STONE COUNTY — One person died in an accident just after 8:30p.m. Tuesday in Stone County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2006 Cadillac Deville driven by Dale D. Messmer, 69, Cape Fair, was northbound on MO 13 in Branson West. The driver attempted to pass another vehicle and struck a motorcycle driven by Nathan D. Brookshire, 19, Ozark, who was attempting to pass the Cadillac.

Brookshire was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to the Stone County Coroner. He was wearing a helmet, according to the MSHP. Messmer was not injured and was properly restrained at the time of the accident, according to the MSHP.

TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas’ tax collections have beaten expectations nearly every month for the past two years and the state expects to end June with close to $1 billion in cash reserves, but the budget problems that followed a former governor’s notorious tax-cutting experiment aren’t necessarily a thing of the past.

The steep income tax cuts that former Republican Gov. Sam Brownback championed to try to stimulate the Kansas economy contributed to persistent and severe budget shortfalls that caused some GOP legislators to rebel and gave the state’s new Democratic governor, Laura Kelly, a potent issue to successfully campaign on last year.

Seeking to keep the budget stable since taking office in January, Kelly twice thwarted efforts by the Republican-controlled Legislature this year to reduce taxes. However, problems have arisen on the spending side of the state’s ledger: The budget that lawmakers eventually approved this year was relatively generous, leaving it unclear how far into the future the new spending can be sustained.

Projections from the Legislature’s nonpartisan research staff show that spending will outpace revenue under the budget covering the fiscal year that begins in July. The researchers predict that the same will be true in following years, making future budget shortfalls inevitable unless lawmakers raise taxes or pull back on spending. The most optimistic scenario has at least a small shortfall developing in 2023.

“The trend is certainly negative,” said state Senate Majority Leader Jim Denning, a Kansas City-area Republican. “Gov. Kelly will have one more year of easy budgeting, but her third year as governor, we will find out just out how deep her leadership skills are.”

The budget outlook didn’t stop Denning and other top Republican lawmakers from pushing for tax cuts this year. They argued that it’s unfair for some businesses and individuals to automatically pay more in state income taxes because of the changes to the federal tax code at the end of 2017. But even as the extra burden hit taxpayers this spring, the prospects of future budget problems undercut their efforts.

Kelly and other Democrats invoked Brownback’s tax experiment, in which the state slashed income taxes in 2012 and 2013. Big budget shortfalls prompted lawmakers to raise the state’s sales tax, divert funds from highway projects, reduce contributions to public pensions and tighten spending on social services, all while facing multiple court orders to boost spending on public schools.

Voters came to view the experiment as a failure, and bipartisan supermajorities repealed most of the tax cuts in 2017 over Brownback’s veto.

The history helped Kelly politically when she vetoed Republican leaders’ more modest tax bills, keeping a few GOP moderates in her fold to prevent her actions from being overridden.

However, the researchers’ projections are dampening state officials’ relief over Friday’s Kansas Supreme Court rulingthat state public school spending will be sufficient under a new education funding law. They could also hurt Kelly’s push to win passage next year of a plan to expand Medicaidcoverage for up to 150,000 more adults and efforts to increase spending on prisons, higher education and social services, which all received significant increases this year.

The most optimistic projection assumes that unanticipated tax collections this year will continue into the future even as spending outpaces revenue by at least $200 million every year, leaving the state with a $153 million shortfall for 2023. Under a more pessimistic revenue scenario, the state would see a shortfall of nearly $100 million in 2022.

Kelly has chastised GOP leaders for pursuing tax relief and rejecting her plans to give the state more budget breathing room by revising payments to the state’s public pension system.

She said during a recent interview that spending increases this year were warranted to repair a state government harmed by Brownback’s tax experiment, adding, “There is still a lot of work to do.”

“We might not have the amount of revenue that we need to pay our bills in 2023,” Kelly said. “I wanted to have the cash on hand to ride us through that storm if that storm comes our way.”

Top Republican lawmakers defended their push for tax relief this year, saying they wanted to move quickly enough so that the state wouldn’t start collecting its “windfall” this spring.

“Tax policy is one of things you look at as you look at trying to figure out how to make your economy grow and thrive,” said Senate budget committee Chairwoman Carolyn McGinn, a Wichita-area Republican.

