News & Issues
Stories from around the Kansas City Metro area on a variety of topics.
Enrollment Down in Federal Nutrition Program
Mike Sherry – The Hale Center for Journalism For officials in Johnson County, and across the country, it’s plain to see that enrollment is down in a federal nutrition program for low-income pregnant women and their children. Less clear, however, is why. “That seems to be the question that no one has the answer for,”…
Dollhouse Provides Window to Victorian Life in Kansas City
Lindsey Foat – The Hale Center for Journalism If you’ve ever moved, you know what a headache packing and unpacking a home can be. Now imagine if you had over one hundred homes full of priceless antiques to pack and transport. Well, starting Monday, Jan. 6, 2014 the curators at the Toy and Miniature Museum…
Undocumented and Uninsured – A Health Care Challenge
Tammy Worth – Special Correspondent – The Hale Center for Journalism The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act is expected to make health insurance newly available to nearly 32 million Americans. The law has already expanded coverage for children and young adults. Beginning in January, it will broaden its reach as some states expand Medicaid…
Reflecting on Christmases Past: The Aluminum Tree at the Johnson County Museum
Lindsey Foat – The Hale Center for Journalism Walking into the 1950s All-Electric House is a sensory experience somewhere between visiting your grandparents’ house and a virtual time warp. Around the holidays, that nostalgia factor goes into over-drive when the Johnson County Museum staff erects a six-foot aluminum Christmas tree – complete with a rotating…
With GED Changes Missouri and Kansas Choose Different Paths
Lindsey Foat – The Hale Center for Journalism For the past 70 years, the G.E.D. test has given over 18 million people a second chance at a high school diploma. The test students take to gain their high school equivalency will be determined by the state in which they live beginning in January. While Kansas…
Missouri Innovation Campus Looked to as National Model for Higher Ed
Kansas City, Mo. – Assistant Deputy Secretary of the U.S. Department of Education James Shelton said that higher education suffers from two major issues, lagging outcomes and increasing costs, in his keynote speech at the first National Convening on Higher Education Innovation. “Here in this room, we have heard descriptions of not only kids completing…
Local Principal has Dedicated 48 Years and Counting to KCMO School District
Kansas City, Mo. – When Jessie Kirksey started teaching first grade at Longfellow Elementary School in 1966, she couldn’t imagine she would spend the rest of her career in education, and she was bowled over by those who spent more than 10 years teaching. Now in her forty-eighth year as an educator, Dr. Kirksey is…
Fate of Medical Research tax decided today
Todd Feeback | KCPT News The fate of the 20-year, 1/2 cent sales that is on the ballot in Jackson County, Missouri, to fund translational medical research will be decided today. Proceeds of the tax would go to UMKC, St. Luke’s and Children’s Mercy hospitals with a small percentage going to the Metropolitan Community Colleges….
Local high school athletes may be at greater risk than college players
High school athletes may have a higher risk of getting a concussion than college players. That’s the conclusion of a joint report released today by The Institute of Medicine and National Research Council. A panel of medical experts found that concussion rates were higher in high school-aged athletes who played football, baseball, men’s soccer…
Ninjas of the Drill: STEM Outreach Stokes Girls' Interest in Engineering and Orthopedics
Kansas City, Mo. – When Dr. Jenni Buckley demonstrates how to fix a broken femur bone with an external fixator and power tools for a group of high school girls, she tells them that they too can be a ninja of the drill. “Sometimes girls are really at a disadvantage in terms of how much…