The Mardi Gras season is officially under way in St. Louis.

Fireworks kicked off the season Sunday night in the city’s Soulard district, where Johnny’s Restaurant and Bar hosted the 12th Night Celebration.

That’s the first of more than a dozen events leading up to the Fat Tuesday parade on Feb. 12.

 

The St. Louis Mardi Gras celebration is believed to be the nation’s second-largest behind New Orleans.

A Missouri task force that spent a year studying ways to prevent child sexual abuse is offering 22 recommendations to the governor, lawmakers and the State Board of Education.

The panel created by a 2011 state law included legislators, law enforcement officers, children’s advocates and other experts.

One item requires officials to report suspected abuse to the state’s Children’s Division directly.

The existing law allows so-called mandatory reporters to notify someone in their own organizations.

The panel also recommends eliminating the statute of limitations for prosecuting first-degree statutory rape and statutory sodomy.

Other ideas include improved mental health services for children who have been abused and who have demonstrated inappropriate sexual behavior.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James has chosen former Republican U.S. Sen. Kit Bond as the city’s new lobbyist with the federal government.

Bond retired from elective politics in 2011 after 24 years representing Missouri in the Senate. He’s also a former two-term Missouri governor.

The northeast Missouri native now runs a consulting firm, Kit Bond Strategies, with offices in St. Louis, Columbia, Kansas City and Washington, D.C.

Bond’s consulting company will replace a local law firm as the city’s federal lobbyist. Terms of the contract weren’t disclosed Wednesday.

Danny Rotert, a spokesman for the mayor, says Kansas City already gets plenty of support from congressional Democrats. Rotert says the city will benefit from Bond’s longtime ties with Republicans in the federal government.

A St. Louis-area man is accused of stealing more than $500 from his nephew’s piggy bank and spending the money on drugs and prostitutes.

Investigators say 30-year-old Baron Calmese Jr. took the money from his 4-year-old nephew’s bank last summer after first asking the boy’s mother — his sister — if he could borrow some change.

Authorities say she told Calmese he could take $2.

But the mother says he took all the money he could shake out of it. St. Louis County prosecutors have charged Calmese with one count of felony stealing. Calmese is out of jail on his own recognizance.

Springfield police are investigating the death of a woman who was shot in the head.

Police say 23-year-old Kimberly Walker was shot Sunday evening at a home. She died Monday morning.

Walker’s boyfriend was arrested in the shooting but no formal charges have been filed.

An autopsy is scheduled for later this week.

 

Police say Walker’s death could become the city’s 16th homicide of 2012.

The Roman Catholic Diocese of Springfield-Cape Girardeau says it has received a credible complaint of sexual abuse against a minor that allegedly occurred in the early to mid-1960s.

The diocese says the accused priest, the Reverend Walter Craig, died in 1971.

The diocese has notified civil authorities of the allegation. Further details were not released.

Craig was ordained in 1923 for the Archdiocese of St. Louis. His appointments included serving as pastor in Immaculate Conception Parish in Jackson and St. Lawrence Parish in New Hamburg.