🌾 Kansas

• The Kansas House passed HB 2503 on Thursday on a 72-50 party-line vote, repealing the state's Mail Ballot Election Act and eliminating the framework that allowed certain local elections to be conducted entirely by mail. →

• Governor Laura Kelly and the Kansas Department of Agriculture announced that Kelly Hills Unmanned Systems has been awarded a $3 million grant to develop Beyond Visual Line of Sight unmanned aerial systems technology for agricultural use across Kansas. →

• The Kansas House passed HB 2738 on a 72-50 vote Thursday, directing the secretary for children and families to seek a federal waiver to prohibit the purchase of candy and soft drinks with SNAP benefits. →

• The Kansas House voted 95-27 on Thursday to pass HB 2676, expanding pharmacists' scope of practice to allow them to initiate therapy for certain conditions and fill a 90-day emergency supply of noncontrolled prescription drugs when no refills remain. →

• A cold front swept through Kansas on Thursday, raising humidity to 20 percent and higher and significantly reducing the fire threat that had menaced the state. →

🇺🇸 US

• President Trump is considering an initial limited military strike on Iran targeting a small number of military or government sites to pressure Tehran into accepting his demands for a nuclear deal, with a broader campaign planned if Iran refuses to end its nuclear enrichment. →

• President Trump faces an unusually difficult risk assessment as he weighs military strikes against Iran because there is no clear alternative leader or unified opposition movement that would emerge if Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's regime collapses. →

• Starbucks is attempting to boost afternoon sales at its U.S. stores, where more than half of its $12 billion in annual company-operated sales occur before 11 a.m., leaving baristas working through slower afternoon and evening hours. →

• Amazon has surpassed Walmart as the largest U.S. company by annual revenue, posting $716.9 billion in sales for its most recent full year compared with Walmart's $713.2 billion for the year through January 31. →

• Alan Dershowitz has petitioned the Supreme Court to overturn New York Times Co. v. Sullivan, the landmark 1964 ruling that requires public figures to prove "actual malice" to win a defamation case. →

Weather

February 20 1962: John Glenn becomes first American to orbit Earth

During the early 1960s, the United States and the Soviet Union were locked in the Cold War, a global struggle between American-led capitalism and democracy and Soviet-led communism, with each side racing for military, nuclear, and technological superiority. The USSR’s early spaceflight successes—like Yuri Gagarin’s 1961 orbit and Gherman Titov’s multi-orbit mission—made the U.S. appear technologically inferior, intensifying pressure on NASA to match and surpass Soviet achievements in space.

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