Is reopening timely or premature?
Communities across the metro area began relaxing stay-at-home restrictions last week, starting with Cass, Clay and Platte counties in Missouri. On Monday, May 11, Jackson County, Mo., and Johnson and Wyandotte counties in Kansas began reopening in phases. Is it premature to lift stay-at-home orders and reopen businesses? Scientists think so. Most communities, they warn, […]
Editorial: Mother’s Day 2020, safely socially-distanced
Mother’s Day is Sunday, May 10. It will differ from any in memory. The recollection of celebrating the holiday during the last global pandemic survives in no one living. (The deadly Spanish flu or killer flu of 1918 claimed some 675,000 lives in the U.S. between April 1918 and April 1919 and upwards of 50 […]
Parents overseeing de facto classrooms
Could the current distance learning format in K-12 education result in widening the achievement gap between low-income, middle-class and more affluent students? Could it lead to quashing hopes of upward mobility for financially disadvantaged youngsters? Will wrestling with the additional challenges posed by remote learning stiffen the resolve of students and parents to conquer them? […]
Editorial: praying at home, praying anywhere
A few churches across the nation defied state and local bans and public health guidelines and held in-person Easter services Sunday. Ironically, a congregation in Chesterfield, Va., announced on Easter Sunday the death of their pastor. He’d refused to shutter the church and had continued to preach, flouting warnings about the dangers of large gatherings. […]
For love, virtual Easter celebrations
On April 14, 2019 at the Vatican, Pope Francis celebrated Palm Sunday mass, inaugurating the start of Holy Week. Waving palm fronds and olive branches, tens of thousands of people from around the world crowded St. Peter’s Square for the outdoor mass. A year later on April 5, the pontiff again celebrated Palm Sunday mass […]
Crisis demands our best selves
Listings of people here and everywhere who’ve tested positive for the coronavirus read like both a contemporary Who’s Who of the world’s most prominent people and local residential phone directories. As of Monday afternoon, there were 775,306 confirmed cases of the disease reported in 178 countries and a total of 37,083 deaths. Along with the […]
Calling on everyone to stop COVID-19
Just two months ago, the first case of COVID-19 or the novel coronavirus was confirmed in the United States. By March 23, the number of known cases had reached 46,145, causing the deaths of 582 people in the U.S. Officials across the 50 states have responded as the highly contagious pathogen spreads, instituting increasingly rigorous […]
Preventing sexual violence
Are we doing enough to end the epidemic of sexual violence? On average, 433,648 people in the U.S. over age 12 are sexually assaulted every year, according to the U.S. Justice Department. Most – 90 percent are women, the National Sexual Assault Hotline reports. A report from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation (KBI) in December […]
Free fare, but safe ride first
In early December, Kansas City, Mo., announced a bold, forward-thinking move that elated area bus riders and drew attention worldwide. It also worried some local residents. On Dec. 5, the KC Council unanimously approved “Zero Fare Transit,” a proposal to make the bus system fare-free within city limits beginning this year. Nations, such as Luxembourg […]
For some, snow days = missed meals
More than 11 million – 17.9 percent — of all kids in the U.S. experience food insecurity, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA). Kids in our area fare even worse. In Missouri and Kansas, 18.6 percent and 19.2 percent of kids, respectively, suffer from limited or uncertain access to an adequate amount of […]