Alecia Taylor

Published Articles

Capital B News •

Black Colleges Enhance Security in Response to Bomb Threats

This story is a collaboration between Capital B and Open Campus.

HAMPTON, Virginia — Just weeks into the start of the fall semester, Nick Jones was walking back to his Hampton University dorm when he got an alert that the campus was on lockdown. 

“Yo … should I be outside?” he thought to himself, but really, he was only slightly concerned. It was a terroristic threat the day after conservative activist Charlie Kirk was shot and killed on a college campus more than 2,000 miles away at Utah Sta...
Capital B News •

Black Professors on Turning Point’s Watch List Face Harassment On and Off Campus

As the news spread of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk’s assassination two weeks ago, a student in Professor A.D. Carson’s “Black Voice” class made sure the room door was locked. 

The University of Virginia professor had told them in passing that he was on the Professor Watch List, a website created by Turning Point USA, a conservative nonprofit co-founded by Kirk.

“I’m kind of desensitized; I’m used to whatever that threat might be,” Carson said. “But of course they aren’t, nor should they b...
Kansas City Star •

Business owners have parking headaches on this KC-area street. What city leaders say

Most of JR Ewing’s customers at his barbershop on Swift Street in North Kansas City are over 60 and they often need walking assistance.

But people frequently take up the parking spots outside his shop for extended periods of time, making it a challenge for his clients to come and get their hair cut.

Ewing, who moved JR’s Barber Shop at 1731 Swift St. in North Kansas City in September, said he’s left frustrated with the parking problems. He’s called 911 on cars. A parking enforcer has written s...
Kansas City Star •

North KC church shuts down transitional housing program over tax status dispute

For the first time in her 47 years of living, Bobbi Roark was able to get a place with her own money and raise her daughter.

Although she did the work to get her own car, get sober and get her daughter back, she credits Homefront Community Development Inc, an organization providing transitional housing in the Northland, with helping her get to a more stable place.

Without Homefront, she thinks it would have taken way longer for her to make those strides.

Now, she and others are at risk of los...
Kansas City Star •

‘Complete chaos.’ Brothers describe Northland traffic jam as blizzard rolled into KC metro

Editor’s note: Follow live Kansas City blizzard coverage here.

Brothers Cameron and Carson Tate left their restaurant job in Liberty at 4:30, p.m. Saturday, usually a 10-minute drive from their home in Kansas City.

But the siblings were caught in Kansas City’s ice storm.

At first, they didn’t see the traffic jams that backed up Interstate 35. Half a mile into the drive, the traffic came to a standstill. There were no signs of police or responders from the Missouri Department of Transportation...
Kansas City Star •

Platte County voters passed a tax for youth mental health. Commissioners refuse to enact it

Despite voters petitioning to get a question on the ballot and then soundly approving it, Platte County may not implement a sales tax to expand mental health services for kids and teens after all.

That’s because the county commission is refusing to enact the tax that would have established a Platte County Children’s Services Fund.

In a Monday morning meeting, commissioners said they have the option to override voters’ will and not institute the tax because of a technicality in the language tha...
Kansas City Star •

Platte County’s first Black state lawmaker flipped seat last election. Will she keep it?

The last time voters in the southern part of Platte County chose their state representative, they made history.

In 2022, Democratic Rep. Jamie Johnson became the first Black person to be elected to represent a Platte County district in the Missouri General Assembly. In that election — the first after the latest round of legislative redistricting — she flipped the previously Republican-held seat with 52% of the vote.

Now, she’s fighting to keep her spot in the legislature against challenger Mik...

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