kansas

Dejan Joveljic had a goal and an assist against his former team, Lasse Johnsen had a goal and an assist in his league debut and Sporting Kansas City beat the Galaxy 2-1 on Saturday night.

Neither team scored until Joveljic used assists from Manu García and Johnsen to score two minutes into stoppage time for a 1-0 lead at halftime. García earned his first assist after tallying nine as a rookie last season.

Joveljić, along with Stephen Afrifa, set up an insurance goal by Johnsen in the 74th minute for a 2-0 advantage. Afrifa’s helper was first this season and his second in 39 appearances.

That proved necessary for the victory after Marco Reus used his head for an unassisted score in the 82nd minute to cut the Galaxy’s deficit to a goal. Reus scored for the first time this season and the seventh time in 31 career matches.

John Pulskamp finished with four saves to help Sporting KC (1-2-1) earn its first victory of the season while putting an end to a seven-match losing streak on the road dating to last season.

Novak Micovic saved two shots for the Galaxy (1-2-1).

Joveljic totaled 34 goals and 11 assists in 106 starts with the Galaxy from 2021-24. He had 15 goals and six assists during the Galaxy’s championship run in 2024 when he scored the second goal in a 2-1 victory over the New York Red Bullls. His third goal this season gives him 21 along with three assists in 36 matches with Sporting KC.

The Galaxy played without Gabriel Pec, who was suspended for the match after receiving a red card in a 4-1 road loss to the Colorado Rapids last week. Joseph Paintsil was sidelined with a hamstring injury.

The Galaxy have a slim lead in the all-time series 29-28-18, including a 19-9-9 record at home.

Both teams posted home victories in two matchups last season.

Up next for the Galaxy: at Portland Timbers on Sunday.

Travis Kelce will return for another season with the Kansas City Chiefs, who have also agreed a deal to sign Kenneth Walker, according to reports.

Kelce, a three-time Super Bowl winner, has spent his entire NFL career with the Chiefs and the veteran tight end is out of contract after his 13th season.

But a social media post, external by New Heights, the podcast he produces with his brother Jason, said: “He’s back! Travis Kelce is back with the Chiefs for year 14.”

Kansas City hoped the 36-year-old would commit to another season and NFL Network’s Ian Rapoport reported that Kelce has turned down more lucrative offers, external from other teams to agree a one-year deal worth up to $15m (£11.2m).

After reaching five Super Bowls in six years, the Chiefs missed the play-offs last season for the first time since the 2014 campaign.

But they have given their offence another boost by moving for running back Walker, the Most Valuable Player in last season’s Super Bowl, with a three-year deal worth up to $45m (£33.5m), according to NFL Network., external

During the regular season, Walker passed 1,000 rushing yards for the second time in four years with the Seattle Seahawks, and the 25-year-old then helped fill the void after fellow running back Zach Charbonnet suffered a torn ACL in the play-offs.

Walker led the NFL for most carries (65), rushing yards (313) and rushing touchdowns (four) during the post-season, becoming the first running back to be the Super Bowl MVP since 1998.

Champions Seattle were willing to let Walker test the free agency market and he will become the first Super Bowl MVP to immediately switch to a new team since 2003.

PASSENGERS have been filmed evacuating Kansas City International Airport amid unconfirmed reports of an active bomb threat.

Footage being circulated online shows hordes of travelers exiting the Missouri airport in masses.

The reported evacuation began around 11:50am local time on Sunday, according to one onlooker on X.

Others have reported being moved from Concourse B to Concourse A and being filtered onto tarmac via staircases as “emergency sirens” sound in the background.

“We were all told to immediately get to concourse A. K9’s and agents all over the place. No planes on the tarmac,” one passenger wrote online.

There are unconfirmed reports that the evacuation has been triggered by an active bomb threat.

‘PAEDO’ PILOT

Moment airline pilot is arrested in front of passengers over ‘paedo ring’

“There’s an active bomb threat at the Kansas City Airport,” a passenger claiming to have just landed at the airport wrote on X.

“My plane from New Orleans just landed. Pilot said we won’t go to the gate for hours.”

Official Statement

“The Kansas City Aviation Department is aware of a situation at Kansas City International Airport (MCI),” a spokesperson told The U.S. Sun.

