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• The Star’s editorial | New lives for old schools in Kansas City

  May 25, 11:37 PM

  Efforts by Kansas City Public Schools to sell buildings it closed a few years ago appear to be picking up steam. That’s a positive development for the neighborhoods where dozens of empty buildings have had a blighting influence.

• The Star’s editorial | A Memorial Day worth recalling, 147 years later

  May 27, 5:55 PM
  

  In the winter of 1865, the Twenty First U.S. Colored Infantry marched into Charleston, S.C., and accepted the formal Confederate surrender of the city where the Civil War had begun nearly four years earlier.

• The Star’s editorial | A green light for more red-light cameras in KC

  May 25, 7:20 PM
  

  Kansas City’s red-light cameras are working just as advertised.

• The Star’s editorial | Lawmakers wasted their time, your money

  May 25, 3:59 PM

  The Missouri and Kansas legislative sessions are over, but we find ourselves looking back, in the way one swivels for a last view of a train wreck.

• The Star’s editorial | A 'land bank' for Kansas City

  May 25, 9:44 AM
  

  One of the few constructive actions of this year’s Missouri legislative session was passage of a measure substantially boosting Kansas City’s ability to deal with vacant, abandoned properties.

• The Star’s Editorial | Missouri’s legislators failed KC’s children

  May 23, 5:55 PM
  

  Blame politics for the Missouri General Assembly taking no action to improve the Kansas City Public Schools.

• The Star’s editorial | An odyssey that ended well

  May 23, 5:53 PM

  At one point in the improbable odyssey of dissident Chinese lawyer Chen Guangchen, it looked as if the Obama administration might have blown it. Chen, despite his blindness, had escaped from house arrest and found his way to refuge in the U.S. embassy in Beijing.

• The Star’s editorial | Get promises to Kansas City voters in writing

  May 22, 7:27 PM
  

  Kansas City officials must be upfront with voters — not try to mislead them — as the countdown begins for two unusual campaigns before the Aug. 7 elections.

• The Star’s editorial | Kansas tax cut plan is an exercise in hubris

  May 21, 6:58 PM
  

  For Kansas, the end of the 2012 legislative session did not bring relief.

• The Star’s editorial | During Joplin’s long road back, government aid is key

  May 21, 6:56 PM

  Joplin is coming back. That’s the positive takeaway from the latest statistics about rebuilding efforts in the city, which continues to recover from a devastating tornado that killed 161 people a year ago today.

• The Star’s editorial | The agricultural version of Fannie Mae

  May 20, 8:11 PM
  

  With the national debt ballooning and the federal deficit still well over $1 trillion, you’d think lawmakers would be determined to seriously scale back taxpayer support for agriculture.

• The Star’s editorial | Missouri’s desultory, destructive session

  May 19, 5:54 PM

  This will be remembered in Missouri as the year the legislature didn’t even try. And Gov. Jay Nixon’s contribution to this legislative session was negligible.

• The Star’s editorial | Costly tax cut bill harms Kansas’ future

  May 18, 7:19 PM

  The Kansas Legislature may be determined to prolong the agony, but we are ready to wrap up this 2012 legislative session.

• The Star’s editorial | A promising anti-violence plan for Kansas City

  May 17, 7:28 PM
  

  Kansas City has too many shootings, too many killings and too many gun-toting thugs who have come to believe they can outwit the police.

• The Star’s editorial | Bike lanes build a healthier Kansas City area

  May 17, 7:27 PM

  Today is National Bike to Work Day throughout America as well as the end of Bike Week in Kansas City. This deserved attention for a healthy alternative form of transportation got our wheels turning....

• The Star’s editorial | KC mayor wisely zaps $500 million bond issue

  May 16, 8:12 PM
  

  Pressed for time, Mayor Sly James on Wednesday dramatically reconfigured his tax and bond plans for Kansas City voters to consider this summer. The new proposal, however, must be made more clear.

