(AP) 
H&R Block has stopped handing out real dollar bills bearing stickers with its 2014 tax season marketing message.
The Kansas City-based tax preparation company kicked off an ad campaign Jan. 17 by handing out dollar bills with a sticker pasted across the front saying: “Americans who did their own taxes last year left a billion dollars behind. Get your billion back, America.” The ad also included a toll-free phone number, Web address and a disclaimer that not everyone gets a tax refund.
A federal law, however, prohibits attaching advertisements to money.
H&R Block spokesman Gene King said the campaign has stopped, but the company continues to hand out dollar bills separate from other marketing materials. King didn’t say why H&R Block changed its plans.
Month: January 2014
Kansas group to write its own social media policy
(AP) — A group charged with recommending changes to the Kansas Board of Regents’ new social media policy will compose its own social media proposal.
Kevin Johnson, general counsel at Emporia State University and co-chair of the social media working group, says the group should ignore the current policy and recommend one instead. The working group hopes to have a preliminary policy by March 12 and then accept public comment on it.
The regents last month adopted a policy allowing universities to fire faculty and staff for social media posting that conflicted with the best interests of the school. The new policy followed public uproar last year over an anti-NRA tweet from a KU journalism professor.
Critics say the new policy is vague and restrictive.
Proposed deal with Mo. National Guard has some unhappy
(AP) – Some Springfield residents have raised concerns about a proposed agreement that would have the Missouri National Guard help the city’s police with drug enforcement.
Police Chief Paul Williams says the agreement calls for one unarmed, military-trained information analyst with the guard working at a desk to help curtail drugs sales in Springfield. The analyst’s salary would be paid by the guard.
Several citizens complained at a City Council meeting earlier this month that the planned partnership focused too much on marijuana instead of targeting more harmful drugs.
About 30 words have been since cut from the agreement, removing all references to marijuana-specific, counter-drug efforts.
I-70 reopened in Kan. after semi-trailer fire
(AP) — One lane of westbound traffic on Interstate 70 in northeast Kansas has reopened after a semi-trailer fire closed that portion of the highway.
The section of highway in Wabaunsee and Riley counties was reopened to traffic Saturday morning after the fire was put out.
The fire was reported earlier Saturday at mile marker 318 in Riley County.
The Kansas Highway Patrol says no injuries were reported.
Mo. man Killed, daughter wounded in Friday Shooting
(AP) – Police say the owner of a Kansas City area automotive shop has been killed and his daughter wounded in a shooting at the business.
Authorities say 73-year-old Raymond Littrell was killed and his daughter was hospitalized with critical injuries after the shooting Friday at Clay County Engine Rebuilders in Claycomo.
Jack Foster, public safety director for Claycomo, says authorities believe the shooting stemmed from a domestic dispute. A man has been taken into custody for questioning.
Littrell was known for building high-end racing motors and for racing cars and boats.
Kanas man sentenced for murder gets Supreme Court hearing
A 30-year-old Hutchinson man who was ordered to prison for 40-years for his involvement in the murder of a Hutchinson man is scheduled to have his appeal heard by the Kansas Supreme Court next week.
Anthony Waller was given the sentence by Judge Tim Chambers in April 2011, after he denied the judgement of acquittal and motion for a new trial by defense attorney Carl Maughn.
Joshua Haines was beaten and strangled in an apartment at 12th & Severance, and his body placed in his vehicle and left in front of a home a few blocks away. All this occurring on April 10, 2010.
The state believes Waller masterminded the idea of tricking Haines, by luring him to a co-defendants apartment telling him they wanted to buy drugs, but once inside the dark apartment, he along with 32-year-old Jose Delacruz and 36-year-old Vasie Coons then ambushed Haines, beat him and Waller reportedly strangled him to death.
Coons entered pleas to aggravated robbery, possession of cocaine, methamphetamine, and misdemeanor possession of marijuana while the murder charge against him was dropped. He’s serving a 12-year sentence.
The third co-defendant in the case, Jose Delacruz was found not guilty of murder, but was convicted of aggravated robbery. He was sentenced to nearly 7-years for the robbery conviction, He was also given another 9-years for a conviction of contempt of court.
The hearing on the appeal for Anthony Waller is scheduled for next Tuesday morning.
