Royals edibles

Eat Your (Royals) Heart Out

It’s all blue in Kansas City right now. Folks have donned shirts and hats to tell the world that they’re ready to see the Kansas City Royals take the crown. We don’t have an ocean, but we’re a sea of blue. Since the quickest way to your heart is through your stomach, we set out…

The cattle at Covered-L Farms are a mix of Herford and Red Angus breeds. Farmer Steve Landers converted his cattle ranch to 100 percent grass-fed beef in 2007. (Photo: Kristofor Husted | Harvest Public Media)

Choice Cuts: Farmers raising meat look to keep up with your changing diet

Harvest Public Media’s series “Choice Cuts: Meat In America” examines how the meat industry is changing the U.S. food system and diet

Kansas City Ballet Company Dancers, from left, Logan Pachciarz and Liang Fu rehearse for "The Three Musketeers". (Credit: Kansas City Ballet)

The Weekender

Don’t kid yourself. This weekend – and, with luck, most of the next few weeks – Kansas City nightlife will be completely dominated by the Royals’ playoff run. It doesn’t matter if you are promoting a rock concert, staging a ballet, or just throwing a birthday party, crowds are going to be real hard to…

Pigs in containment area

Choice Cuts: With lifesaving antibiotics at risk, farmers, veterinarians asked to curtail use in livestock

This is part three of Harvest Public Media’s week-long series Choice Cuts: Meat In America, examining how the meat industry is changing the U.S. food system and the American diet. The documentary on the subject will air 7:30 pm this Thursday on KCPT.  One of the most important tools of modern medicine is in jeopardy. In the 20th century, antibiotics turned once-lethal…

Because it’s root-root-root for the home team…

Contributor Hampton Stevens and Multimedia Producer John McGrath get hyped at the K.

Kansas Education Commissioner Randy Watson

Agreeability trumps algebra, Kansans tell state education officials

Kansas residents, educators and business leaders agree that academic know-how takes a backseat to “soft” skills.

Cremalab founder George Brooks

90 Seconds with Cremalab

Ed’s Note: Flatland and Startland News have partnered to highlight Kansas City’s innovators and entrepreneurs, all in 90 seconds. This is the third episode in the five-part series.  With a team of sharp, trendily dressed bohemians, Cremalab is where speed meets creative dynamism. The Kansas City firm, founded in 2009, transformed itself from a design shop to a…

A corn harvester

Choice Cuts: Massive corn crops form backbone of meat industry

This is part two of Harvest Public Media’s week-long series Choice Cuts: Meat In America, examining how the meat industry is changing the U.S. food system and the American diet. The documentary on the subject will air 7:30 pm this Thursday on KCPT.  Drive down a dirt road, a two-lane country highway, even many Interstates in the Midwest and the view…

Claudia Rivera (right) and her boyfriend, Jesùs Varela, stand in the yard of their Liberal, Kansas, home with their 1-year-old son, Fabian. (Photo: Esther Honig | Heartland Health Monitor)

Take 5 for your health

High Teen Birth Rates In Rural Kansas Pose Obstacles To Economic Advancement Nineteen-year-old Claudia Rivera shares a single-story tract home in Liberal, Kansas, with her boyfriend, 20-year-old Jesùs Varela. Last month, Varela’s mother moved in so she could watch Rivera’s baby boy, Fabian, while Rivera works at the Dollar General store and Valera pulls down a shift at…

What’s in a name?

Next year marks the centennial for the Kansas City University of Medicine and Biosciences, which for most of its history has been an anchor along Independence Avenue. That continuity, however, has not extended to the name of the institution, which began downtown as the Kansas City College of Osteopathy and Surgery. The college became the…

A grocery worker slices meat behind the counter at La Vazquez Market in Lexington, Neb. (Photo: Brian Seifferlein | Harvest Public Media)

Choice Cuts: Making room for more meat

All week, Harvest Public Media’s series Choice Cuts: Meat In America is examining how the meat industry is changing the U.S. food system and the American diet. The documentary on the subject will air 7:30 pm this Thursday on KCPT.  Americans have a big appetite for everything meat. We smoke it, grill it, slice it, and chop it….

Today’s Special | Boulevard’s Beer Backpacks

This story of craft beer and baseball begins on Opening Day three years ago at Kauffman Stadium. Neil Witte, a training and technical support manager with the Boulevard Brewing Company, made his way through the parking lot as tailgaiting Kansas City Royals fans hoped that the fat grey clouds overhead didn’t put on a damper…

High water changes Platte River landscape

Wet spring and summer rains soaked much of the High Plains this year. The Platte River, which runs through Colorado, Wyoming and Nebraska before emptying into the Missouri River, saw historic flooding. Standing on the bank of the Platte River at Audubon’s Rowe Sanctuary near Gibbon, Neb., conservation director Andrew Pierson points upstream to where…

Awaiting an oasis, in KCK’s food dessert

It’s a challenge for Shawn Owens to find fresh food in his neighborhood. He walks or uses the bus for transportation, and quality fresh produce and meats are scarce within a reasonable distance from his home. The life-long Wyandotte County resident does most of his grocery shopping at convenience stores and Aldi, but those places…

Fifth-generation farmer Richard Oswald stands in a field of soybeans that's worth a lot less than it would have been last year, partly thanks to a downturn in the economy of China. (Photo: Frank Morris | Harvest Public Media)

China slowdown may squeeze Midwest soybean farmers

China’s rapid industrialization and economic expansion over the past few decades has been a boon for U.S. farmers — especially soybean farmers. But China’s economy is slowing down, leaving American farmers exposed to the downside of being tied to the world’s second largest economy. With tall stands of corn and green soybean fields stretching for…