Kansas foster children are not getting proper mental health treatment, they’re moved between too many homes and caseworkers carry excessive workloads, a report released Monday auditing the state’s foster care system says. The court-mandated report paints a bleak picture of the Kansas foster care system — a system that is not only showing no improvement […]
Blaise Mesa
Blaise Mesa is The Beacon’s former Kansas Statehouse reporter. He covered the Kansas Statehouse for The Beacon from 2023 to 2026 after reporting on social services for the Kansas News Service and crime and local government for the Topeka Capital-Journal. He has a bachelor’s degree in multimedia journalism with a concentration in radio from Columbia College Chicago.
Posted inElections
Sports betting in Missouri: Everything you need to know about Amendment 2
Missourians could soon legally bet on sports from their own homes — instead of driving to Kansas or Illinois to place bets. Legalizing sports wagering will appear as Amendment 2 on the Nov. 5 general election ballot. Missourians 21 or older would be allowed to bet if it passes. Read the full amendment here. Here’s […]
Posted inLocal Government
Judge approves sweeping changes to Wichita Police’s gang database
Playing basketball with the wrong set of people or frequenting the wrong gas station could land you on a Wichita Police Department list of gang members. Community activists say police make snap judgements that label people as gangsters without any criminal record. That’s about to change. Judge Eric Melgren, chief judge of the U.S. District […]
Posted inState Government
State Rep. Marvin Robinson II, a Kansas Democrat known for siding with Republicans, has died
State Rep. Marvin Robinson II, a Kansas City, Kansas, Democrat, died of pancreatic cancer. He was 67. The U.S. Navy veteran served one term in the Kansas House and just lost reelection in a crowded Democratic primary. He was controversial in his party for siding with Republicans on some high-profile issues. He was one of […]
Posted inState Government
Johnson County opens a facility for kids in mental health crises
Pulling children out of a mental health crisis is tricky. Some have just run away from home while others are coming off a violent attack on a sibling or parent. They’re thinking impulsively, acting desperately and sometimes doing irrational things to change their situations. That can land them at the Johnson County Juvenile Intake and […]
Posted inState Government
Around 120 Kansas kids are abandoned by their families because their mental health needs are too high
An adoptive mother knew that caring for three children from the Kansas foster system meant nurturing those kids through some truly serious problems. Yet the mother dramatically underestimated what she was taking on. Particularly the danger. Two of the adopted children made shanks out of broken glass and damaged toys. They busted up the bedrooms […]
Posted inState Government
Kansas teen got handed over to the state to get him sober. Now he’s in foster care and missed months of school
A high school junior based in Salina regularly came home at night drunk. Sometimes he passed out in the front yard of his mother’s home. Other times, he’d sleep off a night of heavy drinking in the passenger’s seat of a car. The teen’s mother didn’t know what to do. She’d lost the boy’s father, […]
Posted inElections
A Kansas City-area Democrat who backed transgender sports ban loses reelection
The Kansas Democrat who cast a decisive vote that banned transgender athletes from girls’ and women’s sports teams has lost reelection. Rep. Marvin Robinson, a Kansas City, Kansas, Democrat, joined Republicans in 2023 to overturn the governor’s veto of the Fairness in Women’s Sports Act. The law requires athletes in high schools and public colleges […]
Posted inElections
Prasanth Reddy wins GOP primary to face U.S. Rep. Sharice Davids in Kansas 3rd Congressional District
Dr. Prasanth Reddy won the Republican 3rd Congressional District primary Tuesday night, giving him the chance to flip the increasingly-blue district back to red. Reddy beat Karen Crnkovich by about 3,000 votes and a 53% to 47% margin in unofficial election returns in the Republican primary for the Kansas City-area seat in Congress. He raised […]
Posted inElections
The Kansas primary election races that could shift political balance in the Statehouse
Battles over school funding and bans on gender-affirming care could change in the upcoming Kansas Legislature session based on what happens in a handful of primary election races. The Kansas Statehouse remains firmly in Republican control. The party holds a veto-proof majority and will almost certainly retain a comfortable margin in both the House and […]