monday that both Nevada and Tennessee have joined the Lone Star state's challenge of President Obama's executive amnesty, bringing the total number of states fighting Obama's unilateral immigration policies to 26. “Texas is proud to lead a coalition that now includes a majority of the United States standing up against the President’s rogue actions,” Attorney General Ken Paxton said in a statement. “The momentum against the President's lawlessness continues to build with Tennessee and Nevada joining the effort to protect our states from the economic and public safety implications of illegal amnesty. As President...

Pro-life Gov. Sam Brownback, with a backdrop of 40 pro-life legislators at Kansans for Life’s annual Rally for Life, said he was anxious to sign the newly proposed “Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act.” The bill is the number one legislative priority for Kansans for Life. Approximately 1,500 rally attendees at the January 22 rally welcomed the news, having marched one-half mile together to the Capitol in Topeka with a variety of pro-life posters and banners, including the newest sign, ‘Stop dismembering unborn babies.’ The crowd was dominated by students, who came from as far away as Hays, Dodge...

KANSAS CITY, Mo., Jan 26, 2015 (BUSINESS WIRE) -- Today, at a kickoff event at its headquarters, Kansas City Power & Light Company (KCP&L), a subsidiary of Great Plains Energy Incorporated GXP, +0.37% announced its plans to install and operate more than 1,000 electric vehicle charging stations, making it the largest electric vehicle charging station installation by an electric utility in the United States. KCP&L’s Clean Charge Network is the next step in the company’s leadership in environmental sustainability. Over the next several months, KCP&L will install more than 1,000 charging stations throughout the Greater Kansas City region. This network...

Securing a ticket just to be in the same — giant — room with President Barack Obama had thousands of Kansas University students giddy on Tuesday. Imagine the excitement of a select number getting a special spot. “I couldn’t even breathe,” junior Ramiro Sarmiento said of receiving a message he was selected to stand in a group behind Obama when he delivers remarks at KU. “I can’t wait. I saw the State of the Union yesterday and got really excited ... for everything that’s to come in the future.” Sarmiento is one of about 200 students across various departments chosen...

On Friday, Jan. 9, at around 2 p.m. on a sunny afternoon, four armed individuals entered the shop and encountered Becky Bieker apparently alone behind the counter. Based on ensuing events, it seems fair to surmise that their intent was robbery. But whatever their plans may have been, they went awry when Jon Bieker, watching the store’s closed-circuit TV, saw his wife being brutally beaten and emerged from the rear portion of the store to protect and defend her. The way events were reported by local print and broadcast media, “gunfire broke out”; “shots were fired”; “a shootout ensued”; in...

ALCO stores nationwide, including those in South Hutchinson and 21 other small Kansas communities, are closing. The stores, which typically serve small towns with few other options for everything from clothing to housewares and groceries, began conducting going-out-of-business sales on Friday morning, a day after a U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Dallas authorized ALCO’s owners – Tiger Capital Group LLC, SB Capital Group LLC and Great American Group LLC – to begin doing so. In all, 198 stores in 23 states will close, as will the 113-year-old discount retailer’s 352,000-square-foot distribution center in Abilene. During the liquidation sale, the company plans...

Taxes on a pack of cigarettes would nearly triple from 79 cents a pack to $2.29 per pack. And taxes on liquor would rise to 12 percent from 8 percent.

Kansas would nearly triple its cigarette tax, raise taxes on alcohol and slow down promised income tax cuts to balance its budget under proposals Republican Gov. Sam Brownback outlined Friday. Brownback presented detailed recommendations to the GOP-dominated Legislature for eliminating projected shortfalls totaling more than $710 million in the current budget and for the fiscal year beginning July 1. He also presented a spending blueprint for the fiscal year beginning in July 2016 designed to leave the state with some cash reserves. The state’s budget problems arose after lawmakers aggressively cut personal income taxes in 2012 and 2013 at Brownback's...

FULL TITLE: Groundbreaking Dismemberment Abortion Ban in Kansas Kicks off Right to Life Movement 2015 Legislative Agenda WASHINGTON – In a move that will transform the landscape of abortion policy in the United States, National Right to Life announced a major new component of the right to life movement’s 2015 legislative agenda with today’s introduction in Kansas of the Unborn Child Protection from Dismemberment Abortion Act. The wave of pro-life victories in the 2014 election helped set the stage for this first-of-its-kind legislation, which would protect unborn children from the brutality of dismemberment abortion. “Dismemberment abortion kills a baby by...

The respect for life at every stage of development, from birth to natural death, is “the foundation of our society” and the surest path to a renewed nation, Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback said in his second inaugural address earlier today.Yet America is facing a “crisis of the family” that plunges children into poverty, undermines upward mobility, and casts a lingering shadow over the nation's future.Family breakdown is “a principle issue that must be addressed for us to move forward,” he said after taking the oath of office for the second time in Topeka.Brownback warned that too many people had failed...

A Kansas doctor scrutinized for referring young patients for late-term abortions remains barred from practicing medicine after a state board declared Friday that her inadequate record-keeping justified the revocation of her license. The State Board of Healing Arts stripped Dr. Ann Kristin Neuhaus of her license to provide charity care in 2012, finding she had performed substandard mental health exams in 2003 for 11 patients ages 10 to 18 before referring them to the late Dr. George Tiller's clinic in Wichita. Neuhaus, from the small town of Nortonville about 30 miles north of Lawrence, wants her full medical license back...

Four people were shot, three critically, during an attempted robbery at a gun store in a Kansas City, Missouri, suburb on Friday afternoon, authorities said. An owner of She's A Pistol LLC gun store in Shawnee, Kansas, was critically wounded as were two of four people suspected of trying to rob the store, Major Dan Tennis of the Shawnee Police Department told a news conference. Tennis said a female store owner was punched and injured in the incident. Two other suspects were able to flee the store, one of whom was also wounded, but surrendered to authorities at a house...

The fiscal impact of the ethanol mandate is huge — Michaels estimated it totals “billions, easily” in direct and indirect money — but it has come under attack by liberals as well as conservatives and appears to have lost some of its clout on Capitol Hill. For example, the Environmental Protection Agency — which administers the Renewable Fuel Standard — is considering a cut to the amount of ethanol blended into the nation’s gasoline supply. ... a growing number of environmentalists want the ethanol requirement eliminated, too. ... In 2007, Congress passed and President George W. Bush signed into law...