OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — Bankers continue to predict the economy will slow in the months ahead in rural parts of 10 Western and Plains states.

The economic index for the region slipped to 43.7 in November from last month’s 44.4. The overall index is based on a monthly survey of rural bankers Creighton University conducts, and organizers say any score below 50 suggests that factor will decline.

Creighton University economist Ernie Goss says low crop and commodity prices and manufacturing slowdowns are all weighing down the economy.

The confidence index fell to a weak 38.9 in November from October’s 42.1. The strong U.S. dollar is also hurting exports.

Bankers from Colorado, Illinois, Iowa, Kansas, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, South Dakota and Wyoming were surveyed.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City Council members are expected to approve an ordinance prohibiting stores from selling tobacco products or e-cigarettes to anyone under 21.

The council’s Public Safety Committee voted 3-0 on Wednesday in favor of the change after supporters said most addicted smokers get hooked before they turn 21. The full council is scheduled to vote on the measure Thursday.

The Kansas City Star reports the Greater Kansas City chamber of Commerce is leading a campaign to get the entire metropolitan area to raise the legal age.

In Kansas City the violation would apply to the seller, rather than the purchaser, with a $100 fine for a first violation.

The Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas, is expected to vote on a similar measure Thursday night.

PARIS (AP) — French officials still aren’t sure exactly how Abdelhamid Abaaoud died.

They’re confirming that he died yesterday along with his female cousin in a police raid on an apartment building in suburban Paris.

He was the suspected mastermind of last week’s deadly attacks. Authorities haven’t spelled out his exact whereabouts or his actions during the deadly rampage.

Three police officials say a woman killed during a raid on an apartment in suburban Paris was his cousin. One official says Hasna Aitboulahcen is believed to have detonated a suicide vest after a brief exchange with police officers.

According to the official, one of the officers asked: “Where is your boyfriend?” and she responded angrily: “He’s not my boyfriend!” Then there was an explosion.

The bodies recovered in the raid were badly mangled, with a part of the woman’s spine landing on a police car, complicating formal identification.

COLUMBIA, S.C. (AP) — Top prosecutors in three states reportedly being assessed as potential future homes for Guantanamo Bay detainees are imploring the Obama administration not to send the prisoners to their states. Attorneys general from Colorado, Kansas and South Carolina on Wednesday wrote to President Barack Obama, telling him detainees “will create imminent danger” and make “targets” out of the communities where they are placed.

A Defense Department team recently finished surveying seven sites in Colorado, South Carolina and Kansas that could be the next address for some of the 112 detainees currently housed at Guantanamo Bay.

Closing the detention center has been a top priority for Obama. The effort has faced hurdles, including opposition among both Republicans and Democrats in Congress.

The prosecutors are giving the administration until December 4th to respond.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Bond has been set at $10,000 cash for a man accused of making online threats against black students and faculty at University of Missouri’s Columbia campus.

Nineteen-year-old Hunter M. Park said nothing during a court appearance Wednesday.

Defense attorney Jeff Hilbrenner told a Boone County judge that Park’s cystic fibrosis was made worse by his stay in the county jail.

Authorities say the threats showed up November 10th on the anonymous location-based messaging app Yik Yak and other social media.

A university police officer says Park, when confronted the next day in his Rolla college dorm room, admitted he wrote the postings.

Police reports obtained by The Associated Press also show University of Missouri police responded in January when a female friend at the Columbia campus reported Park threatened suicide.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A group of Sedgwick County residents have filed a request to recall a county commissioner over his proposal to restrict people who are in the U.S. illegally from participating in a federal nutrition program.

The Wichita Eagle reports that the request was made Tuesday to recall County Commission Chairman Richard Ranzau. Organizers of the recall said in a news release that Ranzau has failed to fulfill his legal obligation to contract for the protection of public health in the county.

Ranzau says he stands by his proposal regarding who can receive benefits from the Women, Infants and Children nutritional program. He asked the state to change its eligibility requirements.

District Attorney Marc Bennett’s office has five days to decide whether petitioners have legal grounds for a recall.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Attorneys who filed a federal lawsuit seeking to overturn a Kansas voter registration law are seeking to make the suit a class action.

Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach suspended the pending registrations of more than 36,000 would-be Kansas voters earlier this year until they provide proof of insurance. Former Lawrence Rep. Paul Davis and William Lawrence, an attorney in his law firm, filed a suit September 30th seeking a preliminary injunction.

They filed an amendment Tuesday for class action status.

The Lawrence Journal-World reports the plaintiffs are two Douglas County residents who applied to register to vote in December and March. Kobach filed a motion last week saying the lawsuit was moot because he had registered the two after pulling their birth certificates from Kansas Vital Records.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — An environmental group alleges in a lawsuit that a Kansas City amusement park is discharging polluted water into Missouri River tributaries.  The Missouri Coalition for the Environment filed the suit this week in federal court against Worlds of Fun and its owner.

The suit alleges that the facility has violated its discharge permit for at least the past five years.  The suit says discharges of substances such as chlorine, copper, and oil and grease “far exceed the limitations” allowed under its permit. The nonprofit environmental group says the substances are toxic to aquatic life.

The group’s attorney, Bob Menees, described the problems as “ongoing and egregious.” Worlds of Fun’s public relations staff didn’t immediately respond to an email from The Associated Press seeking comment.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri lawmaker is seeking a special legislative session aimed at preventing Gov. Jay Nixon from allowing Syrian refugees to resettle in the state.

Nixon, a Democrat, on Monday called on the federal government to ensure strong safeguards. But he did not say he’d pause refugee relocations as governors in several other states have pledged in the wake of the deadly Paris attacks.

The Kansas City Star reports that Republican state Rep. Mike Moon has written House Speaker Todd Richardson calling for the special legislative session to “tie the governor’s hands” and stop “the potential Islamization of Missouri.”

Three-fourths of the House and Senate would have to vote in favor of calling a special legislative session.

Messages left with the offices of Richardson and Nixon weren’t immediately returned Wednesday.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — An appeals court has ruled that a previous calculation of damages owed to about 3,000 blind Missouri residents receiving state benefits was too low.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the decision Tuesday means the state could soon provide more than $19 million in damages for shortchanging their benefits.

An attorney representing the blind residents says the new figure is up from a previous court’s determination of less than $200,000.

A 2006 lawsuit filed by the Missouri Council of the Blind claims the state had been miscalculating the monthly pension for blind people for years. The council’s executive director says the problem was addressed but the group has been battling the state over damages.

A spokesman for Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster says that office is reviewing the ruling.