¢ High rent isn’t just a problem in big cities like New York and Los Angeles. It’s also an issue in suburban Kansas City, the New York Times reports._Olathe (pronounced oh-LAY-thuh), 20 miles southwest of Kansas City, showed the biggest jump in the percentage of people paying at least 30 percent of their income on rent, as well as in those paying at least 50 percent on rent.__In a largely rural state not known for growth or overwhelming prosperity, here is a minimetropolis of manmade neighborhood waterfalls, of seemingly endless construction of shopping malls and office parks. Executives and immigrant workers, retirees and young families have all been drawn to its abundance of jobs, parks and high-performing public schools._The same Census report showed the average monthly rent in Lawrence is $690.¢ A Muslim man from Yemen, and a former Lawrence resident, says life wasn’t good in Kansas following the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Mufad Alkuhlani’s comments were part of a story in the Merced (Calif.) Sun-Star._ Mufad Alkuhlani, a Yemen-born Muslim enrolled in UC Merced’s quantitative system biology program, said he has also found Merced to be a welcoming city.__Alkuhlani, 27, said he lived in Lawrence, Kan., after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and was a frequent target of insults that were yelled at him.__”Merced is more tolerant,” Alkuhlani said. “It was misery in Kansas.”_¢ The late Prentice Gautt, a former Lawrence resident who broke the color barrier for the Oklahoma University football team 50 years ago, is the subject of a feature in the Norman (Okla.) Transcript._Sandra Gautt, who resides in Lawrence, Kan., and is currently on leave from being vice-provost at the University of Kansas, said OU has always been special to the Gautt family and the remembrance of Prentice means a lot._”This is really a great honor for us, particularly the number 38 decals (on the helmets),” she said. “He’s up there watching now.”¢ A KU graduate now is in charge of Historic Philadelphia Inc., which helps promote the city’s history, the Philadelphia Inquirer reports._Hearing people in Kansas say that Philadelphia was “just a cracked bell” helped inspire Amy Needle to come back to Philadelphia and work in the tourism industry._Now, 17 years after leaving Kansas to work for the Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau, she’s helping people see Philadelphia as more than just a cracked bell as the new president and chief executive officer of Historic Philadelphia Inc.¢ A former finalist to be provost at KU now is finalist for the chancellor position at the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, the Badger Herald reports. Virginia Sapiro currently is vice chancellor for teaching and learning at the University of Wisconsin-Madison._ After not being named provost of either the University of Vermont or Kansas, Sapiro settled into her current position._¢ Stock-market investors are still “gun shy” even as the markets hit record levels, a San Francisco Chronicle columnist writes. The story quotes Mark Hirschey, a KU business professor._”Back then, you could jump in without much knowledge of finance or economics,” said Mark Hirschey, a business professor at the University of Kansas who specializes in investor psychology. “There was a feeling that anyone could make money.”_