News & Issues

Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.

Sounding Smarter

News for People With No Time for News

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The Kansas City Museum at Corinthian Hall

Celebrating, Bemoaning the passage of time

The Kansas City Museum at Corinthian Hall is celebrating its 75th anniversary tonight, and it’s a good thing that the celebration is happening during the evening: In the light of day, the museum is clearly in need of a facelift – possibly an estimated $36 million dollar facelift. Starting in 2005, the Kansas City Museum…

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art sculpture at Synergy Services

Children’s services tax on table for Jackson, Clay Counties

Jackson and Clay counties are hoping to join a handful of Missouri municipalities that have enacted a local tax to fund services for at-risk

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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.

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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…

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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…

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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…

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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…

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Ch-ch-ch-changes, for KCK shopping plaza

The Board of Commissioners of the Wyandotte County Unified Government meeting report

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Sunset on the Country Club Plaza

Sounding Smart

INTERNATIONAL Russia moved forcefully into Syria. Many of the targets seem to be non-IS opponents of Russia’s ally, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. So that’s not terribly helpful. India announced a new plan to lower its rate of greenhouse gas emissions. The plan includes an aggressive adoption of renewable energies, such as wind and solar, but the nation nevertheless remains highly…

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