Rabbi Moti Rieber watches law enforcement as they confront protesters March 10, 2026, outside the Senate chamber in the Kansas Statehouse. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
TOPEKA — Rabbi Moti Rieber sat on the tiled floor, legs akimbo, in front of the arched passage leading to the Kansas Senate chamber with at least 20 people behind him and more lining the walls with handmade signs.
“We are here because when injustice becomes law, then resistance is necessary,” Rieber said. “We are here as moral witnesses.”
Clergy members led a sit-in protest Tuesday in opposition to a recently passed anti-trans law. The Republican-controlled Legislature used tactics to avoid public input and overrode the governor’s veto to pass Senate Bill 244, requiring people in public buildings to use the bathroom that coincides with their biological sex and also mandating driver’s licenses include a person’s sex assigned at birth instead of their gender.
Sergeants-at-arms looked on from behind the group, and Kansas Highway Patrol troopers soon joined. But it wasn’t until the group prevented Sen. Tim Shallenburger, R-Baxter Springs, from entering the chamber that troopers grabbed people by the arms to clear a path.
As troopers hoisted activists up from their seats, encouraging them to disperse, the group sang in harmony: “No one is getting left behind this time. No one is getting left behind. No one is getting left behind this time. We get there together or never get there at all.”
At one point, a trooper knocked a woman to the ground as she tried to pass through the crowd, appearing to mistake her as part of the demonstration. Protesters responded with chants of “Shame!”
The woman declined to be identified or comment but told Kansas Reflector she was OK.
Rieber, executive director of Kansas Interfaith Action, said while sitting on the floor, addressing the crowd, that the process to pass SB 244 was “crooked.” (There is a TikTok embedded on the page, linked in the title above.)
The law has already been challenged in Douglas County District Court, where a judge decided Tuesday not to pause enforcement of the law. The state sent letters to 275 Kansans shortly before the law went into effect, telling them their driver’s licenses were invalid. Some experts say laws targeting trans people can harm their mental health and increase the likelihood of discrimination.
The Rev. Mandy Todd, pastor at Messiah Lutheran Church in Lindsborg, said SB 244 is hurtful, targeted and part of a culture war. She said the group is “disgusted by this Legislature’s treatment of trans people.”
The bill stokes fear and anxiety, she said.
Todd, the director of engagement for Kansas Interfaith Action, said trans people in her community have felt the immediate effects of SB 244. The closest driver’s license office is in the next town, which Todd said has hamstrung one Lindsborg woman, who now cannot legally drive to sort out her invalid license.
Pastor Charles McKinzie II of Grace United Methodist Church in Winfield is confident the law, which he said was flawed in process and in substance, will make its way to the Kansas Supreme Court to be overturned.
“In the meantime, people are hurting, and people need to know that they are seen,” McKinzie said.
Conversations about the effects of SB 244 aren’t limited to a courtroom. They are taking place in churches, synagogues and other small group settings across the state, McKinzie said, and the sit-in was meant as a show of nonviolence “to shed light on a violent system.”
About an hour after the protest, Master Trooper Scott Whitsell said that no one from the group had been cited or arrested to his knowledge. The only law the protestors broke was blocking an entryway, he said.
Sorry this article is so old. I have dozens more older than this in open tabs with the hope of one day being able to get what I think is important news out to those who may have missed it at the time. Here is the southern states patriarchy punishing women for not bringing forth a well formed offspring of a male who bred them. That is the way this reads to me. The woman means nothing, just the fetus, zygote, the failed issue of a man must be the fault of a woman. Think of this being promoted as prolife while they are willing to torture live females for a few cells in the human body that act parasitic. Remember no man is required to give any part of his body to another even his own dying child. Tht is the law. But a woman, a female is required to give her body over entirely and all actions of her life entirely to that male inserted parasitic entity that will drain her life force and can cause life long medical problems. It tells you exactly how these male law makers and their Christian supports see women. Hugs
Hundreds of US women charged with pregnancy-related crimes since fall of Roe
Study finds prosecutors targeting low-income women mainly in US south – and figure likely to be an undercount
Abortion rights supporters protest outside the supreme court in Washington in June last year. Photograph: Aashish Kiphayet/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
In the first two years after the US supreme court overturned Roe v Wade, prosecutors in 16 states charged more than 400 people with pregnancy-related crimes, new research released on Tuesday found.
