Approximately $18 million that would restore basic dental benefits for hundreds of thousands of low-income Missouri adults is in limbo due to a sweeping budget action by Gov. Jay Nixon. Acting under what he termed his constitutional duty to balance the state budget, Nixon late last month restricted or vetoed approximately $1.1 billion in spending…
It’s a form of dementia that afflicts as many as 5.2 million people in the United States. It has no cure. And as the population ages, the number of people afflicted with Alzheimer’s disease is expected to quadruple over the next 35 years, according to a study from the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health.…
Though 25 percent of Americans still live in rural areas, only 10 percent of doctors do, according to the National Rural Health Association, and finding physicians and other medical professionals willing to work in the hinterlands remains a serious, growing problem in Kansas and other parts of the United States. But in Kearny County, on…
Come fall at Mill Creek Middle School, some students will get to build something in their math and English language arts classes other than equations and essays: wind turbines. English teacher Kristan Langton and math teacher Amber Boyington were two of 70 teachers from around the world who were invited to spend a week at…
When Mayor Sly James decided to dance on the tarmac of the downtown airport with the head of the Republican National Convention site selection committee, it was seen as a powerful symbol of Kansas City’s warmth and hospitality. Combined with fireworks at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, city leaders went all out to…
Jim Cavanaugh has owned Clint’s Comics in midtown Kansas City for 39 years. He has seen the stores around his Main Street storefront come and go, and said that his store is the only one that remains in the area from the 1960s. While other media businesses like book and movie rental stores have gone…
In 2001, Sonia Reich left her Skokie, Illinois, home in the middle of the night. When the cops picked her up, she insisted someone was trying to kill her. Over 60 years after Sonia escaped a ghetto and spent several years running and hiding, she is reliving the Holocaust. Her son, Howard Reich, a journalist…
When activists worldwide marked three decades since the emergence of a mysterious immune disease, Kansas City, Kan., participants posted a timeline of key events in the fight against the AIDS pandemic in a building foyer in their community. Yet this was no ordinary lobby; it was the main entrance to Mt. Carmel Church of God…
This Friday is National HIV Testing Day, first created almost 20 years ago to encourage members of the public to learn their HIV status. Since then, what it means to be HIV-positive has changed dramatically. Individuals diagnosed as positive today can expect to live as long as they would without the virus, as long as…
Truman Medical Center Hospital Hill is among 175 hospitals nationwide most likely to be penalized with the loss of Medicare payments because of high rates of infection and other complications. In April, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services calculated preliminary “hospital-acquired condition” scores from 1 to 10, with one being best and 10 being worst. Truman was…