Edgerton Overrides Planners to Approve Dubai-Backed Data Center

Kansas Farmers Bet on Water-Sipping Pasta Wheat

Record US Cyclospora Outbreak Sickens 289 Kansans

Kansas Holds 3.8% Jobless Rate as Manufacturing Adds 2,700 Jobs

Kobach Demands Three Cities Repeal Conversion Therapy Bans

Edgerton Overrides Planners to Approve Dubai-Backed Data Center

EDGERTON, Kan. — The Edgerton City Council voted unanimously at a July 16 special meeting to override its own planning commission and approve final plans for a 400,000-square-foot data center at Logistics Park Kansas City, the warehouse district in southwest Johnson County. Developer DAMAC Digital, part of a Dubai-based property conglomerate, saw the plan rejected 3-2 by the planning commission in June amid resident concerns about noise from diesel backup generators, water use, air pollution and the project's proximity to homes. City officials said Edgerton had limited legal room to block the project on industrial-zoned land, leaving approval of the final plat, the detailed site map, as the last remaining step, expected in August. Residents who fought the project say the override shows how little say neighbors have once ground is zoned industrial. The vote comes as data centers race into Kansas for available land, power and tax incentives, and as Lawrence and Topeka both paused new data centers this month, making local decisions like Edgerton's the ones that determine where the AI economy's heavy utility demands land in the state and who bears the costs.

Johnson County Post · Data Center Dynamics · Yahoo News

Kansas Farmers Bet on Water-Sipping Pasta Wheat

MANHATTAN, Kan. — Western Kansas farmers are scaling up winter durum, the hard, high-protein wheat milled into the semolina flour used for pasta, with about 9,000 acres now planted statewide. Kansas State University released the variety in 2023 after wheat breeder Allan Fritz began work on it in 2002, producing the first durum bred to survive Great Plains winters; nearly all U.S. durum today comes from North Dakota, Montana and Canada. Pasta makers pay a premium for durum, so the crop can return more money per acre than the hard red winter wheat that dominates Kansas fields. It was also bred to produce on limited water, a critical trait as the Ogallala Aquifer declines under western Kansas and as this year's drought left the state's conventional wheat harvest sharply uneven. Because durum is still wheat, farmers can adopt it with the equipment and know-how they already have, making the crop one of the first concrete tests of whether Kansas agriculture can earn more with less water.

Kansas News Service

Record US Cyclospora Outbreak Sickens 289 Kansans

TOPEKA, Kan. — Cyclosporiasis cases in Kansas have climbed to 289 this year, more than five times the 55 cases reported a week earlier, with a dozen people hospitalized, the Kansas Department of Health and Environment said July 22. Johnson County leads with 95 cases, followed by Shawnee County with 58 and Sedgwick County with about 30; of the total, 114 are classified as domestically acquired, 24 are likely tied to international travel, six could not be classified and 145 remain under review. State investigators link the surge to a national outbreak associated with Taylor Farms de Mexico iceberg lettuce, voluntarily recalled from restaurants and grocery stores July 17. Cyclospora is a microscopic parasite spread through contaminated food that causes explosive diarrhea lasting weeks if untreated, and the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said July 23 the national outbreak has grown to 7,664 reported cases with 160 hospitalizations, making it the largest cyclosporiasis outbreak in U.S. history. With the outbreak shaping up as one of the largest foodborne illness events to hit Kansas in years, health officials urge residents to discard recalled lettuce and see a doctor for persistent symptoms.

WIBW · KCTV5 · KWCH · KAKE · KVOE · CDC

Kansas Holds 3.8% Jobless Rate as Manufacturing Adds 2,700 Jobs

TOPEKA, Kan. — The Kansas Department of Labor reported the state's seasonally adjusted unemployment rate held at 3.8% in June. The labor-force participation rate fell to 67%. Nonfarm payrolls added 3,300 positions from May, led by 2,700 manufacturing jobs. Private education and health services lost 1,500 jobs over the same period. Kansas counted 12,100 more nonfarm jobs than in June 2025.

Hays Post

Kobach Demands Three Cities Repeal Conversion Therapy Bans

TOPEKA, Kan. — Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach sent letters July 23 to the mayors of Lawrence, Prairie Village and Roeland Park demanding each city repeal its ordinance banning conversion therapy, giving them 60 days to tell his office whether they have complied. The three cities in recent years barred licensed therapists from attempting to change a minor's sexual orientation or gender identity through counseling. Kobach's letters rely on the U.S. Supreme Court's ruling in Chiles v. Salazar, which struck down a Colorado ban on the grounds that restricting what a licensed counselor may say in talk therapy censors speech based on viewpoint, and he argues the Kansas ordinances are unconstitutional for the same reason, calling Lawrence's broad ban unconstitutionally vague and warning his office could pursue enforcement or litigation if the cities refuse. Major medical organizations, including the American Medical Association and the American Psychological Association, oppose conversion therapy as ineffective and potentially harmful to young people, the rationale the cities cited in passing their bans. The demand tests how far the new national precedent reaches into Kansas home-rule cities, with the outcome likely to decide whether such local protections survive anywhere in the state.

KCTV5 · Lawrence Journal-World · Hoodline · KZRG

Sources

1. Johnson County Post / Data Center Dynamics / Johnson County Post (June) / Yahoo News
2. KCUR / KMUW / HPPR / KRPS
3. WIBW / KCTV5 / KWCH / KAKE / KVOE / CDC
4. Hays Post
5. KCTV5 / Lawrence Journal-World / Hoodline / KZRG

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