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Missouri and Kansas lawmakers want to limit who can buy farmland

There’s a push in Missouri, Kansas and Washington, D.C., to restrict foreign ownership of farmland, and growing tensions between the U.S. and China are a big reason why. Plus: States like Kansas and Missouri put a hard cap on the amounts that juries can award in non-economic damages for medical malpractice cases, but who does that actually help?

Tense relations between China and the U.S. are trickling down into agriculture and more scrutiny into who owns farmland. It became a hot topic after the U.S. Air Force determined that a proposed Chinese-owned corn mill in North Dakota would be a significant national security threat. Now there are proposals restricting foreign ownership of farmland making their way through Congress and many state legislatures, including Missouri and Kansas. Harvest Public Media’s Eva Tesfaye reports.

The health care industry has long supported medical malpractice laws that put a hard cap on how much a jury can award for non-economic damages. Most Midwest states like Kansas and Missouri have laws that cap these damages, which are awarded for things like pain and suffering. But as Natalie Krebs reports for the Midwest Newsroom, some worry about the impact on people seeking justice for medical errors.

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Kansas City Today is hosted by Nomin Ujiyediin. It is produced by Paris Norvell, Byron Love and KCUR Studios and edited by Gabe Rosenberg and Lisa Rodriguez.

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As a newscaster and a host of a daily news podcast, I want to deliver the most important and interesting news of the day in an engaging and easily understandable way. No matter where you live in the metro or what you’re interested in, I want you to learn something from each newscast or podcast – and maybe even give you something to talk about at the dinner table.
Paris Norvell is a freelance podcast producer for KCUR Studios,
As an on-demand producer, I am focused on using my skills and experiences across multiple digital applications, platforms and media fields to create community focused audio, video and on-demand products for KCUR Studios. The media that I produce aims to inform, entertain and connect with the Kansas City metro area as we continue to learn from each other. Email me at byronlove@kcur.org.
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