JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander says a court-ordered change to a proposed tobacco tax is not enough to disqualify it from the ballot.

Kander told local election authorities Monday to continue verifying petition signatures submitted for the proposal. If the measure has enough valid signatures, Kander says he will certify it for the November ballot.

The measure proposes a gradual 60-cent increase to the state’s 17-cent-a-pack cigarette tax. It also proposes a 67-cent-a-pack fee on companies that weren’t part of a 1998 settlement between states and big tobacco companies.

An appeals court ruled the ballot summary prepared by Kander’s office should be changed to say the fee will rise annually.

The opponents’ attorney, Chuck Hatfield, says he likely will sue again if Kander certifies the measure for the ballot.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — Confederate currency, bone dice and a memoir from a nurse who also was a Union spy are among a 3,000-piece Civil War collection that the University of St. Mary in Leavenworth is adding to its library.

The Kansas City Star reports that the Bobby D. Lawrence collection was a gift from the Lawrence family of Leavenworth.

The collection includes several memoirs, along with more than 2,000 books about the Civil War that will go into the library’s circulation and available for checkout from students and the public.

Librarians and curators say the collection has two significant areas of focus: women in the war and regional materials from Kansas and Missouri.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Dodge City woman has been sentenced to nearly 22 years in prison for creating a video of herself engaged in a sex act with a child under 5 years old and uploading it to the internet.

The sentence was handed down Monday for 25-year-old Ashley Marie Kelly, who pleaded guilty in March to one count of producing child pornography. She admitted using a smartphone to record the sex act and posting it to her Google Drive account.

Google discovered it and notified the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A suburban St. Louis police officer shot in the neck during a traffic stop is paralyzed from the neck down due to what the Ballwin police chief calls “catastrophic damage to his spinal cord.”

Officer Michael Flamion was shot from behind on July 8 after stopping a man for speeding in Ballwin, a well-to-do St. Louis County town of about 30,000 residents. Antonio Taylor of St. Louis was arrested later that day and is jailed on $500,000 bond on several charges, including first-degree assault of a law enforcement officer.

The shooting occurred one day after five police officers were killed in Dallas, but Missouri officials have not discussed a possible motive for Flamion’s shooting. Ballwin Police Chief Kevin Scott declined to discuss the investigation during Monday’s news conference.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A mother in Kansas has her hands full after giving birth to her third set of twins in just over two years.

WDAF-TV reports that 20-year-old Danesha Couch of Kansas City, Kansas, says she has not undergone any fertility treatment and realizes that some people might consider her “a freak of nature.”

Couch delivered two boys 26 months ago. One of them died, but the survivor, Danarius, is a busy toddler. She also has twin 1-year-olds, Delilah and Davina.

And last month, Dalanie and Darla were born. They just arrived home after three weeks in neonatal intensive care.

Couch and her fiance plan to marry in September, but she says they don’t plan to have any more children for at least 10 years.

To care for the children Couch set up a gofundme page

BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — In online posts, a man using an alias of the Baton Rouge shooter says protests alone don’t work, and people must fight back after the deaths of black men at the hands of police.

Documents show that gunman Gavin Eugene Long sought to change his name last year to Cosmo Setepenra. A website using that name links to online books about nutrition, self-awareness and empowerment. The man describes himself as a “Freedom Strategist, Mental Game Coach, Nutritionist, Author and Spiritual Advisor.”

In a video posted July 10, the man says he’s speaking from Dallas after the fatal attack on police officers there during a march over the deaths of black men at the hands of law enforcement. The man also discusses the protests in Baton Rouge and what he perceived as oppression.

He says: “You’ve got to fight back. That’s the only way a bully knows to quit.” In an earlier video, the man says that if anything ever happens to him, he doesn’t want to be linked to any groups, and mentioned once belonging to Nation of Islam.

JACKSON, Mo. (AP) — A southeast Missouri prosecutor is expected to decide as early as this week whether a state trooper should face charges in the shooting death of a suspect.

Jeffrey Darrell Hobbs of Neelys Landing was fatally shot by a trooper on April 29, following a confrontation after a traffic stop.

The shooting led to an investigation by the Cape Girardeau County Coroner’s office.

Cape Girardeau County prosecutor Chris Limbaugh received the coroner’s report on Friday, and is reviewing it. The report includes toxicology results for both the trooper and Hobbs. Limbaugh and Coroner John Clifton declined comment on results of the testing.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol has not released the name of the trooper, a 15-year veteran of the patrol.

WHITEWATER, Kan. (AP) — Authorities have identified a 61-year-old man killed when the gyrocopter he was in crashed in southern Kansas.

The Kansas Highway Patrol says James L. Toevs, of Whitewater, was flying the gyrocopter alone when it crashed in a rural area outside Whitewater on Friday evening.

The Wichita Eagle reports that a gyrocopter is a small aircraft with a propeller on its top for lift and on its rear for propulsion.

A flight log shows that the aircraft was viewed “making a steep climb” before it pitched over and crashed.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Mo. (AP) — A four-year-old child has drowned in a river in southern Missouri.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reports that Kayden Smith of Willow Springs drowned Saturday afternoon in the Jacks Fork River in Texas County.

The patrol says the child was found unresponsive in the river and pronounced dead at a Mountain View hospital.

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Iowa has lost 97,000 acres of woodland in recent years as more land was used for farming.

The reduction in forested land may contribute to the state’s problems with farm runoff and poor water quality.

The federal Agriculture Department says Iowa lost 192,000 acres of trees between 2009 and 2013. During that same time, 95,000 acres of trees were planted.

More than two-thirds of the lost forest land was converted to cropland or pasture.

State Forester Paul Tauke says trees help prevent erosion and nitrogen and phosphorus losses that can promote toxic algae growth in lakes.