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Kansas City has landed a new convention — but it’s one that some leaders don’t want. Several city officials were angered Friday by the announcement that the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps will hold its first-ever national convention in Kansas City to support a member embroiled in controversy. The two-day event is scheduled for early December and expected to attract about 300 people. “I am concerned our city is looking like the hotbed of right-wing vigilante groups, and that’s not how I want Kansas City to be portrayed,” Councilwoman Jan Marcason said. Correcting such misconceptions is part of the purpose of...

A controversial Parks Board appointee called police when a group of protesters showed up at her home. They were there to demand Frances Semler's resignation and they're not alone. Both the Hispanic activist group La Raza and the NAACP said they're considering pulling national conventions out of Kansas City if Semler stays on the Parks Board. A neighbor said that Semler, 73, was worried about her safety when a group of people stood outside her door at 9 p.m. wanting to speak to her and that's why she called police. Semler's a member of the Minutemen, an anti-illegal immigration group...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. - The nation's largest Hispanic civil rights organization is warning it may move its 2009 convention from Kansas City because of a controversial city park board member. The National Council of La Raza is already looking at other cities after the appointment of Frances Semler, an anti-illegal immigration activist, said Janet Murguia, La Raza's president. City Councilmembers have also heard concerns from members of the NAACP, which is expected to hold its 2010 convention in Kansas City. The city hasn't heard directly from officials of the national organization. Losing two national conventions could hurt the city's image...

The leader of the National Council of La Raza said Friday that the organization is working with Kansas City officials to try to keep the 2009 convention in the city. That’s welcome news. Unless cool heads prevail, Kansas City could lose a valuable national convention. That possibility was raised this week because of continuing concerns about Frances Semler’s appointment to the city’s park board.

The nation’s largest Hispanic rights group is warning it may cancel its 2009 convention here because of a controversial Kansas City park board member. The head of the National Council of La Raza said Thursday that the organization is already looking at several other cities because of the appointment of Frances Semler.

Archbishop Joseph F. Naumann of Kansas City, Kan., turned to the story for which Kansas is most famous, "The Wizard of Oz," to tell participants at the National Right to Life Committee's 2007 convention how the story's characters can guide their actions in the pro-life movement. Speaking at a prayer breakfast during the June 14-16 convention in Kansas City, Mo., Archbishop Naumann said that, when considering the Scarecrow, "we need to pray for not only a brain, but for the wisdom to know how to best communicate to our contemporaries the sanctity of human life." One can be "armed with...

President Bush arrived in Missouri last night. This morning he had a breakfast meeting with community leaders in Riverside (Transcript) before heading to the National Veterans of Foreign Wars Convention in Kansas City where he delivered an amazing speech. (Transcript with audio) Afterwards, the president boarded Air Force One and returned to Texas, arriving at his home in Crawford this afternoon. Enjoy your visit to Sanity Island

Work crews Thursday began installing the first of 152 sturdy vinyl flags that will flutter 24/7 from city light poles along Kansas City’s renamed “Grand Boulevard of the Americas.” The project, a tribute to the 35 nations of the Organization of American States, is the brainchild of local businessman and longtime civic activist James M. Malouff III. “I don’t want to demean our heritage,” he said Thursday. “But we’re way beyond cow town. Kansas City is a cosmopolitan city” engaged in international business and cultural exchanges, with emerging international visitor attractions such as the World War I Museum. He said...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A husband is accused of pushing his ill wife off the balcony of their apartment building. Cristie Reimer, 47, was found dead on the sidewalk Tuesday night after a fall from her fourth-floor apartment in the 4900 block of Wornall Road. Her husband, 51-year-old Stanley Reimer, was charged with second-degree murder. On Thursday, he pleaded not guilty in federal court.

The Kansas City International Airport has added several foot-washing basins in restrooms to accommodate a growing number of Muslim taxicab drivers who requested the facilities to prepare for daily Islamic prayer, WND has learned. The move concerns airport police who worry about Middle Eastern men loitering inside the building. After 9/11, the airport beefed up its police force to help prevent terrorist attacks. "Why are we constructing places of worship for them inside our airports?" said an airport official who requested anonymity. "Why are we catering to their rituals? We don't do it for any other religion."

