Abortion pill. Voting record. Farm bill. Screwworm response. College sports. Tuition cost.

By Sherman Smith | editor-in-chief

TOPEKA — Janice Powers treats her hormonal disorder with the abortion pill that Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach and attorneys general from other states want to regulate as a water contaminant.

Mifepristone, a medication researchers have found to be safe and effective, is commonly prescribed as part of a two-pill regimen to terminate a first-trimester pregnancy. It also can treat other conditions.

Powers, a 61-year-old from Andover who is a project manager at the CDC Foundation, takes it for Cushing’s syndrome, a disorder caused by high levels of the cortisol hormone. The pill blocks cortisol receptors to minimize the hormone’s effects.

“I’m exercising more now. It makes a real difference in my outlook on life,” she said. “I don’t feel as depressed. I don’t feel as angry, which, it’s kind of crazy, has improved my marriage.”

TOPEKA — Republican Philip Sarnecki’s stump speech at a campaign fundraiser in Leawood delved into his youth in Illinois, a prosperous business career, reasons for running for governor and a theory about how he could win the GOP nomination in August.

He offered play-by-play on a call from a Kansas Republican operative inquiring about his willingness to abandon his campaign to be Senate President Ty Masterson’s running mate in the governor’s race.

Sarnecki, while taking questions from the crowd, touted his record of participation as a voter in Kansas elections. And, that’s where his rhetoric ran up against hard facts.

Nearly two months after the U.S. House passed a farm bill proposal, the Senate Agriculture Committee has released an initial draft of the omnibus legislation that covers everything from crop insurance to nutrition assistance.

The farm bill draft, dubbed the Agricultural Act of 2026 and put forward by Sen. John Boozman, R-Ark., expands crop insurance coverage, shifts funding in conservation programs and maintains changes to the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program made in Republicans’ 2025 spending bill.

WASHINGTON — Members of the New Democrat Coalition asked the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Thursday to provide fresh details about the nation’s screwworm outbreak and demanded that the Trump administration allocate more resources to containing the spread.

Reps. Sharice Davids of Kansas, Gabe Vasquez of New Mexico and Jim Costa of California led 18 other members of the moderate coalition in a June 24 letter to Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins in which they highlighted ranchers’ and farmers’ growing concerns over the New World screwworm’s impact on livestock health and food prices.

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan bill to set national standards for college athletes’ compensation has cleared a major legislative hurdle but still faces roadblocks, including opposition from the largest college sports conferences, to becoming law.

By Thomas Adam

I am a scholar of the history of higher education. My data analysis of college tuition trends from 1840 to 2020 shows that college tuition has not significantly risen since 1990, at least compared to tuition changes over the previous decades.

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