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1 week ago | 
gazettextra.com | Jonathan Shorman |Kacen J. Bayless |Matthew Kelly
By Jonathan Shorman, Kacen Bayless, Matthew Kelly - The Kansas City Star (TNS) Kansas and Missouri voters have spoken on abortion. But nearly three years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to the procedure, sending the issue back to the states, abortion continues to dominate politics on both sides of the state line. Copyright 2025 Tribune Content Agency.
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2 weeks ago | 
kansascity.com | Jonathan Shorman |Kacen J. Bayless |Matthew Kelly
Kansas and Missouri voters have spoken on abortion. But nearly three years after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal right to the procedure, sending the issue back to the states, abortion continues to dominate politics on both sides of the state line. And it's now clear that the situation will continue for at least two more years, if not longer. Missouri voters in November by a slim margin approved Amendment 3, enshrining abortion rights in the state constitution.
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1 month ago | 
kansascity.com | Matthew Kelly |Jonathan Shorman
Jeff Colyer, who served for a year as governor of Kansas after Sam Brownback's resignation, will again seek the state's highest office in 2026. [email protected] Former Kansas Gov. Jeff Colyer is poised to run again for governor, naming a treasurer on Monday and signaling a coming campaign. Colyer, a Johnson County-based surgeon, has remained involved in Kansas politics since spending nearly a year as governor in 2018 after Gov. Sam Brownback resigned.
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1 month ago | 
kansascity.com | Matthew Kelly |Jonathan Shorman
Murals, including Tragic Prelude (left) showing a raging John Brown, were painted by John Steuart Curry in the Capitol in Topeka. The Kansas City Star Kansas last elected a Johnson County Democrat to be governor over a century ago. And voters last picked a Johnson County Republican in 1975. Will next year be different? The 2026 Kansas governor's race - in both parties - could feature an unusually large field, including several candidates from the state's wealthiest and most populous county.
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2 months ago | 
kansascity.com | Matthew Kelly |Jonathan Shorman
Leavenworth resident Tom Beal supports President Donald Trump - just not his plans for mass deportations. "Yeah, he's a little off on that one," said Beal, a garbage truck driver, adding that millions of people already live in the United States without legal authorization. "It's going to be pretty expensive to try to round them all up. And he keeps saying this is only stage one."Leavenworth County voters favored Trump over Kamala Harris by 23 points in the November presidential election.
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Mar 21, 2025 | 
kansascity.com | Kacen J. Bayless |Matthew Kelly
The agency in charge of Missouri's K-12 schools is still waiting for more information. The state's flagship university is monitoring every new development closely. In the hours after President Donald Trump signed an order seeking to dismantle the U.S. Department of Education, Missouri's educational agency and its institutions appeared to have more questions than answers.
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Mar 15, 2025 | 
thebrunswicknews.com | Jonathan Shorman |Matthew Kelly
KANSAS CITY, Mo. - Ryan Jolly's Lenexa home doubles as a hub of care for her four children. She's adopted three and one remains in foster care. All have brain injuries. To call caring for her children - 14, 13, 13, and 7 - a logistical feat almost doesn't capture the complexity of what happens daily at their residence. On a typical day, four health care professionals are in and out of the house. Care for just one child runs about $1.5 million a year.
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Mar 14, 2025 | 
kansascity.com | Jonathan Shorman |Matthew Kelly
Kacy Seitz, left, and her family. Seitz, a financial planner focused on special needs planning, has heard from clients across the country concerned about possible cuts to Medicaid. Kacy Seitz Ryan Jolly's Lenexa home doubles as a hub of care for her four children. She's adopted three and one remains in foster care. All have brain injuries. To call caring for her children - 14, 13, 13, and 7 - a logistical feat almost doesn't capture the complexity of what happens daily at their residence.
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Feb 27, 2025 | 
thebrunswicknews.com | Jonathan Shorman |Matthew Kelly
Elizabeth Hunter-Blank's commitment to voting is such that ahead of Kansas' abortion rights election in August 2022, the Mission Hills resident paid to have her ballot shipped overnight to a marina as she traveled by sailboat across Lake Michigan. She readily acknowledges her circumstances that summer were unusual. What's become less unusual in recent years, she said, is the falling quality of the postal service in her Johnson County neighborhood.
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Feb 27, 2025 | 
thederrick.com | Jonathan Shorman |Matthew Kelly
Elizabeth Hunter-Blank’s commitment to voting is such that ahead of Kansas’ abortion rights election in August 2022, the Mission Hills resident paid to have her ballot shipped overnight to a marina as she traveled by sailboat across Lake Michigan. She readily acknowledges her circumstances that summer were unusual. What’s become less unusual in recent years, she said, is the falling quality of the postal service in her Johnson County neighborhood.
