News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
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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…
What can KC learn from Ferguson?
The shooting of an allegedly unarmed, 18-year-old African American man by a St. Louis County police officer in Ferguson, Missouri, has fueled outrage and debates over race and justice in communities across the country.
Johnson County names DeWeese as mental health director
Johnson County announced Thursday that it has hired a new director for its mental health center. The new hire is Tim DeWeese, a longtime staff member of the Johnson County Mental Health Center. For nearly the past two years, DeWeese has served as director of clinical services, overseeing the largest operating division of the center….
Sen. John McCain joins parade of Republicans in Kansas in support of Roberts Senate campaign
U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts was able to introduce a high-profile visitor he called “one of my heroes” to an enthusiastic crowd of GOP supporters Wednesday. Sen. John McCain, a Republican and the senior senator from Arizona, joined a handful of famous Republicans visiting Kansas to support Roberts in his campaign against Independent candidate and businessman…