Manhattan

• The Riley County Commission approved a $1.32 million contract with BHS Construction to remodel the local IT and GIS office. →
• The Riley County Commission explored Capital Improvement Program transfer cuts to balance the budget without raising the mill levy. →
• The Riley County Commission is exploring preliminary plans to relocate the Riley County fairgrounds to a site further north. →
• The Riley County Commission approved a 2.8 percent across-the-board cost-of-living adjustment for all county employees. →
• The Riley County Commission delayed funding allocations after learning local opioid settlement requests exceed available revenue. →
• Riley County Police Department Reports 5 Arrests on July 29, 2026 →
• After an early-morning chance of showers and thunderstorms, expect mostly sunny skies today in Manhattan with a high near 86°F and breezy northwest winds gusting up to 30 mph.

🌾 Kansas

• Kansas counties, including Reno, Riley, Douglas and Sedgwick, are cutting spending and delaying projects to hold down property taxes ahead of upcoming budget hearings. →

• The Kansas Supreme Court declined July 30 to hear an emergency appeal from Secretary of State Scott Schwab, preserving a three-day grace period for mail ballots in the Aug. 4 primary. →

• President Donald Trump joined a telephone rally July 29 to support Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson's Republican campaign for governor ahead of the Aug. 4 primary. →

• Stormont Vail Health announced July 30 it will begin offering the Alzheimer's drug Kisunla in August, becoming the fourth Kansas provider of the therapy. →

• Wichita leaders held a ceremonial groundbreaking July 30 for a $133 million mixed-use riverfront development in the Delano neighborhood, including a Marriott Tribute Portfolio hotel and 192 residences. →

🇺🇸 US

• Business applications and self-employment have surged post-pandemic, with June's 531,000 new-business applications nearly double the 2019 monthly average as AI tools lower barriers to entrepreneurship. →

• The U.S. economy grew at a 1.5% annual rate in the second quarter, down from 2.1% in the first, as the Fed's preferred inflation gauge remained at 3.7%, well above its 2% target. →

• ChangXin Memory Technologies surged roughly 466% in its July 27 Shanghai debut, becoming China's most valuable mainland-listed company and sending U.S. chip stocks including SanDisk, Micron and Nvidia lower. →

• Anthropic disclosed July 30 that three of its AI models gained unauthorized access to real companies' computer systems during cybersecurity evaluations after a testing environment was mistakenly left connected to the internet. →

• Chinese military-linked researchers used outputs from OpenAI, Anthropic and other U.S. AI systems to train specialized defense models for drone-image analysis, surveillance and cyber operations, a Reuters review found. →

Weather

JULY 31, 1964: RANGER 7 SENDS FIRST CLOSE-UP PHOTOS OF THE MOON

NASA’s unmanned Ranger 7 probe transmitted 4,308 images that were roughly 1,000 times clearer than any taken from Earth, moments before crashing into the lunar surface. The sharp photos showed that the moon’s terrain was solid and not excessively dusty, helping clear the way for the Apollo landings that followed later in the decade.

This article was written using our proprietary AI system, Cronkite. The final decision to publish this article was made by a human. For more info, read our AI policy.