Of the 412 cases tracked by Pregnancy Justice, the vast majority took place in the US south, targeted low-income women and involved allegations that women broke laws against child abuse, endangerment or neglect, according to the research, which was compiled by the reproductive justice group. About 300 prosecutions took place in Alabama and Oklahoma. In 16 cases, law enforcement charged women with homicide.
Because there is no national database of US arrest or court records, the group believes the tally is likely to be an undercount. In a report released in September 2024, Pregnancy Justice said it had recorded 210 pregnancy-related prosecutions in the first year after Roe fell – the highest number ever recorded at that time. Pregnancy Justice is now devoting more resources to unearthing records of pregnancy-related prosecutions, so the group can’t say for sure whether these prosecutions are on the rise post-Roe or whether they are simply tracking them more closely.
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Nearly 400 of the cases included in the new report involved allegations of substance use during pregnancy. In an example described to the Guardian, after one woman gave birth, the hospital tested her umbilical cords for drugs. When the test came back positive for marijuana, the woman was arrested for felony child neglect, even though she had a medical marijuana card.
The laws used in most of these prosecutions, Pregnancy Justice pointed out, are typically meant to protect children, not fetuses. By prosecuting pregnant women under them, the group says, states are cementing the legal doctrine of “fetal personhood”, which seeks to grant embryos and fetuses full legal rights and protections – sometimes at the cost of the rights of the woman carrying them. Alabama and Oklahoma are both hubs for the growing fetal personhood movement.
“That is the ultimate goal of the anti-abortion movement,” said Dana Sussman, the senior vice-president at Pregnancy Justice, which scoured court and police records to find the cases. “It wasn’t just to overturn Roe. It is to establish full personhood, full rights for embryos and fetuses.”
Sussman said a number of women have faced criminal consequences for taking substances that were legal or prescribed to them. For that reason, Donald Trump’s claim last week that pregnant women who take Tylenol may give their children autism, raised alarms. Scientific research does not support this claim.
“It’s a perfect storm of all of the things that we work on: stigmatizing pregnant people for not being perfect pregnant people, blaming them for their perceived failures, and relying on misinformation and junk science to create a panic when there shouldn’t be one or isn’t one – while also increasing surveillance in the police state to monitor and potentially criminalize people when they don’t meet these impossible ideals,” Sussman said.
Only 31 of the cases documented by Pregnancy Justice included a stillbirth or miscarriage, while almost 300 of the cases led to a live birth.
A woman whose case was included in the Pregnancy Justice report reportedly didn’t realize she was pregnant until she started to feel intense pain in her stomach. The woman, a new immigrant to the US, suspected that she had food poisoning and decided to drive herself to the hospital.
Before she could get in the car, however, the woman started to give birth. She ultimately delivered what police records listed as a stillbirth. Pregnancy Justice did not factcheck the cases in the report and could not say whether the fetus was past 20 weeks of pregnancy, after which the term stillbirth is used. After police found the remains, the woman was charged with abuse of a corpse.
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The report indicates there are far more cases of miscarriage criminalization than have made national headlines. In one widely covered case in late 2023, police charged an Ohio woman with felony abuse of a corpse after she miscarried into a toilet. In another, earlier this year, a Georgia woman who had been found bleeding and unconscious after a miscarriage faced one count of concealing the death of another person, and one count of throwing away or abandonment of a dead body. The charges against both women were ultimately dropped.
Nine cases discovered by Pregnancy Justice involved allegations that women had considered abortions, such as ordering abortion pills or looking for information about abortion online. Only one woman in those cases was charged with violating a criminal abortion ban, likely because it is legal in most states to “self-manage” one’s own abortion. US abortion bans tend to penalize providers and people who help abortion patients, not the patients themselves.
In 2025, lawmakers in at least 12 states – including Alabama and Oklahoma – introduced legislation that would treat fetuses as people, which would leave women who have abortions vulnerable to being charged with homicide. In several of those states, that charge would carry the death penalty.
“What our work has proven is that, unfortunately, anything is possible when it comes to policing pregnancy,” Sussman said.
