A Kansas City car salesman has opened a business hosting legal car sideshows. He hopes the space will make city streets safer, after years of complaints from businesses and residents about crowds and violence.

A Kansas college cross-country runner ended up "on the verge of death" from exertional heat stroke during a blistering hot practice in August. Former athletes and trainers say this doesn't surprise them.

The federal government is going on four weeks of being shut down. Beyond the 30,000 federal workers around Kansas City who are working without pay, the shutdown also has trickle-down consequences for local mental health departments.

The traffic cones have all but left Main Street as the Streetcar Extension opens after more than three years of construction, but now drivers will face a new obstacle: transit-only lanes. Plus: Raising giant pumpkins is a labor of love for some Midwest growers, and the pumpkins keep getting bigger and bigger.

Companies are racing to roll out nuclear reactor designs that would be faster to build and could meet rising demand for energy from AI data centers. Two nuclear companies have proposals for new reactors in Kansas. Plus: Data centers are fundamentally changing the landscape for electric utilities in Missouri and beyond.

Thousands of volunteers in Missouri are trying to get enough signatures to force a statewide vote on a congressional map, which state lawmakers recently gerrymandered to favor Republicans. But state officials aren't making it easy for them. Plus: U.S. farmers are experimenting with short corn. It's corn, but shorter!

Missouri legislators recently approved the use of millions in state funding for MOScholars, a K-12 school scholarship program that had previously been supported by tax-deductible donations. But an investigation found that nearly all of those state-funded vouchers were used for religious schools.

Republican leaders are responding to an investigative report that exposed racist messages shared by Young Republican organizations in Kansas and around the country — while Gov. Laura Kelly says the Kansas GOP is setting a poor example itself. Plus: Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway is laying out her agenda, particularly on crime and abortion.

The University of Missouri–Kansas City recently restored one of the last remaining murals of a nearly forgotten Spanish painter. Hear the story of Luis Quintanilla and how he ended up in Kansas City.

Missouri schools now have a bell-to-bell cellphone ban in place. How are students and teachers adapting?