LEE’S SUMMIT, Mo. (AP) — One member of the Raymore-Peculiar High School girls volleyball team remained hospitalized after the team bus collided with a truck on the way to a match.

Thirteen students were taken to hospitals after the accident in Lee’s Summit Monday. Police say the bus driver tried to make a U-turn when the truck hit the bus.

Police say the team was on its way to a tournament at Lee’s Summit West High School when the driver missed a turn and tried to make the U-turn.

ALICIA A. CALDWELL, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Homeland Security Department is requiring that anyone coming to the United States from one of three West African countries reporting an Ebola outbreak must enter the country through one of five airports screening passengers for the deadly disease.

Customs and Border Protection officers earlier this month started screening passengers from West Africa who arrived at New York’s Kennedy, Newark Liberty, Washington’s Dulles, Chicago’s O’Hare and Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta airports. There are no direct flights from West Africa to the United States and about 94 percent of the estimated 150 daily passengers from the region pass through those five airports.

The new requirement means that people traveling from Liberia, Sierra Leone or Guinea who were not originally passing through one of those five airports will have to rebook their flights.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 39-year-old suburban Kansas City man is accused of extorting $3 million from a businessman who thought the money was going toward bribing judges and paying off lawyers in pending drug cases.

The Kansas City Star reports Shelton E. Lewis of Grandview was arrested earlier this month in Atlanta on federal charges of money laundering and making exortionate communications.

Prosecutors say the businessman kept coughing up money with each new claim Lewis made, but instead of bribing judges Lewis used the money to live an extravagant lifestyle

WASHINGTON (AP) — New U.S. rules aimed at getting banks to take on more of the risk when they package and sell mortgage securities are being relaxed with an eye to spurring broader home lending.

Federal regulators have dropped a key requirement: a 20 percent down payment from the borrower if a bank didn’t hold at least 5 percent of the mortgage securities tied to those loans on its books.

The long-delayed final rules unveiled Tuesday by six federal agencies include the less stringent condition that borrowers not carry excessive debt relative to their income.

The board of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. was voting Tuesday to adopt the rules.

The rules, proposed in stricter form in 2011, were mandated by the overhaul law enacted in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis.

United States Attorney

TOPEKA, KAN. – A man pleaded guilty Monday to an armed robbery at a Wendy’s restaurant in Topeka, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.
George Christopher Walton, Jr., 37, Topeka, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of robbery and one count of brandishing a firearm during the robbery. In his plea he admitted that on Aug. 4, 2014, he entered the Wendy’s restaurant at 728 S.W. Topeka Blvd. dressed all in black, wearing a mask and brandishing a firearm. He demanded cash from the register and then fled with the money.

Walton got into a car driven by his daughter and co-defendant Tashaun Desanic Walton. Police chased the car for several minutes before it stopped and Walton jumped out. He was captured a short while later in a residential area.

Sentencing is set for Jan. 26. Both parties have agreed to recommend a sentence of 84 months in federal prison.

His daughter, co-defendant Tashaun Desanic Walton, is set for a change of plea hearing Nov. 3.
Grissom commended the Topeka Police Department, the FBI and Assistant U.S. Attorney Jared Maag for their work on the case.

In all cases, defendants are presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty. The indictments merely contain allegations of criminal conduct.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — A local attorney’s attempt to decriminalize the cultivation of marijuana has been defeated by the Columbia City Council.

The City Council voted 4-3 Monday against approving a proposed ordinance that would have let residents grow up to two marijuana plants within city limits. Those who opposed the measure were concerned about creating a disconnect between state and federal law, which still punishes people for growing the plant.

Before the City Council took a final vote, one council member proposed an amendment that didn’t pass. It would have deleted words related to cultivating marijuana for non-medical use and left in sentences that relaxed penalties for growing the plants for medical use.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today responded to California Senator Dianne Feinstein’s proposal of a friendly wager on the outcome of the 2014 World Series, which pits the Kansas City Royals against the San Francisco Giants.

McCaskill, confident in a Royals World Series victory after their recording-breaking 8-0 start in the playoffs, wagered Kansas City’s legendary Arthur Bryant’s BBQ, to be washed down with beer from Kansas City’s Boulevard Brewing Company. Feinstein wagered a number of Bay Area staples, including Petits Pains brioche, Boudin Bakery sourdough bread, Dungeness crab, Ghirardelli chocolates, Cowgirl Creamery cheese, and Anchor Steam beer—all of which McCaskill eagerly anticipates collecting at the end of the series.

“Anyone who likes baseball and has watched this team has fallen in love,” McCaskill said. “I look forward to the Royals showing the Giants what the word team really means.”

The Royals’ recent 4-0 sweep to defeat the Baltimore Orioles for the American League pennant, combined with an earlier win over the Oakland Athletics in the American League Wild Card game and a 3-0 sweep of the Los Angeles Angels, earned the team baseball’s first-ever 8-0 record in the playoffs. The Royals are 4-0 against California teams in this year’s playoffs and dominated the Giants in a 3-0 sweep when the teams last met in August in Kansas City.

Having been absent in the World Series for 29 years, the Royals’ 2014 Cinderella story has captivated baseball fans across Missouri and throughout the country – fans who will be heard loud and clear when the Royals take home the Series championship.