Kansas City Mo

For AMC Entertainment Inc., it's no longer hooray for Hollywood. AMC, the nation's second-largest chain of movie theaters, said it was moving its film-booking office out of Los Angeles. The company said it was relocating the operation to that well-known film center: Kansas City, Mo.

Consider some of the things that have bound our nation together: Universal postal service at a flat rate, whether you live in Santa Monica or Sitka, Alaska. Interstate highways, built with taxpayer funds and free of tolls. Regulated phone and electric service, with lifeline rates for the economically disadvantaged. These were all based on a social contract honoring the notion that essential infrastructure should be available to all - indeed, that those normally left by the side of the economic road might be most in need.

* Set fire with Matchbox Twenty at the Sandstone Amphitheatre on Sept. 16. 633 N. 130th St., Bonner Springs, Kan., (913) 721-3400. * "Against Design" is an exhibition of contemporary design featuring 10 sculptors and painters from California, Canada, Sweden, Germany, New York and the Netherlands. Through Sept. 2. Kemper Museum of Contemporary Art, 4420 Warwick Blvd., Kansas City, Mo., (816) 753-5784.

A snowstorm that blanketed Kansas City, Mo., Thursday slowed the investigation into a deadly natural gas explosion, as well as efforts to identify the person who died in the blast, officials said. The Kansas City Fire Department, which finished its on-site investigation Wednesday afternoon, planned to release a report next week on what caused the fatal blast Tuesday that injured several people and destroyed JJ's restaurant , department spokesman James Garrett told the Los Angeles Times.

No Kansas City Tax to Lure McDonnell: Kansas City, Mo., voters rejected 62% to 38% a property tax increase to help build a factory for McDonnell Douglas Corp. if the aircraft maker decides to put one there. In June, St. Louis-based McDonnell Douglas named the city among others under consideration for a plant to build its MD-12 passenger jet.

In spite of a campaign to make August a "murder-free" month in Kansas City, Mo., 15 homicides were recorded, the most for any month this year. In an average month, the city of 430,000 has about nine slayings. But a decline in less serious assaults led some organizers, such as City Councilwoman Carol Coe, to say the effort should continue.

After eight years and $94 million, the expansive new addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., opens to the public Saturday. The Bloch Building, designed by New York architect Steven Holl, flanks the venerable Nelson-Atkins on its east side, spilling glass and metal next to the museum's original 74-year-old main hall.

Authorities in Michigan and Missouri tried to determine how copies of Aviation Week and Chemical Week magazines had turned up in an abandoned Al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan. A copy of the aviation magazine bearing the Ann Arbor, Mich., address of an information company called ProQuest and the name "Universal Microfilms Inc." was found earlier this week. Also found was a chemistry text and a copy of Chemical Weekly addressed to the Kansas City, Mo., public library.

World War I ended nearly 90 years ago, only a few of its U.S. veterans are still alive and, about a decade ago, its national monument was closed after years of neglect and deterioration. But this weekend, the "war to end all wars" takes center stage when the National World War I Museum opens in Kansas City, Mo., giving the public a chance to learn about -- and from -- the conflict that catapulted the United States toward superpower status.

As President Bush heads for the Midwest today to trumpet his economic program, his first stop, in Kansas City, Mo., illustrates the trouble that he faces with the election year's approach. The metropolitan area has been walloped by the loss of nearly 10,000 high-paying telecom jobs and -- in a recovery that's so far jobless -- there is little relief in sight.

Reporting from Kansas City, Mo. -- It was just before 3 a.m. when Ruth and Shady Abadir walked through the double doors that lead into the thumping heart of the International House of Prayer . Outside, the rolling suburbs of south Kansas City slumbered beneath a moonless sky, the roads empty except for the occasional deer. Inside, more than 100 people worshiped to the sound of an 11-member Christian rock band, fulfilling a commitment to keep prayer going 24 hours a day. "We've just shifted our schedule to make it work," said Ruth, raising her voice over the pulsating beat.

In charging the bishop of Kansas City with failure to report child abuse, prosecutors in Missouri have done something unprecedented in the long, troubling saga of the sexual abuse scandal in the U.S. Roman Catholic Church: hold a member of the church hierarchy criminally accountable for the alleged crimes of a priest. What remains to be seen is whether the indictment of Bishop Robert Finn will be an isolated event or will encourage prosecutors elsewhere to investigate allegations of coverup against members of the church leadership.

During the warm months, when students at Westport High School got too hot, they cooled down by moving to one of the many vacant classrooms on campus. It was one of the advantages of having 400 students assigned to a school that could hold 1,200. The downside became apparent last week, though, when the Kansas City school board voted to close Westport and 25 other schools -- nearly half of the district's campuses. Big-city districts shutter schools all the time. Cities such as Denver and Portland, Ore., have seen childless young families repopulate their urban cores and have adjusted accordingly.

As Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke appeared to gain enough backing for confirmation to a second term, the central bank offered a more upbeat assessment of the economy than it did last month but still affirmed a pledge to keep interest rates near zero for "an extended period." For the first time in a year, however, the Fed rate-setting panel's statement, issued at the end of a two-day meeting Wednesday, came with a dissenting vote, which could presage an earlier-than-expected move to raise rates.

Inside the gleaming Drum Room jazz bar of the downtown Hilton President hotel -- where Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra once sipped martinis after late-night jam sessions -- a pair of directors and their documentary film crew milled among the leather bar stools. They are doing reconnaissance on this city's $4.5-billion urban-renewal project, starting with a 1920s hotel that reopened last year after standing empty for nearly three decades.

A national Latino civil rights organization said it is pulling its 2009 convention from Kansas City because a member of a group opposed to illegal immigration was appointed to the city's parks board. The National Council of La Raza said its board came to the decision unanimously after being unable to reach an agreement with Mayor Mark Funkhouser over his appointment in June of Frances B. Semler, a member of the Minutemen Civil Defense Corps.

The 40-year-old levees met the challenge on Tuesday, holding back the raging Missouri and Kansas rivers and answering the prayers of thousands here who had labored through the night to keep the water out. Although the Missouri crested at 48.8 feet in the city, the downtown areas remained dry behind the 52-foot-tall flood walls built after the devastating floods of 1951. The Kansas peaked at about 53.5 feet a few miles to the west, but the levees there are 57 feet tall.

A body found in July behind a vacant apartment building in Kansas City has been linked to five others discovered since Thursday in the same part of the city, police said Sunday. At a news conference, Police Capt. Rich Lockhart said three of the victims had been identified but the other three bodies were so decomposed that police had not been able to determine their race or gender. The body of Anna Ewing, 42, was found July 14 by a man spraying for weeds.

After eight years and $94 million, the expansive new addition to the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City, Mo., opens to the public Saturday. The Bloch Building, designed by New York architect Steven Holl, flanks the venerable Nelson-Atkins on its east side, spilling glass and metal next to the museum's original 74-year-old main hall.

A man driving a dead woman's car shot a police officer in the arm Sunday, then opened fire in a parking lot and a shopping mall, authorities said. By the end of the day, four people, including the gunman, were dead. Police fatally shot the gunman outside a Target store at Ward Parkway Center in south Kansas City, police spokesman Tony Sanders said. Target employee Cassie Bradshaw, 19, was in a break room with two other people when they heard shots.