“As a precaution, the department has evacuated sections of the Airport Terminal.

“Airport Police are working with the FBI to substantiate any potential threat.”

The spokesperson added that the team “is working with law enforcement to substantiate the legitimacy of a bomb threat.”

Further updates are expected shortly.

It comes just 48 hours after a Southwest Airlines flight was diverted due to a mid-air security threat.

Tensions are high amid the US-Israeli war with Iran that has increased the domestic terror threat and the prolonged shutdown of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) due to funding disagreements.

Former Security Secretary Kristi Noem warned that this would “endanger national security,” with TSA and border patrol agents stretched to their limits.

“Now is the time to be vigilant at home and to ensure that all of our doors are locked, so to speak,” Speaker Mike Johnson, warned on Wednesday as he discussed the continued shutdown and conflict.

This is breaking news. Please keep checking back for the latest updates…

Feb. 26 (UPI) — A new Kansas law requiring transgender residents’ state-issued identification to reflect their “sex at birth” went into effect Thursday, immediately invalidating hundreds of driver’s licenses and birth certificates.

KCUR-TV in Kansas City, Kan., reported that people began receiving notices this week from the Kansas Department of Revenue instructing them to request new identification cards and birth certificates if they had ever updated the gender marker on the documents.

The requirement is a result of legislation known as SD 244 going into effect Thursday. It bans transgender people from using bathrooms that match their gender identity. It also gives citizens the ability to sue transgender people for $1,000 if they encounter them breaking that law.

Other states ban transgender people from changing the gender marker on their IDs, but Kansas’ new law also nullifies any changes previously made legally.

State Rep. Abi Boatman, a transgender woman, shared a copy of the KDOR letter dated Monday on Facebook on Wednesday. It said those receiving the letter will have their identification records nullified.

“Additionally, please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials,” the letter reads. “This means that once the law is officially enacted, your current credential will be invalid immediately, and you may be subject to additional penalties if you are operating a vehicle without a valid credential.”

In a separate Facebook post Monday, Boatman said each person who must change their license will have to pay a $26 fee for a standard license.

“Be sure to thank your Republican representatives for not only cancelling the driver’s licenses of 1,700 transgender Kansans but also making them pay for a new one,” she wrote.

“It’s a wild time when Kansas can erase human beings while simultaneously making $45,000 off of them.”

Kansas’ Republican-majority Legislature used a process known as “gut and go” to pass SB 244 earlier this month, The Guardian reported. It allowed lawmakers to replace the text of one bill with entirely new language and to bypass committee review and expedite the voting process.

Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the bill, calling it “poorly drafted legislation,” but the Legislature overrode her veto with a supermajority vote.

Attorney General Kris Kobach, who supported SB 244, said in a Facebook post about the signing of the legislation that he was “thankful for Kansas lawmakers who stand firm on this.”

“No more confusion on official IDs — biology matters, and truth wins.”

After the passage, Anthony Alvarez, who works for Loud Light Civic Action and is a transgender man, said the new law deputizes citizens and gives them financial incentive to turn against transgender Kansans.

“Every aspect of my public life will be subject to policing — from when I show my ID to vote or go to the bank to when I want to visit my friends in their dorm room or when I was my hands before I eat,” he said in a statement shared by the American Civil Liberties Union in Kansas.

The ACLU said it plans to challenge the law in court.

In an update to our exclusive in-depth feature on Shield AI’s hugely ambitious X-BAT vertical takeoff and landing drone ‘fighter,’ the firm tells us that they will begin flight testing near Newton, Kansas, this year.

Armor Harris, Senior Vice President and General Manager of the company’s growing aircraft division, who is also the ‘father’ of X-BAT, told us on the floor of AFA’s Warfare Symposium in Denver today that the aircraft’s central differentiator, its ability to launch and recover vertically, will be a central focus of early flight testing.

Latest on X-BAT VTOL ‘fighter’ drone from Shield AI’s Armor Harris

The stakes are incredibly high for Shield AI when it comes to X-BAT. They are trying to do something nobody else is offering in the high-performance air combat drone sector. X-BAT could drastically change the flexibility and survivability of advanced uncrewed tactical airpower, but achieving stealth, a large combat radius, a relevant payload, and doing it all at a cost that doesn’t send the DoW running is no easy task, especially for a young airframer like Shield AI. Now doing all that and launching and recovering it vertically from basically anywhere, that’s a whole other level.

