News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Sounding Smarter
According to the state-run Xinhua news agency, the Chinese Communist Party has banned its members from joining golf clubs. Additional rules were announced against “extravagant eating and drinking” and “improper sexual relationships,” proving there ain’t no party like a communist party. Because a communist party is lame. The golf clubs in China, however, sound like…
KC effort aims to snuff out teen smoking
Business and health leaders on Thursday announced an ambitious initiative to convince elected officials in the dozens of municipalities throughout the Kansas City area to raise the legal age for buying cigarettes from 18 to 21. Spearheaded by the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce and Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Kansas City, “Tobacco…
Med students mix volunteerism, fitness in KC’s Historic Northeast
It was windy and unseasonably warm, but that didn’t stop a group of students from Scuola Vita Nuova Charter School from gathering one afternoon this week for their long-distance-running training session. Sweating right along with the roughly two dozen fifth- through eighth-graders was a trio of medical students from Kansas City University of Medicine and…
90 Seconds With Mighty Handle
Ed’s Note: Flatland and Startland News have partnered to highlight Kansas City’s innovators and entrepreneurs, all in 90 seconds. This is the fifth and final episode in the series. Think of Mighty Handle as your digital defender. No, Mighty Handle is not anti-virus software. Rather, the handy, Kansas City-made contraption is a device that can save your fingers from…
Take 5 for your health
Medicaid Mystery: Why Is Coverage Dropping Among Kansas’ Youngest? For two years now, the staff at Kansas Action for Children has been trying to unravel a mystery: Why is Medicaid enrollment dropping among the state’s youngest children? Enrollment of low-income children 1-5 peaked in October 2012 and has been dropping steadily since. Enrollment of infants…