News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Missouri Lawmakers Debate Whether Pregnancy Resource Centers Must Provide Science-Backed Information
You don’t have to drive far in Missouri to see billboards offering help to pregnant women. They’re part of the state’s Alternatives to Abortion program, which has seen a big increase in public funding in recent years. This year’s legislative debate on the program focuses on a new question: What kind of information should these…
To Diversify The Landscape, Diversify Who Works It
Farmers in the U.S. like to point out that their products feed people all over the world. And while this is a diverse country, the people working on farms and elsewhere in agriculture often don’t reflect the nation’s demographics. Changing that is becoming a priority, in hopes new people will bring fresh ideas to meet…
Judge Releases Defendant in 1988 Arson Deaths of 6 KC Firefighters
Bryan Sheppard, the youngest of five people sentenced to life in prison for a 1988 explosion that killed six Kansas City firefighters, will be released, possibly in the next few days, a federal judge ruled today. Members of Sheppard’s family, who packed one side of a federal courtroom here this afternoon began sobbing as…
Lethal Injection Drugs at Center of Death Penalty Fight
Historical accounts peg Peter Johnson as the first person executed in Missouri — hanged in 1810 for killing another man in a township southwest of St. Louis. More than two centuries later, Missouri is still meting out the death penalty. But now, the method is lethal injection, a process that is ensnaring Missouri and other…
Your Purpose Must Be Clear
When a storm blew through Shawnee this summer, it left downed trees and branches in an elderly man’s yard. He had neither the financial nor the physical means to clean up. Many suburban codes don’t make exceptions when it comes to unkempt yards. But in Shawnee, the city has a backup plan thanks to a…
Doctors Caught In Middle As Travel Ban Intersects With Rural Recruitment
Dr. Saeedeh Salmanzadeh became a U.S. citizen at a naturalization ceremony in October 2015. When the presiding official asked if any of the new citizens wanted to speak, she was one of the first to raise her hand. By then Salmanzadeh had spent 15 years in America, after leaving her home in Iran where she…
Take Note: Does ZIP Code Matter?
Should where a child rests his or her head at night impact the quality of the education they receive? KCPT and American Public Square examine the relationship between poverty, housing and education in our metro in this town hall conversation. Panelists: Dr. Dennis L. Carpenter, Outgoing Superintendent, Hickman Mills School District Tony Kline, Superintendent &…
Bus vs. Streetcar Debate: No Easy Answers
More than a decade ago, the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority launched an express bus system along Main Street between the Country Club Plaza and the City Market. Known as the Metro Area Express, or MAX, that 6-mile route proved so successful that five years later, in 2010, the authority added another line along Troost…
Some Kansas Farmers May Turn To Local Produce In Search Of Profit
Low crop prices have many Midwest wheat and corn farmers looking for ways to supplement their incomes. One possibility for conventional farmers: producing food for farmers markets. “Food is a multi-billion-dollar economy in Kansas,” says Missty Lechner of the American Heart Association, who works with local governments to encourage the development of local food systems….
Behind the Bryan Sheppard Ruling: What the Release Order Says and Doesn’t Say
A federal judge’s decision last week to release a man serving a life sentence in the 1988 deaths of six Kansas City firefighters was, at least for some of the families of those men, a hurtful betrayal by the legal system. For the families of the accused, it was the final arrival of justice long…