Readers of The Star's coverage of Chiefs player Jovan Belcher's murder of his girlfriend Kasandra Perkins and subsequent suicide has brought varied reactions from the readers I've spoken to.

Today, the Internet has been buzzing with an obituary for Loren G. "Sam" Lickteig. It reads, in part, that he passed away because of "complications from MS and heartbreaking disappointment caused by the Kansas City Chiefs football team." The Star's Sam Mellinger referenced it in a column as well.

A couple of emailers have asked me recently about what they thought were obvious errors in obituary notices. One was an unusual spelling of a common name, and another was a piece of the person's biography that the reader thought sounded questionable.

Both asked a similar question: Does The Star run obituaries past a copy editor? The general policy is no.

The paper offers seven lines free for death notices of people from the Kansas City area, but anything longer is a paid notice. The family or funeral homes submitting this copy would be the ones responsible for its content.

Email I received just now about a story at the top of today's front page in the print edition - "Israeli strike on Gaza heightens fear of war:"

This one's a common refrain: Several readers this week have told me they wished the Veterans Day closings box that ran in the paper Monday had included more details.

For example, the box said:

Veterans Day was Sunday, but some government offices and trash haulers will observe it today.

It specified that Kansas City, Mo. municipal trash collection will be delayed a day, and that Deffenbaugh customers would be on the regular schedule.

A caller this morning wanted to express her disappointment with the past two days' front pages in the print edition. In part:

I don't know why The Star's editors feel the need to use the front page with not just one, but two days' worth of articles about the Chiefs. There's a whole sports section in there, so why don't they use that and keep the front page for the real news?

I've gotten a lot of criticism today for my column in the print edition about what I've been hearing from readers concerning how The Star covered the election.

"just read your monthly(?) defense of the Star's liberal bias," wrote one.

"You are the stupidest person to appear in (The Star), and that's saying a lot," said a caller.

I just got off the phone with one of the most articulate and fair-minded readers I've spoken with in this election cycle. She was calling to express the single most common opinion about balance in The Star that I've been hearing lately: That the letters page in the Opinion section has been running far more letters from the left than from the right.

The most notable change I've detected in reader feedback this election season has been that more people on the right today differentiate Fox News' coverage as overtly conservative. In the past, I found it more common for Fox fans to portray the network's coverage as neutral, while most other outlets were far to the left.

One of the more common requests I get from readers is for help contacting people who are featured in news stories, or who write letters to the editor. One example, from a woman who lives out of state. She'd heard news about a former friend of hers in the area who's recently had trouble with law enforcement over her attempts to help control the feral cat population: