JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri has been awarded a $7.5 million federal grant to continue a program that helps the state’s lowest-achieving schools.
The U.S. Department of Education announced the award from the federal School Improvement Grants program on Monday. In all, the agency awarded more than $43 million in such grants to seven states.
Missouri’s education department will distribute the federal funds to districts showing the greatest need and strongest commitment to improving achievement at their lowest-performing schools.
This is the third year Missouri has received a grant from the federal program.
(AF) A professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia is part of a group of international researchers who have discovered a 1.4 million-year-old human hand bone.
The bone is believed to be the earliest evidence of the modern hand.
Pathology and anatomical sciences professor Carol Ward said the significance of the discovery is that researchers now know the modern human hand appeared very early in human evolution.
“We all knew the earliest archaic members of our species, even Neanderthals, all had human hands, but we didn’t know when those hands appeared,” Ward said.
The recently discovered bone is the third metacarpal in the hand, which connects to the middle finger. Ward said what makes the bone so special is a projection of bone at the end of the wrist that helps it lock into the wrist bones. That allows for greater amounts of pressure to be applied to the wrist and hand from a grasping thumb and fingers. Ward said it is this advanced hand that allows humans to create complex tools and technology.
Ward said she and the West Turkana Paleo Project team and their searchers near Lake Turkana in Kenya have found some of the most significant fossils for understanding human evolution.
“We just walk over the surface to see what fossils are eroding out. In doing that, one of the researchers noticed this metacarpal, this perfectly preserved metacarpal just sitting on the surface,” Ward said.
Ward said she was not in the field, but teaching at the University of Missouri when the discovery was made. Ward said all the fossils discovered must stay at the National Museum of Kenya, so a cast of the fossil was sent to her in April. “I took one look at it and immediately knew it was really significant,” she said.
Ward said in June the team returned to the area of discovery, but didn’t find anything else.
A study about the discovery of the bone was published Dec. 16 by the National Academy of Sciences.
(AP) — Participation is lagging in an anonymous survey geared to learning how big of a problem sexual assault is in the Navy and Marines.
The Navy said earlier this month that it had only received about half as many responses as it did to its last survey, conducted in 2011. The current online survey opened on Oct. 15 and closes Jan. 6.
Getting sailors to voluntarily fill out the surveys is important to determine how wide a discrepancy there is between the number of sexual assaults that occur and those that are officially reported.
The Navy says that in the 2012 fiscal year, more than 10,000 sailors reported that they were victims of unwanted sexual assault. But only 700 formal complaints were filed.
(AP) Missouri legislative budget leaders said Thursday they agreed to a revenue estimate for next year’s budget without Gov. Jay Nixon signing off on it.
Lawmakers responsible for the budget and the governor typically agree to an estimate on how much state government will take in. That serves as a foundation for building a budget because the discussion can focus on how to spend the money if officials agree what will be available.
House Budget Committee Chairman Rick Stream and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Kurt Schaefer said the budget they develop will use an estimate of 4.2 percent growth for next year. The lawmakers said Nixon’s office changed course and sought a larger revenue estimate that Stream and Schaefer contend can be justified.
“Here’s the bottom line: We are not Washington, DC. We don’t decide what we want to spend and then worry later about how we’re going to pay for it,” said Schaefer, R-Columbia. “We first figure out how much money we have to spend, and then we determine what that money is going to be spent on.”
Schaefer said Legislature estimates $8.59 billion of general revenue for the 2015 budget taking effect July 1. He said Nixon’s office wanted $8.73 billion, or 5.9 percent growth. The lawmakers also agreed to a revision of the current year’s revenue estimate from about $7.9 billion to $8.2 billion.
Nixon is to submit his recommended state operating budget next month to the Legislature, which has to until early May to pass a spending plan. The governor said in a statement Thursday he will propose a “fiscally responsible budget” that protects taxpayers and core state services.
“With our economy picking up steam and our unemployment rate continuing to drop, we have a unique opportunity to build on this momentum by making additional investments in our students and schools,” Nixon said. “I look forward to working with the House and the Senate when they return to session to maintain fiscal discipline and make forward-looking investments that keep our economy growing.”