The state’s tax collections have exceeded expectations in 23 of the 24 months since Brownback’s tax cuts were reversed. Tax collections were $158 million ahead of expectations through May and, for the budget year that ends this month, are on pace to grow by nearly 6.4 percent. Cash reserves, meanwhile, are projected to hit $978 million by the end of the month.

The Department of Revenue doubts that the tax collection surplus will be ongoing. State officials and economists also believe that the national economy will slow down in 2020 or 2021, said Steve Stotts, the department’s taxation director.

“A recession is on the horizon sometime,” said House Appropriations Committee Chairman Troy Waymaster, a Republican from western Kansas. “We don’t know how bad it could be.”

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JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s case for not renewing the license of its lone remaining abortion clinic includes a claim that three “failed abortions” there required additional surgeries and another led to life-threatening complications for the mother, according to a now-sealed court filing that Planned Parenthood alleges state officials made public in violation of patient privacy laws.

The documents, a letter and statement of deficiencies the Department of Health and Senior Services sent Friday to the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic provide the most specific details to date about a state investigation that triggered a licensing dispute now playing out in court.

Should the St. Louis facility be closed, Missouri would be the first state without a functioning abortion clinic since 1974, the year after the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision that legalized abortion nationwide, according to Planned Parenthood.

State attorneys filed the records in court after the organization sued last month in an attempt to continue providing abortion, despite the health department’s refusal to renew its license amid an ongoing investigation.

Anti-abortion group Operation Rescue put the health department records on its website before St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer sealed them Monday per a request by Planned Parenthood to shield confidential health information. A spokesman for Republican Gov. Mike Parson verified the accuracy of those documents to The Associated Press.

Jesse Lawder, a spokesman for Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and Southwest Missouri, said the state violated patient-privacy laws by releasing the records. He didn’t immediately comment further.

According to the documents, three patients remained pregnant after surgical or medical abortions and required follow-up surgical abortions, a health standards and licensure official wrote Friday to Planned Parenthood. One of those patients developed sepsis after the second surgical abortion, according to the letter from agency official William Koebel.

Koebel wrote that a fourth patient was hospitalized with life-threatening complications following an abortion at 21 weeks of pregnancy.

Medical residents performed some of the abortions at issue and have refused interviews with the health department, according to the agency. Part of the agency’s concern, Koebel wrote, is that the residents were not properly supervised.

Planned Parenthood has said that the residents and several other physicians are not staffers and some no longer practice there, so the organization can’t force them to cooperate. Two on-staff doctors agreed to speak with investigators.

But Koebel warned that it’s “imperative” that Planned Parenthood address the agency’s concerns about interviews with the other physicians.

“Refusal of health care providers to cooperate in the Department’s investigations thwarts the Department’s ability to conduct meaningful review of troubling instances of patient care, and obstructs the Department’s ability to ensure that problems will not be repeated,” Koebel wrote.

The judge has set a Friday deadline for the health department to decide whether to renew the clinic’s license, which was set to expire May 31. Stelzer has allowed the clinic to continue providing abortions as the legal challenge plays out in court.

The fight over the clinic’s license comes as lawmakers in many conservative states, including Missouri, are passing new restrictions that take aim at Roe. Abortion opponents, emboldened by new conservative justices on the Supreme Court, hope federal courts will uphold laws that prohibit abortions before a fetus is viable outside the womb, the dividing line the high court set in Roe.

Parson signed legislation on May 24 to ban abortions at or beyond eight weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest. Efforts to put the new law to a public vote are tied up in court .

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — U.S. authorities have seized more than $1 billion worth of cocaine from a ship at a Philadelphia port, calling it one of the largest drug busts in American history.

This is one of the largest drug seizures in United States history. This amount of cocaine could kill millions – MILLIONS – of people. My Office is committed to keeping our borders secure and streets safe from deadly narcotics. https://t.co/nWPfgpGqYa

— US Attorney William M. McSwain (@USAttyMcSwain) June 18, 2019

The U.S. attorney’s office in Philadelphia announced the massive bust on Twitter on Tuesday afternoon. Officials said agents seized about 16.5 tons of cocaine from a large ship at the Packer Marine Terminal.

U.S. Attorney William McSwain said in a tweet that so much cocaine “could kill millions — MILLIONS — of people.”

The drug seizure is the latest in a series of large cocaine busts along the East Coast.

