Deer are most active in the fall, and that can be bad news for drivers. The Missouri State Highway Patrol on Monday urged motorist to be vigilant, especially during evening and early dawn hours.

Fall is mating season for deer, and their numbers continue to grow in Missouri, even in suburban and urban areas.

Hunting and crop harvesting also tend to prompt deer to venture out into roadways.

The patrol says Missouri had 3,980 deer-related traffic accidents last year, with most occurring from October through December. Five people died and 411 were hurt in those accidents.

Motorists who see one deer should slow down and proceed cautiously because the animals often travel in groups.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas prison officials are turning to Facebook to help find people who skip out on court-mandated parole.

Each Monday, the Department of Corrections will post information about an offender who has failed to maintain contact with his or her parole officer.

Such individuals are known as absconders and have warrants issued for their arrests.

 

Corrections spokesman Jeremy Barclay says Kansas currently has about 170 absconders, down from more than 400 three years ago. He calls Facebook another tool for locating people and getting them back into custody.

The first person featured on the agency’s Facebook page is Harlan Hurst, a convicted burglar from Kansas City, Kan., who absconded in May 2012.

PERRYVILLE, Mo. (AP) — The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will add a small, cave-dwelling fish found only in one southeast Missouri county to the list of endangered species.

But the agency’s decision on Tuesday did not declare the grotto sculpin’s habitat in Perry County “critical habitat,” meaning no protection measures will be required.

Instead, the service will rely on a voluntary conservation plan developed by federal, state and Perry County officials. It includes specific plans for improving water quality in the fish’s habitat.

The grotto sculpin lives in area of Perry County that has hundreds of caves and thousands of sinkholes. It is threatened by water contaminated by agricultural runoff and other pollutants.

The listing as an endangered species takes effect Oct. 25.

VERSAILLES, Mo. (AP) — A central Missouri woman accused of slashing her baby daughter’s throat and wrists will undergo a mental evaluation to see if she’s competent to stand trial.

Bradie R. Simpson, 40, had warned of premonitions, and said she was possessed. She had been scheduled for trial this week. A judge granted a delay for the evaluation.

Simpson is charged with assault and armed criminal action.

She was arrested in February 2012 after her son reported his mother and his 9-month-old sister missing from their home.

Searchers found Simpson sitting against a tree holding the wounded baby, who survived after surgery.

Simpson had told a pastor months earlier she feared she would harm the child. The pastor said Simpson made references to demons.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The state of Kansas consumer counsel’s office says Westar Energy’s latest rate request has been settled.

The proposed settlement will give the utility an additional $30.7 million a year and raise residential customer bills $3 a month.

The Kansas Corporation Commission still must approve the settlement.

The Citizens’ Utility Ratepayer Board says the settlement drops a proposal by Westar to shift about $50 million of cost from its large industrial and commercial customers to residential and small-business ratepayers.

Westar applied for the rate increase mostly to pay for required environmental upgrades at its La Cygne power plant in eastern Kansas.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The University of Missouri’s journalism school plans to seek approval from the federal government to resume the use of news-gathering drones. The FAA has ordered Mizzou and Nebraska-Lincoln to stop flying the drones outdoors until they obtain government authorization.

Scott Pham of Missouri’s university-owned station KBIA-FM said the school will apply for a federal permit known as a certificate of authorization. His counterpart in Nebraska has said the school also plans to seek the federal permit.

Journalism researchers and their students were using the airborne robots to shoot aerial photos and video from difficult-to-reach news scenes.

JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — A Joplin woman believes her mother may be among six people whose bodies were found in two cars at the bottom of an Oklahoma lake.

Divers were conducting a training session this past week when they discovered the cars.

The Joplin Globe reports that Jo Irick became worried in the spring of 1969 when the letter she sent to her 58-year-old mother, Nora Duncan, came back unopened.

Also missing were the Canute, Oklahoma woman’s close friend, 42-year-old Cleburn Hammack, and another man, 69-year-old John Porter. Irick says some thought at the time that the trio may have gone fishing.

Irick says she has heard from the state medical examiner’s office about the possibility that her mother’s remains were in the lake. Positive identifications could take months or years.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — A new exhibit featuring Islamic art is opening at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.

Called “Echoes: Islamic Art and Contemporary Artists,” the exhibit features works spanning 13 centuries and three continents.

The exhibit includes paintings, sculpture, ceramics, animation, photography and textiles.

There’s also a 1952 Chevy grain truck that Kansas City artist Asheer Akram transformed into an ornately decorated Pakistani cargo truck.

Curator Kimberly Masteller says Kansas City has a longstanding connection to Islamic art through the distinctive architecture of the Country Club Plaza, where lattice screens and other designs were inspired by Kansas City’s Spanish sister city of Seville. That city was part of the Moorish Islamic empire from the eighth to the 13th century.

LINCOLN (AP) — Workers in the Nebraska State Capitol have been armed with glue traps to battle an infestation of mice.

Mice have been seen scurrying along floorboards and have left droppings or raided food stores in the offices of several state senators, as well as the Legislature’s Fiscal Office and the offices of the secretary of state, auditor and treasurer.

Even the governor’s spokeswoman, Jen Rae Wang, found one in her desk.

Building maintenance workers have distributed scores of 5-by-8-inch “CatchMaster” glue boards to State Capitol offices to help combat the problem.

The unofficial count Monday was as many as 34 mice killed or captured.