Alex Smith

Six years ago, cook and guitarist Mark Vick got tired of spending St. Patrick’s Day working behind the bar instead of jamming onstage. So he and a few of his musician friends started the band, Blarney Stoned.

The Kansas City Atheist Coalition announced Monday afternoon that they had been denied permission to participate in this year’s Kansas City St. Patrick’s Day parade.

About a year and a half ago, local band Making Movies opened for Los Lobos when the legendary Latin rock band was in Kansas City. Making Movies had been incorporating more Latin rhythms into their Spanish- and English-language rock, and one Los Lobos member liked what he heard.

Between sets, Lobo Steve Berlin asked Making Movies if he could produce their next recording. They released the result, entitled “A La Deriva,” on March 5th, and they’re reaching out to create an international audience.

Child advocates and state lawmakers are demanding answers after several recent high profile cases of extreme child abuse in Kansas City.  The most recent case, involving a Northland teen who was handcuffed to a pole the family’s basement, brings up questions about Missouri's child welfare system.

On January 25, two lightning rods of controversy in the Roman Catholic Church community clashed when Kansas City’s Bishop Robert Finn publicly denounced the locally-based National Catholic Reporter.