Category: News

Gov. Kelly continues heavy restrictions on businesses, activity
With her original stay-at-home orders and state of emergency set to expire May 3, and facing mounting pressure to reopen…
Kansas legislators pressure Gov. Kelly to reopen the economy
On April 27, roughly three-quarters of the Kansas Republican Legislative Delegation sent a letter to Gov. Laura Kelly, pressuring her…

COVID-19 cases continue trending down across Kansas
Aside from a few ‘hot spots,’ the 7-day moving average of new COVID-19 cases continues trending down in Kansas. Those hot…

Activist falsely accuses Open Up Kansas! ralliers of harassing nurses
Hundreds of people gathered in Topeka yesterday at the Open Up Kansas! rally in opposition to the economic impact of…

Reopening Kansas: challenges and opportunities
Even as the Kansas Policy Institute, which owns the Sentinel, and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce released their plans for…

Kansas Justice Institute convinces Osage County to rescind parade ban
The residents of Osage County, Kansas, were planning to attend an Easter car parade when it was canceled by the…

Kansas tax revenue likely much worse than estimated
The Consensus Revenue Estimate (CRE) released Monday predicts a very modest two-year decline of just $88 million for the State…

Kansas businesses ready to safely reopen economy
The Kansas Chamber today released survey results that show a major shift among the Kansas business community and its desire…

JoCo business reopening task force lacks business experience
Johnson County Commission Chairman Ed Eilert appointed a task force to “strategize and implement a phased approach to reopening the…

Misleading Associated Press story disparages Kansas ranchers
Last week the Lawrence Journal-World ran a misleading Associated Press story on range burning by Roxana Hegeman that unnecessarily disparaged Kansas ranchers.…

Oil price decline to hurt tax revenue and the industry
Oil prices during the last two days of trading for May contracts plunged more than 300 percent to an all-time…

COVID testing levels have little relationship with positive cases
A statistical analysis of COVID testing and cases by Kansas Policy Institute shows one positive case for roughly every ten…

Medicaid expansion states have worse COVID-19 results
One of Governor Kelly’s closest allies in the Legislature, state Sen. Barbara Bollier, a retired Mission Hills physician, said one…

Kansas Chamber releases plan to restart economy
As Kansas Governor Laura Kelly announced she was extending the state-wide stay-at-home order until May 3, the Kansas Chamber of…

COVID cases trending down in many counties but Kelly extends lockdown
Kanas Governor Laura Kelly yesterday extended her statewide lockdown order through May 3, even though many counties have decidedly downward…

COVID cases trending down, states without lockdowns do better
COVID-19 cases are trending downward in Kansas and the states that aren’t on mandatory lockdowns have fewer cases and deaths…
Kansas faces huge state budget deficits due to COVID-19
Late last week, Kansas Policy Institute released a report showing the state of Kansas is facing potential state budget deficits between…

State unemployment site down; Kelly to extend economic shutdown
Despite mounting frustrations over the inability to file unemployment claims on the Kansas Department of Labor website and massive unemployment…

Southeast Kansas town backs off cruise night ban
One small town in Southeast Kansas looked at a restrictive cruise night ban from their local government and said, “No,…

Governor’s order restricting church gatherings unconstitutional, interest group, AG say
UPDATE: Kansas Legislative Coordinating Council strikes down order An executive order limiting church attendance by Governor Laura Kelly, on the…

Kansas senators concerned about state’s use of Unacast GPS tracking
Last week the Sentinel reported that the State of Kansas was using GPS data from aggregator Unacast to track Kansans’…

COVID-19: massive unemployment, except in government
Last week a record 55,428 people filed for unemployment in Kansas, and nationally the number stands at 7.14 million due…

Kansas, Missouri far below national average on COVID-19 cases
Many media reports on COVID-19 cases focus only on the total number of cases in each state, but the population…

Kansas waives penalty, interest on 1Q 2020 estimated tax payments
The Kansas Department of Revenue this morning announced the waiver of penalty and interest for the first quarter 2020 estimated tax…