The Kansas City Star

Schools, birth certificates: Kris Kobach’s expanding fight against trans rights in Kansas

When Kris Kobach became Kansas secretary of state 13 years ago, he immediately proposed new election requirements, including showing a photo ID to vote and mandating new voter applicants provide documents proving their citizenship. Among the earliest and fiercest critics of the measure were transgender Kansans. They warned that confusion or suspicion arising from mismatches between their official documents and outward presentation — and the difficulty of changing official records — risked disenfranchisement. A federal judge later struck down the proof-of-citizenship rule and Kansas agreed to all...

Back to back! How Patrick Mahomes, Chiefs rallied for OT Super Bowl win vs. 49ers.

LAS VEGAS — A year ago this month, holding his son Bronze, Kansas City Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes spoke candidly with family members backstage after appearing on Jimmy Kimmel Live. “Got the real challenge coming this offseason,” Mahomes said, as shown on Netflix’s “Quarterback” series. “Thought winning the Super Bowl was hard. Two of these bad boys ... “ If only he knew what awaited next. The Chiefs went through hell and back this season, faced with self-inflicted mistakes and personal demons. They made their way through Buffalo and Baltimore in hostile road environments during the pla...

Woman says founder of Kansas City religious group sexually abused her when she was 14

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A Michigan woman has come forward with allegations that International House of Prayer founder Mike Bickle sexually abused her starting when she was 14 and before he formed the Kansas City ministry. Her allegations, which some say are the most damning to surface yet about Bickle and come after four decades of silence, are the first claims that involve sexual abuse of a minor. She alleges the abuse began when she was a babysitter for Bickle’s two young children. Tammy Woods, who told her story exclusively to The Star this week, said the abuse occurred in the early 1980s in St....

‘Serious consequences’: Company warns Kansas sheriff over election investigation

The election software company at the center of Johnson County Sheriff Calvin Hayden’s long-running elections investigation hit back on Monday, warning the Kansas sheriff that a baseless investigation results in “serious consequences.”

“I fully recognize that Sheriff Hayden has placed himself and his department in the awkward position of conducting a baseless investigation for the past several years into nonexistent election fraud in Johnson County,” attorney Rick Guinn, representing the company Konnech Inc. and its CEO Eugene Yu, wrote in a Jan. 29 letter to Hayden obtained by The Star.

Kansas Republicans want to block $95m Johnson County manufacturing plant over China fears

When Johnson County last June considered property tax incentives for a proposed $95 million manufacturing facility, officials encountered unexpectedly intense opposition. “Why is Johnson County funding China? This is incredibly concerning,” said Debbie Detmer, a far-right regular at county meetings. She was among a handful of residents who voiced objections to the project last summer over fears the company has ties to the Chinese government. County commissioners approved the incentives anyway and the company, Cnano Technology, moved forward with developing a 333,000-square-foot facility in the...

Shooting at Kansas City shopping center injures 6; police say dispute led to gunfire

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Six people were wounded inside Kansas City’s Crown Center in a shooting that drew a major police response and shut down the shopping mall on Wednesday evening. Kansas City police and emergency medical personnel were dispatched around 5:45 p.m. to multiple 911 calls reporting the sound of gunfire and people shot inside the mall in the 2400 block of Grand Boulevard, said Sgt. Jake Becchina, a KCPD spokesman. Two of the victims were discovered in the food court area on the lower level, where the shooting took place, Becchina said. Police later learned four more had arrived at a...

Lawmaker said a classified briefing didn’t bring him closer to the truth about aliens

WASHINGTON — Rep. Eric Burlison wants to know the truth about aliens. In his first term in Congress, the Missouri Republican is pushing the federal government to reveal more about unidentified aerial phenomenon, the new term for what used to be called UFOs.

But in an interview with The Star after he received a classified briefing about UAPs on Friday, Burlison said he’s no closer to answering the big questions he had before entering Congress.

“There’s nothing that’s been said that’s changed my worldview,” Burlison said.

‘Ashamed of myself.’ Proud Boy gets prison sentence for threatening police on Jan. 6

William Chrestman, the Proud Boy who threatened a federal officer and carried an ax handle into the Capitol during the Jan. 6 riot, was sentenced Friday to more than four years in prison and 36 months of supervised release.