X-BAT: Earth Is Our Runway

With such a lofty goal comes doubters who think Shield AI is reaching outside their capabilities with the X-BAT concept. Surely these include competitors who would have a hard time arguing for their air combat solutions if X-BAT were to exist in operational form and capable of the things Shield AI claims.

We will keep you up to date as X-Bat progresses toward flight test.

Contact the author: Tyler@twz.com

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas is set to invalidate about 1,700 driver’s licenses held by transgender residents and roughly as many birth certificates under a new law that goes beyond Republican-imposed restrictions in other states on listing gender identities in government documents.

The new law takes effect Thursday. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the measure, but the Legislature’s GOP supermajorities overrode it last week as Republican state lawmakers across the U.S. have pursued another round of measures to roll back transgender rights.

The bill prohibits documents from listing any sex other than the one assigned birth and invalidates any that reflect a conflicting gender identity. Florida, Tennessee and Texas also don’t allow driver’s licenses to reflect a trans person’s gender identity, and at least eight states besides Kansas have policies that bar trans residents from changing their birth certificates.

But only Kansas’ law requires reversing changes previously made for trans residents. Kansas officials expect to cancel about 1,700 driver’s licenses and issue new birth certificates for up to 1,800 people.

“It tells me that Kansas Republicans are interested in being on the vanguard of the culture war and in a race to the bottom,” said Democratic state Rep. Abi Boatman, a transgender Air Force veteran appointed in January to fill a vacant Wichita seat.

Kansas’ new law enjoyed nearly unanimous GOP support. It is the latest development in what has become an annual effort to further roll back transgender rights by Republicans in statehouses across the U.S., bolstered by policies and rhetoric from President Trump’s administration.

Trump and other Republicans attack research-backed conclusions that gender can change or be fluid, which they frame as radical “gender ideology.” GOP lawmakers in Kansas regularly describe transgender girls and women as male, and say that in doing so they are protecting women.

Like other Republicans, Kansas Senate Majority Leader Chase Blasi said Trump’s reelection and other GOP victories in 2024 show that voters want “to return to common sense” on gender.

“When I go home, people believe there are just two sexes, male and female,” Blasi said. “It’s basic biology I learned in high school.”

Kelly supports transgender rights, but GOP lawmakers have overridden her vetoes three of the last four years. Kansas bans gender-affirming care for minors and bars transgender women and girls from female sports teams, kindergarten through college.

Transgender people can’t use public restrooms, locker rooms or other single-sex facilities associated with their gender identities, though there was no enforcement mechanism until this year’s law added tough new provisions.

Transgender people have said carrying IDs that misgender them opens them to intrusive questions, harassment and even violence when they show it to police, merchants and others.

In 2023, Republicans halted changes in Kansas birth certificates and driver’s licenses by enacting a measure ending the state’s legal recognition of trans residents’ gender identities. Though the law didn’t mention either document, it legally defined male and female by a person’s “biological reproductive system” at birth.

However, a lawsuit led to state court decisions that permitted driver’s license changes to resume last year.

Legislators in at least seven other states are considering bills to prevent transgender people from changing one or both documents, according to a search using the bill-tracking software Plural.

But none would reverse past changes.

The extra step by Kansas legislators reinforces a message “that trans people aren’t welcome,” said Anthony Alvarez, a transgender University of Kansas student who works for an LGBTQ+ rights group.

Kansas is likely to notify transgender residents by mail that their driver’s licenses are no longer valid and they need to go to a local licensing office to get a new one, said Zachary Denney, spokesperson for the agency that issues them.

The Legislature hasn’t earmarked funds to cover the cost, so each person will be charged for it — $26 for a standard license.

Alvarez already has had four IDs in four years as he’s changed his name, changed his gender marker and turned 21.

He’s always planned to stay in his native Kansas after receiving his history degree this spring.

But, he said, “they’re just making it harder and harder for me to live in the state that I love.”

Hanna writes for the Associated Press.