Hantavirus risk. Transmission line. ICE plans. Healthcare access. Gerrymandering fights. Iran war.

By Sherman Smith | editor-in-chief

TOPEKA — Three Kansans who came into close “high risk” contact with a person who has confirmed Andes hantavirus are being monitored by state and federal officials.

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment said in a Tuesday news release that three individuals, who won’t be identified because of privacy concerns, are being monitored by KDHE, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and a local health department.

The three were not on the cruise ship MV Hondius, where Andes hantavirus has been confirmed in at least 11 people and caused three deaths, and they do not currently have symptoms, the release said.

“The exposure occurred internationally after contact with an individual from the MV Hondius cruise ship who later tested positive for Andes hantavirus,” the release said.

TOPEKA — Kansas utility regulators handed a win Tuesday to landowners concerned about a transmission line bisecting large swaths of prairie grassland in the state’s south-central region.

The Kansas Corporation Commission voted unanimously to approve part of Evergy’s proposed construction of a 133-mile transmission line. But the three-member commission stopped short of allowing the line to cross U.S. Highway 77 east into the Flint Hills, saying Evergy must reconsider that portion of the line.

“The order notes that the commission takes seriously any activity that has the potential to permanently and adversely affect the Flint Hills or other unique ecological regions of the state,” said Tristan Kimbrell, KCC assistant general counsel, who summarized the order.

TOPEKA — The federal government began removal proceedings against a former Kansas mayor and permanent legal resident who hoped to avoid detention after pleading guilty to election crimes.

Joe Ceballos, a former Coldwater mayor, was notified at 10 a.m. Tuesday that he must report to a U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement office in Wichita on Wednesday morning.

Ceballos is “terrified,” attorney Jess Hoeme said.

By David Norlin

We feel safe in Kansas and the US of A. We shouldn’t. Now, this administration wants more, over our potentially dead bodies. Russell Vought, budget director and an author of Project 2025, wants a further 10% cut to our health and welfare. That comes after HR1’s destruction. Think about that.

Bombs alone don’t blow away hospitals. Here at home, budget cuts are their own land-mine IEDs. Even before Vought’s threat, eight Kansas hospitals closed in the last decade. Now, 47 rural hospitals are at immediate risk — more than any other state in the nation — and 29 at high risk.

After the U.S. Supreme Court’s late April decision sharply curtailing the use of race in redistricting, much of the legal fight over gerrymandering is moving to state courts. The decision, Louisiana vs. Callais, gutted Section 2 of the Voting Rights Act, which limited states’ ability to divide districts where a majority of residents belong to a racial minority group.

WASHINGTON — The cost of the Iran war has increased to $29 billion to date, Pentagon officials told lawmakers in both chambers Tuesday.

On paper it makes little sense. Ship traffic through the Strait of Hormuz, roughly 7,000 miles from the United States, is restricted and gasoline prices in this country soar?

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