Already, Nixon has said his budget will include an additional $36.7 million for universities, $20 million for colleges and universities to train more mental health professionals and $15 million for expanding a merit-based scholarship. Nixon also wants to fully fund Missouri’s school formula by the time he leaves office in January 2017. It currently is about $600 million short.
For the 2003 legislative session, incoming House Budget Committee Chairman Carl Bearden refused to sign off on the revenue estimate agreed to by Gov. Bob Holden and Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman John Russell. Bearden was reluctant to approve something before he officially became the committee’s chairman and had concerns about how the revenue estimate was reached.
The lack of agreement created some confusion as officials worked on the budget.
The consensus revenue estimate was developed near the end of Gov. John Ashcroft’s administration. Before then, the House, Senate and governor’s office developed their own revenue projections, so they sometimes differed on whether state government had enough money to meet proposed expenditures
(AP) A small northwest Missouri company is preparing to slaughter horses for meat after a federal appeals court lifted an emergency stay on U.S. horse slaughter operations.
The 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday lifted a temporary motion that blocked horse slaughter plants from opening.
David Rains, of Rains Natural Meats of Gallatin, said Tuesday he has seven horses at his property ready for slaughter, but is still waiting for an inspection by the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service before beginning work.
It was the third time in five months that Rains and two other U.S. companies prepared to open horse slaughtering operations. Each time a court move has prevented them from opening.
Rains says the issue is so contentious that he’s received death threats.
(AP) — Joplin leaders will continue negotiating to move an independent professional baseball team from El Paso, Texas, to the city.
The Joplin City Council voted Monday night to authorize a memorandum of understanding to work with WLD Suarez Baseball, the owners of the El Paso Diablos.
City Attorney Brian Head told the council the agreement is not a final commitment to the baseball team. Instead, it is an indication that the city will bargain in good faith while ironing out a performance agreement and a lease.
The memorandum also allows work to continue on redeveloping Joe Becker Stadium, which the Diablos would use if they move to Joplin.
The Diablos play in the same league as the Kansas City T-Bones and the Wichita Wingnuts.
(AP) — The future of red-light cameras in Missouri communities could be in jeopardy.
A state appeals court panel ruled that most municipal ordinances are not enforceable. A Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District panel said Tuesday that Ellisville’s red-light ordinance conflicts with state statutes.
Although the town’s ordinance considers red-light violations caught by the cameras as non-moving, the judges said running a red light is clearly a moving violation under state law.
An attorney for four couples who challenged Ellisville’s ordinance says the ruling has broad implications statewide. A lawyer representing the company that operates the red-light cameras disagrees with the court’s decision and predicts the matter will ultimately be decided by the Missouri Supreme Court.
ST. JOSEPH, Mo. (AP) — A man already in prison for killing his son pleaded guilty to killing his cellmate in Buchanan County jail.
Tony King, of Bethany, was sentenced to another 20 years in prison after pleading guilty Thursday to second-degree murder in the June strangling death of 25-year-old Michael Bozarth, his cellmate in the Buchanan County Jail.
At the time of Bozarth’s death, King was serving life in prison for killing his 7-year-old son, then setting their Harrison County home on fire. The 20-year sentence will be served consecutively to his sentence for killing his son.
Defense attorney Shayla Lewis claimed King suffered from mental illness and hadn’t received any treatment before he killed Bozarth.
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Two Kansas Army National Guard units are holding change of command ceremonies this week, including one that was delayed by the partial federal shutdown.
The 2nd Combined Arms Battalion, 137th Infantry Regiment will change commanders Friday at a ceremony in Salina. Lt. Col. Steven W. Denney is assuming command from Lt. Col. Robert A. Wood.
The battalion has units based in Emporia, Junction City, Lawrence, Lenexa, Manhattan, Topeka and Wichita.
A change of command in the 35th Infantry Division originally scheduled for early October will take place on Saturday at Fort Leavenworth.
Maj. Gen. Michael D. Navrkal takes over for Maj. Gen. John Davoren, who is retiring after 37 years in uniform.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri has been awarded a $7.5 million federal grant to continue a program that helps the state’s lowest-achieving schools.
