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Should educators be subject to obscenity prosecutions? Add your comments here.

By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Board

KC's elected officials and union leaders often say they don't want to balance the city budget "on the back of employees."

Why not? That's where the real money is.

All of a sudden, there's a ray of hope in Jefferson City that KC's City Hall could gain control of the local Police Department.

St. Louis aldermen have favored this good idea for years, thanks in part to leadership by Mayor Francis Slay.

Now, state lawmakers are considering a bill that would put the police departments in St. Louis and KC under local control, rather than state-appointed boards.

Here is an eerie advertisement from 1979.

Adland has unearthed an old 1979 ad for Pakistani Airlines promoting its flights to New York City using an ominous plane shadow cast upon the Twin Towers. Certainly in the seventies, everyone was enamored with the stature and size of the then amazing looking towers but unless you were Irwin Allen, even in your most imaginative moments you weren't envisioning this ad's imagery would foretell the horror that occurred September 11, 2001.

The problem for Paul Morrison and Phill Kline is they were born more than a century and a half too late.

According to a book I've been consulting a lot this week, The Almanac of Political Corruption, Scandals and Dirty Politics, many a personal and political difference in the early 1800's was resolved by a duel.

They often didn't end well, as when U.S. Vice President Aaron Burr fatally wounded Alexander Hamilton in 1804.

Public disdain hasn't done a thing to improve the quality of education in the Kansas City School District.

Public interest has a chance.

So I'm happy to learn of a forum scheduled for 6 to 8 p.m. March 25 at the Central Public Library, 10th Street and Baltimore Avenue.

Sponsors are the Urban Society, Downtown Council and AIA Kansas City, an architects' group. Those are exactly the kind of groups that are needed to take an interest in the school district's future. Their involvement signals an understanding--finally--that the city's well-being hinges on improving its urban schools.

By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Board

I've discovered a new, costly problem with KC's TIF program at City Hall. It's unexpected news at a bad time for taxpayers -- and for city officials struggling to cut the budget.

By Yael T. Abouhalkah, Kansas City Star Editorial Board

Ouch. Ouch. And another ouch.

KC lost big-time on Thursday when the Iowa State women's and men's basketball teams lost Big 12 tournament games.