Hays

• Inflation and rising employee health and liability insurance costs are challenging the draft 2027 Ellis County operating budget. →
• The Hays USD 489 Board of Education approved a $47,808 bid to move playground equipment from two closed schools to Felten Elementary. →
• The Hays USD 489 Board of Education approved a $231,967 bid to replace the 20-year-old kitchen HVAC unit at Felten Elementary. →
• Ellis County Jail Reports 22 Arrests Over July 6-13, 2026 →
• Expect a gorgeous, sunny Friday ahead in Hays with a high near 90 degrees and a gentle southern breeze.

🌾 Kansas

• Former Kansas Supreme Court Chief Justice Lawton Nuss urged voters to reject an Aug. 4 constitutional amendment that would replace merit selection of Supreme Court justices with partisan elections starting in 2028. →

• Wildfire smoke from Canada and the northern U.S. blanketed Kansas skies this week as a heat dome pushed highs into the upper 90s to near 100 degrees, with a cold front expected to bring relief early next week. →

• The Kansas State Board of Education advanced a complaint form at its July 14-15 meeting to let the public report student walkouts under a new law requiring parental consent and financially penalizing districts starting in the 2026-27 school year. →

• Douglas County District Judge Carl Folsom III issued a temporary injunction Thursday blocking Senate Bill 4 and restoring Kansas's three-day mail-ballot grace period for the Aug. 4 primary, prompting an immediate appeal from Secretary of State Scott Schwab and Attorney General Kris Kobach. →

• Great Bend police recovered several stolen World Series trophies belonging to 1962 MVP Ralph Terry during an unrelated suspicious-activity investigation and returned them to his family. →

🇺🇸 US

• ABC, NBC and CNN declined to air President Trump's July 16 primetime election address live, opting instead for streaming coverage as he announced declassifying documents on alleged election system vulnerabilities and renewed his push for the SAVE Act. →

• The House Budget Committee voted 20-14 along party lines July 16 to advance a $95 billion package funding the Iran war, farm aid and stricter voter ID requirements. →

• The House voted 314-104 on July 15 to defeat Rep. Thomas Massie's amendment to cut U.S. military aid to Israel, though 103 Democrats backed the measure. →

• TSMC announced July 16 it will invest an additional $100 billion to build four more chip factories in Arizona, bringing its total U.S. commitment to roughly $265 billion. →

• The CDC and FDA on July 16 identified shredded lettuce from Taylor Farms served at Taco Bell as a potential source of a multistate cyclosporiasis outbreak spanning at least five states. →

Weather

JULY 17, 2014: MALAYSIA AIRLINES FLIGHT 17 SHOT DOWN OVER DONBAS

Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, flying from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, was shot down over the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, killing all 298 people on board. Investigators later concluded the airliner was destroyed by a Russian-made Buk missile launched from Russian-controlled separatist territory amid the intensifying 2014 hostilities in Donbas. The downing of MH17 became a defining atrocity of that phase of the war and foreshadowed Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, when the conflict that began in 2014 erupted into a wider, openly declared war.