Kansas news

Hospital doctors in the Kansas City area have been urgently warning residents that COVID-19 is reaching dangerous and unprecedented new levels, potentially overwhelming their facilities.

Intensive care units, which have remained plentiful through most of the pandemic, are increasingly in short supply, with less than one in five currently available in the Kansas City region.

KU Hospital infectious disease specialist Dr. Dana Hawkinson said on Monday that the hospital’s capacity to treat patients is less than bed counts suggest.

This year, nurses in southeast Kansas are taking a NASCAR-style approach in the race against the flu.

Imagine a pit crew, said Lori Rexwinkle, head of nursing at a community health center that serves 10 counties. Except instead of speed-swapping tires, this team vaccinates passengers. Got a van full of kids? Just pull it on up.

“We had several different nurses going out to the vehicle at the same time,” Rexwinkle said. “Parents appreciated that.”

LAWRENCE, Kansas — This week’s election set the stage for partisan fights in the Kansas Statehouse over things like redistricting, abortion, Medicaid expansion and pandemic-related aid.

Democrats had hoped to crack the Republican supermajority in both chambers — thus taking away the GOP’s power to override Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly’s vetoes — but that didn’t happen.

Kansas community colleges should be having a good year.

No crowded, germy dorms. Most of their students don’t need to travel. Plus, community colleges are cheaper and normally thrive in a bad economy.

Instead, they actually lost students. Enrollment fell more than 14% this fall. That’s causing the experts who track the industry to wonder about past assumptions.

Republican U.S. Rep. Ron Estes will stay in Congress after winning re-election Tuesday night in Kansas’ 4th District.

Democrat Stephanie Byers became the first transgender member of the Kansas Legislature Tuesday night.

She’ll represent parts of south Wichita after defeating Republican challenger Cyndi Howerton in the race for Kansas House District 86. Byers received 54% of the vote in her first run for public office.

Byers is a retired band, orchestra and jazz teacher at Wichita North High School. She taught there for nearly 30 years.

She spoke about her transition and how she explained that to her students in an interview with KMUW in May 2019.

A federal judge has ruled in favor of two veterans who sued the government for medical malpractice after claiming they were subjected to unnecessary genital exams while they were patients at the Leavenworth VA.

In separate decisions Monday, U.S. District Judge Daniel Crabtree ruled that VA personnel should have “fairly foreseen” the wrongful conduct by physician assistant Mark Wisner but failed to do so.

Multiple patients had complained to the VA about Wisner’s conduct over the years he treated both veterans.

Local civil rights groups are gathering together in support of a new trial for a former University of Kansas student they say was wrongly convicted of rape in 2019.

Albert Wilson was a 20-year-old student at KU when he was accused of rape by a then 17-year-old girl in Lawrence.

According to the Douglas County District Attorney’s office, the teenager met Wilson at the Jayhawk Cafe, a local bar, on Sept. 10, 2016. The victim said Wilson led her away from her cousin at the bar and then home where he raped her.

STILWELL, Kansas — After Doug Reed put his elderly father’s Johnson County home up for sale, the mailbox started to fill up with letters from the Kansas Department of Labor, sometimes 25 or 30 at a time.

“We had two or three big batches of them, and they’ve been dribbling in ever since,” Reed said.

Within a couple weeks, about 130 letters had arrived, all bearing his father’s street address but addressed to different names.

More than a quarter of the 29,000 provisional ballots in Kansas were rejected in the 2018 general election because of various errors, leaving 7,692 voters out of the democratic process.

Provisional ballots are supposed to be a fail-safe, protecting voters from disenfranchisement due to an administrative error or other problems.

WICHITA, Kansas — The state’s largest utility wants to charge customers with solar panels about $25 a month, even if their homes pull almost no electricity off the grid.

If courts and regulators reject that idea, power-provider Evergy’s backup proposal would charge all customers — not just those harvesting power on their roofs — a minimum of $35 a month just for plugging into its system.

The University of Kansas Medical Center has resumed Phase III clinical trials of a COVID-19 vaccine that was halted last month after an enrollee in the United Kingdom developed an adverse reaction.

“We literally just got released by the FDA on Friday and then yesterday we got released from the IRB [Institutional Review Board], so we couldn’t start actually enrolling until today,” said Dr. Mario Castro, vice chair for clinical and translational research at KU Med and a co-principal investigator for the local trials.

Hospitalizations for COVID-19 are near all-time highs in the Kansas City area, and local hospital leaders say admissions are being pushed over the top by patients coming from rural areas.

Official data from Missouri shows that hospitals still have plenty of room, but doctors and nurses say their facilities have been reaching capacity, forcing hospitals to turn patients away in some cases.

Health officials say the availability of health care for people in the Kansas City area is now being threatened by this influx of patient from communities that lack mask mandates.

WICHITA, Kansas — Amid a surge of coronavirus cases across rural Kansas, Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly provided details on her new statewide testing plan Wednesday, adding 400,000 more by the end of the year.