I know Jill posts songs and Randy recently posted some also. I don’t want to step on their toes and wont be able to do the grand job they do. But just now I went out to tell Ron something as he worked in our back yard raking leaves from the neighbors sea grapes. As I came back in side I noticed the dark black clouds in the sky and the increasing winds. It reminded me of the first song below. My adopting parents were huge C7W fans and Porter Wagner was one of their favorites. So as a kid I heard the first song a lot. It is often in my mind when the vortex comes for me, as it is the same kind of big winds in my mind. The second song I heard when I was in the military and it stuck with me as it also was played a lot. It fit my mood well back then. Hugs
(Well, another one!) I watched part of Sherri Shepherd’s interview of Jayne Kennedy yesterday morning. I didn’t catch the beginning, but recognized the name earlier when I read it. I looked her up, and found the following from BET, and that’s the post. In addition to what’s included, Jayne Kennedy seems to be living with depressive anxiety, from what I gleaned in the Sherri interview. I couldn’t find anything about that, but she’s written a book, Plain Jayne that I intend to read as soon as I can. From this article, I figured out how I recognized her name and her face; I recall when she was in the Miss USA pageant in the late 1970s. Then I recalled she got a job on some sports show, as covered below. Anyway, this woman, aside from being talented and beautiful, is also courageous. Follow the links within for more information.
Explore the multifaceted journey of the Emmy-winning trailblazer who transitioned from Hollywood to the NFL, changing the game forever.
By Tamara Brown March 9, 2026
NEW YORK – JANUARY 1: Jayne Kennedy and Brent Musburger on “N.F.L. Today,” on the CBS Sports television network. Circa 1978.
In the late 1970s, the network TV sports was a club where the doors were mostly locked to anyone who wasn’t white and male. But Jayne Kennedy didn’t just knock; she blasted those doors off the hinges.
As we continue our Women’s History Month spotlight, we’re looking back at the woman who, in 1978, became the first Black woman to co-host a major national sports program. When Kennedy stepped into the anchor chair on CBS’s The NFL Today, she did more than just read highlights.
Jayne Kennedy, now 74, held that ground-breaking role from 1978 to 1980, quickly becoming one of the most recognizable faces in the country. Before her history-making run at CBS, the former Miss Ohio USA was already a star. She got her start as a dancer on Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In and spent years touring with legends like Bob Hope and Dean Martin.
While her Hollywood resume is long, her impact on the sports world is what truly changed the culture. Beyond the NFL, Kennedy remains the only woman to host the long-running series Greatest Sports Legends. She even stepped into the ring as the first female color commentator for men’s professional boxing.
Even now, Kennedy isn’t slowing down. She was a key player in the LA28 Foundation, helping secure the bid for the 2028 Olympic Games in Los Angeles. She’s also sharing her full story in her new memoir, Plain Jayne, which dives into the grit, faith, and ambition it took to navigate a career filled with hurdles.
By breaking that ceiling nearly 50 years ago, Kennedy didn’t just make a name for herself. She made sure that for the rest of us, the path was already paved with the excellence she brought to the screen every Sunday.
I emailed this to me on Sunday, but have only just gotten back to it to post here. My apologies on that, but it’s been both busy and stormy here! Anyway, I haven’t heard anything about the status of this; I hadn’t heard anything about it at all until I read it in Kansas Reflector. With no further ado:
LAWRENCE — Kansans won’t know until at least Tuesday if a judge will delay implementation of the state’s new “bathroom law,” but a concession by Attorney General Kris Kobach means key components of the law can be delayed until March 26.
Douglas County District Judge James McCabria heard arguments Friday about Senate Bill 244, the controversial new law that forces people to use bathrooms in government buildings and gender markers on driver’s licenses based on sex assigned at birth.
The three-hour hearing focused on technicalities, including whether the law meets any one of five specific criteria that would lead the judge to approve a temporary restraining order and pause enforcement of the law for up to 14 days.
Attorneys with the American Civil Liberties Union and the Kansas Department of Administration said the law’s speedy implementation provided no grace period to Kansans needing a new driver’s license and for government leaders statewide to put a system in place for tracking bathroom usage.
The law took effect Feb. 26, a little over a week after the GOP-led Legislature overrode Gov. Laura Kelly’s veto. Kansans who held driver’s licenses with a gender marker that didn’t match their sex at birth were told their licenses were immediately invalidated and government leaders statewide were told they had to immediately enforce the bathroom portion of the bill.
