Back to the Drawing Board for Kansas City Public Schools
Kansas City Public Schools administrators entered Wednesday evening hoping they were only a couple weeks away from finalizing a master plan after more than two years of work. But after a three-hour school board meeting, dominated by discussions about the future of Wendell Phillips Elementary School and of the African-Centered College Preparatory Academy, it appeared…
The Weekend Starts Today
Ah, Valentine’s Day. For single people, it’s a festival of loneliness. For anyone in a relationship, it’s a Hallmark-hyped minefield of unreasonable expectations. The holiday is especially hard for men. The best any guy can do is put enough thought and money into the holiday to avoid getting in trouble. Then again, you may not…
Missouri Settles Tobacco Case
Missouri has settled a dispute over the terms of a multibillion settlement with the big tobacco companies that has cost it tens of millions of dollars over the last dozen or so years. Attorney General Chris Koster announced the settlement Monday, saying it will allow the state to recoup $50 million it lost in arbitration…
Take 5 For Your Health
Marketplace Enrollment Climbs In Kansas, Missouri The enrollment period for the federal health insurance marketplace closed last week, with higher enrollment than last year in Kansas and Missouri. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said 101,555 Kansans enrolled before the deadline. That’s about 5,000 more than the 96,197 Kansans who enrolled before last…
The end of a drought for KCMO ‘food desert’?
Residents living just south of downtown Kansas City, Missouri, might get a grocery store after all. Truman Medical Centers disappointed people in and around the Beacon Hill and Longfellow neighborhoods when, in mid-2015, it nixed plans to build a supermarket on the northeast corner of 27th Street and Troost Avenue. The project had been in the…
Bloody, MO | Sharon ‘La Pistolera’ Kinne
Welcome to “Bloody, MO,” a Civil War-through-modern day video peek into Kansas City’s bloody past – starring equally notorious and unknown gunslingers, fire-starters, and godfathers. Today: Sharon “La Pistolera” Kinne Sharon Kinne was known to shoot her way out of a situation she didn’t want to be in, earning her the nickname “La Pistolera.” Connected to at least three…
How Kansas City is | Super Bowl 50
We’re asking the question: How “Kansas City” is… for all the good stuff going on in our world. Up today? The big game, of course. The Chiefs may not be taking the field in Santa Clara, but there are lots of local ties. Check out the video, and if you know of one that didn’t make the…
Could Genetically Engineered Animals be Coming to a Plate Near You?
Tucked away in a University of Missouri research building, a family of pigs is kept upright and mostly happy by a handful of researchers. Two new litters recently joined the assembly of pudgy, snorting, pink piglets. While they look like an ordinary collection of pigs one might find in hog barns all over the country,…
Commentary | The Super Bowl is Better From Home
For years, I went to The Big Game. Whether it was in Dallas, New Orleans or New York City, wherever the NFL decided to hold their annual orgy of self-promotion, I was there. Not this year. Just like roughly 114 million other Americans, this Super Sunday will find me enjoying the game the way it’s meant to…
KCK Mental Health Facility Recognized For ‘Excellence In Collaboration’
A Kansas City organization that serves area nonprofits has conferred its “excellence in collaboration” award on the Rainbow Mental Health Facility in Kansas City, Kansas, for its work with the KCK police department. Nonprofit Connect said Thursday that the Rainbow facility will be one of nine honorees at its 32nd annual Philanthropy Awards Luncheon, scheduled for…
New Executive Chef Tapped at Rye
The torch was quietly passed at Rye in January. Co-owner Colby Garrelts – the only name that has ever been at the top of the kitchen ladder at the Leawood restaurant – promoted John Brogan from chef du cuisine to executive chef. It was a quiet move – the fried chicken dinners and hanger steaks still…
Sympathetic Vibrations | The Right Way Through Wrong Turns
Taryn Miller has enjoyed a speedy rise to national recognition in the last three years, due in large part to simply not overthinking things. And to hear her describe the sequence of events that led her from Winfield, Kansas to a major label release, you almost feel sorry for all the bands out there meticulously…
Life, Prison, Then Life Again
The prison population is growing, and growing fast. According to the American Civil Liberties Union, the number of incarcerated felons grew by 408 percent between the years of 1978 and 2014. Even more eye-opening: The number of incarcerated women in the United States ballooned 646 percent between the years of 1980 and 2010, according to a study from The Sentencing Project, a…
The Weekend Starts Today
Ah, Super Bowl Sunday. America’s greatest secular holiday, our national orgy of overconsumption, is almost upon us. Assuming that you’re not a fanatical contrarian who plans to spend the day eating cucumber sandwiches and shopping for fragrant bath soaps, we know what you’ll be doing come Sunday. You’ll be eating chicken wings and nachos while…
Take 5 For Your Health
Nonprofit Groups Launch Open Kansas Government Initiative Several nonprofit organizations that advocate for children, minorities and low-income Kansans are concerned about what they see as a trend toward less open government in Kansas. So, they’ve joined forces to launch what they’re calling the Open Kansas initiative and to ask legislators to sign a “transparency pledge”…