In addition to the 55-month sentence, Chrestman, 50, also must pay $2,000 restitution for damage to the Capitol, which the government says totaled more than $2.9 million.

“I’m pretty ashamed of myself,” Chrestman said as he stood before Judge Timothy J. Kelly in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia.

Hawley says he will be ‘shocked’ if Supreme Court doesn’t overturn Trump disqualification

Sen. Josh Hawley on Tuesday said the U.S. Supreme Court needs to quickly decide whether former President Donald Trump should be disqualified from serving as president, as Republicans in Missouri have pushed for political retribution against President Joe Biden. Hawley, a Missouri Republican who served as a clerk for Chief Justice John Roberts in 2007 and 2008, said he would be “shocked” if the Supreme Court did not overturn rulings by the Colorado Supreme Court and Maine Secretary of State that deemed Trump ineligible for office under the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. The amendment ...

Missouri Republicans want Biden off ballots as payback if Trump disqualified over insurrection

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Missouri’s Republican candidates for governor, eager to win over voters in a party that remains largely in the grip of former President Donald Trump, have begun laying the groundwork to take political retribution against President Joe Biden if the U.S. Supreme Court disqualifies Trump from again serving as president.

If the Supreme Court blocks Trump from the presidency by finding he engaged in insurrection in the lead-up to the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the Capitol, the Missouri candidates claim Biden could — or should — be disqualified as well.

Kansas Republicans want a flat tax. It’s a ‘non-starter’ for Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Top Kansas Republicans will try topass a flat income tax when lawmakers return to Topeka in January, but Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly calls the idea a “non-starter.” As Kansas sits on a budget surplus of more than $2 billion, many Republican lawmakers want to again advance a flat tax after the governor blocked the proposal this spring. House and Senate GOP leaders even spent the fall touring the state promoting the idea. But Kelly, who first won election as governor in 2018 promising to steer Kansas away from the fiscal woes of Republican Gov. Sam Brownback’s administration, ...

Who joined Taylor Swift in her Chiefs suite for Christmas? And who missed out?

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — It wouldn’t be a Chiefs game without Taylor Swift in attendance. The superstar singer came to GEHA Field at Arrowhead Stadium on Christmas to show support for her boyfriend, Chiefs tight end Travis Kelce, as they played the Las Vegas Raiders. But who else was there with her? She arrived to the stadium with Santa Claus and her mom, Andrea, on a golf cart. Fox 4 sports anchor Rob Collins shared a video on X (formerly Twitter) of Swift and Santa. Who was dressed up as Santa? Swift’s brother, Austin. Swift’s dad, Scott, was also in the suite, as was Iowa college basketball star ...

Missouri Supreme Court strikes down law banning homeless from sleeping on state land

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday struck down a 2022 law that banned people from sleeping on state-owned land and worried advocates that it would criminalize people experiencing homelessness. The state’s high court, in a unanimous decision, ruled that the law violated the state constitutional requirement that bills relate to a single subject, overturning a lower court’s ruling that upheld the law. The provision banning sleeping on state land was included in a sweeping bill that included a range of different policies, including county coroners, building codes and tax exemptions on World Cup...

After nearly two years, Senate confirms Kansan to fill federal appeals court vacancy

The Senate on Thursday voted to confirm Kansan Richard Federico to the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit, filling a seat that has been vacant for nearly two years. Federico, who has served as a federal public defender in Kansas since 2017, was nominated by President Joe Biden in July. He also worked as a military judge in the Navy Reserve Trial Judiciary and served in the Navy’s JAG corps both as a prosecutor and as a defense attorney. “I appreciated the opportunity to meet with him in Kansas and Washington, D.C., to discuss his commitment to practice judicial restraint by rel...

‘Preventable deaths’: Kansas City mayor tackles drug crisis with first-ever ‘Fentanyl Summit’

Mayor Quinton Lucas held a “Fentanyl Summit” Friday afternoon at the Kansas City Health Department to raise awareness on the city’s fentanyl and opioid crisis. Health officials, law enforcement and families had a public discussion to tackle the epidemic of opioid and fentanyl related-deaths. During a press conference after the event, the mayor categorized the issue of drug overdoses in the city as an “epidemic” driven by fentanyl. Earlier this year, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported there were 109,698 overdose deaths in 2022. As previously reported by The Star, Kansas Cit...