An Emporia, Kan., couple adopted Edwin R. Hall when he was 7 because they wanted to give him a better life. Eight years later, after Hall was convicted in juvenile court of threatening his adoptive sister with a knife, he went back into state custody. He would spend the next three years in four juvenile correctional facilities and never return to his adoptive home. The 26-year-old Hall now sits in the Johnson County jail on $5 million bond, accused of kidnapping and killing 18-year-old Kelsey Smith one week ago today. His attorney, Paul Cramm, declined to comment Friday... Hall pleaded...

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NAFTA SUPERHIGHWAY | An urban myth or reality? Super suspicious foes The government denies any such plans, but campaign against it continues. By MATT STEARNS McClatchy Newspapers WASHINGTON | If the government really has a secret plan for a 12-lane road-and-rail NAFTA Superhighway that will split the heartland from Mexico to Canada, it is playing with a great poker face. “There is absolutely no U.S. government plan for a NAFTA Superhighway of any sort,” said David Bohigian, an assistant secretary of commerce. Sen. Kit Bond, a Missouri Republican and a powerful member of committees that would authorize and pay for...

Grassroots Americans of all parties and economic classes rose up out of their political apathy a few months ago and forced President Bush to reverse his administration's decision to allow a Middle East government to own America's major ports. But the push for foreign ownership continues: the next port scheduled to be taken over is Kansas City, Missouri. Even though public schools stopped teaching geography a couple of decades ago, most Americans (especially residents of the Show Me state) are surprised to learn that Kansas City (where the only waves are "amber waves of grain") is a port. We are...

The murky diplomatic status of a proposed Mexican customs clearinghouse in Kansas City has gotten murkier. Since last spring, local officials and the Washington office of Sen. Kit Bond all have insisted that the matter was moving through government channels. But U.S. State Department spokesman Eric Watnik said that the agency has never been formally asked to consider the proposal. “It’s off the radar screen,” said Bill Anthony, a spokesman for Customs and Border Protection in the Department of Homeland Security. Border Protection was engaged in the early planning and was widely thought to have endorsed the project and moved...

HARRISBURG - The Penguins apparently have cut a deal with public officials to finance an Uptown arena that would keep the team in Pittsburgh, a state senator said Wednesday. "I'm hearing that a deal could be made any day, which makes me suspect it's all about crossing the t's and dotting the i's," said Sen. Wayne Fontana, a Brookline Democrat who serves on the city-county Sports & Exhibition Authority, which would own the arena. "I don't know that there are any major hurdles left. It's all just little things." Fontana said he expects officials to announce a deal today or...

You didn't have to believe in omens to find it a bit odd that on the subway ride toward Mellon Arena yesterday, "I'm gettin' nuttin' for Christmas" seemed to be squawking in a continuous loop. This was right at the top of zero hour, when the long-awaited, viciously anticipated casino licensing issue would finally be decided. Twenty minutes later, the Penguins had begun practice on the NHL's oldest living hockey pond, and at precisely 11:27 a.m., the franchise learned it was indeed getting nothing for Christmas. Oh yeah, mommy and daddy are mad, the NHL is mad, even the Rooneys...

DALLAS -- Lamar Hunt, the pro sports visionary who owned the Kansas City Chiefs and came up with the term "Super Bowl," died Wednesday night. He was 74. Hunt, a founder of the American Football League and one of the driving forces behind the AFL-NFL merger, died at Presbyterian Hospital of Dallas of complications from prostate cancer, Chiefs spokesman Bob Moore said. Hunt battled cancer for several years and was hospitalized the day before Thanksgiving with a partially collapsed lung. Doctors discovered that the cancer had spread, and Hunt had been under heavy sedation since last week. "He was a...

A MASSIVE road four football fields wide and running from Mexico to Canada through the heartland of the United States is being proposed amid controversy over security and the damage to the environment. The "nation's most modern roadway", proposed between Laredo in Texas and Duluth, Minnesota, along Interstate 35, would allow the US to bypass the west coast ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach to import goods from China and the Far East into the heart of middle America via Mexico, saving both cost and time. However, critics argue that the ten-lane road would lay a swathe of concrete...

The man who yesterday managed a meager 26 yards on 15 carries. The man who would have been a complete non-factor if not for his little hair-pull with Steelers safety Troy Polamalu. "I'm not frustrated at all," Johnson said. "It's only the fifth game of the season." Later, there would be "the eight men in the box" excuse."That's what happens when you're good," Johnson said, shrugging.About the only thing the Chiefs could be proud of was a sensational effort Johnson made on a touchdown-saving play that ended with him pulling Polamalu down by the hair. It happened early in the...