SMITHVILLE, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri man has been reunited with his 9-year-old and 11-year-old daughters after his ex-wife allegedly took them and fled to Europe.

Justin Bush took his daughters home to Smithville on Wednesday.

Authorities say Samantha Elmer of Lawrence, Kansas, took the girls in October and boarded a flight from O’Hare International Airport in Chicago to Vienna, via Istanbul, ahead of a custody hearing and a trial on theft charges in Johnson County.

Elmer and her daughters were tracked down by officials with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Elmer was arrested Tuesday at an airport in Kansas and appeared in court Wednesday on a charge of taking her children out of the United States with intent to obstruct the lawful exercise of parental rights.

Elmer’s attorney, Tim Burdick, declined to comment on the case.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Wild hogs are creating a nuisance across much of Missouri, but conservation officials are warning against hunting the animals.

Feral hogs are upsetting the natural balance and forcing out other species.

Missouri Department of Conservation officials say trapping is more effective than hunting, especially since it can often allow a majority of a roaming population of hogs to be captured all at once.

Alan Leary, the conservation department’s feral hog coordinator, says that when hunters shoot an animal or two from a group, the others learn and become even harder to capture. He asks that any sightings be reported to the conservation department, which will work to trap and dispose of the animals.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — Top Missouri Highway Patrol commanders and Ferguson police returned to the scene of sometimes violent protests after Michael Brown’s shooting death — not to make widespread arrests or to deploy tear gas, but to help an anonymous benefactor spread some unexpected holiday cheer.

The secret Santa is a Kansas City businessman who hands out $100 bills to the needy. The donor says he chose Ferguson for the holiday cash giveaway to help the community recover after the August 2014 fatal shooting of Brown, who was black, by former Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson, who is white.

The donor and his police “elves” visited two thrift shops and a pair of elementary schools Wednesday afternoon. They also stopped several pedestrians along the retail corridor that was the center of protests.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A study shows that Medicaid expansion could potentially turn into a moneymaker for Kansas. The Wichita Eagle reports that the study was released Tuesday. Study author Deborah Bachrach says the fact that Kansas is facing a budget crisis is “exactly the reason why it needs to evaluate the economics of expansion.”

Kansas and Missouri are among 20 states that have not expanded Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.

Six Kansas health foundations, including the Wichita-based Kansas Health Foundation, commissioned Manatt Health Solutions to study the financial impact of Medicaid expansion in Kansas. Manatt evaluates Medicaid expansion for states and foundations across the country.

Governor Sam Brownback’s office questioned the study’s credibility because one of the study’s authors previously directed the Center for Medicaid and State Operations under Kathleen Sebelius.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The family of a St. Louis jail inmate who died in custody is disputing the police version of what happened.

Police say 27-year-old Nicholas Gilbert died Tuesday evening after a struggle with officers who tried to prevent him from killing himself in a holdover cell.

Police Chief Sam Dotson says six to eight officers responded after a worker saw Gilbert trying to use his sweatpants as a noose.

Gilbert hit his head on a concrete bench during the struggle. Officers noticed he was having trouble breathing and his pulse had stopped. Gilbert was pronounced dead at a hospital.

His mother, Jody Lombardo, told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the family believes Gilbert had been beaten. She says he was not suicidal.

Dotson says the investigation is ongoing.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — A lawsuit against a Kansas ban on a common second-trimester procedure has forced the state Court of Appeals to consider how much the state constitution protects abortion rights. The court heard argumentsin the state’s appeal of a Shawnee County ruling temporarily blocking enforcement of the first-in-the-nation law.

The judge agreed with attorneys for two abortion providers who said that the Kansas Constitution independently protects abortion rights. The state’s lawyers argue that such protections can’t be read into broad language about individual liberty.

The law enacted this year prohibits doctors from using forceps, clamps, scissors or similar instruments on a live fetus to remove it from the womb in pieces. Such instruments are used in dilation and evacuation procedures common during the second trimester.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Sedalia-based trucking company was fined and ordered to reinstate an employee who was fired after he reported a work-related injury.

OSHA announced the action Wednesday against RCL Wiring LP, also known as Idaho and Sedalia Transportation Company.

The agency determined the employee was harassed and disciplined after he reported an injury in February 2014. OSHA said in a news released the company fired the employee in June 2014, claiming he made harassing and threatening statements.

The company must pay the employee $332,469, remove disciplinary information from his personnel record and provide information about whistleblower rights to its employees. Before his firing, the employee had never been disciplined.

A phone call to the company seeking comment was not returned.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — Police say three people suspected of shoplifting at a south Springfield Walmart are also suspects in a shooting in central California.

Two people, Billy Littlefield and Peyton Garncia, both of Los Banos, California, are jailed in Greene County after their arrests Tuesday night. A third suspect, Carl Littlefield — Billy’s brother — has eluded capture.

Police in Los Banos say the three are suspects in the shooting of a 35-year-old man in that city on November 26th. They face charges of attempted homicide, conspiracy, and felon in possession of a firearm.

Springfield police were chasing the three Tuesday at the Walmart when Carl Littlefield fired a shot at them. No one was injured but customers and employees were moved out of the store for several hours.

NEVADA, Mo. (AP) — A Carthage man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to second-degree child abuse in the death of a 3-year-old boy.

Jerry Penticuff entered the plea agreement Wednesday. He had been charged with second-degree murder and child abuse resulting in death after the death of Ethan Warner of Nevada, Missouri. Prosecutors say Ethan’s mother left him and his two sisters in Penticuff’s care in October 2014.

When she returned, she found her son suffering from severe burns that emergency room staff at a Nevada hospital believed was caused by the boy being set in scalding hot water. Ethan died four days later at Kansas City hospital.

The Joplin Globe reports Penticuff told investigators the boy fell into the hot water but evidence did not support that claim.