SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Preservationists have won a one-month reprieve for moving an 80-year-old rock-walled temple in Springfield that is slated for demolition.

The preservationists are working to raise money to move the Timmons Temple building in Springfield because of its historical significance for the city’s black community. The group has collected more than $70,000 and in-kind donations but estimates it needs about $130,000 more to move the structure and have it placed soundly in a nearby park.

The preservation group said last week the developer of the property, who hopes to build an apartment complex on the plot of land where the temple stands, has granted an extension. The deadline for pledges and donations has been extended to July 14.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A veteran northeast Kansas administrator has been appointed manager of the Douglas County city of Eudora.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports the appointment of Gary Ortiz was taking effect Monday.

Ortiz has been serving as assistant county administrator for the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas. He previously was the city manager of Leavenworth from 1998 to 2007.

Ortiz said in a statement that recent development of a transportation center near Gardner and Edgerton will help economic growth along the Kansas 10 corridor connecting Johnson and Douglas counties.

SPRINGFIELD (AP) – Springfield law enforcement officials say they are alarmed by a spike in the popularity of heroin in the area.

The Springfield News-Leader reports the drug’s increasing availability and improving quality appear to be winning over methamphetamine users.

Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper Dan Banasik says some meth users are turning to the drug, as are people hooked on prescription painkillers.

Banasik, assigned to the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Springfield office, says Mexican drug cartels have been smuggling heroin into the Midwest in ever-increasing quantities.

Drug task force leader George Larby says he remembers when heroin first came into the city but then faded away. He says the recent surge is surprising.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The University of Missouri has announced plans to build an outdoor amphitheater near Jesse Hall in honor of the school’s 175th anniversary.

The Mizzou Alumni Association project known as Traditions Plaza will be located on the north side of the Carnahan Quadrangle, across from Jesse Hall.
Alumni association executive director Todd McCubbin says the theater will be used for concerts, spirit rallies, outdoor classes and other activities.
School donors will be able to buy commemorative bricks and tiles with their names that will be installed on the theater grounds. The university hopes to have the project complete this fall.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP)- Prison historians are hoping a public awareness campaign will help them track down the only keys to the gas chamber Missouri State Penitentiary.

The keys went missing in 2005 during a private tour of the newly closed prison, and without them nobody has been able to get into the gas chamber’s two holding cells.

The Jefferson City News Tribune reports the original locks eventually might have to be replaced or welded so they no longer latch.

The keys were individually cut by the prison’s locksmith in the 1930s and are the only witnesses to all 39 state executions at the institution between 1965 and 1989.

Former deputy warden and current MSP historian mark Schreiber says returning the missing keys would show respect for the prison’s history.

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Hundreds of pages of reports from an FBI investigation into illegal gambling in Joplin and the surrounding areas show a wide-ranging vice operation that involved influential people in southwest Missouri and southeast Kansas.

The Joplin Globe obtained more than 600 pages of documents in response to a Freedom of Information request the newspaper filed in 2012 because the investigation had led to the firing of a Joplin police officer and indictments against three bookmakers.

The documents reveal how the gambling investigation grew into a probe of drug trafficking, prostitution and public corruption.

Eventually the bookies pleaded guilty and received probation, a Kansas prosecutor pleaded guilty to extortion and a Joplin police officer was fired before the investigation closed in August 2011.

PRATT, Kan. (AP) — A 23-year-old Missouri native has won the 2014 Miss Kansas title and will represent the state in the 2015 Miss America Pageant in Atlantic City later this year.

Moberly, Missouri, native and current University of Kansas graduate student Amanda Sasek won the crown Saturday night at the pageant held at Pratt Community College in Pratt.

Pageant spokeswoman Lauren Werhan says 31 women competed for the title.

The Wichita Eagle reports last year’s titleholder, Theresa Vail — an Army National Guard sergeant who was voted the “People’s Choice” in the 2014 Miss America pageant — presented Sasek with the crown.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Early voting has become an increasingly common convenience in many states. Yet it’s also becoming increasingly contentious for political parties.

In several key swing states, Republicans are attempting to curtail early voting by limiting the days on which is its available. Yet in other Democratic-controlled states, lawmakers have passed measures to expanding early voting.

The parties are trying to gain even the slightest electoral advantage for this year’s elections and the 2016 presidential campaign.

Although new research disputes it, there’s a general assumption that early voting aids Democrats more than Republicans. That’s partly because President Barack Obama used early voting to drive a greater number of Democrats to the polls in his 2008 and 2012 victories.

At least 33 states now have early voting laws.

SAM HANANEL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court could decide as early as Monday whether to clarify the First Amendment rights of people who use violent or threatening language on Facebook, in emails and other electronic media.

The justices are considering taking up two cases where defendants were convicted of making illegal threats despite claims they never meant any harm.

A Pennsylvania man in one case posted rap lyrics ranting about his estranged wife, law enforcement and former co-workers.

The other case involves a Florida woman who emailed a radio station threats about guns and schools.

Lower courts said they could be found guilty if an objective person understood the messages as threats. But lawyers for the defendants — along with some free-speech groups — say it should depend on the speaker’s state of mind.