A Florida woman who left her 9-month-old son unattended in a bath tub at a St Louis area motel has been sentenced to seven years in prison for the child’s death.

Brooke Maynard, 24, pleaded guilty last week to a reduced charge of involuntary manslaughter and child endangerment in the December 2012 drowning of Roman Bell.

 

 

Police said Maynard was planning to bathe the boy but left him unattended at a Hazelwood hotel while she was using the telephone. She found the boy not breathing and unresponsive when she returned to the bathroom.

She was originally charged with felony murder and could have faced a life prison term.

A Johnson County judge has dismissed lawsuits against Leawood and Prairie Village over bans on open carry of firearms.

The Libertarian Party of Kansas argued in the lawsuits that the two Johnson County cities violated citizens’ rights by banning open carry. They noted the Kansas attorney general issued an opinion last year that cities cannot ban open carry.

Overland Park has rescinded its ban.

District Judge David W. Hauber ruled Wednesday that the Libertarian party officials did not demonstrate how they had been personally injured by the municipal bans. He said he could not issue an injunction against the bans without that proof.

Prairie Village officials said in a statement Thursday that the city’s citizens had strongly opposed open carry.

Adolphus Busch IV has resigned from the National Rifle Association to protest the failure of gun control bills in the U.S. Senate.

Busch, whose great-grandfather founded Anheuser-Busch, sent a letter to the NRA Thursday criticizing its decision to fight an expansion of gun background checks.

He says the overwhelming majority of NRA members supported the expansion.

 

Busch contends that NRA’s work against the proposal ignored its members’ wishes in favor of gun and ammunition manufacturers.

He also criticized the group for its stand against a ban on assault weapons and large capacity magazines. He was a member of the NRA since 1975 and has been known as a staunch gun rights advocate.

NRA officials would not immediately comment on letter.

Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback is scheduled to sign a bill declaring that life begins at fertilization while also blocking tax breaks for abortion providers and banning abortions performed solely because of the baby’s sex.

Brownback scheduled a Friday morning signing ceremony at the Statehouse.

The bill also prohibits abortion providers from being involved in public school sex education classes.

It also spells out in more detail what information doctors must provide to patients seeking abortions.

Some abortion-rights supporters worry that the measure’s language that life begins at fertilization could be used to legally harass providers. Abortion opponents call it a statement of principle and not an outright ban on terminating pregnancies.

Eight people, including six students, are recovering after an accident in northwest Kansas on a hail-covered road.

The Kansas Highway Patrol says the two-vehicle accident happened Wednesday on Interstate 70 five miles east of Russell.

The patrol says the driver, 29-year-old Laura Kay Stunkel of Palmer, lost control after driving over some hail.

The SUV carrying six students from Clifton-Clyde High School slid across a median and struck a vehicle driven by 53-year-old Shawnee resident Melinda Smith.

All the injured were taken to a hospital in Russell. The extent of their injuries was not immediately available.

Clifton-Clyde High School is located in Clifton, and has about 80 students.

A popular Ohio air show has canceled a re-enactment of a World War II atomic bomb attack on Japan after an online petition was posted in protest.

Dayton Air Show executive director Terry Grevious says the June 22-23 airshow at Dayton International Airport will keep a planned pyrotechnic show.

But it will no longer be hyped to re-enact the Aug. 6, 1945, bombing of Hiroshima.

Art curator Gabriela Pickett started the online petition to object to the “glamorization of destruction.”

Grevious said the re-enactment was meant to mark an historic occurrence credited with ending the war and saving many lives that would have been lost had it continued. The air show has done pyrotechnic explosions but has never labeled it an atomic bomb display.

A Wisconsin man accused of joining a cyberattack on Wichita-based Koch Industries was told Wednesday that he cannot communicate with the computer hacking group Anonymous while out on bond.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Karen Humphreys said she had reservations about imposing the restriction on Eric J. Rosol, but granted the government’s request barring him from Web communications with the organization that she called an “another world type of group.”

The judge agreed to the ban after Assistant U.S. Attorney Alan Metzger assured her it would be up to the prosecutors – not the federal probation office, which typically oversees defendants – to prove to the court any violation of such a bond condition.

Rosol, 37, of Black Creek, Wis., made his initial court appearance Wednesday on an indictment charging him with one count each of damaging a computer and conspiracy to damage a computer. He remains free on a $25,000 bond after the brief hearing.

Rosol declined comment outside the courtroom. But his defense attorney, Kurt Kerns, denied the allegations in an email sent later.

“Nothing was hacked,” Kerns said. “No protected information was lost. A website received too much traffic for a few minutes. Eric is innocent of any federal crime and we look forward to proving that in Court.”

The indictment alleges that Anonymous asked conspirators in February 2011 to undertake a cyberattack using a tool known as a “Low Orbit Ion Cannon” that could send a high volume of repeated requests to various Koch Industries websites. Numerous conspirators complied, and the company’s main website, Kochind.com, crashed.

The former treasurer of an Independence elementary school’s PTA has admitted stealing $22,000 from the organization.

The Jackson County prosecutor’s office says 32-year-old Mary Ward, of Independence, pleaded guilty Monday to theft of funds. She repaid $15,000 on the spot and agreed to repay the rest in monthly installments.

Ward also agreed to apologize to Blue Hills Elementary School’s Parent Teachers Association, from which she stole the funds in 2010 and 2011.

The plea agreement also calls for five years of probation, 120 days of home detention and 100 hours of community service.

The suburban St. Louis-based grocery store chain Schnucks now says that 2.4 million credit cards and debits cards of its customers may have been compromised over a three-month period.

Schnucks announced the breadth of the fraud in a statement Sunday.

Fraudulent charges have come from around the world. The company first learned on March 15 of questionable activity and began an investigation on March 19.

Schnucks pinpointed the problem on March 28 and executed a plan to contain it within 36 hours.

Many customers have questioned why they weren’t informed earlier.

Schnucks says it has learned that the breach began in December.

The majority of Schnucks stores are in the St. Louis area, but it operates in five states: Missouri, Illinois, Iowa, Indiana and Wisconsin.