McPherson

• McPherson USD 418 Superintendent Dr. Shiloh Vincent will step down in June 2026 to serve as the executive director of the regional education service agency ESSDACK. →
• The city commission authorized $108,038 to cover startup and annual operational costs for the McPherson Water Park's 2026 season. →
• The Lindsborg City Council unanimously approved a $19,950 contract with Wilson and Company to provide technical representation for a major grade separation project scheduled for 2028 on K-4. →
• Lindsborg city leaders are calling for strong community attendance at the Messiah Festival of the Arts, highlighting the vulnerability of long-running cultural events following the closure of a major regional Scandinavian festival. →
• Families can sign up through the McPherson Public Library by March 15 to receive free trees or plants for Earth Week through the Neighborhood Forest program. →
• The Convention & Visitors Bureau provided complimentary trolley tours through March 6, allowing local students to learn about city history and state trivia. →
• The local Sonic on East Kansas Avenue has partnered with the city to donate promotional drink tickets to municipal employees throughout 2026. →
• Expect morning fog to clear for a partly sunny afternoon with a high near 65, though keep an eye out for a stray shower and some gusty south winds.

🌾 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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