That's nearly double the amount of tests available now, with the goal of reaching a total of 1 million tests. The extra capacity is expected to go to schools and high-risk populations, like those living and working at nursing homes.

LENEXA, Kansas — For months, the people at a Johnson County lab found themselves consumed, running an endless parade of tests on human spit.

The feds hadn’t yet OK’d a single saliva test for COVID-19, but the scientists at Clinical Reference Laboratory were sure they could design something that worked.

Wichita City Council members voted Tuesday to formally denounce one of their colleagues and two other elected officials accused of putting together a false attack ad against the mayor.

For most of the COVID-19 pandemic's duration, Kansas and Missouri have been spared from the overwhelming crush of cases that overwhelmed hospitals and communities on the coasts and in the South.

But the current surge, which has been breaking records for case numbers in both states, is occurring in ways previously unseen in the U.S. and showing red flags for disease experts.

And it's happening as more and more members of the general public have grown increasingly impatient with governments taking steps to control it.

The two candidates running for Kansas' U.S. Senate seat met for a debate Thursday night hosted by KMUW and KWCH Channel 12. Republican U.S. Rep. Roger Marshall and Democratic state Sen. Barbara Bollier were asked to share their positions on issues such as the government response to the pandemic; health care and the Affordable Care Act; taxes; and law enforcement.

Kansans remain among the most vulnerable in the country to surprise medical bills — charges from outside an insurance network that the consumer only discovers after treatment.

A new research brief from the Kansas Health Institute points to studies suggesting the charges are common in Kansas. It’s part of a shrinking minority of states yet to pass laws reining in the practice.

EL DORADO, Kansas — The culture war issues that are polarizing national politics are also front and center in Kansas’ U.S. Senate contest: race, guns, abortion, climate change.

Supporters of Republican candidate Roger Marshall fear a wave of Democratic victories will trigger radical changes in the nation’s economy and culture; that capitalism will give way to socialism, undocumented immigrants will stream across the U.S.-Mexico border and individual liberties will be threatened.

TOPEKA — Health care workers and long-term care residents will be among those who will get the coronavirus vaccine first in Kansas, a draft plan shows.

Kansas’ 45-page plan was filed in the past week with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Other groups that will be prioritized for the initial rounds of vaccinations include people with underlying medical conditions, people 65 and older and essential workers.

The scheduled execution of Lisa Montgomery, who was convicted in 2008 of killing a pregnant woman and cutting the baby from her womb, will mark the third time a Kansan has been put to death this year since the resumption of federal executions in July.

LAWRENCE, Kansas — Kansas could see record-breaking turnout in the Nov. 3 general election, even during a pandemic.

It’s too late to register to vote for this election, but you have until Oct. 27 to request an advance ballot.

WICHITA, Kansas — Kansas’ teacher shortage finally shows signs of shrinking.

But districts still can’t find enough educators to keep schools running under coronavirus safety demands.

WICHITA, Kansas — The blow the coronavirus dealt to the Kansas economy left tens of thousands of people in the state struggling to pay their utility bills.

That puts them at risk of losing electricity or natural gas — and raises the prospect that better-off Kansans weathering price hikes to make up the difference.

Amazon is planning to build two fulfillment centers in Kansas, including one in Park City, just north of Wichita.

Seattle-based Amazon said Friday that the centers combined will create 1,000 jobs with a minimum starting salary of $15 an hour. The other center will be in Kansas City, Kansas.

“Today’s Amazon announcement further proves why Kansas can offer prospective businesses the kind of workforce, infrastructure, and central location that can compete with anywhere in the country,” Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly said in a statement.

Washington, D.C., or Topeka: No matter the seat of power, you deserve to know who is on the ballot and what their views are.

The time has come to cast a ballot — but for whom? The Kansas News Service can help you make your decision with this rundown of the major races, links to our stories and handy comparisons of the congressional candidates.

U.S. Senate: Doctor vs. Doctor

Democrat Barbara Bollier is a state senator (who left the Republican Party in 2018) from the ritzy Kansas City suburb of Mission Hills. She's also a retired anesthesiologist.

Members of KC Tenants chained themselves to the doors of the Jackson County Courthouse Thursday in an effort to stop eviction cases from proceeding.

The housing advocacy group managed to shut down all four Jackson County eviction dockets by chaining the court's doors shut and disrupting virtual meetings.

“People's lives are way more important than landlords’ profits. The only prescription for this pandemic is to stay at home and wash your hands. And how can you stay at home with no home?” said Tiana Caldwell, one of the organizers who faced eviction just a few months ago.

Two retired doctors are vying for Kansas’ open U.S. Senate seat, but that’s where the similarities end.

TOPEKA, Kansas — The two doctors running for the U.S. Senate in Kansas are offering very different prescriptions for increasing access to affordable health care during the coronavirus pandemic.