Top 5 Kansas news stories
June 25 2026
Holscher, Hamilton Lead Kansas Democratic Polls
Justice Department Sues Kansas Over Immigrant Tuition
Geary County Halts Data Centers for One Year
Weather Service Explains Unwarned Sedgwick Tornado
Teen Arrested in Threats Against Wichita Hospital
Holscher, Hamilton Lead Kansas Democratic Polls
TOPEKA, Kan. — A poll of likely Kansas Democratic primary voters released June 24 showed Gov. Laura Kelly's endorsed candidate, state Sen. Ethan Corson, trailing rival state Sen. Cindy Holscher in the race to succeed the term-limited governor. Kelly backed Corson in November 2025 as a "true middle-of-the-road" Democrat, but the survey placed Holscher, who runs to his left, atop the gubernatorial field. The Rev. Adam Hamilton, pastor of the nation's largest United Methodist congregation, led a crowded U.S. Senate field of 11 Democrats. Corson, a 43-year-old from Fairway and former director of the Kansas Democratic Party, has built his campaign on electability and Kelly's stamp of approval, while Holscher of Overland Park has sharpened attacks on "MAGA extremists" and the Republican legislative supermajority. The stakes are high because Kelly is barred by term limits from seeking another term and U.S. Sen. Roger Marshall's seat is also on the ballot this year, leaving both the governor's office and a Senate seat competitive in a state where Republicans hold every statewide federal office and legislative supermajorities.
Kansas Reflector
Justice Department Sues Kansas Over Immigrant Tuition
TOPEKA, Kan. — The U.S. Department of Justice sued Kansas in federal court June 24, arguing the state's 2004 law granting in-state tuition to certain students who lack legal immigration status discriminates against U.S. citizens and is overridden by federal law. The same day, the DOJ and Republican Attorney General Kris Kobach jointly filed a proposed consent decree in which the state agrees the law is invalid and would stop enforcing it. The statute lets students without legal status pay the lower in-state rate if they attended a Kansas high school for at least three years, graduated or earned an equivalency, and signed an affidavit pledging to seek legal status when eligible. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly moved to intervene to defend the law, setting up a clash with Kobach over who speaks for the state. The suit is the tenth in a national Trump administration campaign against state benefits for immigrants in the country illegally, following similar moves in Texas, Kentucky and Minnesota.
Kansas Reflector · KWCH · Fox4KC · KSN · DOJ
Geary County Halts Data Centers for One Year
JUNCTION CITY, Kan. — The Geary County Commission voted unanimously June 22 to impose a one-year moratorium on new data centers in unincorporated parts of the north-central Kansas county, halting approvals while officials write rules to govern the power-, water- and land-hungry facilities. Planning and zoning director Troy Livingston said the pause would let the county study the strain such projects place on infrastructure, water supplies and the electric grid before deciding whether and where to allow them. The freeze also covers wind, solar and battery-storage projects and cryptocurrency mining, but exempts developments already permitted, including a rural solar array. Geary County joins a growing list of Kansas communities weighing or enacting similar pauses as artificial-intelligence and cloud-computing projects target the state. The action comes as nearby Emporia continues to wrestle with a separate proposed gigawatt-scale campus.
KSNT · JC Post · KPR
Weather Service Explains Unwarned Sedgwick Tornado
WICHITA, Kan. — National Weather Service meteorologist Vanessa Pearce explained June 24 why no tornado warning preceded the EF-2 tornado that struck northern Sedgwick County early June 21, killing one person. The tornado, with peak winds of 135 mph, touched down at 1:14 a.m. and lifted about two minutes later after traveling less than a quarter-mile, ripping a manufactured home from its foundation and killing the homeowner. Pearce told KWCH the Wichita office issued a severe thunderstorm warning roughly 45 minutes ahead of the storm, warning of 70 mph winds, but radar showed the system as a line with no rotation that would have triggered a tornado warning. A tornado debris signature appeared only afterward, with debris lofted 7,000 to 10,000 feet, by which point the tornado was already gone. Pearce said brief tornadoes embedded in such lines of storms are difficult to detect because radar scans can be two to three minutes apart, allowing a tornado to form and dissipate between sweeps.
KWCH
Teen Arrested in Threats Against Wichita Hospital
WICHITA, Kan. — Wichita police arrested a 15-year-old boy June 24 after staff at Ascension Via Christi St. Joseph reported repeated calls threatening to shoot up the hospital around 12:30 p.m. Officers worked with the FBI during the response. They took the teen into custody about 6 p.m. on suspicion of criminal threat and booked him into the Juvenile Intake and Assessment Center. The hospital briefly went on restricted access while police responded, and those restrictions were later lifted.
KSN
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