Laura Ziegler

The Kansas City chapter of the Dialogue Institute gifts more than 400 boxes of home-made baklava, touching around 1,000 people across the metro. Members say the gifts are a gesture of gratitude for the many ways they’ve been welcomed by other communities in Kansas City.

Chester Owens will be remembered as a civil rights activist, educator and historian. He’s credited with helping desegregate downtown Kansas City, Kansas, businesses, establishing a Black book store and rubbing shoulders with Martin Luther King, Jr. and other icons of the Civil Rights movement.

This weekend will see the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers face off in Super Bowl 58. As is tradition, KCUR and San Francisco’s KQED have made a friendly wager: barbecue for sourdough. Hear about how the Bay Area is getting in the spirit.

LaTasha Jacob and Carl Smart come from different backgrounds and have different ideas about why Kansas City’s homicide rate is so high. But they plan to work together in Jefferson City to try to persuade pro-gun lawmakers to actually consider solutions such as better childcare, nutrition and education.

LaTasha Jacob and Carl Smart come from different backgrounds and have different ideas about why Kansas City’s homicide rate is so high. But they plan to work together in Jefferson City to try to persuade pro-gun lawmakers to actually consider solutions such as better childcare, nutrition and education.

The mall, located about 10 miles east of Kansas City, has been the scene of other violence.

Shayla Curts, the young mother of a toddler and infant, was pregnant with her third child when she was shot and killed by a man in December. Her family says this might not have happened if Jackson County’s child welfare system had worked like it was supposed to.

Kids around the metro are returning to class after the holiday break — but the new semester has some familiar issues kicking around. Staffing issues in schools, fights over curriculums and controversial mascots were some of the top stories in 2022, and those continued debates are setting the tone for the year ahead.

Zero Reasons Why began after a rise in teen suicides. Four years later there’s still work to be done, but officials say the program has contributed to a decline in suicides and an increase in young people reaching out for help.

With almost 900 kids in foster care and just 19 social workers, Jackson County’s Children’s Division is short hundreds of workers and has the worst case-overload problem in the state.