TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A rural Kansas county has agreed to pay a little more than $3 million and apologize over a law enforcement raid on a small-town weekly newspaper in August 2023 that sparked an outcry over press freedom.

Marion County was among multiple defendants in five federal lawsuits filed by the Marion County Record's parent company, the paper's publisher, newspaper employees, a former Marion City Council member whose home also was raided, and the estate of the publisher's 98-year-old mother, the paper's co-owner, who died the day after the raid. An attorney for the newspaper, Bernie Rhodes, released a copy of the five-page signed agreement Tuesday.

Eric Meyer, the paper's editor and publisher, told The Associated Press he is hoping the size of the payment is large enough to di

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