Post-pandemic life — whenever that begins — is likely to feature a race. It will be between communities looking to prosper. Local leaders are betting that the winners will be those communities that have the ability and resources to adjust to the new environment left in the wake of the pandemic.
Leaders with The Chamber and the Economic Development Corporation of Lawrence and Douglas County on Tuesday ...
Updated at 2:09 p.m. Wednesday
Students at both KU and at Lawrence public schools are required to wear masks while in classes, but university students appear to be getting a much bigger benefit from wearing those masks.
KU leaders are openly telling even unvaccinated students that they are unlikely to have to miss school due to being a close contact to a fellow classmate who has tested positive, as long as ...
It has been just more than a week since KU students returned to classes on the Lawrence campus, but despite the thousands of new residents in town there hasn’t yet been a resulting boom in COVID cases.
The latest numbers released by Lawrence-Douglas County Public Health show relatively stable COVID metrics for Douglas County, but serve as a reminder that the virus is still claiming victims. One new death was ...
On any given night, the former Masonic Temple building at 10th and Massachusetts streets already is the downtown spot that produces the most fear of a pending mummy attack. (If you say otherwise, I would be interested to know what the drink specials were on that night.) Now, the eerie old building is set to become a haunted house.
If you have driven by the big Egyptian Revival-style building and its huge stone ...
For more than a decade, Crescent Moon Winery has had a business strategy that includes people going to look at the famous Grinter fields of sunflowers in Leavenworth County and then getting a glass of wine or two at the winery just down the road.
Now, there’s a twist to that strategy. Soon, people will be able to shop at Sunflower Outdoor & Bike Shop — or any other downtown retailer — and then get ...
There are many side effects of the pandemic, and at least one of them involves a calendar, a longtime downtown retailer has found. The Blackbird Trading Post is closing after nearly three decades in business, and its owner said the pandemic definitely played a big role.
“We were closed for a coupe of months,” owner Cynthia Trask said of the earlier days of the pandemic. “I slowed down during that time, ...
There’s one test you can pass at the University of Kansas this semester that still won’t do you much good — a COVID test if you are an unvaccinated student.
Students who are deemed to be a close contact of someone who has COVID will be required to quarantine, even if they can show proof of a negative COVID test, according to protocols that KU highlighted to faculty and staff on Friday.
That’s a ...
Maybe you are one of the slew of people who moved to town earlier this month. If so, you should feel bad if you still have some boxes to unpack. Danny Caine and his staff at The Raven Book Store recently unpacked 13,000 books in three and half days.
Of course, they’ve also been thinking about how to pull off that feat for about a year.
Caine signed the letter of intent to relocate Lawrence’s ...
Grab an extra bag of oats. The Lawrence tradition of a horse-drawn Christmas parade is returning after a year off, and the horses will be traveling a couple of extra blocks this year.
The organizers of downtown's Old-Fashioned Christmas Parade announced that the event will return at 11 a.m. on Dec. 4 after having been canceled last year because of COVID concerns.
“We already have had quite a few entries ...
There really might be a 3,000-acre solar panel farm — the largest in the state — developing along the eastern edge of Douglas County in the near future.
While official plans for the project have not yet been filed, you can hear a lot of talk about the potential project — if you are willing to listen to generally boring and technical discussions about zoning code text amendments.
Those are exactly the ...
The University of Kansas said Tuesday it’s highly interested in a vaccine mandate for its students, but don’t look for one to be implemented any time soon.
A KU spokeswoman said the university still believes Kansas law precludes state universities from implementing vaccine mandates, and the recent FDA approval of the Pfizer vaccine does nothing to change that status.
“KU would strongly consider a ...
As the University of Kansas began in-person classes today, KU faculty members were given a clear reminder that they don’t have the authority to simply switch their classes to a remote format due to COVID concerns.
Provost Barbara Bichelmeyer recently sent KU faculty and staff members a memo that addressed talk around campus that “some instructors may be considering independently moving the first few weeks ...
Some people think if you want to go fast on the water, you need a big 150 horsepower outboard engine hanging off the back of your boat. But maybe there is another way. How about a paddle and a double espresso? There is a new coffee shop in downtown Lawrence that likes that way of thinking.
Great Blue Heron is in the process of opening at 823 Massachusetts St., and when it does, it will be a mix of a coffee ...
Updated at 5:33 p.m. Thursday
Concert-goers at downtown Lawrence’s Liberty Hall now will need to show proof of vaccination before they can enter the live music venue.
The longtime downtown business at 644 Massachusetts St. made the announcement on its social media page Wednesday night, and I confirmed the news with management there on Thursday. Liberty Hall appears to be the first major business in Lawrence ...
Updated at 12:10 p.m. Wednesday
Lawrence Memorial Hospital has had its first patient death related to COVID since March, LMH’s board of trustees was told Wednesday morning.
“It is very hard to see this happening again,” Traci Hoopingarner, chief nursing officer and vice-president of clinical care, told board members.
Following the meeting, a spokeswoman for LMH Health said the death occurred on ...
As Lawrence likely becomes a potential landing spot for more hospital companies, LMH Health is now ready to discuss a partnership with one of the region’s biggest and most familiar names: the University of Kansas Health System.
LMH Health on Wednesday afternoon announced that it had agreed to begin exclusive discussions with the KU health system about becoming a formal partner of Lawrence’s nonprofit ...
KU’s message on masks is broadening.
While the University of Kansas earlier this month instituted a mask mandate for all indoor spaces on the KU campus, the university’s top emergency management official specifically asked students and staff members to wear their masks off campus as well.
KU has no ability to mandate members of the KU community to wear masks when not on university property, but KU’s ...
Douglas County’s population of white residents dropped by about 1% in the last decade, while nearly every other racial category saw growth, according to new 2020 Census data.
The number of white Douglas County residents dropped by nearly 1,000 people since 2010, and as a result the percent of county residents who identify as white fell below the 80% level, likely for the first time in the county’s history. ...
I’m not even old enough to remember the days when a student would bring an apple to the teacher. (I’m pretty sure nothing short of an “apple-tini" was going to make my teachers feel better about me.) But my wallet and I are well aware of the trend of students today bringing Apple computers to school. It is a big thing in Lawrence, and now there is a new Apple-licensed retailer looking to capitalize on it. ...
Story updated at 5:26 p.m. Thursday:
Lawrence is still not part of the 100,000-people club.
The U.S. Census Bureau’s official population totals came out Thursday, and Lawrence didn’t hit the 100,000 level, despite City of Lawrence officials estimating earlier that we had well exceeded the mark.
Lawrence’s 2020 census population stands at 94,934 people. The city of Lawrence earlier this year had ...