Kobach told McCabria he agreed to give Kansans who needed to update driver’s licenses until March 26 to complete that. He also said he wouldn’t enforce the law’s penalties — which could be as high as $125,000 per day for violations — for cities, counties, municipalities and schools that might violate the bathroom rules, as well.
Harper Seldin, senior staff attorney for the American Civil Liberties Union, talks to reporters after a Douglas County District Court hearing on March 6, 2026. Seldin asked the judge to place a temporary restraining order on the state to stop implementation of a new law that forces Kansans to use bathrooms and have documentation in their biological sex at birth. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
Harper Seldin, an ACLU attorney representing the two Lawrence transgender men who brought a case against the law under pseudonyms Daniel Doe and Matthew Moe, told the judge the law violates the Kansas Constitution.
SB 244 infringes on the rights of personal autonomy, expectations of privacy, and equal protection under the law, and has other issues, he said.
“The attorney general is incorrect when he says that we’re asking the court to break new ground,” Seldin said. “This is not a novel set of theories that require the government to do anything. The thread through these individual rights claims is that this is about Daniel and Matthew’s right to be left alone by the government.”
Seldin also said the law targets transgender individuals, which can be shown by the results of its implementation even if it’s not stated outright. He said the way SB 244 was implemented violated the Kansas Constitution when the bathroom portion of the bill was “logrolled” into the bill that originally addressed driver’s license and birth certificate gender markers.
Logrolling refers to dropping a bill into an unrelated bill, sidestepping the opportunity for public input. Seldin said cramming two separate subjects into one law violates the Kansas Constitution, which has a “single subject” clause.
Kobach said the two issues are congruent in that they both deal with defining sex within Kansas government.
“It’s this idea that bills should mean what they say and say what they mean,” Seldin said. “There’s a particular perniciousness to a law that hides the law.”
Kobach told the judge that a driver’s license is a government document, used for government purposes, and the state has the right to define the information contained in the document.
McCabria questioned Kobach about briefs included in the plaintiff testimony outlining the negative psychological effects on transgender people being made to use documents that don’t match their gender identity.
“Whatever a person may feel about their need to be perceived by the world in a certain way, what right do I have to compel the government to identify me in that way?” McCabria asked.
Kobach said the driver’s license is a document that records pertinent information, and sex is one of the elements, along with eye color and birthdate, that doesn’t change over time.
Kobach said the bathroom portion of the bill maintains the status quo in Kansas, where he contended residents have always gone to the bathroom that matches their biological sex at birth.
Seldin said trans people in the state have been going to the bathroom without any harms for decades.
Kobach said women who hear a man’s voice or see a man in private spaces could become anxious about their safety.
He acknowledged plaintiff’s assertions about the psychological or emotional harm they may suffer but told McCabria that in a balance of equities, that didn’t outweigh the harms of “99-plus percent of the population.”
When McCabria asked him to substantiate that number, Kobach said he didn’t mean to imply that everyone outside of transgender individuals were harmed by the law.
“Many courts have recognized the fear that ‘biological females’ have when a ‘biological male’ is in the bathroom with them, and that is something that I think any Kansan can identify with, especially a female,” Kobach said after the hearing.
Asked how women would be affected by seeing or hearing a transgender man who now has to use a woman’s bathroom, Kobach said, “All kinds of hypothetical cases are possible.”
McCabria said he had hoped to make a ruling Friday but that he needs more time to study the filings in the case and examine constitutional issues. He said he expects to rule by Tuesday.
“I think most people want to be respectful,” Seldin said after the hearing. “I think most people don’t want to pry into other people’s private lives. I think a law like this suggests the opposite, that Kansans have some prurient interest in other people’s habits and private spaces. And I don’t think that’s right.”
Z Kemp attended the hearing because her partner and many friends are affected. She said the law has caused “a lot of stress and anxiety.”
“That’s just unnecessary because as they’ve stated before, there was — especially with the bathroom situation —- no prior problem,” she said. “It’s only a problem whenever you make it a problem. I don’t think it’s that radical to just let trans people be. Just let them go to the bathroom.”
