ROBERTSVILLE, Mo. (AP) — An eastern Missouri man is in custody after a package service driver noticed a message scrawled on a package he had just picked up: “Contact 911.”

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 33-year-old James Jordan of Robertsville is charged with domestic assault, sodomy, felonious restraint, unlawful use of a weapon and endangering the welfare of a child.

The driver called authorities Tuesday after seeing the note on a package retrieved at a home in the Robertsville area. Franklin County deputies arrived and as a woman was speaking to them Jordan allegedly closed the door and refused to cooperate.

Because Jordan had past assault arrests and suspecting he had a gun or guns, officers called a SWAT team. Jordan surrendered before the team arrived.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — More people visited the Kansas City Zoo this year than ever before in its 107-year history.

The zoo topped 1 million visitors Nov. 25 when a family from Waterloo, Iowa, went through the gates. The family received some gifts and a personal encounter with the zoo’s penguins.

The Kansas City Star reports zoo attendance began rising after director Randy Wishtoff arrived from the Omaha, Nebraska, zoo in 2003. And in 2004, voters approved a $30 million bond package that gave the zoo a reliable funding stream, which allowed several new exhibits, including polar bears, penguins and a new orangutan habitat.

The zoo had more than 911,000 visitors last year.

The zoo is lowering its attendance projection for 2017 to 943,500, primarily because no major new attractions are planned.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas plans to retire a mainframe used by four state agencies and contract with a private company to take care of the work.

The state has agreed to a five-year contract with Illinois-based Ensono for more than $14 million to replace an IBM mainframe as recommended last year in a state efficiency review. It named several opportunities for possible technology-related savings among the state’s agencies.

Kansas Organization of State Employees executive director Rebecca Proctor told The Topeka Capital-Journal that state IT workers have expressed concern they could lose their jobs.

But a Department of Administration spokesman said Wednesday he does not have specifics about possible job cuts.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — An appeals court says an imprisoned Kansas child pornographer must liquidate his union retirement account and apply that money he tried to hide from the court to restitution to the victims.

Wednesday’s ruling by a Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals panel upholds a federal judge’s ruling against 54-year-old Philip Grigsby.

Grigsby, formerly of Marquette, is serving more than 21 years in prison on eight counts of sexual exploitation of a child, as well as a gun count and charge of child porn possession.

A judge later ordered Grigsby to pay $140,000 restitution to a victim and her mother. After sentencing, Grigsby’s $53,000 retirement account he concealed during proceedings in the porn case was discovered during his divorce, and a judge ordered it liquidated.

NEW YORK (AP) — Life expectancy in the United States has been rising for decades — but now, that trend could be coming to an end.

The numbers declined last year. And life expectancy is now no better than it was four years ago.

The decline was unusual for a year that didn’t include a major disease outbreak. Other one-year declines occurred in 1993, when the nation was in the throes of the AIDS epidemic, and 1980, the result of an especially nasty flu season.

In 2015, rates for 8 of the 10 leading causes of death rose. Even more troubling to health experts: the U.S. seems to be settling into a trend of no improvement at all.

An American born in 2015 is expected to live 78 years and 9½ months, on average, according to preliminary data released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

The CDC report is based mainly on 2015 death certificates. There were more than 2.7 million deaths, or about 86,000 more than the previous year. The increase in raw numbers partly reflects the nation’s growing and aging population. It was led by an unusual upturn in the death rate from the nation’s leading killer, heart disease.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The likely departure of the nation’s longest-serving governor to accept an appointment as U.S. ambassador to China means Iowa could be led by its first female governor.

An aide to President-elect Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday that Trump has offered to nominate Republican Gov. Terry Branstad for the ambassadorship, and that the governor is expected to accept.

If Branstad accepts and is confirmed by the Senate, Republican Lt. Gov. Kim Reynolds would become Iowa’s governor. She would hold the position until Branstad’s term ends in January 2019, and she could run for governor in 2018.

The 57-year-old Reynolds was a first-term state senator when Branstad chose her to run for election as his lieutenant governor.

Reynolds has focused on economic development and education during her six years as lieutenant governor.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A coalition of Kansas teachers, state workers, contractors and others is proposing to increase income and gasoline taxes to fix the state’s budget problems.

But the plan outlined Wednesday by the Rise Up Kansas Coalition also would reduce the state’s sales tax on groceries to help poor families.

The plan would undo some of the massive income tax cuts the Republican-controlled Legislature enacted in 2012 and 2013 at GOP Gov. Sam Brownback’s urging in an effort to stimulate the economy.

The coalition’s plan would increase revenues by $821 million for the next fiscal year, which begins in July.

The plan would revive a third income tax bracket for the state’s wealthiest taxpayers with the top rate of 6.45 percent. It would boost the gas tax 11 cents a gallon.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The U.S. surgeon general is calling e-cigarettes an emerging public health threat to the nation’s youth.

In a report being released Thursday, Surgeon General Vivek Murthy acknowledges a need for more research into the health effects of “vaping,” but says e-cigarettes aren’t harmless and too many teens are using them.

Murthy says he worries that e-cigarettes “have the potential to create a whole new generation of kids who are addicted to nicotine.”

Because it contains fewer of the harmful compounds of regular cigarettes, vaping was first pushed as safer for current smokers. There’s no scientific consensus on the risks or advantages. But federal figures show that last year, 16 percent of high school students reported at least some use of e-cigarettes, even some who’ve never smoked a conventional cigarette.

CHESTERFIELD, Mo. (AP) — One of St. Louis County’s largest cities is opposed to accepting the city of St. Louis into the county.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Chesterfield City Council voted 6-1 Monday to oppose the merger.

St. Louis has long been a stand-alone city, the only city in Missouri that is not part of a county. Proponents of a merger believe the region would benefit by having St. Louis become the 91st municipality in St. Louis County.

But members of the Chesterfield council expressed a variety of governance and financial concerns.

BEATRICE, Neb. (AP) — A federal appeals court has halted efforts by six people wrongfully convicted of a 1985 Beatrice murder to collect the millions they won in a lawsuit against Gage County.

On Monday the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals granted the county’s request to delay the collection efforts until an appeal filed by the county in October is decided.

In July a jury awarded $28.1 million to the six wrongly convicted of the rape and killing of 68-year-old Helen Wilson. The six spent a combined 75 years in prison until DNA evidence cleared them and instead pointed to a man who died in 1992.