News

Lawmakers say a deep dive on student achievement in Kansas schools is needed, with the dialogue likely to have a substantial effect on the policy choices of the GOP-controlled legislators. The formation of the Special Committee on Education, which met for the first time Tuesday, is a sign that longstanding questions over how many Kansas students are performing as expected — and whether those figures are acceptable in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic and increased investment in the classroom.

TOKYO – The omicron variant kept a jittery world off-kilter Wednesday as Japan further tightened travel restrictions, infections linked to the new version of the coronavirus popped up in more places and new evidence made clear the mutant strain was circulating weeks earlier than thought.

Above: Ryan Witzke unloads boxes of filled, full sized handmade Christmas stockings from a vehicle Monday outside the Garden City American Legion during the annual Travis Bachman Memorial Christmas Stocking Drive. This year, the annual event was a drive thru where volunteers got the donations from the vehicles of patrons participating. The stockings are sent for military service members serving overseas through the holidays.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. – The last time the Kansas City Chiefs had a week off at this point in the year, they didn’t lose against until the next season.

After a slow start, the United States has improved its surveillance system for tracking new coronavirus variants such as omicron, boosting its capacity by tens of thousands of samples per week since early this year.

BREVARD, Fla. – The first Black woman to live and work at the International Space Station will join a SpaceX crew mission after April 2022, marking her first flight into space.

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico – Barbados stopped pledging allegiance to Queen Elizabeth II on Tuesday as it shed another vestige of its colonial past and became a republic for the first time in history. Several leaders, dignitaries and artists, including Prince Charles and Rihanna, attended the ceremony that began late Monday in a popular square in the capital, Bridgetown, where the statue of a well-known British lord was removed last year amid a worldwide push to erase symbols of oppression.