ST. LOUIS (AP) — The new leader of the Missouri State NAACP says he plans to build a younger, more inclusive organization.

Nimrod “Rod” Chapel Junior was elected last month as the 14th President of the Missouri State NAACP. He told The St. Louis Post-Dispatch that it’s important to include leaders of groups such as Black Lives Matter, which rose to prominence after the Ferguson police shooting of Michael Brown.

He also support inclusion of members of Concerned Student 1950, which organized protests at the University of Missouri that ultimately led to the resignation of university system President Timothy M. Wolfe.

Chapel replaced Mary Ratliff, who stepped down after 30 years.

Chapel also says he plans to reach out to other organizations fighting for similar causes, such as abolishing the death penalty and reforming the court system.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The executive director of Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback’s Council of Economic Advisors has been arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.

Shawnee County jail records show that Stanley Ahlerich, executive director of the Kansas Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors, was arrested early Saturday on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Ahlerich was released about an hour later on $1,000 bond.

A Brownback spokeswoman declined comment Sunday. A message left at a home phone listing under Ahlerich’s name Sunday wasn’t immediately returned.

The Topeka Capital-Journal reports that Ahlerich, of Winfield, has led the Governor’s Council of Economic Advisors since Brownback formed the group in 2011. The council provides the governor with economic insights from assessments of local, national and global business conditions and trends.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — While two universities in Kansas provide online lists of registered sex offenders enrolled or employed on campus, most require that the basic information be provided directly by campus police.

Of the state’s six state universities, only Kansas State and the University of Kansas make the information readily accessible online, according to their websites. Only Kansas State includes the mugshots with the list.

The Wichita Eagle reports that at Wichita State, Emporia State, Fort Hays State and Pittsburg State universities, the schools’ websites direct people to the campus police stations to get the list. To see a mugshot of the offender, a person would have to go to the state’s online public offender registry kept by the Kansas Bureau of Investigation.

 

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Law enforcement would be required to record some interrogations under a bill influenced by the case of a Kansas man who spent nearly 16 years behind bars for a killing his brother eventually admitted to committing.

That bill would also make nearly a quarter million dollars available to Floyd Bledsoe.

The bill mandates interrogations of suspects arrested for capital murder, 1st and 2nd-degree murder.

Representative Ramon Gonzalez, a Perry Republican, says the bill he introduced Tuesday is “partly” a response to the wrongful conviction of Mr. Bledsoe. He was sentenced to life in prison but released Dec. 8, 2015, after a DNA test and suicide notes indicated his brother, Tom Bledsoe, killed Zetta Camille Arfmann in 1999.

Alice Craig, Bledsoe’s attorney with the Project for Innocence at the University of Kansas, supports recording interrogations.

Mr Bledsoe would be eligible for about $235,000 in state compensation under the proposed legislation.

He was convicted in 2000, for the 1999 murder of Camille Arfmann in Oskaloosa. He was sentenced to life in prison but was released December 8th, 2015, after a DNA test and suicide notes indicated his brother, Tom Bledsoe, killed Arfmann.

Representative Ramon Gonzalez introduced a measure recently that would allow people wrongfully convicted to bring suit in state court within two years of their release. Compensation is doled out using a formula based on the federal minimum wage and time spent in prison.  Under the formula, Bledsoe would be eligible for $235,248.

Payments would come out of the state’s general fund.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Advocates for survivors of sexual assaults in Nebraska say some victims mistakenly receive statements for medical costs of sexual assault exams, despite state and federal law prohibiting such notices.

A measure proposed to the Nebraska Legislature would create a state fund for the charges that pile up when a victim reports a sexual assault, ensuring survivors will not be charged with paying for going to the hospital.

Suzanne Gage, a spokeswoman for the attorney general’s office, which is backing the bill, said Nebraska’s current system has been leading to questions about who pays and when. The proposal would shift the onus off of law enforcement and instead would use a pool of private, state and federal money to pay for up to $200 for the examiner’s fee and up to $300 for the examination facility.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The Kansas House is considering a bill that would allow underage drinkers to avoid charges if they call for medical help for drinking-related problems.

The bill received initial approval Thursday. The Senate passed it last year.

Rep. Tom Phillips, a Manhattan Republican, says the bill is designed to prevent alcohol poisoning and deaths of college-age students who drink.

The Wichita Eagle reports underage drinkers would be immune from criminal prosecution if they called law enforcement or emergency medical services for themselves or other drinkers. They also would have to cooperate and remain on the scene.

Supporters said the bill was not meant to encourage underage drinking. But they say such drinking exists and the bill would avoid preventable tragedies.

WARRENTON, Mo. (AP) — A mid-Missouri man has been sentenced to 30 years in prison for the shooting death of his wife.

Ricky J. Harding Jr., of Mexico, was sentenced Thursday for second-degree murder and several other charges for killing his wife, Summer Harding, at their rural Mexico home.

The Mexico Ledger reports after the sentencing, Harding shouted a profanity as he was being taken to a holding cell. His defense had claimed Summer Harding accidentally shot herself after the couple argued in May 2014. Ricky Harding’s attorney says the conviction will be appealed.

Several of Summer Harding’s relatives, including all four of her children, read victim impact statements before the sentencing.

Audrain County Prosecuting Attorney Jacob Shellabarger called the sentence a “just, fair and firm result.”

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Several University of Missouri students are pressing the system’s governing board for faster reforms in diversity as the Columbia campus continues grappling with racial unrest punctuated by racial protests there last November.

Black graduate student Timothy Love was among four students at the Columbia school who addressed the university’s curators during their meeting Friday. He pressed for a requirement that undergraduate students have at least one comprehensive class about race and gender, and that it deals with “the science of prejudice.”

Love also criticized the lack of diversity among the all-white curators. The only two black members stepped down last week.

The Columbia campus was the site of protests that resonated across the nation over what activists said was administrators’ indifference to racial issues.

MILTON, Fla. (AP) — Officials say a chase that led to a standoff with a Missouri couple suspected of crimes in multiple states started with a report of a robbery at a Famous Footwear store in Pensacola, Florida.

Escambia County Sheriff David Morgan said at a Friday news conference that a call at 7:56 p.m. Thursday alerted authorities to the armed robbery. Officers spotted the couple near Pensacola Beach, before they headed east, eventually ending up on Interstate 10 before cutting back toward Pensacola. Morgan says the couple held a family hostage in their Pensacola home before fleeing in the family truck.

Morgan says deputies spotted Blake Fitzgerald and Brittany Nicole Harper in the truck, and they went into a neighborhood and had a 15-minute standoff with authorities. Morgan says officers engaged in gunfire with the couple as they tried to leave the truck and enter a home.

Fitzgerald was killed and Harper wounded.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Governor Jay Nixon says he opposes legislative efforts to fund roads and bridges with general state revenues instead of dedicated sources such as fuel taxes.

Nixon responded Thursday to proposals by some Republican lawmakers to boost funding for the Missouri Department of Transportation by redirecting current revenues instead of raising taxes.

The Democratic governor described that as a “budget gimmick” and “not a long-term transportation plan.” He said it could mean less money for other services such as mental health care and education.

Nixon spoke by video conference from Peru to reporters and editors gathered at the Governor’s Mansion for an annual event hosted by The Associated Press and the Missouri Press Association.

Nixon traveled to Peru and Colombia this week as part of a trade mission.