Manhattan

• USD 383 board member Katie Allen filed a federal lawsuit alleging Kansas Senate President Ty Masterson pressured officials to fire her. →
• Riley County is screening candidates for county administrator after receiving 39 applications for the position. →
• Riley County Attorney Barry Wilkerson reported a rise in local murder trials, citing recent convictions and three more trials scheduled. →
• Riley County Commissioners reported youth placements at the regional juvenile detention center have doubled typical annual figures. →
• Expect a mostly sunny and breezy finish to the workweek, with warm highs reaching near 79°F and wind gusts up to 25 mph.

🌾 Kansas

• Children’s Mercy announced that no 2027 Affordable Care Act Marketplace plans serving the Kansas City area will include the hospital in their networks, affecting current and future patients. →

• Rising health insurance costs are forcing Kansas school districts and local governments to tap reserves, raise employee contributions, or self-insure, with Topeka Public Schools reporting a 30% premium spike. →

• Kansas schools have lost 15,296 students since 2019, prompting districts including Olathe and Blue Valley to close schools and make multimillion-dollar budget cuts. →

• Kansas Department of Agriculture Chief Engineer Earl Lewis announced he will retire Nov. 20, 2026, leaving unresolved an aquifer dispute with a southwest Kansas groundwater district. →

• Vice President JD Vance is scheduled to rally for Republican Sen. Roger Marshall in Topeka on Oct. 26 as Marshall faces a close race against Democrat Adam Hamilton. →

🇺🇸 US

• Brent crude climbed above $113 a barrel Thursday on Iran war fears as the Nasdaq fell amid an AI stock selloff and the 10-year Treasury yield slipped below 5%. →

• American Airlines posted a $269 million third-quarter loss Thursday as fuel costs jumped 67.5%, and it forecast a full-year loss. →

• President Trump signed an executive order Thursday to test automatic mortgage insurance cancellation and other housing-cost measures while invoking the Defense Production Act to expand fuel refining. →

• The USDA proposed $573 million Thursday for eight fertilizer projects to cut farmers' reliance on foreign supplies, as Dow reported a quarterly profit of $525 million, up from $124 million a year earlier. →

• Moderna and Merck said Thursday their personalized cancer vaccine combined with Keytruda cut the risk of melanoma recurrence or death by 42% compared with Keytruda alone in a Phase 3 trial. →

Weather

October 23, 2001: Apple Announces the First iPod

Apple unveils the first iPod, a sleek digital music player that could store up to 1,000 songs and fit in a pocket. Its minimalist design and integration with Apple’s ecosystem transformed how people consumed music and helped propel Apple into a leading consumer electronics company.

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.

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