• The Star’s editorial |Tilley slams the House door

  May 16, 9:35 PM
  

  The Missouri House chambers, meant to be a place of vigorous debate and many voices, this week became the locked province of radio host Rush Limbaugh and a few of his greatest admirers.

• The Star’s editorial | KC voters deserve clear choices on key tax plans

  May 15, 6:08 PM
  

  It’s too early to determine whether the tax plans being debated this week by the Kansas City Council will deserve voter approval later this year — even conceding the fact that the city must invest much more money in rebuilding its crumbling infrastructure. Elected officials still must present clear, positive cases for what they want to do with the public funds.

• The Star’s editorial | Name change for UMKC could be a game change

  May 15, 5:37 PM
  

  As names go, the University of Missouri-Kansas City doesn’t exactly roll off the tongue. It’s clunky, and the “Kansas City” part comes across as an afterthought. The University of Kansas City, on the other hand, has a nice, clean ring. It conveys a sense of place. And a sense of responsibility.

• The Star’s editorial | Boilermakers should cut leaders’ expenses during tough times

  May 14, 6:49 PM

  Millions of union members throughout America are fighting hard to keep their jobs during these tough economic times.

• The Star’s editorial | Expand work visas for top foreign talent

  May 13, 5:34 PM
  

  Immigration will someday fade as a hot-button dispute. For the present, however, it’s still a touchy topic for any politician — which is why Sens. Jerry Moran and Mark Warner deserve credit for drafting a bill to ease the bottleneck. What’s a mystery is why more of their colleagues aren’t willing to sign onto a bill that will bring more technical and entrepreneurial talent to our country.

• The Star’s editorial | Don’t settle for mediocrity on Watkins Drive

  May 12, 5:32 PM
  

  The high level of maintenance required to keep Bruce R. Watkins Drive looking sharp should not be allowed to slip in these tough economic times. The Kansas City area already has plenty of mediocre-looking roadways.

• The Star’s editorial | Brownback and allies bulldoze their way to a Kansas tax cut

  May 12, 5:38 PM
  

  In getting his way with the passage of drastic income tax reductions, Gov. Sam Brownback has sacrificed something that up until now has mattered in Kansas: trust.

• The Star’s editorial | Missouri nuttiness leaks into Kansas

  May 11, 7:33 PM

  The Kansas Legislature has only two tasks it absolutely has to get done — pass a budget and a redistricting map. Neither was finished by the time the regular session ended Friday, so lawmakers will drag themselves back to Topeka on Monday for overtime.

• The Star’s editorial | Union Station hits key milestone

  May 10, 6:04 PM

  Almost 16 years after the historic bistate sales tax vote in 1996 to renovate the historic Union Station, the grand building has turned the corner financially, a victory worth celebrating for this entire region.

• The Star’s editorial | A laudable stance on gay marriage

  May 9, 6:27 PM
  

  Barack Obama’s evolving stance on gay marriage has finally brought the president and the nation to the bright side of history. For the first time, a U.S. president has unequivocally affirmed that same-sex couples should be able to legally marry.

• The Star’s editorial | A flawed fire union contract

  May 9, 6:26 PM

  Mayor Sly James and other City Council members have been patting themselves on the back recently for working out a new three-year pact with Kansas City’s powerful fire union. The council will approve it today.

• The Star’s editorial | Mayor’s bold new plan includes big new taxes for KC

  May 8, 7:00 PM
  

  This week Mayor Sly James expects to roll out plans to tackle Kansas City’s significant backlog of decaying infrastructure. Make no mistake: The tax burden on Kansas Citians — who already face among the highest levels of local debt among large Midwestern cities — would rise some more.

• The Star’s editorial | Kansas abortion bills display a lack of concern

  May 8, 7:01 PM
  

  Kansas is already known for placing onerous provisions on abortion providers. Two bills in the Legislature signal a fundamental shift to a strategy that would encourage medical providers to withhold information and services because they are tangentially related to abortion. They show an appalling lack of concern for science and women’s health.

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