🌾 Kansas

• The Kansas House advanced a mandatory cellphone ban during school hours after Rep. Jill Ward secured an amendment making the prohibition compulsory rather than optional for school districts, with the bill now moving to final action after passing the Senate unanimously. →

• Google announced a second data center at its Kansas City campus with up to $10 billion in revenue bonds authorized, triggering new utility rates requiring data centers to pay premium prices and early cancellation penalties under Evergy's Large Load Power Tariff. →

• The Kansas Legislature reached its halfway point this week with committees advancing more than 40 bills spanning elections, taxation, special education funding, homestead property tax refunds, and government efficiency protections for state employee whistleblowers. →

• The Kansas Senate voted 28-9 to pass a bill requiring state agencies to share public assistance data with federal agencies upon request, with the measure advancing on an emergency motion. →

• Charlotte O'Hara, former Johnson County Commissioner and Kansas House member, entered the crowded Republican governor's primary race by publishing a series of opinion articles on redistricting, Chiefs stadium bonds, property taxes, election integrity and bitcoin mining, positioning herself as an unfiltered conservative alternative to six GOP rivals including former Gov. Jeff Colyer and Senate President Ty Masterson ahead of the Aug. 4 primary. →

🇺🇸 US

• Nuclear negotiations between the United States and Iran resume Tuesday in Geneva with Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner leading the American delegation as the Pentagon deploys two aircraft carriers and roughly one-third of the U.S. Navy fleet to the region.

• U.S. Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth is reportedly close to designating Anthropic a "supply chain risk" after the AI firm refused Pentagon demands to allow its Claude model to be used for mass domestic surveillance or fully autonomous weapons.

• The Justice Department's release of over three million pages of Epstein-related documents in late January has triggered resignations of executives and officials across three continents, including Hyatt executive chair Thomas Pritzker, former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers and U.K. former ambassador Peter Mandelson.

• Micron Technology is racing to spend $200 billion on U.S. factories, including a $50 billion Boise campus expansion and a $100 billion Syracuse complex, as AI demand triggers what executives call the worst memory chip shortage in over 40 years.

• China's high-speed rail network reached 50,000 kilometers in December — enough track to circle the globe — and is carrying roughly 20 million passengers a day during the 40-day lunar new year travel period, the largest human migration in history.

Weather

February 17 1915: Zeppelin L-4 crashes into North Sea

The German zeppelin L-4 crash-lands in the North Sea near the Danish coastal town of Varde. The zeppelin, a motor-driven rigid airship, was developed by German inventor Ferdinand Graf von Zeppelin in 1900. Although a French inventor had built a power-driven airship several decades before, Zeppelin’s rigid dirigible, with its steel framework, was by far the largest airship ever constructed.

Found a mistake? Have a news tip or feedback to share? Contact our newsroom using the button below:

Contact Us