Meat labeling advances in Canada, stalls in US
Canadian food safety officials have outpaced their U.S. counterparts in requiring meat companies to label meat that is potentially hazardous to consumers. It’s called mechanically tenderized beef, and it has caused illnesses in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere. And in most cases, consumers, restaurants and grocery stores had no idea they were buying it, because…
Bread! KC puts entrepreneurial spin on arts funding
Bread! KC is a series of micro-financing events that raises project funding for artists. Ashley Holcroft, a producer from KCPT’s “Arts Upload,” recently visited one of the group’s events. Here’s how it works: people purchase tickets which entitle them to a dinner and a vote. They hear three short presentations and then vote on which…
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The Hale Center Report
The Hale Center for Journalism special projects reporter, Mike McGraw, looked deeply into the issue of meat inspection and shares the full story with co-hosts Nick Haines and Janet Saidi in this special. The program will also feature a segment on the resurgence of gleaning, the process of taking advantage of the leftover food in…
From demise to rise
For the first time in Dr. Steve Green’s tenure as the superintendent of the Kansas City Public Schools, his State of the Schools address was not about what he called the “shackles of un-accreditation.” During the address at Paseo Fine and Performing Arts Academy today, Green celebrated the district’s Aug. 6, 2014 attainment of provisional…
Documentary casts light on Kansas City’s mental health care woes
The state of Kansas City’s mental health care services is dire, according to a forthcoming new documentary. Journalist and documentary filmmaker Michael Price’s Lost Minds: KC’s Mental Health Crisis focuses on the growing number of fraught confrontations between severely mentally ill people and police on Kansas City’s streets. The locally produced documentary airs Wednesday, Oct. 1, at…
Ruling on in-home Medicaid services raises concerns
Karen Barezinsky is looking for an answer to what she says is a simple question: Are the people who run Kansas’ Medicaid program planning to cut the supports she and her husband use to keep her son, Ray Santin, who’s paralyzed from his neck down, out of a nursing home? “I can’t find out anything,”…
Sidelined player moves on, steps up game in concussion awareness effort
A talented athlete, it was not out of the question that Kylee Bliss would be a scholarship basketball player at a small college. As a sophomore point guard at Blue Valley High School, she practiced hard and had a real feel for the game. That trajectory changed, however, after she sustained two concussions on the…
Village Square will encourage Kansas Citians to 'disagree agreeably'
Allan Katz has spent the better part of a decade trying to solve a big problem in politics and has recently moved his fight to Kansas City. He wants to do the seemingly impossible: teach Kansas Citians on both sides of the aisle to “disagree agreeably.” Katz is the co-founder of the Village Square, a…
With curbside composting, food waste not a total loss
Wasting around 40 percent of all the food produced in the U.S. certainly has its drawbacks: It’s not feeding people in need, it’s expensive and it does a lot of environmental damage. But across the country, cities, towns and companies are finding food waste doesn’t have to be a total loss. In fact, it can…
What can KC learn from Ferguson?
The shooting of an allegedly unarmed, 18-year-old African American man by a St. Louis County police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has fueled outrage and debates over race and justice in communities across the country.
Johnson County names DeWeese as mental health director
Johnson County announced Thursday that it has hired a new director for its mental health center. The new hire is Tim DeWeese, a longtime staff member of the Johnson County Mental Health Center. For nearly the past two years, DeWeese has served as director of clinical services, overseeing the largest operating division of the center….
Sen. John McCain joins parade of Republicans in Kansas in support of Roberts Senate campaign
U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts was able to introduce a high-profile visitor he called “one of my heroes” to an enthusiastic crowd of GOP supporters Wednesday. Sen. John McCain, a Republican and the senior senator from Arizona, joined a handful of famous Republicans visiting Kansas to support Roberts in his campaign against Independent candidate and businessman…
Choices can cut school food waste
Lunch time at Harris Bilingual Elementary School in Fort Collins, Colo., displays all the usual trappings of a public school cafeteria: Star Wars lunch boxes, light up tennis shoes, hard plastic trays and chocolate milk cartons with little cartoon cows. It’s pizza day, the most popular of the week, and kids line up at a…
Feds expect more consumer choice in health reform insurance marketplace
Consumers in Missouri and Kansas should see more companies offering coverage through the health insurance marketplaces established by the Affordable Care Act, according to preliminary estimates released Tuesday by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. A report issued by the department, released in advance of the open enrollment period scheduled to run from…