News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Suit seeks to force feds to disclose Missouri health insurance rates
A Missouri consumers group has sued the Department of Health and Human Services over its alleged failure to disclose health insurance rates filed with the state. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in St. Louis by the Consumers Council of Missouri, comes just six weeks before the enrollment period for coverage under the Affordable…
Increased municipal courts fee to benefit domestic violence shelters
This October is National Domestic Violence Awareness Month. Pres. Barack Obama released a presidential proclamation naming it such, where he asked “Americans to speak out against domestic violence and support local efforts to assist victims of these crimes in finding the help and healing they need.” It’s fitting then that, on Oct. 6, the city…
Meat labeling advances in Canada, stalls in US
Canadian food safety officials have outpaced their U.S. counterparts in requiring meat companies to label meat that is potentially hazardous to consumers. It’s called mechanically tenderized beef, and it has caused illnesses in the U.S., Canada and elsewhere. And in most cases, consumers, restaurants and grocery stores had no idea they were buying it, because…
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The Hale Center Report
The Hale Center for Journalism special projects reporter, Mike McGraw, looked deeply into the issue of meat inspection and shares the full story with co-hosts Nick Haines and Janet Saidi in this special. The program will also feature a segment on the resurgence of gleaning, the process of taking advantage of the leftover food in…
From demise to rise
For the first time in Dr. Steve Green’s tenure as the superintendent of the Kansas City Public Schools, his State of the Schools address was not about what he called the “shackles of un-accreditation.” During the address at Paseo Fine and Performing Arts Academy today, Green celebrated the district’s Aug. 6, 2014 attainment of provisional…
Documentary casts light on Kansas City’s mental health care woes
The state of Kansas City’s mental health care services is dire, according to a forthcoming new documentary. Journalist and documentary filmmaker Michael Price’s Lost Minds: KC’s Mental Health Crisis focuses on the growing number of fraught confrontations between severely mentally ill people and police on Kansas City’s streets. The locally produced documentary airs Wednesday, Oct. 1, at…
Ruling on in-home Medicaid services raises concerns
Karen Barezinsky is looking for an answer to what she says is a simple question: Are the people who run Kansas’ Medicaid program planning to cut the supports she and her husband use to keep her son, Ray Santin, who’s paralyzed from his neck down, out of a nursing home? “I can’t find out anything,”…
Sidelined player moves on, steps up game in concussion awareness effort
A talented athlete, it was not out of the question that Kylee Bliss would be a scholarship basketball player at a small college. As a sophomore point guard at Blue Valley High School, she practiced hard and had a real feel for the game. That trajectory changed, however, after she sustained two concussions on the…
Village Square will encourage Kansas Citians to 'disagree agreeably'
Allan Katz has spent the better part of a decade trying to solve a big problem in politics and has recently moved his fight to Kansas City. He wants to do the seemingly impossible: teach Kansas Citians on both sides of the aisle to “disagree agreeably.” Katz is the co-founder of the Village Square, a…