Manhattan

• Preliminary data shows a 5.94 percent increase in assessed Riley County property values, with residential and commercial owners bearing more than 78 percent of the county's tax burden. →
• Officials are tracking House Bill 2745 and Senate Concurrent Resolution 1616, which would cap property tax and assessed value increases at 3 percent. →
• The county is bracing for a significant increase in health insurance premiums dictated by the state plan, marking a cumulative 40.82 percent increase since 2020. →
• Commissioners are directing department heads to minimize spending and maintain a flat 1-mill cap for outside agencies despite a projected 2.8 percent cost-of-living adjustment. →
• The Board of Education approved exploring bond refinancing that could potentially save taxpayers millions of dollars by securing lower interest rates on existing debt. →
• A proposed academic calendar for 2026–2027 was advanced with an August 11 start date, mirroring current schedules despite some board concerns regarding the early start. →
• House Bill 2437 could force local election officials to adopt new annual reporting requirements and mandatory procedures for purging voter rolls. →
• The city authorized a grant for the 2026 Home Rehabilitation and Repair Assistance Program, providing up to $25,000 per low-income household for safety repairs. →
• Senior Caeleb Hutchinson made Kansas sports history by winning his fourth consecutive individual state wrestling championship. →
• Watch for some early morning fog to clear out by 10 a.m., giving way to a partly sunny day with a high near 65 and light southeasterly breezes.

🌾 Kansas

• The Kansas Senate voted 32-4 to ban cellphone use during school hours at all public schools and KSDE-accredited private schools, sending the legislation back to the House for final action. →

• The Kansas House gave final approval to HB 2712, which would increase county authority to levy local sales taxes, on a 108-11 vote, and adopted HR 6033 approving a gaming compact with the Wyandotte Nation by a vote of 99-20. →

• Six Flags announced the sale of seven theme parks — including Kansas City's Worlds of Fun and Oceans of Fun and Six Flags St. Louis — to EPR Properties and its affiliated Enchanted Parks division in a deal valued at $342 million. →

• Kansas City's legal department confirmed the existence of an ongoing federal criminal investigation in an email to The Kansas City Star as top city officials refuse to answer questions about a federal grand jury subpoena received six months ago. →

• Former Salina middle school teacher and high school wrestling coach Ryan Brungardt, 37, faces federal child pornography charges after allegedly using a cellphone to record minors showering in a locker room during a wrestling tournament at Newton High School in January 2024. →

🇺🇸 US

• The U.S. and Israel say they have severely degraded Iran's missile stockpiles and launchers, but Iran has widened the war across at least 11 countries in six days, launching hundreds of low-cost drones at Arab neighbors. →

• Oil prices climbed to around $88 a barrel Friday, with Brent crude up roughly 20% since the beginning of U.S.-Israeli strikes on Iran and on track for its biggest weekly gain since the early days of the Russia-Ukraine war. →

• President Trump ousted Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem after her congressional testimony in which she stated under oath that Trump had signed off on $220 million in ads that promoted her personally. →

• The U.S. military used its most advanced artificial intelligence system to identify and strike roughly 1,000 targets in the first 24 hours of its campaign against Iran, deploying Anthropic's AI tool Claude despite potential Pentagon restrictions. →

• The U.S. and Israeli air campaign has killed Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and destroyed critical command infrastructure, but European and Arab officials say the Iranian government's hold on power remains substantially intact. →

Weather

March 6 2001: The death spiral of Napster begins

After a string of adverse legal decisions, Napster, Inc. begins its death spiral on March 6, 2001, when it starts to comply with a Federal court order to block the transfer of copyrighted material over its peer-to-peer music-sharing network.

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