Hays

• The Hays USD 489 Board of Education voted to increase school lunch prices by 5 cents to address rising wholesale food costs. →
• Hays USD 489 Superintendent clarified that 57 of 58 police contacts at O'Loughlin Elementary were traffic stops or community visits. →
• The Ellis County Commission declined to install 55 mph signs on unpaved roads, citing the statutory limit and potential vandalism costs. →
• The Ellis County Commission presented lifesaving awards to several first responders for resuscitating a volunteer firefighter in February. →
• Expect a beautiful, sunny Tuesday in Hays with a high of 89°F and a breezy south wind to keep things comfortable.

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🌾 Kansas

• President Trump endorsed Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson for the 2026 Republican gubernatorial primary, calling the 20-year legislator a "fantastic candidate" in a Truth Social post. →

• Emergency room visits for tick bites reached a nine-year high in April 2026, topping 100 per 100,000 ER visits, with activity concentrated in the Midwest, according to CDC data. →

• Kansas average net farm income more than doubled to $212,494 in 2025, driven by strong crop yields, federal disaster payments and record beef prices, though a 2026 drought and disease are threatening the worst wheat harvest since 1972. →

• U.S. Reps. Sharice Davids and Tracey Mann joined a bipartisan coalition to introduce the Rural Hospital Revitalization Act, which would provide zero-interest USDA loans to rural hospitals facing closure risk. →

• The House passed a year-round E15 ethanol blend sales bill 218-203 on May 13, but the measure faces an uncertain path in the Senate where the 60-vote threshold is expected to test regional coalitions. →

🇺🇸 US

• Iran has agreed in principle to surrender its highly-enriched uranium stockpile in ongoing U.S. talks, though hostilities resumed Monday when U.S. forces sank two IRGC vessels in the Strait of Hormuz, prompting retaliatory missile fire and additional American airstrikes near Bandar Abbas. →

• More than 1.5 million international pilgrims had arrived in Saudi Arabia by Friday ahead of Hajj, with authorities expanding heat-relief infrastructure after last year's pilgrimage saw widespread heat-related deaths. →

• A bipartisan coalition of more than 30 states won an April jury verdict finding Live Nation engaged in illegal monopolization and Thursday asked a judge to force the company to divest Ticketmaster and certain amphitheaters, signaling a broader shift toward state-led antitrust enforcement as federal agencies retreat. →

• Pope Leo XIV issued his first encyclical, "Magnifica Humanitas," a roughly 42,300-word document warning on artificial intelligence and human dignity, signed on the 135th anniversary of "Rerum Novarum" to draw an explicit parallel between the industrial revolution and AI's social upheavals. →

• Russia's Foreign Ministry urged foreign citizens and diplomats to leave Kyiv ahead of threatened systematic strikes, following an overnight barrage Ukraine called one of the war's largest, involving approximately 90 missiles, 600 drones, and a nuclear-capable Oreshnik hypersonic ballistic missile. →

Weather

May 26, 1924: President Coolidge Signs New Immigration Quota Law

The Immigration Act of 1924 set national-origin quotas that sharply reduced arrivals from parts of Europe and Asia, presenting the change as an effort to regulate the large waves of immigration that had entered the United States in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. By basing quotas on older census figures and favoring existing population patterns, the law aimed to slow overall immigration and stabilize the country’s demographic mix as understood by policymakers at the time.

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