In the half-dozen years since the Supreme Court in 2018 effectively allowed legal sports betting in all states, 38 of them and D.C. have to some extent authorized wagering — often with the express purpose…

Kansas policymakers are abuzz about the recent defeat of a sports stadium tax in Jackson County, Mo.  Unfortunately, they’re saying all the wrong things. To paraphrase James Carville, “it’s affordable housing, stupid.” If the tax…

It is common to say “I was heartbroken to hear” that so-and-so died, but I really do feel heartbroken having learned about Alice Munro, who died on Monday. As a writer, she modeled, in her…

While TV news was glued last week to Stormy Daniels’ tell-all testimony and pro-Palestinian demonstrations, scant attention was paid to Vladimir Putin’s tsar-like coronation for a fifth term. Nor to his bellicose parade of Russia’s…

If cell phones had been as prevalent as they are today in my mom’s time, she would have kept hers on mute.  I can’t tell you how many times she answered the phone in an…

In November 2021, I wrote  on the prevalence of lead pipes in our state.  The number of lead pipes in Kansas is particularly high, comparatively,  because lead mining was a major industry in southeast Kansas…

Joe Simitian long had his eye on a seat in Congress. It would have been a fine way to cap his 40-year political career. “I viewed it as an opportunity to improve the lives of…

The discovery of bird flu virus particles in milk has moved the federal government to take more aggressive action to prevent the further spread of H5N1 on dairy farms. The Agriculture Department has rightly issued…

May 24 is the 100th anniversary of the Rogers Act, the law that established, for the first time in our country, a professional Foreign Service. Before the Rogers Act, the United States was represented abroad…

I am a lifelong Republican. I am also a longtime NPR listener and supporter and, at times, have been a manager. As you can imagine, I have a few thoughts about the firestorm set off…