KANSAS

Law reverses trans documents

TOPEKA — Kansas is set to invalidate about 1,700 driver’s licenses held by transgender residents and roughly as many birth certificates under a new law that goes beyond Republican-imposed restrictions in other states on listing gender identities in government documents.

The new law took effect Feb. 26. Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly vetoed the measure but the legislature’s GOP supermajorities overrode it as Republican state lawmakers across the U.S. have pursued another round of measures to roll back transgender rights.

The bill prohibits documents from listing any sex other than the one assigned birth and invalidates any that reflect a conflicting gender identity. Only Kansas’ law requires reversing changes previously made for trans residents. Kansas officials expect to cancel about 1,700 driver’s licenses and issue new birth certificates for up to 1,800 people.

Trump and other Republicans attack research-backed conclusions that gender can change or be fluid as radical “gender ideology.”

Transgender people have said carrying IDs that misgender them opens them to intrusive questions, harassment and even violence when they show it to police, merchants, and others.

The extra step by Kansas legislators reinforces a message “that trans people aren’t welcome,” said Anthony Alvarez, a transgender University of Kansas student who works for a pro-LGBTQ rights group.

UTAH

Military airlifts small reactor

HILL AIR FORCE BASE — The Pentagon and the Energy Department for the first time airlifted a small nuclear reactor from California to Utah, demonstrating what they say is the U.S. potential to quickly deploy nuclear power for military and civilian use.

The nearly 700-mile flight — which transported a 5-megawatt microreactor without nuclear fuel — highlights the Trump administration’s drive to promote nuclear energy to help meet skyrocketing demand for power from artificial intelligence and data centers, as well as for use by the military.

Energy Secretary Chris Wright and Undersecretary of Defense Michael Duffey, who traveled with the privately built reactor, hailed the Feb. 15 trip on a C-17 military aircraft as a breakthrough for the Trump administration’s efforts to fast-track commercial licensing for the microreactors.

Skeptics warn that nuclear energy poses risks and say microreactors may not be safe or feasible and have not proved they can meet demand for a reasonable price.

Wright brushed those concerns aside as he touted progress on President Donald Trump’s push for a quick escalation of nuclear power. 

The reactor transported to Utah will be able to generate up to 5 megawatts of electricity, enough to power 5,000 homes, said Isaiah Taylor, CEO of Valar Atomics, the California startup that produced the reactor.

Edwin Lyman, director of nuclear power safety at the Union of Concerned Scientists, said the Trump administration “hasn’t made the safety case” for how microreactors, once loaded with nuclear fuel, can be transported securely to data centers or military bases.

ARIZONA

Judge takes over prison health care 

PHOENIX — A federal judge has ordered a takeover of health care operations in Arizona’s prisons and will appoint an official to run the system after years of complaints about poor medical and mental health care.

The decision on Feb. 19 by U.S. District Judge Roslyn Silver came after her 2022 verdict that concluded Arizona had violated prisoners’ rights by providing inadequate care that led to suffering and preventable deaths.

Silver wrote that the state hasn’t gotten a semblance of compliance with court-ordered changes and the Constitution after nearly 14 years of litigation, saying “this approach has not only failed completely, but, if continued, would be nothing short of judicial indulgence of deeply entrenched unconstitutional conduct.”

The Arizona Department of Corrections, Rehabilitation and Reentry plans to appeal the decision, saying in a statement released that the judge disregarded progress it made in the past few years, taxpayers will have to pick up the costs of the takeover and that there’s no specified date when the receivership would end.

For over a decade, state government has been dogged by criticism that its health care system for the 25,000 inmates in Arizona’s state-run prisons was run shoddily and callously.

The state had vowed to overhaul medical and mental health services for prisoners in a 2014 settlement, but was soon accused of failing to keep many of those promises. That led to $2.5 million in contempt of court fines against the state and, eventually, the revocation of the agreement by Silver, who said that corrections officials had shown little interest in making the changes.

While attorneys for prisoners say the state lacks the leadership to comply within a reasonable amount of time, the corrections department said it has transformed the prison health care system over the last two years, such as expanding access to treatments, increasing staff and opening medical housing units.

WYOMING

Triceratops skeleton auctioned

A triceratops skeleton that stood in a Wyoming museum for decades will be auctioned off, a rare instance of a museum-exhibited dinosaur going to the auction block just as the market for the prehistoric giants has hit record highs.

The fossil, dubbed “Trey,” will be open for bidding from March 17 to 31 on Joopiter, an online auction platform founded by Grammy-winning artist and producer Pharrell Williams. It has a preauction estimate of $4.5 million to $5.5 million.

Dating back more than 66 million years to the late Cretaceous period, Trey was discovered near Lusk, Wyoming, in 1993 by Lee Campbell and the late Allen Graffham, a commercial paleontologist who made numerous significant finds over his lifetime.

The 17-foot-long herbivore greeted visitors at the 1995 grand opening of the Wyoming Dinosaur Center in Thermopolis, and remained there on loan until 2023.

Having been recently sold in a private transaction, it is now in Singapore, where it is available for private viewings through the end of March, Joopiter said.

“This one is connected to people and undoubtedly has inspired young children who’ve seen it to pursue a career in paleontology,” said paleontologist Andre LuJan, who worked with Joopiter to prepare the fossil for auction.

In 2024, the remains of “Apex” the stegosaurus went for $44.6 million at auction, shattering the previous record of $31.8 million paid in 2020 for “Stan,” a Tyrannosaurus rex skeleton.

LuJan emphasized that Trey has always been privately owned, and he hopes it will end up in a museum, just like Apex, which is now on display at New York’s American Museum of Natural History after its buyer signed a long-term loan agreement allowing scientists to study it.