Frank Morris
Frank Morris has supervised the reporters in KCUR's newsroom since 1999. In addition to his managerial duties, Morris files regularly with National Public Radio. He’s covered everything from tornadoes to tax law for the network, in stories spanning eight states. His work has won dozens of awards, including four national Public Radio News Directors awards (PRNDIs) and several regional Edward R. Murrow awards. In 2012 he was honored to be named "Journalist of the Year" by the Heart of America Press Club.
Morris grew up in rural Kansas listening to KHCC, spun records at KJHK throughout college at the University of Kansas, and cut his teeth in journalism as an intern for Kansas Public Radio, in the Kansas statehouse.
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Meth is back "with a vengeance," police say. Now made mostly by superlabs in Mexico, it is stronger, cheaper and more prevalent, cutting across demographic barriers and sparking serious crime. -
Despite a reputation for being suspicious of government and outsiders, some rural residents now say state funds are needed to help fix the big economic and drug problems faced by small towns. -
President Trump addressed the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention in Kansas City, spending much of his time reviewing his achievements as president and criticizing his predecessor. The speech came the day after his Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Robert Wilkie, was confirmed by the Senate.
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President Trump has promised to shield farmers from trade war fallout. That effort is likely to involve an infusion of taxpayer money and the Commodities Credit Corporation.
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Most remote towns are shrinking, whether they like it or not. But if they take inspiration from industrial Eastern Europe after the Cold War, they can improve even as they get smaller. -
"It's like little by little, more and more, the life of the newspaper is leaving," laments Avis Little Eagle, who publishes a paper on the Standing Rock Indian Reservation. -
Three militia members go on trial Tuesday for plotting to bomb Somali immigrants working in the Kansas Meatpacking Triangle, a constellation of minority-majority, hardscrabble pioneer towns, that depend on foreign labor. Somali immigrants have all but abandoned one town, despite civic and police efforts to reassure them that they're safe there. Some residents want them to return.
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Farmers survive by sending food to cities, and when they die their assets often leave just as fast, going to heirs living in urban areas. That financial drain helps accelerate small town decline. So, some states are working systematically to keep a fraction of that outward bound money — billions each year — at home.
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"Justice is not rescuing Sgt. Bergdahl from his Taliban captors, in the cage where he was for years, only to place him in a cell," said his defense. But prosecutors say he must be held responsible. -
Most years, spiny lobsters are the most lucrative commercial catch in Florida. Hurricane Irma cut this season short. Some fishermen are hoping a strong stone crab season will keep the industry afloat.