Senator Blunt Delivers Weekly Republican Address (VIDEO)
Senator Blunt Delivers Weekly Republican Address 1/25/14
Costly Propane Miscalculations
By Blake Hurst
It’s been a long cold winter, and it’s only January. Along with frozen livestock waterers and burst pipes, Missouri farmers are facing an emergency with propane supplies. Prices have doubled in the last few months and, according to my supplier for our greenhouse in northwest Missouri, went up 70 cents a gallon in one day. We’ve had localized reports of propane selling for nearly $5 a gallon. Suppliers are only receiving about half of their normal allocations of propane. Farmers with poultry barns, hog barns and greenhouses are facing an emergency situation.
Although farmers can lock in propane prices with local suppliers, we’re learning that doesn’t always work. At least one supplier has refused to honor those contracts when prices have moved against them, and farmers are facing the bleak prospect of actually losing baby chicks because they don’t have access to heating fuel. More well established, reputable suppliers are dealing with the shortage honorably, and as a result, they’ll gain loyalty from their farmer customers.
Propane is a byproduct of both oil and natural gas production. It seems strange to have a shortage, because U.S. production of both oil and natural gas is expanding rapidly due to the new technology of fracking. The shortage has been caused by a perfect storm. We’ve seen rapidly increasing exports of propane, a wet and late corn crop that increased the demand for propane for grain drying, and extremely cold and windy weather, along with some winter snow storms that have increased the difficulty of moving propane around the country.
Someone somewhere made a terrible miscalculation last year, as they collectively decided what inventories they would hold moving into the winter. The attraction of a growing export market pulled away supplies that are desperately needed here in Missouri and the Midwest. Farmers and homeowners are paying for those mistakes, and their memories are likely to be very long.
Adding to the misery, hog producers are concerned because allocating propane means increasing trips to every farm. Each trip adds to the chances that disease could be transmitted from one farm to another. Not only that, but at least one large poultry producer is cutting the number of chicks they place in their grower’s barns. That will decrease the supply of chicken and increase its price. Even if you don’t depend upon propane for heat, you’ll see the results of this winter’s miscalculation in your grocery bills in the future.
In Texas, regulations have been relaxed to ease transportation difficulties. People in the propane business are working around the clock to serve their customers, and propane users are desperately seeking ways to conserve. Missouri Farm Bureau is doing everything we can to improve the situation. As one long-time observer and participant in the industry commented, “This has never happened before.” Let’s hope that it never happens again.
Blake Hurst, of Westboro, Mo., is the president of Missouri Farm Bureau, the state’s largest farm organization.
– See more at: http://www.mofb.org/NewsMedia/CuttotheChase.aspx#sthash.RUUTtgYr.dpuf
New car seats would protect children from side-impact crashes
WASHINGTON (AP) — For the first time, child car seats would have to protect children from death and injury in side-impact crashes, under regulations proposed today by the government.
They would upgrade standards for child seats for children weighing up to 40 pounds, to include a new test that simulates a side crash. The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration believes the standards will prevent the deaths of about five children and injuries to more than 60 others each year.
The new tests will simulate a “T-bone” crash, where the front of a vehicle traveling 30 miles an hour strikes the side of a small passenger vehicle traveling at 15 miles an hour.
Research shows that many child deaths and injuries in side-impact crashes involve a car carrying children that is stopped at an intersection, usually at a light or a stop sign. When the car begins to accelerate to go through the intersection, it is struck in the side by a vehicle traveling at a higher rate of speed.
The regulations won’t be final until the safety agency has reviewed public comments and addressed any important issues that may be raised. It typically takes months and sometimes years, but the agency says it wants to move quickly
Execution Scheduled For Rape/Murder Of Teenage Girl Kidnapped At School Bus Stop
The Missouri Supreme Court has authorized a death warrant and scheduled the execution of a man convicted of murder nearly twenty years ago.
Michael Taylor was convicted of first degree murder and sentenced to death in June of 1994. Mr Taylor’s appeals were heard and denied by courts up to and including the United States Supreme Court.
Taylor and Roderick Nunley both admitted to abducting Ann Harrison, 15, from the Kansas City bus stop where she was waiting to go to school. Taylor had raped the girl with Nunley’s help in the basement of Nunley’s mother’s home before fatally stabbing her and abandoning her body in the trunk of a car.
The Missouri State Supreme Court on Friday ordered Taylor to be executed on February 26, 2014.
The Corrections Department is set to carry out its next execution Wednesday. Herbert Smulls is 56 and has been on death row for 21 years. He was sentenced to death in 1991 for the fatal shooting of Stephen Honickman, a St. Louis County jewelry store owner.