A man from Kansas drowned while fishing at Lake Taneycomo in southwest Missouri.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol says 66-year-old Robert Rossman of Princeton, Kan., died Wednesday after he fell out of his boat.
The patrol says Rossman apparently slipped before falling into the water. His son and a bystander pulled him from the water and performed CPR but he was pronounced dead.
An autopsy is planned.
An eastern Missouri man who was drunk and speeding before causing an accident that killed two people and injured five others was sentenced to 10 years in prison.
Twenty-one-year-old Patrick D. Walsh of Florissant was sentenced Wednesday for two counts of involuntary manslaughter and five counts of second-degree assault.
He pleaded guilty in November.
Police say Walsh had a blood-alcohol content of .146 and was speeding up to 100 mph when his pickup hit another car on Interstate 270 in Florissant.
Two passengers in the other car, 38-year-old Steven M. Brueggen of Florissant and 37-year-old Michael R. McLemore of O’Fallon, died in the September 2011 wreck. Five other people suffered minor injuries.
No criminal charges will be filed in the death of a 4-year-old Kansas City girl who was accidentally shot in the head.
Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker said Wednesday there was insufficient evidence to establish a crime was committed.
The girl’s father told police he forgot that he left the weapon in the living room. He was not at home at the time of the incident and his wife was not aware the gun was left on a chair when she left the room.
Trinity Ross was shot at a home near 105th Terrace and Monroe Avenue in south Kansas City the morning of Jan. 10. She died days later at an area hospital.
A Nebraska irrigation district official says his area’s next corn crop is threatened by a state order to release some reservoir water.
The state is trying to comply with the Republican River Compact.
The 1943 compact says Nebraska gets 49 percent of the Republican River’s water, Kansas gets 40 percent and Colorado gets 11 percent. Kansas has repeatedly complained that Nebraska has used more than its share. A Kansas lawsuit alleging that Nebraska violated the compact is pending before the U.S. Supreme Court.
Frenchman-Cambridge Irrigation District general manager Brad Edgerton is not happy about the release of more than 12,000 acre-feet of water. Edgerton told the Lincoln Journal Star (http://bit.ly/16naQQX ) that the release further threatens south-central Nebraska’s next corn crop as the state struggles with drought.
A central Missouri will be sentenced in July after pleading guilty in the January 2008 death of her daughter.
Miller County Prosecutor Matt Howard says 37-year-old Roshell Dawn Johnson pleaded guilty this week to voluntary manslaughter and abuse of a child.
Johnson’s 20-month-old daughter, Ocean McCoy, suffered brain injuries from shaking and other head trauma before her death.
Under the terms of the plea agreement, Johnson faces a potential combined sentence of 10 to 25 years in prison.
Cape Girardeau residents decided they did not want bow hunting for deer inside city limits.
By a vote of 1,485 to 1,279, voters on Tuesday ended a long controversy by repealing an ordinance that allowed deer hunting.
This is the the first time in the city’s history an ordinance was repealed by referendum.
After months of debate, the city council approved the deer hunt last July. Opponents then collected enough signatures to put the issue on Tuesday’s ballot.
Mayor Harry Rediger said he had no interest in pursuing the issue further.
The Missouri Department of Conservation said the city has an average density of 37 deer per square mile, similar to densities in other state communities where action was been taken to reduce the herd.
Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt is praising legislators for giving final approval to a bill aimed at helping law enforcement fight gang activity, human trafficking and drug dealing.
The bill would allow prosecutors to pursue a new set of felonies when a suspect repeatedly commits or attempts to commit crimes, or influences or coerces others to commit crimes or to benefit financially from crimes.
The legislation was designed after the federal Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organization Act, or RICO.
Senators approved the measure Tuesday on a 38-2 vote, sending it to Gov. Sam Brownback. The House approved it last week.
Schmidt has been pushing the measure. He said in a statement that the bill gives Kansas law enforcement officials a new tool for fighting crime and criminal conspiracies.
A team of students from the Missouri University of Science and Technology is putting its 225-pound concrete canoe to the test this week.
Students are taking the 20-foot vessel to Southern Illinois University in Edwardsville for a student conference of the American Society of Civil Engineers. The event is Thursday through Saturday.
The Rolla school says student competitors are challenged to design canoes that minimize drag in the water. The canoes also need to be able to hold several paddlers and remain buoyant when completely filled with water.
Teams compete in slalom and endurance events. They’re also judged on engineering reports, presentations and displays that show how the vessels were made.
The Missouri S&T students have christened their entry Gone Fishin.’
Abortion opponents have shown they have a supermajority in the Kansas Senate as a vote approaches on new restrictions for providers.
Senators planned to take final action Tuesday on a bill blocking tax breaks for abortion providers and prohibiting them from furnishing materials or instructors for sex education classes in public schools.
During a debate on the measure Monday, anti-abortion senators repeatedly defeated amendments offered by senators who support abortion rights.
Abortion opponents consistently had at least 27 votes, a two-thirds majority in the 40-member Senate.
The Senate retained language directing doctors to provide information to women about a disputed potential link between abortion and breast cancer before terminating their pregnancies.
Meanwhile, a new abortion clinic is scheduled to open in Wichita this week, the first since former abortion provider George Tiller was killed nearly four years ago.
The South Wind Women’s Center will provide abortions up to 14 weeks of pregnancy, as well as other services.
Clinic director Julie Burkhart, who worked for Tiller for seven years, says the clinic will open when last-minute details are worked out sometime this week.
Three doctors will work on a rotating basis at the clinic. Abortion opponents are vowing to force the clinic to close.
Burkhart says security will be heightened at the clinic and patients will be safe.
Tiller was gunned down in 2009 at his church in Wichita by anti-abortion activist Scott Roeder.
A Kansas couple wants to know why someone shot and killed their daughter’s 11-year-old horse.
Gary and Ara Carbonneau are offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest in the shooting of the chestnut filly named Aimee. The couple’s insurance company added another $1,000 to the reward fund.
The couple says someone trespassed on their property last Tuesday and shot the horse at point-blank range. Topeka veterinarian Ed Kester says the bullet passed through the horse’s liver and stomach before lodging in her intestine.
The Jefferson County Sheriff’s Office is investigating.
