ANDREW COUNTY— One person was injured in an accident just after 1a.m. Tuesday in Andrew County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2018 Polaris Ranger SP driven by Macray H. Brooks, 20, Savannah, was southbound on County Road 156 three miles north of Savannah. The ATV traveled off the road, returned to the road and overturned.
Andrew County EMS transported Brooks to Mosaic Life Care. The MSHP did not have information on whether he was wearing a helmet.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Two candidates with vastly different life stories but several comparable political views are on Tuesday’s ballot to become Kansas City’s next mayor.
Quinton Lucas, a 34-year-old black man, and Jolie Justus, a 48-year-old gay woman, are both attorneys with similar voting records during their first terms on the city council. During the campaign, both said their top priorities were reducing crime, increasing affordable housing and spreading development projects across the city. Although the election is officially nonpartisan, both candidates are Democrats.
The winner will take office in August, replacing Mayor Sly James, who could not run again after serving two four-year terms.
Lucas said he and his family, led by a single mother, were often homeless during his childhood on Kansas City’s impoverished east side. Despite those struggles, Lucas won academic scholarships to a prestigious private school in Kansas City and then to Washington University in St. Louis and Cornell Law School. He is a practicing attorney and a member of the University of Kansas law faculty.
Justus would be Kansas City’s first openly gay mayor. It was not an issue in the campaign, as it wasn’t in Lori Lightfoot’s recent landslide mayoral win in Chicago.
Justus, who was endorsed by James, was raised in Branson and earned degrees at Missouri State University and the University of Missouri-Kansas City. She is director of pro bono services for a Kansas City law firm and an adjunct professor at Missouri-Kansas City. She served two terms in the Missouri Senate from 2006-2014 before returning to Kansas City and being elected to the city council.
During six debates leading up to Tuesday’s vote, Lucas and Justus offered different approaches to some of their top priorities. Lucas cast himself as an outsider to city government who wanted to fundamentally change how the city provides basic services and distributes tax incentives to encourage development. He said Justus was too close to developers and to James, and said she would continue policies that shortchanged impoverished areas, particularly the east side.
Justus emphasized her history in the Legislature and on the council as someone willing to collaborate with all sides and find solutions to longstanding issues. She said the city has been on an economic and development “roll” during the last decade that she wants to continue while moving the focus from downtown to neighborhoods and underserved areas.
Lucas was the primary sponsor of a controversial ordinance that caps tax abatements or other tax incentives for development at 75%, with some exceptions. Developers had been able to get up to 100% property tax abatement on certain projects, which led to criticism from some that the city awarded tax breaks for private projects too often. Some developers and city officials opposed the plan, concerned it might slow Kansas City’s growth and pursuit of development projects.
Justus was chairwoman of the city’s airport committee, which ended a nearly seven-year and controversial effort to bring a modern single-terminal airport to Kansas City. She acknowledged mistakes were made early in the process when a no-bid deal was considered without public knowledge to allow Burns & McDonnell to build the privately-financed single terminal airport. After severe criticism, the no-bid contract was dropped and the city went through a competitive bidding process. Justus acknowledged that she should have pushed for the competitive bidding process earlier but said Kansas City residents eventually voted overwhelmingly for the new airport and it is on schedule to open in 2023.
Voters on Tuesday also will elect all 12 members of the city council. Under Kansas City’s council-manager system, the mayor oversees council meetings and represents the city in other arenas but a city manager handles daily municipal operations.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump is threatening to remove millions of people living in the country illegally on the eve of formally announcing his re-election bid.
Next week ICE will begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States. They will be removed as fast as they come in. Mexico, using their strong immigration laws, is doing a very good job of stopping people…….
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) June 18, 2019
In a pair of tweets Monday night, Trump said that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement would next week “begin the process of removing the millions of illegal aliens who have illicitly found their way into the United States.”
“They will be removed as fast as they come in,” he wrote.
An administration official said the effort would focus on the more than 1 million people who have been issued final deportation orders by federal judges but remain at large in the country. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to explain the president’s tweets.
It is unusual for law enforcement agencies to announce raids before they take place. Some in Trump’s administration believe that decisive shows of force — like mass arrests — can serve as effective deterrents, sending a message to those considering making the journey to the U.S. that it’s not worth coming.
