Salina voters rejected an effort to remove fluoride from their drinking water Tuesday by a 2-to-1 margin, halting a growing anti-fluoride movement. The city's dentists and doctors led the charge, and unofficial results showed 6,392 Salinans voting against the measure to remove fluoride and only 3,091 voting in favor. "We are very excited to see Salina continue water fluoridation as it is an important public health benefit for our community," said Allison Lesko, president of the Salina Dental Society. "We were also very pleased with how the medical and dental community could come together on this issue, and we are thankful to the community for voting tonight." Dr. Robert Moser, secretary of the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, praised the local effort to maintain water fluoridation, which he said was a "good public health principle" based on sound science. Several of Salina's medical professionals took to the streets in the weeks leading up to Tuesday's vote to convince their neighbors that was the case....

...

Laura Ziegler | KCUR Lindsey Foat | The Hale Center for Journalism When Susie Haake goes to vote tomorrow, she anticipates waiting outside a closed door. "I have to wait for a volunteer to see me and open the door for me," said Haake who cannot open the door herself. She uses a power wheelchair due to polio and post-polio syndrome. According to Haake, the door to her polling place at All Souls Unitarian Universalist Church in Kansas City, Missouri, requires five pounds of pressure to open and is not compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). In addition, Haake plans to take the bus to her polling place because she can't count on the one van-accessible parking space to be available. "There needs to be more accessible spaces at these venues because, traditionally, there are more older folks who vote, and the percentage of baby boomers who need accessible parking is growing," Haake said. The ADA, which was passed in 1990, explicitly spells out federal requirements for accessibility to polling places. Election polls, like grocery stores and libraries, are places of public accommodation and covered by the ADA. Advocates for those with disabilities in the metro say while election boards are generally trying to meet these requirements, challenges remain. For example, polling places are required to have curbside voting for those who can’t get out of the car. An official from both parties needs to deliver the ballot to the voter, make sure it gets properly recorded and placed in a voting box. Clay County Republican Director Dave Reinhart said each…...

Northwestern Colorado has a rich heritage of raising sheep – either for their meat or for wool. But for decades the sheep herd has been slipping in numbers, both nationally and in Colorado, often outcompeted by countries like New Zealand and Australia. Where there’s been a resurgence, though, has been in local, niche markets. Some sheep ranchers have taken advantage of the local food movement to sell to customers at farmers markets and through community supported agriculture models. In the case of Yampa Valley Fiberworks, the emphasis is on reinvigorating the wool economy. Inside their small warehouse outside of Craig, Colo., Lorrae Moon and her husband Lewis spend their days turning dirty, oily, scratchy wool into fine yarns. Inside the wool milling room at Yampa Valley Fiberworks and the first thing you notice is the humidity. “Can you feel the humidity? We can too by afternoon,” says Lorrae. “We keep the humidity up to 88 to 94 percent to keep the static electricity at bay.” That’s just one of a handful of careful tricks needed to make the yarn-making process run smoothly. The couple’s had a crash course on both the physical aspects – removing lanolin, dyeing fiber, spinning on industrial equipment – and the business acumen needed to start something from scratch. The multi-step process of making yarn starts with a wash to clean out dirt. The raw product is then pulled, tugged and twisted through a series of machines meant to coax the fibers into manageable strands, which can then be spun into yarn at the desired weight.…...

The Kansas City Royals have stretched the World Series to the limit, forcing a seventh game by erupting Tuesday night for seven runs in the second inning of a 10-0 rout of the San Francisco Giants.

When interviewing people for the Your Fellow Americans (YFA) project, defining the "American Dream" has been a central theme in our discussions. Sometimes the people we interview are passers-by who pause and give us a moment of their time. Sometimes the people have a full lights-n-camera setup surrounding them and are meeting us for a second or third time. But since YFA is a documentary web series discussing race, immigration and the American Dream, it's a question that I’ve asked a lot in the last few months. Now that the series is launching, our team felt we should turn the tables and try to answer some of these central question ourselves. So, here goes: I would define the American Dream as having the ability to pursue your dreams. Done. But that's not very helpful, right? That definition is vague, pretty much still undefined and I believe that, because it is so customizable, it becomes confusing. Even though we can choose to go any direction we want in this land of opportunity, we often just set our feet to the paths that already have been cut through these amber waves of grain, trusting that the dreams others have followed have been worthwhile. That they have been attainable. That, if nothing else, we can walk along for a bit and pursue our own path a little ways down the road. In September, I was asked to present the YFA project at a college and, in tandem, to lead and moderate a student panel discussion around the project's themes of race, immigration and the…...

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 harvested fields and an interview with Harvest Public Media's Jeremy Bernfeld about the series "My Farm Roots." Related articles: How the USDA’s new ‘chicken rule’ could change what you eat, and how it’s inspected (Video) USDA sued over new chicken rule ‘Chicken rule’ reaction Food waste weighing down U.S. food system Technology, infrastructure cut down on food waste on the farm Manufacturers cut food waste to build bottom line Grocery stores waste tons of food as they woo shoppers Choices can cut school food waste With curbside composting, food waste not a total loss Tossed Out: Food Waste in America (Video)...

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. That means that by 2050, 1 in 85 people will be living with the disease. Now doctors at the Alzheimer’s Disease Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center are hopeful a new drug called Solanezumab, made by Eli Lilly & Co., can delay or even prevent Alzheimer’s. A report published in the New England Journal of Medicine early this year on the drug’s Phase 3 trial - when it’s given to large groups of people to test its effectiveness and safety - showed it was effective in slowing disease progression in mild cases of Alzheimer’s, although not in moderate or advanced cases. “I’m massively hopeful,” says Michelle Niedens, director of education for the Kansas City chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association. “The general Phase 3 trial proved to be insignificant… but the exciting part was they differentiated based on stage.  So those individuals who were in the early part of the disease, early stage, seemed to benefit heavily.” Delaying onset  Although current treatments can slow cognitive decline in patients already diagnosed with the disease, there are no drugs that can delay or prevent its onset. “They don’t stop the disease, but they help the symptoms, meaning the memory loss and changes in memory,” says Dr. Jeffrey Burns,…...

Watch online: Fannect, KC Roundtable, and Title Boxing.