The Legislature adjourned Friday after 91 days without cutting taxes or passing a budget, two of the session’s principle goals. Many lawmakers left Topeka frustrated and angry Friday after the House decisively rejected a plan offered by the Senate to cut taxes on income and sales taxes on food.
President Barack Obama left plenty of ambiguity in new policy guidelines that he says will restrict how and when the U.S. can launch targeted drone strikes, leaving himself significant power over how and when the weapons can be deployed.
Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told cadets at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point on Saturday that they must stamp out the scourge of sexual assault in the military.
The chief lawyer for Koch Industries said Friday that government targeting of conservative political groups is nothing new to the Wichita-based company.
Some Kansas legislators are waiving their salaries or donating the money to charity as the legislative session heads into extra days to solve the state’s tax policy.
The Senate voted 25-14 to pass the tax plan after failing to reach an agreement with House members over a dispute about how much of a sales tax increase should be renewed. The Senate plan keeps the state sales tax rate at 6.3 percent but would slice it on groceries to 4.95 percent. It now goes to the House, where approval is questionable.
President Barack Obama sought Thursday to advance the U.S. beyond the unrelenting war effort of the past dozen years, defining a narrowing terror threat that still imperils the nation but now is defined by smaller networks and homegrown extremists rather than the grandiose plots of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida. He defended his controversial drone-strikes program as a linchpin of the U.S. response to the evolving dangers.
Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback has seen enough. In a terse, four-sentence news release Wednesday, the governor demanded that lawmakers end the 2013 session. “The Kansas Legislature has accomplished a great deal of work during the 2013 session,” he said.
The Obama administration confirmed for the first time on Wednesday that four Americans have died in U.S. drone strikes since 2009, but it sought to justify the killing of only one – a senior leader of al Qaida’s Yemen-based affiliate – and said nothing about the other three except to acknowledge indirectly that they’d been killed by accident.
Bridges in Kansas: D-plus. Dams in Missouri: D-minus. Overall infrastructure across both states: Does C-minus earn anyone a star? Civil engineers are tough graders. A few gathered in Kansas City on Wednesday to deliver a report card that pretty much stank.
A Senate committee issued a report showing that poor compounding practices have persisted even since last fall, when a meningitis outbreak linked to contaminated steroid injections killed 55 people and sickened about 700.
The City Council’s Public Safety Committee endorsed a renewal of the contract with American Traffic Solutions, the red-light camera vendor. The full council votes on the contract Thursday.
A full house crowded into the Plaza Library to debate education reform with Michelle Rhee, author of the new book “Radical.”
A proposal to relax some downtown design standards to accommodate a Wal-Mart Neighborhood Market had sharply divided the city. The Board of Aldermen approved the zoning change 6-4 after a long meeting.
House Republicans turned down a plan from Republican senators that would have set the sales tax on groceries at 5.7 percent while taxing other items at 6.25 percent. The current 6.3 percent tax is scheduled by law to fall to 5.7 percent in July.
The suit by the former U.S. attorney for western Missouri was filed Monday in the district that’s home to the IRS office embroiled in a national controversy for its targeting of conservative political groups for extra scrutiny as they sought tax-exempt status. He said it was the first suit to be filed in connection with the much-criticized handling of applications for 501 (c)(4) status.
Internal Revenue Service officials are not fully cooperating with efforts to learn who is responsible for targeting conservative groups, lawmakers learned Wednesday during the third and most tense, dramatic hearing on the scandal.
The Obama administration acknowledged for the first time Wednesday that four American citizens have been killed in drone strikes since 2009 in Pakistan and Yemen. The disclosure to Congress comes on the eve of a major national security speech by President Barack Obama.
Kansas Sens. Jerry Moran and Pat Roberts on Wednesday cheered the Air Force’s decision to pick McConnell Air Force Base in Wichita as the home for new refueling tankers. The Air Force will make an official announcement later Wednesday morning after it informs the congressional delegations from the states involved of the decisions.
Gordon Parks Elementary School can remain open at least through June. A circuit court judge on Tuesday granted a temporary stay sought by the school after state education officials voted last week to pull the school’s charter.
Anthony Weiner knows there may be a lot of New Yorkers who would never consider voting for him again, but he says he's running for mayor because he wants to bring his ideas to the fore - and win.
House and Senate negotiators restarted tax talks on Tuesday. They plan to meet again Wednesday with hopes of reaching a compromise that could bring the legislative session to an end.
Aldermen pave the way for the store in a 3 a.m. vote after a long meeting that drew a standing-room-only crowd. The key issue was whether the city should relax design requirements in its downtown area.
U.S. Supreme Court struck down automatic life without parole for young murderers, but Missouri lawmakers failed to find an alternative.
The Republican-dominated House approved the bill on an 83-28 vote. The GOP-controlled Senate approved it last week. The measure now goes to Republican Gov. Sam Brownback.
The Obama administration’s timeline for who knew what and when about the Internal Revenue Service scandal changed again Tuesday with revelations that the Treasury Department and White House officials had discussed how to stage-manage the release of the explosive information. The latest revelation came as acting IRS Commissioner Steven Miller told Congress that he’s responsible for the secretly planted question answered by subordinate Lois Lerner that triggered the scandal that’s now gripping the nation’s capital.
Five men are under round-the-clock U.S. surveillance in Libya, wanted for questioning in the attack last year on the diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya. The White House believes there is enough proof for a military force to seize them as terrorist suspects, officials say, but prefers to wait until investigators have enough evidence to try them in a U.S. civilian courtroom.
A plan by Sen. Pat Roberts of Kansas to cut the food stamp program by more than $30 billion over 10 years failed Tuesday in a U.S. Senate vote. Proposed as an amendment to the Senate farm bill, Roberts’ plan was defeated 58-40.
Arkansas' state treasurer resigned Tuesday after being accused of accepting at least $36,000 cash in exchange for steering business to an investment broker, bowing to bipartisan calls to step down or face removal from office.
