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Take 5 For Your Health
Doctors Warn Of (Another) Early, Intense Spring Allergy Season In Kansas City The early spring weather Kansas City is expected to enjoy this weekend can be a mixed blessing for allergy sufferers. Doctors at Children Mercy Hospital in Kansas City report surges in pollen and mold have accompanied the blips of early warm weather the…
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Analysis: Why The Kansas Senate Has A New Health Committee Leader Sen. Mary Pilcher-Cook offered an amendment to expand Medicaid earlier this month because she believed it would fail. A few days later, Senate President Susan Wagle removed Pilcher-Cook as chairwoman of the Senate Public Health and Welfare Committee because Pilcher-Cook pushed the amendment even…
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Budgets Reflect Kansas Legislators’ Attention To State Hospitals The Kansas House and Senate both passed budgets last week that shift money from several sources to shore up an underwater state general fund. But even in lean budget times, the lawmakers found a few million dollars in the general fund to provide additional money for the…
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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”…
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Kansas Appeals Court Rules That State Constitution Provides Right To Abortion In a sweeping decision, the Kansas Court of Appeals ruled Friday that the Kansas Constitution’s Bill of Rights provides a right to abortion and blocked a Kansas law banning the second-trimester abortion method known as “dilation and evacuation.” The ruling represents a major victory…
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Kansas Citians Demand Urgency From Citizens Task Force Against Violence None of the houses Kansas City Councilwoman Alissia Canady lived in growing up east of Troost Avenue in Kansas City, Missouri, are occupied. Most of the schools she attended have closed. “When you look at the areas where violent crime is occurring, you see vacant…
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Amid Financial Troubles, Company Closes Two Kansas Ethanol Plants Financial problems at one of the world’s leading biofuels companies are causing ripples in the Kansas economy. The Spanish company, Abengoa Bioenergy, opened a state-of-the-art ethanol plant in October 2014 near Hugoton. Gov. Sam Brownback greeted the grand opening as a shot in the arm for the…
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North-Central Kansas County Copes With Soaring Alzheimer’s Rate Almost every day, Jay Mellies leaves his home in Clay Center and drives about 20 miles north to visit his wife at a nursing home in neighboring Washington County. Some days when he comes in she tells staff, “I don’t know that guy.” Then she smiles. It’s a…
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Topeka Child Abuse Case Raises Questions About Kansas Policy On Gay Adoptions The arrest of a Topeka couple on child abuse charges has raised new questions about a custody battle that some say illustrates a pattern of discrimination against gay Kansans seeking to adopt children. The 2014 custody case pitted a lesbian couple from Wichita,…
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Kansas ‘Right to Try’ Bill Would Ease Access To Trial Drugs But Some See Peril Signs of the toll amyotrophic lateral sclerosis has taken on Kelli Johnsen’s body are scattered throughout the living room of her Emporia, Kansas, home. A wheelchair in one corner. A lift in another. A walker near the television. Next to her…