WRITER: Chad Lawhorn

A Lawrence flyover planned for Tuesday aims to thank health care workers and other first responders

Look up to the Lawrence skies tomorrow to see a little bit of thanks for the frontline workers battling COVID-19. More specifically, brush that Sasquatch hairdo out of your eyes and you’ll see an old-fashioned flyover. A pair of aviation teams from Kansas City plan to take to the Lawrence skies near 1:30 p.m. to conduct a flyover to thank health care workers and others who are serving patients. The Lawrence ...

Unemployment rate for food workers nearly 25% in Kansas, but arts industry is even higher; Douglas County rate jumps again

There are no shortages of industries to feel sorry for during this pandemic, but new figures suggest employees in the arts, entertainment and recreation sector may be the hardest hit in Kansas thus far. More than one out of every three workers in that industry are now likely unemployed in Kansas, according to the latest data. While the industry doesn’t have the largest number of actual people unemployed — ...

From a T-shirt to a Zoom background, a pair of Lawrence nonprofits get creative with COVID-19

In the old days — i.e. two months ago — a T-shirt with a message on its back warning people to stay at least 6 feet away would have seemed crass. Somebody surely would have made a joke that it was a public health message. Now, of course, it actually is, and a Lawrence neighborhood is making and selling such shirts. The North Lawrence Improvement Association has partnered with North Lawrence-based Happy ...

Nearly 60,000 Kansans were on unemployment last week; pace of new filings slows in Douglas County and statewide

Another 1,200 Douglas County residents filed for unemployment insurance last week, as nearly 60,000 Kansans received unemployment payments of some kind. In its weekly report, the Kansas Department of Labor says 30,786 people last week made initial claims for unemployment benefits. Those are still historically high numbers, but they represent a big decline from initial unemployment claims during the last two ...

Return to face-to-face classes still uncertain for fall semester, Kansas Regents told; idea of making freshmen live on campus at KU touted

A return to normal face-to-face classes this fall at the University of Kansas and other Regents schools is far from a certainty, the state’s higher education leaders were told Wednesday. Members of the Kansas Board of Regents heard a variety of updates on how schools are planning to deal with fall-semester classes in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. While university leaders did not provide specific details ...

LMH Health expecting surge of COVID-19 cases to come later than expected; hospital details state of readiness

LMH Health leaders are now expecting Douglas County’s surge of COVID-19 cases to occur near April 29, which is about 10 days later than once projected. But the hospital’s chief executive officer is expecting the impacts of the pandemic to last much longer at the hospital and in the community. “We have to be mentally preparing for not only the moment we are in, but for the next two or three or four or ...