WRITER: Chad Lawhorn

When it comes to a job-heavy economy, Douglas County ranks below average; one neighbor ranks last

With much uncertainty about the future of federal jobs, LinkedIn might be the busiest website in America these days. (Well, maybe tied with ChatGPT and the query of “how to tell Elon Musk ...”) The point is, job searches may become a much more prevalent activity in the near future, and with that in mind, I stumbled across some numbers that provide an interesting look at how many jobs are located in each ...

Salty Iguana, a longtime Mexican restaurant in west Lawrence, closes as state seizes assets to collect more than $100K in taxes

Updated at 10:45 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 27 One of Lawrence’s larger Mexican restaurants is closed, and its assets have been seized by the Kansas Department of Revenue in an effort to collect more than $100,000 in unpaid sales and liquor drink taxes. The Salty Iguana Mexican restaurant in the shopping center at the southwest corner of Sixth Street and Wakarusa Drive had bright red “seized” signs on its ...

KU students protest over gender-neutral bathroom issue in residence hall

An issue regarding gender-neutral bathrooms has University of Kansas students on edge that KU leaders are bowing to a Trump administration demand to pull back on diversity and equity efforts on campuses. It also has some KU students looking for a new place to live. Residents of the Grace Pearson Scholarship Hall were informed by KU Student Housing earlier this month that a program that allowed for “gender ...

Plans filed to bring once overgrown, largely forgotten cemetery back into use as local burial site nears capacity

I know some people who likely wouldn’t object to their final resting place being next door to a Hershey’s plant. Indeed, there is a cemetery just down the road from the Hershey’s manufacturing plant in Lawrence Venture Park on the east edge of the city. If you didn’t know of the cemetery, don’t feel bad. It likely hasn’t hosted a burial for more than 100 years. That soon may change. Plans have ...

As federal job cuts loom, Douglas County already has a below-average number of fed positions

If you are a federal employee, you have a lot on your mind currently — including, apparently, finding tips on how to write an email to America’s richest man. On the chance you haven’t been following along, federal employees were given a deadline of midnight tonight to send an email to a government personnel account describing five tasks they accomplished last week. While the email technically is from the ...

County Commission approves financial moves that violate policy on rainy day funds by nearly $6M

Douglas County commissioners at their meeting Wednesday approved year-end financial adjustments that include nearly $6 million in violations of a policy designed to control the size of the county’s emergency reserves. The violations of the county’s fund balance policy didn’t become clear until Tuesday, when County Administrator Sarah Plinsky added additional information to a staff memo to commissioners ...