Top 5 Kansas news stories
December 31 2025
Sumner County Commissioners Reject Battery Storage Facility Citing Residential Concerns
Red Hills Rancher Uses Prescribed Burns to Combat Woody Encroachment and Restore Prairie Ecosystem
STAR Bond Agreement Requires New Chiefs Stadium to Match Four NFL Domed Facilities
Genetic Technology Leads to Arrest in 25-Year-Old Lawrence Sexual Assault Cases
High Winds Topple Goodland Radio Tower, Ending KLOE's 75-Year Broadcast History
1. Sumner County Commissioners Reject Battery Storage Facility Citing Residential Concerns
Sumner County Commissioners voted 3-0 Tuesday to deny a Conditional Use Permit to Nextera Energy for a proposed 300-megawatt battery energy storage facility on Webb Road, overturning the county's Planning and Zoning Board recommendation. Commissioners John Cooney, Jim Newell and Steve Warner rejected the project following more than two hours of testimony from 38 speakers, most opposing the facility, with citizens giving commissioners a standing ovation after the vote. Cooney cited concerns about industrial zoning near more than 700 homes within two miles of the proposed site, a half mile north of U.S. 160, and expressed worry about the county's ability to safely regulate the emerging battery storage technology and potential noise impacts on multi-generational farms. County Attorney Doug Pfalzgraf said Nextera can appeal the decision to district court within 30 days under Kansas statute.
Greg Loving
2. Red Hills Rancher Uses Prescribed Burns to Combat Woody Encroachment and Restore Prairie Ecosystem
Clark and Comanche County rancher Bill Barby has transformed his 3,700-acre ranch through prescribed burning and rotational grazing, combating the spread of eastern red cedar and salt cedar trees that threaten Kansas grasslands. Barby, who received the 2024 Kansas Leopold Conservation Award from the Sand County Foundation, now leads a cooperative of nine ranches conducting controlled burns on an 8- to 10-year schedule to thin woody species and promote native grass growth. The practice has gained urgency as researchers at Kansas State University warn that cedar proliferation increases wildfire risk, with one study estimating that 75 percent of Manhattan could burn if cedars ignite during strong south winds. The 2017 Starbuck wildfire, which burned more than 700,000 acres across Kansas and Oklahoma including Barby's entire ranch, demonstrated both the destructive power and potential benefits of intense fire. The blaze killed dense stands of invasive salt cedar along the Cimarron River, which had been consuming up to 200 gallons of water daily per tree, allowing the river to flow seven years out of 10 instead of drying up from July through Thanksgiving. Barby has since increased his ranch's carrying capacity by 50 cows and entered into a conservation easement with the Nature Conservancy to protect the land from development in perpetuity, with the ranch now supporting threatened species including lesser prairie chickens, whooping cranes and Arkansas river shiners.
Kansas Reflector
3. STAR Bond Agreement Requires New Chiefs Stadium to Match Four NFL Domed Facilities
The STAR bond agreement for the Kansas City Chiefs' new domed stadium in Kansas City, Kansas, requires the facility be constructed in a first-class manner comparable in overall quality and features to four other NFL stadiums: Mercedes-Benz Stadium in Atlanta, New Nissan Stadium in Nashville, State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona, and U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis.
Topeka Capital-Journal
4. Genetic Technology Leads to Arrest in 25-Year-Old Lawrence Sexual Assault Cases
U.S. Marshals arrested David James Zimbrick, 58, of Raytown, Missouri, Monday in connection with child sexual assaults that occurred at Lawrence's Naismith Valley Park between 2000 and 2003. Zimbrick faces one count of aggravated criminal sodomy and one count of rape after Detective Amy Price submitted DNA evidence from cigarette butts collected at the crime scenes to Parabon Nanolabs for forensic genetic genealogy testing in 2018, following the technology's successful use in arresting California's "Golden State Killer." The investigation led detectives to identify Zimbrick's biological mother in New Mexico, who told police she was raped as a teenager and gave the resulting child up for adoption. Zimbrick is being held in Jackson County, Missouri, on $1 million bond awaiting extradition to Douglas County, Kansas, and police believe there could be additional victims.
KWCH
5. High Winds Topple Goodland Radio Tower, Ending KLOE's 75-Year Broadcast History
Kansas Broadcast Company announced that Goodland radio station KLOE 730 will go permanently silent after its transmission tower collapsed into a wheat field Sunday following damage from windstorms that began December 17. Wind gusts exceeding 80 miles per hour along the Kansas-Colorado border caused porcelain insulators at the tower's base to fail, leaving the structure leaning and unstable, with replacement parts difficult to source. Additional wind gusts late Saturday night caused the tower to shift and fall to the southwest without causing property damage or injuries, but the company decided the tower will not be repaired or rebuilt, ending the station's operations that began in 1948.
KWCH
Sources
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