News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Erasing Red Ink, Sesame CEO Offers Vision To Preserve Home Of Big Bird
It is one of the most recognizable shows on television — a mainstay for nearly a half-century, with a theme song promising, “Sunny day, sweepin’ the clouds away.” Yet dark financial clouds have hovered over Sesame Street’s parent company in recent years. Sesame Workshop President and CEO Jeffrey Dunn took office little more than two…
Common Grounds | Flip the Script: A Police Take on the Issues
One of the story lines of this election year has been alarm over law and order in cities and police shootings of unarmed black Americans. This week in our Common Grounds coffee conversation series, we head to Kansas City, Kansas, where we get a police take on that polarizing issue. We bring together five KCK…
An Iconic Artist’s Paintings Throughout the Metro
Born in 1916 in Auburn, New York, Eric Bransby’s career began while studying at the Kansas City Art Institute as a student of the renowned muralist Thomas Hart Benton. Bransby’s career — highlighted recently in an NPR article — is also the focus of a new documentary, “A Last Mural.” Here we highlight the many…
Bob Dylan, Titan Of American Music, Wins 2016 Nobel Prize In Literature
The prolific musician is the first American to win the prize for lifetime literary achievement in 23 years. While Dylan long enjoyed favor as an outside shot for the award, few expected him to win.
Commentary | An Abusive Election Cycle Won’t Soon Be Forgiven
Recently on Facebook, a friend asked the question of what people thought about a woman’s mother maintaining a friendship with the woman’s emotionally abusive ex-husband. As you can imagine, the question elicited a range of opinions. But one of the overwhelming themes of the comments was that of loyalty and trust. The question of how…