Peggy Lowe

Kansas City, Missouri, election officials are expecting a busy day Tuesday, thanks to an 11 percent increase in voter registrations and a significant number of absentee ballots already cast in the primary election.

Family members of Ryan Stokes, a 24-year-old black man killed by a Kansas City police officer nearly five years ago, told the Board of Police Commissioners on Tuesday that their patience for justice has “worn thin.”

A massive voter-tracking program run by Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach — which purports to help states keep voter rolls accurate — has halted operations over concerns about its own accuracy and security.

The Interstate Crosscheck system, which Kobach’s office promised would be working ahead of the 2018 elections, has been sidelined while the U.S. Department of Homeland Security conducts a security assessment following the unintended release of hundreds of voters’ private information.

After three years of construction headaches at a busy corner near the University of Missouri-Kansas City, a new Whole Foods opened Wednesday, promising upscale groceries, restaurant food in a retail store and local touches on a national chain owned by e-commerce giant Amazon.

On a bitter cold January day in 2014, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker met a crowd of cameras, microphones and shouting reporters on the steps of the Nodaway County Courthouse in Maryville, Missouri.

The story had been raging for months about why a hometown football player had been charged with raping an underage girl – and why charges were mysteriously dropped – in a case that made international headlines.

 Editor's note: This story was updated at 4:50 p.m. with additional details.

Nearly six months after the brazen shooting of a Kansas City attorney at his front door, Jackson County prosecutors on Wednesday charged the 80-year-old man who had long been suspected of the crime.

David Jungerman was charged with first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of Thomas Pickert, who was shot in front of his Brookside home in October 2017, just moments after walking his children to school.

Kansas City, Missouri, city leaders on Thursday celebrated what they called major improvements to the urban core: $8 million spent over two years on a program to sell abandoned or dangerous houses for $1 each.

The program, designed to not just clean up neighborhoods but to cut down on crime, showcased one of its first graduates.

Laurie Schwab bought a home on East 29th Terrace in 2016 during the Kansas City, Missouri, Land Bank's $1 sale and has poured $21,000 into it so she can operate it as a transitional living stop for homeless people.

Prosecutors on both sides of the state line that runs through Kansas City announced homicide and other charges Wednesday against a 30-year-old man who had walked free last year after two mistrials on a different murder charge.

An 80-year-old Raytown man was charged with three felonies Friday for chasing and shooting at a man and a pregnant woman he thought had stolen iron pipe from his business.

David G. Jungerman, who made headlines in October 2017 for shooting a homeless man connected to the killing of a Brookside attorney, was being held on $1 million bond.

A Kansas City man who gunned down a romantic rival was sentenced to two life sentences Thursday, despite a prosecutor’s plea for a 100-year term that could act as a deterrent to more “senseless killing.”

Dairian Stanley, 22, showed no emotion as Jackson County Circuit Court Judge Charles McKenzie handed down his sentence. Stanley was convicted of first-degree murder and armed criminal action but was acquitted of kidnapping.

Two big box stores' announcements this week changing policies on gun sales will affect seven Dick's Sporting Goods stores and eight WalMarts in the Kansas City metro.

On Wednesday, Dick’s Sporting Goods announced it would end all sales of assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines, and raise the age limit to 21 for purchasing guns. Walmart also put similar new restrictions in place.

Operation Breakthrough, a beloved early education center in Kansas City for more than four decades, announced Thursday a $17 million expansion that will reach across Troost Ave.

The organization's leaders said they had hopes of literally bridging the city’s historic racial divide.

The family of a man gunned down a day before his 26th birthday says his killer was a heartless monster, but that they pray for him to “open his heart to God.”

Dairian Stanley, 22, was convicted by a Jackson County jury of first-degree murder and armed criminal action on Wednesday in the shooting death of Torrence “Trimmer” Evans. Stanley was jealous and angry that Evans had been with his ex-girlfriend, Coreal Settle, 26.

After a long and torturous wait, a Kansas City woman finally saw her rapist sentenced to 15 years in prison in May 2015.

A woman we called “Juliette,” to protect her identity, had been the subject of a KCUR investigation in which we exposed a failure by Kansas City, Kansas, Police to follow up on a DNA match made six years before Juliette’s rapist was finally arrested.

As the Kansas City Police patrol car pulled up, the dashboard camera caught Torrence “Trimmer” Evans fighting for his life on Sept. 25, 2016. His two best friends were bent over his body, crumpled on the street, telling Evans: “Stay with me! Breathe, brother!”

Evans had been shot several times, Officer Jason Grizzoffi testified Wednesday during the opening arguments in the murder trial of Dairian Stanley.

“He’s hanging on, he’s hanging on,” Evans' buddies, Gary Cole and Leonard Edwards, can be heard saying in the dashcam footage.

In a curt and strongly-worded letter, Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker announced Monday that she refused her seat on a new jail task force established by County Executive Frank White.

The recent brutal assault of a corrections officer made her change her mind about serving on the task force, Baker wrote, and it’s “clear that action is required immediately” on the embattled jail.

He’s not angry.

He’s been eating everything he can.

And he’s noticed how distracted we all are thanks to our smartphones.

But mostly, Lamonte McIntyre says, he spent most of his time in his first week out of prison after 23 years for a crime he didn’t commit:

“Trying to force myself to believe it’s real,” he says. “That’s what I’ll spend my life doing.”

College of the Ozarks, a private Christian college in southwest Missouri, announced Friday that it will require players and coaches from other schools to respect the American flag and the national anthem.

Calling it a “No Pledge, No Play” policy, Jerry Davis, College of the Ozarks president, says the school will not play in games where the flag or the anthem is called into question because that action disrespects veterans.

“It’s a shame sporting events are being used to communicate disrespect for this great country,” Davis says. “We will not be a part of this.”

Lee’s Summit North High School dismissed early Friday after a 17-year-old girl died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound in a school bathroom.

The school was briefly under lockdown after students heard gunshots at 7:50 a.m. and Lee’s Summit Police responded.  The girl, a senior whom KCUR is not identifying, was taken to a local hospital where she died.

The arrest of a 22-year-old man suspected in five murders along Kansas City’s popular Indian Creek Trail came down to DNA pulled from a Brisk Iced Tea bottle and a cigarette butt.

On Tuesday, police and prosecutors announced the arrest of Frederick D. Scott, 22, in two of the killings and said he is also a suspect in the other three.

The high number of murders in Kansas City is a concern for the third year in a row, with homicides jumping some 43 percent over last year.

The city's 86 homicides during 2017 so far are 26 more than the same period last year, according to crime statistics. Kansas City was named one of 12 cities that will receive aid from the federal government because of the rise in violent crime.