🌾 Kansas

• Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed Senate Substitute for House Bill 2745 on Wednesday, rejecting the Republican-backed measure that would have created a protest petition process allowing voters to block local property tax increases exceeding inflation-adjusted revenue, and proposed a three-part alternative including a one-time $250 vehicle registration credit. →

• Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed 15 bills Wednesday, including measures that would have eliminated mail-in voting for many Kansans, restricted online voter registration, created what she called a backdoor private school voucher program, and undone 2016 juvenile justice reforms. →

• Gov. Laura Kelly signed House Bill 2513, a multi-year state budget covering fiscal years 2026 through 2029, but criticized the Republican-led Legislature for cutting school mental health services while boosting lawmakers' salaries by 4% and giving state employees in prisons and mental health facilities just a 1% raise. →

• A warm, dry winter and spring have Kansas wheat farmers bracing for a diminished crop and the earliest harvest ever at some operations, with fields roughly six weeks from cutting after little snow, a warmer-than-average March and the return of drought conditions statewide. →

• Kansans are already paying more for helium as the Iran conflict chokes off roughly a third of the global supply, disrupting Kansas hospitals, manufacturers and aircraft industry operations that rely on helium for MRI machines, surgical equipment and leak checking. →

🇺🇸 US

• The two-week U.S.-Iran ceasefire faced immediate strain as Iran accused Washington of violations and moved to consolidate control over the Strait of Hormuz, limiting crossings to roughly a dozen ships per day. →

• China used its economic and diplomatic leverage to push Iran toward accepting the two-week ceasefire in the final hours before the deal was announced, according to three Iranian officials. →

• The U.S. fertility rate dropped to 53.1 births per 1,000 women of childbearing age in 2025, extending two decades of decline, according to data released Thursday by the National Center for Health Statistics. →

• Chinese state hackers used Anthropic's AI to breach ~30 organizations with minimal human involvement — the first known AI-driven cyberattack — but the same tools are now arming defenders to catch long-hidden vulnerabilities, turning cybersecurity into a race over who finds the flaws first. →

• The U.S. labor-force participation rate slipped to 61.9 percent in March, its lowest level since 1977 outside the pandemic, driven by retiring baby boomers and the Trump administration's immigration crackdown. →

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April 9, 1959: NASA Introduces America’s First Astronauts

NASA presented the original seven Mercury astronauts—Carpenter, Cooper, Glenn, Grissom, Schirra, Shepard and Slayton—to the American public. Their selection marked the United States’ first concrete step toward manned spaceflight in the escalating Cold War “space race” with the Soviet Union.

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