HUTCHINSON, Kan. (AP) — Police in Hutchinson are handing out $100 bills to the needy thanks to an anonymous donor.

Hutchinson Police Capt. Troy Hoover says the donor asked police to provide random acts of kindness to people in need. The Hutchinson News reports that police don’t even know the identity of the donor. The Fraternal Order of Police has matched the donation.

So far police have distributed $1,400. Hoover says police will give another $1,600 before it is done.

Hoover says the recipients include single mothers working multiple jobs, military veterans in difficult financial circumstances and people caring for terminally ill family members.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Federal prosecutors say six people have pleaded guilty to charges stemming from an investigation into a massive software piracy scheme that began in Kansas City and involved $100 million worth of illegitimate software.

Tammy Dickinson, U.S. attorney for the western district of Missouri, said Thursday the case is among the largest software piracy schemes prosecuted by the Justice Department. She says the case involved more than $100 million worth of stolen or counterfeit software products, including thousands of access codes for Microsoft and Adobe Systems products.

Authorities also confiscated about $20 million in assets, including real estate, from six defendants in Missouri, Washington state, Maryland, Colorado and Nevada.

The prosecutor’s office says the defendants pleaded guilty to various charges, including conspiracy to defraud the U.S. The investigation is ongoing.

ST. JOHN, Mo. (AP) — A suburban St. Louis school bus driver is accused of stealing champagne from a store before going on her route, and possessing marijuana after she was caught.

The Post-Dispatch reports 33-year-old Crystal Taylor of Pagedale is charged in St. John Municipal Court with theft and drug possession.

Authorities say Taylor was about to drive her afternoon route for the Ritenour schools on December 9th when she stopped at a grocery store and stole a bottle of champagne. A security guard flagged down a St. John officer, who confronted Taylor on the school bus at Ritenour High School in north St. Louis County.

Police say the officer saw the $9.99 bottle of champagne sticking out of her purse, and later found marijuana in a baggie in the purse.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A center to welcome refugees from Syria and elsewhere is set to open in St. Louis.

The Post-Dispatch reports that the refugee center is scheduled to open Thursday.

Muslim police chaplains Adil Imdad and Dzemal Bijedic said they began to look for a warehouse to open a no-pay thrift shop to provide goods and services to an expected influx of Syrian refugees to the area.

The International Institute of St. Louis says the agency has agreed to sponsor 500 Syrians in addition to the 650 or so other refugees that it helps resettle annually.

The new warehouse and center, which will be run by volunteers, has received many items, including several hundred boxes of donations from a mosque in Little Rock, Arkansas earlier this week.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A St. Louis man has been charged in the death of an alleged burglary accomplice who was shot by a homeowner.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that 19-year-old Jordan Lamar Holmes is charged with armed criminal action, burglary and second-degree murder. He’s also charged with four counts of felony stealing in a string of shoplifting cases, including one in which he allegedly knocked over an 87-year-old nun in a mall.

Police say Holmes and 19-year-old Tramell Day tried to break into a Florissant home around 10 a.m. Monday. The homeowner grabbed his gun and killed Day in a shootout.

Police say Holmes fled the scene, but he was arrested late Tuesday.

Holmes is being held on a $750,000 cash-only bail for the home burglary case and $75,000 cash-only bail in the stealing case.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The University of Missouri system has appointed an associate dean to lead its diversity task force.

The university said in a release Thursday that David Mitchell, associate dean for academic affairs, will chair the university system’s Diversity, Equity and Inclusion Task Force. Mitchell is also chair of the Missouri State Advisory Committee to the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights.

Mitchell’s appointment follows the November resignations of the university system’s president and the chancellor of its Columbia campus amid student protests over complaints about racial issues.

Michael Middleton, interim university system president, says Mitchell has a record of campus leadership and community involvement that will help the university system address “the difficult issues that have so challenged our university.”

The task force will recommend possible revisions in university rules and policies

McLEAN, Va. (AP) — President Barack Obama says U.S. intelligence and counterterrorism officials don’t have any specific, credible information suggesting a potential terrorist attack against the U.S. during the holidays.

Obama made the comment during a visit at the National Counterterrorism Center in Virginia, where he got a briefing Thursday.

The president is trying to reassure Americans that the government is doing all it can to protect them. Obama also says the country must be vigilant during the holidays.

Obama says the types of threats have evolved, and that people acting on their own and in small groups are harder to detect. He’s pointing to the shooting in San Bernardino, California as an example.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Supporters of increasing the tax on cigarettes by 23 cents a pack are collecting signatures to get the proposal on the ballot.

Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association Executive Director Ronald Leone said Wednesday an outside firm began gathering signatures this week.

Initiative petitions need a certain number of voter signatures to make it on the 2016 ballot.

The proposal would increase the cigarette tax to 40 cents per pack in phases, beginning in 2017. The measure also would increase taxes on other tobacco products to 15 percent from 10 percent.

The association says the tax would bring in about $100 million per year to pay for transportation infrastructure.

Proposals to increase the tax to 50 cents a pack for childhood education also are approved to start collecting signatures.

 

HUNTSVILLE, Mo. (AP) — A court-ordered distribution will give construction crews owed more than $2 million for work on the failed Mamtek factory in Moberly less than 15 cents on the dollar.  Circuit Judge Scott Hayes on Tuesday split $584,990 between UMB Bank and the five contractors.

UMB is the trustee for $39 million in Moberly Industrial Development Authority bonds issued for the plant.

The Columbia Daily Tribune reports Septagon Construction-Columbia, which is owed almost $1.4 million, will receive about $194,000.

The distribution settled the long case between UMB and the five contractors. It was filed in 2011 by Septagon to collect for its unpaid work.

The case is the latest of more than a dozen civil actions arising from the failed project to build an artificial sweetener plant in Moberly.