As Gov. Laura Kelly campaigns to eliminate Kansas’ sales taxes on food, a movement is brewing to limit the tax relief to healthy foods only. The idea of limited food tax relief surfaced during a public forum of the South Central Kansas legislative delegation Tuesday night. It was suggested by Jane Byrnes, a health and fitness advocate who serves on Wichita’s Bicycle and Pedestrian Advisory Board. “If you remove the tax from healthful foods for Kansans, you’d be educating Kansans,” Byrnes said. “Most folks don’t know the difference between evidence-based healthful foods and the extras, the heavily marketed snacks and sugary [...]

Even Neel Kashkari thinks it's time to raise interest rates. Since he became president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis in 2016, Kashkari has consistently opposed rate increases and became known for holding the most dovish views of the central bank's policymakers. But amid some of the highest inflation in decades, Kashkari on Tuesday said he supports raising rates this year — but twice, not the three times the Fed signaled on Dec. 15. Source: Wichita Eagle

Two companies that have long been partners in providing Kansas electric power are locked in a battle over who should pay for what — and the outcome could affect your bills. The dispute, which will be resolved by federal energy regulators, pits rural Kansas customers who get their electricity from member-owned cooperatives against Evergy, a for-profit company and the dominant electric utility in the state. At stake is as much as $27 million that the Kansas Electric Power Cooperative, known as KEPCo, says it’s being overcharged by Evergy for operation and maintenance of power plants that Evergy runs but that supply [...]

Delano was a wild area filled with saloons, brothels and gambling before 1880, when it was officially incorporated into Wichita, but fast-forward a century to 1980, when Jack Kellogg moved his Hatman Jack’s Wichita Hat Works there, and Delano was wild for another reason. “You could have (put) a rock-crushing plant next door to me, and no one would bat an eye,” Kellogg said of the lack of zoning for the area. Today, Delano is an eclectic mix of distinctive retail shops, restaurants and a growing number of business offices. Then there’s the new Riverfront Stadium that’s attracting much potential development [...]

Wichita police Chief Gordon Ramsay plans to resign from his position on March 1, after nearly six years as the head of the largest police department in Kansas. Ramsay announced the decision in a memo sent to the entire department on Friday morning, saying it comes with “mixed emotions.” “I am leaving WPD for the betterment of my family as they are the most important thing in my life and we are at a time when it is most important I am there for them,” he wrote. “Serving as a police chief is a demanding lifestyle and all too often, family [...]

Spirit AeroSystems, Wichita’s largest employer, won’t pay city property taxes for another 20 years after the Wichita City Council renewed an incentive agreement. The council voted Tuesday to renew a non-annexation agreement reaffirming that Spirit’s campus on Oliver is not technically within city limits. The City Council renewed a similar 20-year agreement with Textron Aviation in December 2019. After re-upping the incentive agreement, the council unanimously voted to grant Spirit a one-year extension on job growth promises the company could not deliver on, largely because of the joint crises of the pandemic and the worldwide grounding of the Boeing 737 MAX. [...]

The body of Bob Dole, the former Kansas senator who died Sunday at 98, will lie in repose at the state Capitol on Saturday following a memorial service in his hometown of Russell. The Dole Institute of Politics on Tuesday announced Kansas-based events honoring Dole for later in the week. Dole’s body will arrive on Friday evening at Hays Regional Airport and will be received by a delegation led by Gov. Laura Kelly. From 9 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday, a public viewing will be held at St. Mary Queen of Angels Catholic Church in Russell, Kansas. A service will be held [...]

Every weekday at San Antonio Public Safety Headquarters, people line up at windows to report crimes, seek advice, maybe challenge a parking ticket. But not everyone is here to conduct typical police business. Some are unsheltered and have heard the police can help them get or recover an ID, removing a huge barrier to receiving services. The ID program is the brainchild of the police department’s homeless outreach team, and it represents one piece of a puzzle that San Antonio and Bexar County (population 2 million) have been putting together since the early 2000s. Its purpose: to reduce the number of [...]

The Century II Convention and Performing Arts Center will be Century II for the foreseeable future, but City Hall and its recently approved private management company could seek to rename parts of the facility for those who are willing to pay. City Manager Robert Layton said Tuesday that the city would be unlikely to get any bids for renaming the entire Century II, but there could be some opportunities to sell naming rights within the facility. Layton gave that update in response to questions raised by supporters of the Save Century II movement at Tuesday’s council meeting and in an earlier [...]

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. [...]