News & Issues

Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.

Take 5 For Your Health

Kansas ‘Right to Try’ Bill Would Ease Access To Trial Drugs But Some See Peril Signs of the toll amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has taken on Kelli Johnsen’s body are scattered throughout the living room of her Emporia, Kansas, home. A wheelchair in one corner. A lift in another. A walker near the television. Next to her…

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Leveling the technology playing field

It’s never fun to get a poor report card, but it’s even worse when the bad marks are due to circumstances beyond your control. That’s the way Superintendent Dennis Carpenter felt when the organization he leads, the Hickman Mills School District, fared badly on its most recent annual performance report from the Missouri Department of…

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Looking To Settle Down, Immigrant Workers Face Housing Crisis

The immigrant workers that pick crops like cotton and melons in the U.S. can have a tough time finding a place to live. The rural areas where they can find work often lack the social services and affordable housing. That means many farm worker families end up in dilapidated buildings, which can come with health…

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Tobacco 21 supporters at KC council

Tobacco 21 gains approval in KCMO, Wyandotte County

The movement to make 21 the legal age for purchasing tobacco products throughout the Kansas City metropolitan area netted two of the region’s largest municipalities Thursday. In a move designed to make a big splash, elected officials in Kansas City, Mo., and the Unified Government (UG) of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kan., voted within…

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As MU looks hard at diversity, the world’s first J-School also needs to revisit a ‘notorious act of racism’.

In the wake of historic changes at my alma mater in Columbia, it seems as though everybody in a position of power there has been clawing for higher ground. University administrators who were forced to resign don’t want to be seen as racist, maybe just clueless. The Board of Curators, which actually thanked those former…

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