Authorities say members of the ship’s crew have been arrested and charged.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Officials say vandals have spray painted apparent references to a Peru prison massacre on a wall at the National World War I Museum in Kansas City.

.@MAMmetals and @DSGequipment are both donating their services for the restoration of the wall today. We can’t thank them enough for their generosity and joyful help! Thanks to everyone for your messages of solidarity this morning. pic.twitter.com/l9AyxBbP1Q

— National WWI Museum (@TheWWImuseum) June 18, 2019

The museum’s “Dedication Wall” was defaced with red spray paint that said, “Glory to the fallen martyrs of El Frontòn, Callao, Lurigallcho.” The text apparently is in relation to the 33rd anniversary of prison massacres in Peru that resulted in more than 200 deaths.

Museum spokesman Mike Vietti says police have opened an investigation into the matter. He says Stephen Haith, owner of DSG Equipment and Supplies, has offered to clean the stone portion of the wall at no cost.

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SPOKANE, Mo. (AP) — A southwest Missouri high school graduate who was initially charged with sexually assaulting one classmate and threatening to assault another classmate has pleaded guilty to a misdemeanor.

21-year-old Tanner Brown pleaded guilty last week to peace disturbance. He was given a suspended 180-day sentence and placed on two years of unsupervised probation.

Brown and another student, Chandler Brown, were originally charged with two felonies and three misdemeanors after allegedly restraining and sexually assaulting a male classmate in a baseball dugout at Spokane High School in 2016 and restraining and threatening to assault another student a year later. The two Browns are not related.

Chandler Brown is scheduled for trial in September on the original five charges.

The family of one of the alleged victims sued school district in 2017. The lawsuit is pending.

TOPEKA —The U.S. Small Business Administration has approved Governor Laura Kelly’s request for a SBA disaster declaration as a result of the severe storms and tornadoes that occurred May 28, 2019.

“I am pleased that Kansas has been granted this request by the Small Business Administration,” Kelly said in media release from her office.

“These loans will do much to help speed recovery for our citizens and the business communities that lost property due to these storms”

The disaster declaration makes SBA assistance available to businesses and residents in Douglas, Franklin, Jefferson, Johnson, Leavenworth, Miami, Osage and Shawnee counties.

Beginning Tuesday, June 18, SBA representatives will be on hand at two Disaster Loan Outreach Centers to answer questions about SBA’s disaster loan program, explain the application process and help individuals complete their application. Both centers will be open from June 18 through June 27. No appointment is necessary.

In Douglas County, the Disaster Loan Outreach Center will be located at Peaslee Technical Training Center – Classroom B, 2920 Haskell Ave., Lawrence. Hours of operation will be Monday through Friday, 9 a.m. to 6 p.m.

In Leavenworth County, the Disaster Loan Outreach Center will be a Linwood Community Center – Commons Area, 105 E. Third St., Linwood. Hours of operation will be Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Businesses of all sizes and private nonprofit organizations may borrow up to $2 million to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate, machinery and equipment, inventory and other business assets. SBA can also lend additional funds to businesses and homeowners to help with the cost of improvements to protect, prevent or minimize the same type of disaster damage from occurring in the future.

For small businesses, small agricultural cooperatives, small businesses engaged in aquaculture and most private nonprofit organizations of any size, SBA offers Economic Injury Disaster Loans to help meet working capital needs caused by the disaster. Economic injury assistance is available regardless of whether the business suffered any property damage.

Disaster loans up to $200,000 are available to homeowners to repair or replace damaged or destroyed real estate. Homeowners and renters are eligible for up to $40,000 to repair or replace damaged or destroyed personal property.

Interest rates can be as low as 4 percent for businesses, 2.75 percent for private nonprofit organizations and 1.938 percent for homeowners and renters with terms up to 30 years. Loan amounts and terms are set by SBA and are based on each applicant’s financial condition.

Applicants may apply online, receive additional disaster assistance information and download applications here.

Applicants may also call SBA’s Customer Service Center at (800) 659-2955 or email disastercustomerservice@sba.gov for more information on SBA disaster assistance. Individuals who are deaf or hard of hearing may call (800) 877-8339. Completed applications should be mailed to U.S. Small Business Administration, Processing and Disbursement Center, 14925 Kingsport Road, Fort Worth, Texas, 76155.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson appointed a former judge who has supported an anti-abortion pregnancy center — and been disciplined for publicly doing so — to an administrative panel that could handle a licensing dispute with the state’s only abortion clinic.

