News & Issues

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

KU Med Breaks Ground For New, $75M Training Facility

When Dr. David Zamierowski was training as a physician in the 1960s, he tried out his new skills on living patients.

Read More >
The Yawpers rock out during a live in-studio session with The Bridge on Friday. The Denver, Co.-based band plays for the sold-out TEDxKC event Saturday, for which KCPT is a major partner. You can watch on LiveStream at http://livestream.com/tedx/TEDxKC2015.

Sound smart this weekend

THE REARVIEW: (Three stories to have in your wheelhouse) 3 Americans who thwarted train attack receive France’s Legion Of Honor The honors kept coming all week, and deservedly so, for those brave boys, ahem, men, on the French train. We’re so enamored that they were forgiven for wearing polo shirts to the Frenchie version of the White House;…

Read More >

How opera helped a young singer from Ferguson succeed

Nine Network | PBS As the anniversary of Michael Brown’s death approached, young opera singer Melvin Bozeman reflected on his experience with the police in Ferguson and how the arts drove him to succeed. Bozeman graduated from McCluer North High School in Florissant, Missouri, this past spring. He said he has had negative experiences with…

Read More >

Take 5 for your Health

NURSES RALLY TO PROTEST STAFFING AND COMPENSATION AT RESEARCH MEDICAL CENTER Dozens of registered nurses and supporters marched and chanted outside of Research Medical Center in Kansas City on Thursday evening to draw attention to labor issues. The picketers, who were organized by the National Nurses United union, say the hospital is failing to comply…

Read More >

Swimming Pool Parasite Sickens Three In Johnson County

A disease caused by swimming pool parasites has been diagnosed in some Johnson County, Kansas residents and led to the temporary closure of a pool in Overland Park. Cryptosporidiosus, or crypto, is spread by contact with waste, contaminated food or water,or infected people. Symptoms include diarrhea, abdominal cramps, fever, nausea, and vomiting. “At this time,…

Read More >

First Day: Kindergarten in KC

Every year with the start of school, something huge happens for the kids in our communities: They start school, many of them for the first time. With funding issues, budget cuts, provisional accreditation, and superintendent changes in the news, sometimes it’s easy to lose sight of that big thing right in our midst: the wondrous,…

Read More >
man on a stage

KC’s plan to ‘bank the unbanked’

In the Kansas City metro, about 12 percent of households are “unbanked,” which means they aren’t using traditional financial services like banks or credit unions. About 300 people gathered Wednesday at the Plaza Library to discuss how to solve this problem. The meeting was a gathering of the Alliance for Economic Inclusion, an initiative of…

Read More >
This is alt Text

Hopes for new life, and new traffic, at KC barge terminal

The view from Kansas City’s old river barge terminal in the West Bottoms offers a panoramic sweep of the downtown skyline, and a glimpse of just about every mode of transportation. Planes fly in and out of Wheeler Downtown Airport just across the Missouri River, and trains and trucks haul freight over the Broadway and…

Read More >

Hospital Leader Challenges Brownback On Innovation, Medicaid Comments

The head of the Kansas Hospital Association is taking issue with comments made by Gov. Sam Brownback at a recent news conference. Asked about his continuing opposition to Medicaid expansion, Brownback downplayed the importance of the issue, telling reporters that innovation is more important to hospital finances than the billions of additional federal dollars that expansion would…

Read More >
Missouri has the lowest cigarette taxes in the nation, at 17 cents a pack. Kansas has the 15th lowest, at 79 cents a pack.

Missouri Convenience Stores Do U-Turn On Tobacco Tax

After opposing efforts to hike the state’s cigarette tax for more than a decade, Missouri convenience stores are now pushing two tobacco-increase plans, either of which they said would add $800 million to state coffers within a decade of their enactment.

Read More >

Local Storytelling. Fact-Based Reporting. Trustworthy Sources.

Help support the nonprofit media landscape in Kansas City and provide a platform for underrepresented voices across the region.