KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A 63-year old Missouri postal clerk has admitted stealing gift cards from the mail at a Kansas City mail processing center where she worked.

U.S. Attorney Tammy Dickinson says Veronica Grant waived her right to a grand jury and pleaded guilty Tuesday to one count of theft of mail by a postal employee.

The Postal Service received a complaint in April 2015 that a T.J. Maxx gift card had been reported missing from the mail. When confronted, Grant admitted stealing the gift card and using it in Blue Springs.

Investigators found five additional cards in Grant’s purse after an October 2015 interview and later identified 11 victims of her mail theft.

A plea agreement with prosecutors will recommend probation and restitution to the victims.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — State auditors have found more than $13 million in uncashed checks piling up at the Nebraska Department of Health and Human Services.

The Omaha World-Herald reports the 192 checks were all related to the Medicaid drug rebate program. The state Auditor’s office called the uncashed checks a significant management problem.

Officials at the agency say the backlog of checks developed because they needed to be researched and checked before depositing, but staffing issues made that hard to do.

One HHS accountant retired in April and a second one took medical leave in June. Officials say that left the department without an accountant familiar with the drug rebate program.

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — In the wake of recent flooding, some Cedar Rapids property owners have shown interest in moving quickly on flood buyouts. Cedar Rapids television station KGAN reports that the city’s Flood Control Committee heard recommendations Tuesday morning to buy the Best Western Hotel and Cooper’s Mill Restaurant, both located just hundreds of feet from the Cedar River that overran its banks.

City real estate manager Rita Rasmussen says Cedar Rapids has been in negotiations with the property owners since last year.

She says the city has a signed purchase agreement with the owners for more than $5 million. She expects the transfer of title to be complete by the end of October.

GORDON, Neb. (AP) — The Nebraska State Patrol says a person has died after a car fled a traffic stop and later collided with a trooper’s cruiser in northwestern Nebraska.

The patrol says in a press release Tuesday that the crash happened Monday night on state Highway 27 north of Gordon. The patrol says a trooper saw a car run a stop sign and tried to pull it over, but it fled. A short time later, the car and cruiser collided, sending the car into a ditch.

The patrol says the car’s driver, 32-year-old Antoine Ladeaux, of Pine Ridge, South Dakota, was thrown from the car and died. Three passengers in the car were treated and released from a local hospital.

State law requires a grand jury investigation anytime someone dies while fleeing police.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Authorities are searching for an offender who escaped from a minimum-security prison in Kansas City.

The Missouri Department of Corrections announced Monday in a news release that Brian Deconink scaled the roof of the Kansas City Reentry Center’s main building Sunday during outside recreation. The release said he had help from another offender.

The center houses inmates nearing parole; Deconink was set to be paroled in March.

Authorities say Deconink was serving a five-year sentence for possession of a controlled substance in a correctional center from DeKalb County. He has past convictions for burglary, stealing, robbery and resisting arrest.

Authorities are investigating the escape from the center. It was a hallway house before it was converted last year to a minimum-security prison.

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court won’t hear a challenge to the death penalty for members of the military.

The justices on Monday rejected an appeal from the former soldier who was sentenced to death for killing two fellow soldiers and injuring 14 others in an attack in Kuwait in 2003. The appeal from Hasan Akbar focused on whether the way in which the armed forces impose a death sentence complies with recent Supreme Court rulings.

Akbar is being held at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. He was convicted of killing Army Capt. Christopher S. Seifert and Air Force Maj. Gregory L. Stone in Kuwait during the early days of the Iraq war.

The military hasn’t carried out an execution since 1961.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The University of Missouri-Columbia says it has temporarily suspended a fraternity after a hazing incident.

The university on Monday announced the action against the Kappa Alpha fraternity but provided no details about the alleged hazing that occurred last week.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports the action comes after police investigated a report last week of an underage student who was taken from the fraternity to a hospital with alcohol poisoning.

Police spokeswoman Latisha Stroer says the investigation into that incident is ongoing.

A second fraternity, Delta Upsilon, was temporarily suspended last week after members were accused of yelling racist and sexist slurs at black students outside the fraternity house. That investigation also is ongoing.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A federal judge has ruled that professional race car driver Scott Tucker and others deceived payday loan consumers and owe the Federal Trade Commission about $1.2 billion.

The Kansas City Star reports that the commission brought charges against Scott Tucker, of Leawood, Kansas, and others on claims that their payday loan operations charged exorbitant interest rates.

Tucker denied wrongdoing in the case. He also has pleaded not guilty to criminal exploitation charges and is scheduled for trial in April.

The Associated Press sent an email early Monday seeking comment from an attorney for two lending companies with ties to Tucker.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A federal judge has dismissed a $40 million civil rights lawsuit alleging police used excessive force against Ferguson, Missouri, protesters after the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown.

U.S. District Judge Henry Autry ruled Friday in St. Louis that the plaintiffs “have completely failed to present any credible evidence” proving the questioned tactics by police involved malice or bad faith. Autry also found protesters ignored repeated warnings to disperse and that the officers named as defendants were entitled to immunity from the lawsuit.

The protesters said Monday that they would appeal.

The sometimes-violent protests followed the August 2014 death of 18-year-old Brown, who was black and unarmed, by white Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson. Wilson later was cleared by a grand jury and the Justice Department.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Police say arson is suspected in an early morning three-alarm fire that caused significant damage to a church in Lincoln.

The Lincoln Journal Star reports the fire was reported about 2 a.m. Monday at Belmont Baptist Church.

Lincoln Battalion Chief Jeremy Gegg says it took crews about 45 minutes to control the fire. He says the fire caused significant damage and part of the roof collapsed, but a fire door inside the building kept flames contained to one area.

There were no injuries.

On Monday afternoon, police said arson is suspected and that fire investigators were being helped in the investigation by the Omaha fire department’s arson dog and the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.