The Missouri Supreme Court in 2015 reprimanded former Macon County Associate Circuit Judge Philip Prewitt for encouraging people to donate to local charities on Facebook, including Ray of Hope Pregnancy Care Ministeries, an anti-abortion nonprofit.

The Republican governor, an abortion opponent who last month signed into law one of the strictest abortion laws in the country , on June 3 appointed Prewitt to the Administrative Hearing Commission, a panel that handles disputes between state agencies and businesses or individuals.

Lawyers for the state have argued that the commission should adjudicate a dispute between the state’s only clinic performing abortions and the state health department, which is refusing to renew the clinic’s abortion license. The dispute is now in St. Louis circuit court.

Prewitt has weighed in on abortion previously. He ran as a Republican for a state representative seat in 2000 and received a $250 campaign donation from Missouri Right to Life PAC. When he was serving as an associate judge in 2014, he supported Ray of Hope on his Facebook page.

“I am happy to be supporting Ray of Hope Pregnancy Center again at their fundraising dinner,” the post read. “Even if you didn’t attend, consider donating to this wonderful organization.”

Prewitt also posted about donating to a local cancer fundraiser and local schools.

A state judicial oversight organization — the Missouri Commission on Retirement, Removal and Discipline — in 2015 found that Prewitt’s Facebook posts violated a state Supreme Court rule that bans judges from abusing the “prestige of office to advance the personal or economic interests … of others,” including a rule that a judge may not “personally participate in the solicitation of funds or other fundraising activities.”

The commission in court filings noted that Prewitt had no prior complaints against him, was “cooperative and truthful” during the investigation, and that in response he stopped the questionable Facebook posts.

Prewitt told The Associated Press on Monday that he doesn’t see a problem with the reprimand or his past support for the pregnancy care center and from Missouri Right to Life. He said he would consider recusing himself if requested by a party in the case.

“I don’t see where it would be a conflict,” Prewitt told AP. “It doesn’t violate the judicial rules, so I don’t see how it would violate any commissioner rules either.”

Parson spokesman Steele Shippy said the governor named Prewitt to the commission based on his experience as a judge and his past military service and that his stance on abortion was not a factor. He said the governor’s office was aware of Prewitt’s previous reprimand, but noted that the Supreme Court did not go further to suspend or revoke his license.

“Based on those qualifications, we believe that he would execute the responsibilities of commissioner appropriately,” Shippy said.

Commissioners work individually, and Prewitt said cases are assigned on a rotating basis by a scheduling clerk. Three other commissioners currently serve on the panel and could also be assigned the abortion clinic case, if it ever makes it to the commission.

Prewitt lost re-election in 2018 and in December resigned early. He said he applied for an open seat on the Administrative Hearing Commission several months ago and heard back around March.

“Many months ago was I considered for the appointment, so this wasn’t even an issue when I was talking to the governor’s office about the appointment,” he said.

Since he left his judgeship, Prewitt has continued to be active on Facebook. In February, he posted a photo of a truck with writing on the back that says: “What’s the difference between a gun and a whiny liberal? A gun has only one trigger. #buildwall.” He’s also shared memes about vegans, atheists and a post with a photo of a woman that says, “Why is she wearing leggings?”

Parson appointed Prewitt amid a court fight between the state health department and the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic. The Department of Health and Senior Services has refused to renew the clinic’s license, citing concerns about patient safety, “failed surgical abortions” and legal violations.

Planned Parenthood pre-emptively sued to ensure continued abortion services in the state.

In court filings, state attorneys argued that the clinic “is required to seek review of an adverse licensing decision through the Administrative Hearing Commission.”

A St. Louis judge last week issued an order to keep the abortion clinic operating while a fight over the facility’s license plays out in court.

St. Louis Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer also ordered the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to decide on Planned Parenthood’s application to renew its license by Friday.

SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a suspect on sex charges.

Just before 9a.m. Monday, police concluded a joint human trafficking investigation in partnership with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI).

As a result of the investigation, law enforcement officers arrested 35-year-old Evan H. Vollerthum of Naples, Florida on requested charges of aggravated human trafficking and attempted commercial sexual exploitation of a child.

Vollerthum was taken into custody in the 3100 Block of SW Topeka Blvd. and he is being held in the  Shawnee County Department of Corrections.