News

There are some artists, like musicians and dancers, whose contracts are for roughly 40 weeks a year. So, how do they spend the rest of their time?

We asked Kansas City Symphony musicians, on contract for a 42-week season, to share stories about their plans for the off-season.

Miles Maner, associate principal, bassoonist and contrabassoonist

On learning to love the bassoon

The FBI alleges that a Kansas City man was involved in a fledgling plot to bomb the New York Stock Exchange. The case came up as an example of effective the government surveillance programs have been at foiling some 50 terrorist plots.

Kansas City’s airport advisory panel met in Union Station Tuesday morning.  Kansas City is looking at moving from its current three terminal layout to a new, single terminal.  Supporters of the new design say it’s a needed update to the 40-year-old structure because of security concerns. Opponents of the single terminal say the current system works well for travelers. 

The panel's co-chair, Bob Berkebile, says he learned a couple of things from what the group was calling airport school, and he notes getting informed is an important first step.

The first Kansas City charter passed more than 90 years ago. Now, it might be time to change the rules.

More than 1,000 United Mine Workers of America members were back in St. Louis Monday, the latest in a series of protests against Peabody Coal and its handling of their retirement and health care benefits.

St. Louis-based Peabody Coal spun off Patriot in 2007, and made it financially responsible for most retiree benefits. The rally is the first since a bankruptcy judge ruled last month that Patriot can impose sharp cuts in those benefits to get the company profitable again.

A medical procedure that goes back thousands of years is enjoying a resurgence: leeching. The segmented worms are used primarily in microsurgeries like limb reattachments and plastic surgery.

At the Mercy Springfield pharmacy in Springfield, MO leeches are kept in a jar in a refrigerator.

Leeches are classified as medical devices by the US Food and Drug Administration and about 20 medical grade leeches that are kept in case they’re needed, which is usually once or twice a year.

The University of Kansas is wrestling with how to cut $13.5 million from its budget over the next two years, but the funding reduction will not prompt the closing of the KU School of Medicine's campus in Salina

The KU Medical Center, which operates the school, will have to absorb more than $8 million in cuts. KU spokesman Jack Martin says closing the Salina campus, and scaling back operations in Wichita are no longer on the table.

The Heart Of America Shakespeare Festival celebrates its 21st season in Southmoreland Park with the comedy "As You Like It."  This year, the production is set in 1967 and the costumes and music hearken back to the Summer of Love.

Act Three, Scene Two, In The Forest of Arden

In this scene, Rosalind, played by Carla Noack, is banished from her uncle's court. She takes refuge in the Forest of Arden disguised as Ganymede, a man. There she meets Orlando, played by Todd Carlton Lanker.

Martin Luther King, Jr.'s "Mountaintop" speech from Memphis is famous for its ending and because he was assassinated the next day. However, much of the speech doesn't receive a lot of attention today. 

The renaissance of downtown that has happened in recent years has attracted more than restaurants and real estate developers. As more and more people have come to live, work and hang out downtown, churches have also had their eyes on the area.

America’s tales about taming the Wild West rarely include women. But in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, more than 100,000 pioneering young women left home to work as waitresses in restaurants located on train platforms along the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe Railway. 

They were called “Harvey Girls” because they worked in the Harvey House restaurant chain started by Leavenworth entrepreneur Fred Harvey. These women  later played an important role in World War II and helped transform society’s view of women’s work. 

The golden age of radio drama might have been in the 1930s and 40s, but practitioners say the genre is alive and kicking in podcasts, audiobooks, and even video games.

Next weekend, Kansas City will host Hear Now: The Audio Arts and Fiction Festival, which will draw old-timey radio voices as well as younger producers. 

Crop insurance is a big part of the farm bill debate in Washington this year. The Senate recently passed a bill that would expand the heavily subsidized program.  And now the House is zeroing in on the issue.  

Several pending amendments would curb how much the government provides to cut the cost farmers pay for crop insurance. But, crop insurance premiums aren’t the only part of the system supported by tax payers.