Avie Fallis said she has been through a lot of physical and legal changes to find herself. She said she is tired of well-meaning people recommending that she leave Kansas, which is her home state where her family and loved ones live.
“I feel like it’s a fire that’s just growing,” she said. “I’m not going to run away from fire. I feel like it should be extinguished.”
Z Kemp, left, and Avie Fallis attended a Douglas County District Court hearing March 6, 2026, about Kansas’ new law because it affects them and their loved ones. The law forces people to use the bathroom related to their biological sex at birth and to put that sex marker on their driver’s licenses and birth certificates. (Photo by Sherman Smith/Kansas Reflector)
This caller is a well know immegration lawyer who calls in often. There has been a long running joke about the buttons on Sam’s shirts so ignore that part. The lawyer talks about what ICE is doing to help the detained people and he describes how horrific the conditions are. The goal is to make it so horrific these people will self-deport willingly. But the government is doing everything possible to hurt and harm the immigrants and detained people because of hate and bigotry of ICE and the white supremacists in the US government. Hugs
It surprises me how many religious evangelicals or fundies or whatever they are called are in Congress and government offices. They really are believers in the 7 mountains religious theocracy takeover of the US government. Between AIPAC and these religious people who believe Israel must be a beacon for all Jewish people to start the end times for their god to come home and hug them is horrific and costing the US every shred of our public safety net while providing Israel and religious organizations a free ride on our dime. Hugs
Her real crime was exercising her 1st amendment right to report negatively on ICE and the higher crime of doing it in spanish a language I would say most ICE couldn’t understand. She committed no crime and remember what DHS, Tom Lyons, Stephen Miller, and Bovino keep telling us they are only going after the worst of the worst criminals. Again look at my first sentence to see her worst of the worst crime. It is flat out racism and genocide of brown people in and name of creating a white ethnostate with an entrenched apartheid system. These people say they want people to come here legally but she is here legally. Hugs
A reporter for a Spanish-language news outlet in Tennessee who has been detained by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement was not shown any warrant when she was arrested this week, according to court documents filed by her attorney.
Estefany Rodriguez Florez, a reporter for Nashville Noticias who has done stories critical of ICE, was arrested Wednesday during a traffic stop, according to documents filed in federal court in Nashville. Her lawyer called for her immediate release, but ICE has asked a judge to deny the request.
Rodriguez, a Colombian citizen, entered the U.S lawfully and has been living in the country for the past five years, court records filed by her lawyer show. She has a valid work permit, and she has applied for political asylum and legal status through her husband, who is a U.S. citizen.
Rodriguez has said she left Colombia after receiving death threats for her coverage of crime in the region, according to a statement from the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. The association said it “denounces immigration tactics that detain journalists and any efforts to interfere with news coverage of immigration enforcement.”
Rodriguez was with her husband in a marked Nashville Noticias vehicle when it was surrounded by several other vehicles and she was taken to a detention center, the news outlet said in a statement.
A court filing Friday by a lawyer for ICE said an arrest warrant had been issued for Rodriguez on Monday and her visa authorizing her to stay in the U.S. had expired. The filing said her arrest and detention “are not in violation of any laws or regulations.” ICE spokesperson Melissa Egan said Rodriguez was arrested during a “targeted enforcement operation” and she will remain in custody as her case proceeds through court.
Court documents filed by Rodriguez’s lawyer said that her attorney, Joel Coxander, spoke to an ICE agent who indicated that there was no arrest warrant for her at the time of her arrest. When she was arrested, Rodriguez was only shown an immigration document telling her to appear before ICE, according to the documents.
Rodriguez’s lawyer said in court documents that ICE had twice rescheduled a meeting with Rodriguez on her case, first because the office was closed during a winter storm and the second time because an agent couldn’t find her appointment in the system.
A new meeting was then set for March 17.
Rodriguez joined Nashville Noticias in 2022, covering social, family, health, police and immigration issues, the news outlet’s statement said.
“She needs to reunite with her young daughter and husband to continue her legal process within the framework permitted by law,” the statement said.
___
This story has been corrected to show the reporter’s second surname is Florez, not Flores as her attorneys initially said in a court filing.
Abortion rights supporters protest outside the supreme court in Washington in June last year. Photograph: Aashish Kiphayet/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images
Scottie's Playtime 