Laura Ziegler
Community EditorI partner with communities to uncover the ignored or misrepresented stories by listening and letting communities help identify and shape a narrative. My work brings new voices, sounds, and an authentic sense of place to our coverage of the Kansas City region. My goal is to tell stories on the radio, online, on social media and through face to face conversations that enhance civic dialogue and provide solutions.
I have been a producer with NPR in Washington D.C. and a national NPR reporter covering the Midwest. Email me at lauraz@kcur.org or reach me on Twitter @laurazig.
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This weekend will see the Kansas City Chiefs and the San Francisco 49ers face off in Super Bowl 58. As is tradition, KCUR and San Francisco's KQED have made a friendly wager: barbecue for sourdough. Hear about how the Bay Area is getting in the spirit.
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FIFA officials announced Kansas City will host four matches in June 2026, and a knockout round and a quarterfinal in early July. Kansas City is one of 16 sites in North America to take part in hosting.
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With her life-long colleague Sister Carita Bussanmas, Sister Berta Sailer opened a day care in their home in the 1960s that eventually grew to become Operation Breakthrough. Sailer devoted her life to helping children and families, and personally fostered some 75 kids.
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LaTasha Jacobs and Carl Smart come from different backgrounds and have different ideas about why Kansas City's homicide rate is so high. But they plan to work together in Jefferson City to try to persuade pro-gun lawmakers to actually consider solutions such as better childcare, nutrition and education.
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Millions of dollars have flowed into the state of Kansas from opioid settlement funds, which are supposed to go to treatment and prevention. So why are police getting a lot of that money? Plus: A Kansas City musician who turned his grief over his parents' deaths into art.
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Taylor Swift’s Eras Tour had a huge economic impact on Kansas City — and then she kept coming back. Local business owners and even the city’s tourism board say they're reaping the benefits. Plus: A new book shows how Kansas City's drag performers influenced the national scene.
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The iconic Kansas City-based company is still growing, and attributes its success to the warmth and comfort people feel when they open the box and see the same candies they got from their grandmother.
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Kansas City's Jewish community will observe the first night of Hanukkah on Thursday. But that community is feeling the dark cloud of the ongoing war between Israel and Hamas, along with an increase in incidents of antisemitic acts and rhetoric.
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The mall, located about 10 miles east of Kansas City, has been the scene of other violence.
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At community listening sessions and in stories about the city's violence problem, we gained some new perspectives on a polarizing and seemingly intractable problem.