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Top 5 Kansas news stories

November 11 2025

Greg Loving

11 Nov 2025 • 5 min read

Secretary of State Scott Schwab, left, and Attorney General Kris Kobach say they are addressing election security. Last week, they announced a Kansas mayor, who isn't a U.S. citizen, had been charged with six election crimes. Evert Nelson/The Capital-Journal

Kansas Officials Pursue More Noncitizen Voting Cases After Mayor Charged

Bankrupt Yellow Trucking Returns to Court Seeking Union Damages

Hesston Grocery Store Project Downsized as Beneficient CEO Faces Fraud Indictment

Rose Hill Woman Sentenced to 18 Years for Adopted Daughter's Death

Kansas Museum of History Reopens After Three-Year Renovation

1. Kansas Officials Pursue More Noncitizen Voting Cases After Mayor Charged

Attorney General Kris Kobach and Secretary of State Scott Schwab announced they expect to find hundreds or thousands more cases of noncitizens illegally voting in Kansas elections after charging Coldwater Mayor Jose "Joe" Ceballos with six felony election crimes. The 54-year-old legal permanent resident and Mexican citizen was charged with three counts of voting without being qualified and three counts of election perjury on Nov. 4, the same day he won reelection as mayor. Kansas officials believe newly shared federal immigration status data will help identify additional cases and clean the state's voter rolls. Kobach said noncitizen voting "is not something that happens once in a decade" but "happens fairly frequently," though it remains unclear whether the federal data was used to identify the charges against Ceballos.

CJ Online

2. Bankrupt Yellow Trucking Returns to Court Seeking Union Damages

Yellow Corp., the formerly Kansas-headquartered trucking company that collapsed into bankruptcy in August 2023, will return to federal court to seek millions or potentially billions in damages from the Teamsters union after an appeals court revived its lawsuit. The company, once one of the nation's largest freight carriers, had sued the union weeks before its downfall for allegedly blocking modernization efforts that Yellow claimed were necessary to overcome extreme debt and competition from non-union carriers.

Kansas Reflector

3. Hesston Grocery Store Project Downsized as Beneficient CEO Faces Fraud Indictment

Texas businessman Brad Heppner's promise to build a $20 million grocery store in Hesston has stalled following his federal indictment for allegedly orchestrating a $150 million financial fraud scheme. Heppner, CEO of the Beneficient company in Dallas and founder of the Beneficient Heartland Foundation in Hesston, was charged with pilfering cash from a now-defunct company and funneling it through Beneficient for personal use, though federal prosecutors gave no indication the alleged fraud involved the Heartland Foundation. Kansas legislators granted Beneficient a unique bank charter to operate in Kansas in exchange for Heppner's commitment to fund rural economic development, including the grocery store for Hesston, his hometown that has been without a grocery store since 2018. A bipartisan legislative oversight committee convened days after the indictment was unsealed to review Beneficient's activities and seek updates on the grocery store project, which would be financed through the foundation established with a $6.5 million donation from Heppner and his wife.

Kansas Reflector

4. Rose Hill Woman Sentenced to 18 Years for Adopted Daughter's Death

Crystina Schroer of Rose Hill was sentenced Monday to nearly 18 years in prison for the death of her adopted daughter, Natalie Marie Garcia, whose remains were found buried in the backyard of her adoptive parents' home in September 2024, though investigators determined the girl likely died in November 2020. Schroer pleaded no contest to second-degree murder, child abuse, making false information and theft by welfare fraud.

KWCH

5. Kansas Museum of History Reopens After Three-Year Renovation

The Kansas Museum of History will reopen Nov. 22 with free admission after a three-year closure for renovations to its 20,000-square-foot gallery space on Topeka's west edge. Director Sarah Bell reimagined the museum around three questions—What is Kansas? What was Kansas? and Why Kansas?—organizing artifacts around four themes: bleeding, making, connecting and changing to tell stories of everyday Kansans who led national reform movements. The renovated museum features both familiar Kansas symbols like sunflowers, tornados and the Dust Bowl alongside stories of social movements including temperance, women's suffrage and civil rights. Bell said the reflective questions invite visitors to consider their own answers about Kansas, which may evolve between entering and leaving the museum, with the reopening celebration including food trucks, music and special guests.

Kansas Reflector

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