thebeaconnews.org

1 week ago | thebeaconnews.org | Meg Cunningham

After years of exponential growth, opioid overdose deaths in Missouri are dropping. While health care workers, community groups and other officials say many factors may contribute to the drop in opioid overdose deaths, they agree that access to overdose-reversing drugs like naloxone, often provided under the brand name Narcan, is saving lives. “I do think that Narcan is the reason for those trends statistically dropping,” said Cooper County Ambulance Chief Brandon Hicks.

2 weeks ago | thebeaconnews.org | Blaise Mesa

Sen. Tory Marie Blew, a Great Bend Republican, signed up for a child care waiting list in 2020. Blew wasn’t even pregnant at the time. But she knew how hard it was to find child care. Four years later, the child care spot finally came open. Thankfully for Blew, it took her longer to have a child than she suspected. But not every family can linger four years on a waitlist.

2 weeks ago | thebeaconnews.org | Blaise Mesa

Sen. Kenny Titus believes the Kansas Legislature recently expanded police surveillance without doing enough to protect Kansans from unreasonable searches. He is eyeing potential changes to state law to rein that power back in. Titus’ concerns come from a new state law that protects utility companies from lawsuits if they allow police to put surveillance equipment on utility poles. The law did not expand law enforcement’s ability to add the cameras, but it shielded pole owners from lawsuits.

3 weeks ago | thebeaconnews.org | Maria Benevento

Tuesday Willaredt knew her older daughter, Vivienne, struggled to read. She tentatively accepted teachers’ reassurances and the obvious explanations: Remote learning during the COVID pandemic was disruptive. Returning to school was chaotic. All students were behind. Annie Watson was concerned about her son Henry’s performance in kindergarten and first grade. But his teachers weren’t. There was a pandemic, they said. He was a boy. Henry wasn’t really lagging behind his classmates.

3 weeks ago | thebeaconnews.org | Meg Cunningham

Throughout the summer of 2024, six people in prison at Missouri’s Algoa Correctional Center experienced temperatures and humidity levels that violated their constitutional rights, a new lawsuit alleges.