News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Rural Kansas hospital bolsters recruitment by enticing “missionary” doctors
Though 25 percent of Americans still live in rural areas, only 10 percent of doctors do, according to the National Rural Health Association, and finding physicians and other medical professionals willing to work in the hinterlands remains a serious, growing problem in Kansas and other parts of the United States. But in Kearny County, on…
Lenexa middle school teachers go green at Honeywell boot camp
Come fall at Mill Creek Middle School, some students will get to build something in their math and English language arts classes other than equations and essays: wind turbines. English teacher Kristan Langton and math teacher Amber Boyington were two of 70 teachers from around the world who were invited to spend a week at…
KC Week in Review: KC eliminated from RNC 2016 Convention quest
When Mayor Sly James decided to dance on the tarmac of the downtown airport with the head of the Republican National Convention site selection committee, it was seen as a powerful symbol of Kansas City’s warmth and hospitality. Combined with fireworks at the Kauffman Center for the Performing Arts, city leaders went all out to…
Traumatic childhood resurfaces as late-onset PTSD for Holocaust survivor
In 2001, Sonia Reich left her Skokie, Illinois, home in the middle of the night. When the cops picked her up, she insisted someone was trying to kill her. Over 60 years after Sonia escaped a ghetto and spent several years running and hiding, she is reliving the Holocaust. Her son, Howard Reich, a journalist…
KC-area project utilizes churches for TIPS on addressing AIDS among blacks
When activists worldwide marked three decades since the emergence of a mysterious immune disease, Kansas City, Kan., participants posted a timeline of key events in the fight against the AIDS pandemic in a building foyer in their community. Yet this was no ordinary lobby; it was the main entrance to Mt. Carmel Church of God…
Photography exhibition takes aim at stigma associated with HIV and AIDS
This Friday is National HIV Testing Day, first created almost 20 years ago to encourage members of the public to learn their HIV status. Since then, what it means to be HIV-positive has changed dramatically. Individuals diagnosed as positive today can expect to live as long as they would without the virus, as long as…
Truman Med could get hit with penalty over infection rates
Truman Medical Center Hospital Hill is among 175 hospitals nationwide most likely to be penalized with the loss of Medicare payments because of high rates of infection and other complications. In April, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services calculated preliminary “hospital-acquired condition” scores from 1 to 10, with one being best and 10 being worst. Truman was…
KC Week in Review: Judge orders Light Rail on KC ballot. Plus, 20 years of Shuttlecocks at the Nelson.
This week a Jackson County Circuit Court judge rules that a 3-year old plan by maverick transit activist Clay Chastain to bring light rail to Kansas City should go before voters. Though the judge rules that the city should write the ballot language. Also on this edition: “Right to Try” drugs in Kansas featuring a…
Missouri measure would enact ‘Right to Try’ drug program for dying patients
If you were dying and had exhausted all conventional treatment options, wouldn’t you want immediate access to a drug that might prove to be a miracle cure? That’s the promise of legislation that, if signed by Gov. Jay Nixon, would make Missouri the third state in the country – after Colorado and Louisiana – to…
Ladies-only camp gets women fired up about the great outdoors
Michelle Manning is sporting a huge bruise on the inside of her upper arm. She shows it off, pulling up her shirt sleeve to expose the injury that she refers to as her “prized possession.” While learning how to shoot a bow and arrow earlier, Manning accidentally snapped her arm with the bow string, which…