(AP) – A man has died after a struggle with Kansas City police officers.

Police said in a release that a woman called police early Monday reporting that a man she didn’t know had jumped into her car and was refusing to leave.

When officers arrived, the man also refused their commands to leave the car.

Police physically forced the man out, and as they struggled with him an officer stunned him once by pressing a stun gun against his body.

Officers noticed he didn’t look well and started cardiopulmonary resuscitation, but the man died later at a hospital. The man’s identity has not been released.

Police say an autopsy will determine the cause of death.

 

(AP) – An eastern Missouri man has his prized gun back thanks to an apparent change of heart by the thief, following an emotional appeal on Facebook.

Chad Smith of Troy discovered Saturday that his Smith & Wesson pistol had been stolen. The gun had been handed down to him from his father.

Both Smith and his dad worked as pastors. Smith currently runs a ministry for troubled kids. He suspected one of them may have stolen the gun.

Smith posted a video offering forgiveness for the thief. Word spread through friends and strangers about the video.

On Sunday – Father’s Day – the gun turned up on Smith’s porch.

(AP) – Bicyclists taking part in a cross-country race will be zooming across Missouri this week, and transportation officials hope motorists along the route will be extra cautious.

The annual Race Across America covers a 3,000-mile route from Oceanside, Calif., to Annapolis, Md.

Riders were expected to begin entering western Missouri on Sunday, traveling on U.S. 54 to the Lake of the Ozarks area and Jefferson City.

The route continues east on Missouri 94 to Hermann and Missouri 100 to Washington, Mo. The final sections include several streets and highways in St. Charles County.

The Missouri Department of Transportation is asking motorists to be especially careful around the cyclists, who are riding alone and in groups.

(AP) – The Cass County Sheriff’s Department says a 17-year-old Kingsville boy drowned while jet skiing on a private lake on Father’s Day.

Deputies say Kalen Littlefield and another man were on the watercraft on the lake south of Harrisonville when the jet ski overturned.

The man was able to survive but Littlefield did not resurface. Detectives said Littlefield was not a strong swimmer. Neither of the riders was wearing a life jacket.

The drowning was the third at a lake in the Kansas City region in the past eight days. A Raytown teenager drowned while swimming at a private lake in Lee’s Summit last weekend. On Saturday, 26-year-old Brent Baselee drowned while swimming at Longview Lake.

 

 (AP) – The multi-billion dollar makeover of the greater downtown Kansas City area over the past decade was intended in part to draw businesses, but census figures show the area has lost nearly 20 percent of its private employees in that period.

U.S. Census data from 2001 to 2011 show that greater downtown lost 19.6 percent of its private employees, which is 16,237 fewer private jobs.

That decade covers the period from shortly before the downtown redevelopment boom began to just after the major redevelopment projects, like Kansas City Power and Light District, were completed.

Bill Dietrich, president and CEO of the Downtown Council, says he believes it would have been worse if the city hadn’t reinvested so heavily in downtown over the last decade.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Wichita teacher is facing a misdemeanor charge for carrying a concealed handgun on school premises.

Daniel Nagel was arrested May 20th at White Elementary in Wichita on suspicion of carrying a concealed gun on school property. District officials say Nagel is on paid administrative leave. His first appearance in Municipal Court is July 8th.

Nagel’s lawyer Nicholas Means says Nagel has a state-issued concealed-carry permit.

Current state law, however, prevents anyone other than law enforcement officers from carrying a gun into a school if a sign banning guns is conspicuously posted.

The state Legislature passed a law this year that allows school districts to designate an employee to carry a gun. But the Wichita district hasn’t addressed the issue.

MARQUETTE, Kan. (AP) — Crews have recovered a body matching the description of an 18-year-old man reported missing while kayaking on Kanopolis Lake.

Ellsworth County Sheriff Tracy Ploutz says the body was found Friday morning in the southwest part of the lake.

Derek Wheeler of Salina has been missing since early Tuesday when he and others set in kayaks from Sand Plum Campground.

A man fishing from a boat Friday morning noticed something at the shoreline and notified searchers in law enforcement boats. Ploutz says officers confirmed it was a body. The sheriff says Wheeler’s family has been notified.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — A surprise rain shower and lighter winds have been helping firefighters make some progress against the most destructive fire Colorado has ever seen. Fire officials say the Black Forest Fire is now 30 percent contained. But it’s already destroyed 473 homes and killed two people and authorities warn that a shift in the weather could cause it to flare up again. Some residents returned home Saturday, as the investigation into the cause begins.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — The executive director of the Kansas Corporation Commission no longer works for the commission.

KCC spokesman Jesse Borjon says that as of Friday, Patti Petersen-Klein is no longer employed by the commission.

He did not specify if she was fired or quit.

Controversy erupted recently after a consultant’s report stated a rift had developed between Petersen-Klein and staff at the KCC, which regulates the electricity, natural gas, oil, telephone and transportation industries in Kansas.

Borjon says KCC commissioner Tom Wright made a motion to terminate Petersen-Klein in an open meeting Thursday, but that motion failed. The commission then entered closed session but adjourned without any action.

He says Jackie Montfoort-Paige, KCC’s director of administration and finance, will be executive director until the position is filled permanently.