The next time you are outside, look up. You might see houses, buildings, a few trees. Higher you may see some clouds, a commercial airplane, a military airplane. Maybe there’s a helicopter. In other words, not much. That’s changing. Aerospace engineers and entrepreneurs across the world are in a race to fundamentally change how we see the sky. They are working on new air vehicles — in an industry called advanced air mobility — that will be used to drop packages on your doorstep, transport people and cargo over shorter distances and could even give people the ability to call air-taxis. [...]

High crop prices are trickling down to agriculture real estate, which have risen by the most in nearly a decade. Farmland values jumped 18% from a year ago during the third quarter of 2021 in the Seventh Federal Reserve District, a five-state region including all of Iowa and most of Illinois, Indiana, Michigan and Wisconsin, according to the Chicago Fed. The gains come as farmers were bolstered by high incomes and low interest rates, and after corn and soybean futures climbed to multiyear peaks in Chicago amid adverse weather for crops. Now, the high farmland prices are adding to concerns about [...]

Help for the homeless. Grants for movie theaters. Hydroelectricity. As Kansas prepares to allocate $1.6 billion in federal COVID-19 aid, business groups, non-profit organizations and civic advocates from across the state are pushing a sweeping range of proposals for spending it. They are all angling for a piece of the one-time funding that could prove transformational for a host of programs and initiatives. The money holds the potential to ultimately touch residents in all corners of the state through dollars for affordable housing, business start-ups, new and improved public buildings, better access to higher education and faster broadband internet. How this [...]