There’s a little Scrooge — and Tiny Tim — in all of us
Tom Averill and his family are avid fans of Charles Dickens’ “A Christmas Carol.” You know: Scrooge, “bah humbug!,” Tiny Tim Cratchit and the Ghost of Christmas Past? The family has such a love for the Dickens’ work that it is incorporated into holiday celebrations: Averill, his wife and children have read the book aloud…
KCK ‘healthy campus’ approves new master plan
A multimillion-dollar plan to transform downtown Kansas City, Kan., into a national model is one step closer to reality.
The Unified Government Board of Commissioners last week unanimously approved a new master development plan designed to help improve the health of Kansas City and other Wyandotte County residents by providing a state-of-the-art community center, more green space in which to exercise and access to healthy foods at a 30,000- to 35,000-square-foot urban grocery store.
KC Hispanic Chamber of Commerce celebrates opening of new Peruvian Association
Cecilia Mosher is a Peruvian woman who moved to Kansas City just one year ago. She, along with her two young daughters and friend Leyla Dejong, performed a traditional Peruvian dance called the Tondero at the recent grand opening of Kansas City Peruvian American Culture Association. The event showcased Peruvian culture in music, dancing, food…
Costs may limit use of meningitis B vaccine
Financial considerations might influence use of a newly approved vaccine targeted at a strain of bacterial meningitis that often strikes college campuses, according to speakers at an event Thursday in Kansas City, Mo., sponsored by the Mid America Immunization Coalition (MAIC). The drug in question is Pfizer’s Trumenba, which gained approval from the U.S. Food…
Cold case: Who is the mystery man of KC’s Runway 1?
Skeletal remains found by a construction worker last summer at Wheeler Downtown Airport opened up one of Kansas City’s oldest unsolved mysteries. The Hale Center for Journalism’s Mike McGraw found that the more he investigates, the more unanswered questions emerge. Could authorities do more to unravel the mystery? It appears they may be poised to…
‘No burgers, no fries, make our wages supersize!’
Between 81st and 85th Streets on Wornall Road in Kansas City, Missouri, there are half a dozen fast food restaurants: Taco Bell, Jimmy John’s, McDonald’s, Sonic. This afternoon, employees from these restaurants and others around the metro took to the streets to strike for “15 and a union”: $15 minimum wage and the right to…
KC Checkup: seven questions for Carrie O’Toole
Like many people in rural, medically underserved areas, many of Kansas’ Native American groups struggle with health problems. The four largest groups – the Iowa, Kickapoo, Prairie Band Potawatomi, and Sac and Fox – live in isolated reservations in northeastern parts of the state. In August, the tribes held a Kansas Tribal Health Summit, the…
Missouri and Kansas rank among lowest spending states for tobacco prevention
States continue to spend a miniscule portion of the billions of dollars they collect annually in tobacco revenues on smoking prevention and cessation programs, according to a new report by six leading health organizations. Missouri spent $76,314 on tobacco prevention in the latest fiscal year, the report says. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention…
Bite-sized tales of Thanksgiving from Tell KC
Tell KC, a reporting and engagement collaboration with KCPT and KCUR, asked folks to distill Turkey Day down to just six words. More than 30 people, including Swihart, accepted the challenge.
AARP to urge passage of Kansas caregiver legislation
When diabetes began to steal her mother’s legs and vision three decades ago, Lawrence resident Judy Bellome and her family joined the ranks of thousands of caregivers across Kansas. Bellome had advantages others don’t, but even so she found it challenging. “If I hadn’t been a nurse — and my sister is a physical therapist…
KU Medical Center group recruits rural teens for health jobs
In the last two years Seth Nutt has traveled to nearly every corner of Kansas, introducing rural students to health care professionals. During trips to Goodland, Hays, Highland, Girard, El Dorado, Harper and Seward County, Nutt and others from the Area Health Education Center at the University of Kansas Medical Center have met with 1,000 high schoolers…
What to donate this holiday season? Depends.
Before you put together a donation for your local food pantry, take a moment to consider which items are needed most. It’s not the classic stuffing, sweet potatoes and pumpkin pie you might find on your own kitchen table this holiday. The biggest needs, local food pantry organizers say include more practical items: canned vegetables,…
Kansas City reacts to Ferguson grand jury decision
Riots erupted overnight in Ferguson, Missouri, after it was announced that a grand jury chose not to indict police officer Darren Wilson for the August shooting death of unarmed black teen Michael Brown. [View the story “Kansas City reacts to Ferguson grand jury decision” on Storify]
If at first your experiment gets blown up in a rocket, try, try again
Sitting at a lab table over the lunch hour at St. Peter’s School in Kansas City, Missouri, a group of eighth graders are loading freeze dried E.coli bacteria into plastic tubes. It’s all part of a special package destined for the International Space Station. And it’s not the first time students Holden O’Keefe, Eamon Shaw…
Women have always been farmers, now they’re being counted
When farmer Sondra Pierce had her first child, she decided to forgo daycare. “Soon as I had my son, because I had my son very early, I would put his car seat in the tractor and he would ride with me,” Pierce says. During harvest on her sugar beet farm in rural Boulder County, Colo.,…