The Kansas Department of Agriculture will lead an emergency preparedness exercise, named Rampart, Dec. 17–20, 2018, in Manhattan, Kansas, to practice the state’s response plan to a foreign animal disease event. The four-day functional exercise, which will be based out of KDA headquarters in Manhattan, will enable KDA and its partners in other state agencies, federal and local government, industry, university and 16 other states to practice the state’s foreign animal disease response plan. More than 200 individuals will participate in the Rampart exercise, which will be based on a fictional scenario involving the confirmation of foot-and-mouth disease in the United [...]

The U.S. Department of Transportation recently reviewed 851 applications for requested funding of more than $10 billion through Better Utilizing Investments to Leverage Development (BUILD) Transportation Grants. Just 91 awards were made; the city of Hays was one of those. “This is a pretty significant thing for the city of Hays,” Assistant City Manager Jacob Wood said during Thursday night’s city commission meeting. The BUILD grant used to be called the TIGER grant. Wood noted the federal program also shifted parameters, which likely became an advantage for Hays. (Read more: Hays Post)