News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Save The Ruby Slippers: Smithsonian Seeks Funds To Preserve Dorothy’s Shoes
Dorothy’s ruby slippers could use a little more magic these days — or at least some conservationist TLC. The famous shoes from The Wizard of Oz are among the most popular items on display at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History. But they’re showing their age, and the museum is asking the public to…
A Force for Refugees
It was during daily walks from her lecture hall to hospital rotations that Sophia Khan first experienced poverty. Born to a wealthy family in Karachi, Pakistan, Khan was a second-year medical student in her homeland when she discovered that the unsheltered groups waiting outside the hospital were poor people wanting to be near their loved…
Picnic for Area Refugees Helps Newcomers Assimilate
When Ahmad al-Abboud brought his wife and five children to the United States from war-torn Syria, he carried with him a vision of this country — of scantily clad people kissing in the streets — he feared would clash with his conservative Muslim culture. But what he found upon settling in Kansas City in April…
Take 5 For Your Health
Need Disability Help In Kansas? Thousands Wait An Average Of Seven Years At his apartment in Olathe, Kansas, 42-year-old Nick Fugate catches up on washing dishes and remembers the 22 years he spent doing it at a local hotel, trying to stay on top of a never-ending-stream of plates, glasses and silverware. Nick recalls minor…
Claims of Faulty Jail Cell Doors at Lansing
When news broke last week that prisoners at the Jackson County Jail could unlock their own cells and walk freely around the facility, it may have been familiar news to Shawn McDiffett, an inmate at the Kansas state prison in Lansing. In a letter to KCPT in August, McDiffett insisted that his fellow inmates can…
A Battle Over Bringing Local Renewables To Rural Electric Co-ops
In the 1930s, rural electric cooperatives brought electricity to the country’s most far-flung communities, transforming rural economies. In Western Colorado, one of these co-ops is again trying to spur economic development, partly by generating more of their electricity locally from renewable resources, like water in irrigation ditches and the sun. Local leaders say that’ll be…
Erasing Red Ink, Sesame CEO Offers Vision To Preserve Home Of Big Bird
It is one of the most recognizable shows on television — a mainstay for nearly a half-century, with a theme song promising, “Sunny day, sweepin’ the clouds away.” Yet dark financial clouds have hovered over Sesame Street’s parent company in recent years. Sesame Workshop President and CEO Jeffrey Dunn took office little more than two…
Common Grounds | Flip the Script: A Police Take on the Issues
One of the story lines of this election year has been alarm over law and order in cities and police shootings of unarmed black Americans. This week in our Common Grounds coffee conversation series, we head to Kansas City, Kansas, where we get a police take on that polarizing issue. We bring together five KCK…
An Iconic Artist’s Paintings Throughout the Metro
Born in 1916 in Auburn, New York, Eric Bransby’s career began while studying at the Kansas City Art Institute as a student of the renowned muralist Thomas Hart Benton. Bransby’s career — highlighted recently in an NPR article — is also the focus of a new documentary, “A Last Mural.” Here we highlight the many…
Commentary | An Abusive Election Cycle Won’t Soon Be Forgiven
Recently on Facebook, a friend asked the question of what people thought about a woman’s mother maintaining a friendship with the woman’s emotionally abusive ex-husband. As you can imagine, the question elicited a range of opinions. But one of the overwhelming themes of the comments was that of loyalty and trust. The question of how…