Trump has threatened a series of increasingly drastic actions as he has tried to stem the flow of Central American migrants crossing the southern border, which has risen dramatically on his watch. He recently dropped a threat to slap tariffs on Mexico after the country agreed to dispatch its national guard and step-up coordination and enforcement efforts.
A senior Mexican official said Monday that, three weeks ago, about 4,200 migrants were arriving at the U.S. border daily. Now that number has dropped to about 2,600.
Immigration was a central theme of Trump’s 2016 campaign and he is expected to hammer it as he tries to fire up his base heading into the 2020 campaign.
Trump will formally launch his re-election bid Tuesday night at a rally in Orlando, Florida — a state that is crucial to his path back to the White House.
NODAWAY COUNTY— One person was injured in an accident just after 6:30 p.m. Monday in Nodaway County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol a 2013 Polaris Scrambler ATV driven by Caylor W. Dunbar, 15, Maryville, was westbound on 245th Street just east of Orion Road a mile northeast of Ravenwood.
The driver failed to negotiate a curve, traveled off the road and struck a barbed wire fence.
A private vehicle transported Dunbar to Mosaic in Maryville. He was wearing a helmet, according to the MSHP.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A St. Louis judge says Missouri’s Republican-led Legislature cannot cut off funding to abortion providers and their affiliates.
St. Louis Circuit Court Judge David Dowd on Friday ruled in favor of Planned Parenthood. The organization sued in February against efforts by Missouri lawmakers to block state funding from going to Planned Parenthood.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that attorneys for the organization argued that some of its chapters provide preventative health care and not abortion and shouldn’t be financially penalized.
Dowd agreed. He ruled that the funding prohibition could not be completely enforced. He says the move was constitutionally flawed.
Republican Gov. Mike Parson in a statement said the ruling will be appealed. He says the state stands by the position that taxpayer dollars should not be used for abortion.
KANSAS CITY, Kan. (AP) — A 15-year-old Kansas boy got a large knife to the face, and doctors say he’s extremely lucky.
Jimmy Russell said her son, Eli Gregg, was playing Thursday evening outside of their home in Redfield, about 90 miles south of Kansas City, when she heard him scream. She found him with a 10-inch knife jutting from just below his eye and called 911.
“It looked pretty grim, it was scary,” Russell said in a video released by the University of Kansas Health System, where he was treated.
The knife was embedded in his skull and extended to just under his brain. The blade’s tip, meanwhile, was pushing against his carotid artery, which supplies the brain with blood.
“It could not have had a pound more force on it and him survive that event,” said Dr. Koji Ebersole, who oversaw the extraction. “I don’t think he would have survived it.”
A team of surgeons put together an intricate plan to remove the blade Friday morning. They were prepared for possible bleeding into the brain, but the operation went without a hitch and the artery remained intact.
Within 24 hours of the surgery, Eli was able to talk and make light of the situation. He was due to be discharged on Monday.
“He says he is going to stay away from sharp objects,” Russell said. “That is very understandable.”
She said Eli is doing great and should make a full recovery.
“It is almost a miracle,” Russell said. “It is really, really amazing.”
The boy is fortunate he ended up in Ebersole’s hands, as it was Ebersole who removed a meat skewer from the skull of a 10-year-old Missouri boy last year in an accident that provided equally shocking X-rays. That boy was attacked by yellow jackets in a tree house in Harrisonville, about 35 miles south of Kansas City, and fell onto the skewer.
By HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
A former FBI agent who was involved in the criminal investigation of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens turned himself in Monday after being indicted as part of a perjury investigation.
William Tisaby surrendered to authorities on the same day that an indictment against him was unsealed. He then pleaded not guilty at his arraignment and was released on his own recognizance under the conditions that he surrenders his passport and informs a probation officer of any travel plans.
The indictment charging him with six counts of perjury and one count of tampering with physical evidence was filed under seal Friday in St. Louis Circuit Court. The indictment alleges that Tisaby lied under oath “about matters which could substantially affect, or did substantially affect, the course or outcome of the Greitens case.”
Tisaby, who lives in Trussville, Alabama, was hired last year by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner to investigate allegations that Greitens took a compromising photo of his hairdresser and threatened to share it if she exposed their affair in 2015, a year before the Republican was elected governor. The indictment noted that relying on an outside investigator was “contrary to normal protocol.”
Gardner’s handling of the Greitens case drew strong criticism from his attorneys, who asked police to investigate whether Tisaby lied under oath as part of a deposition of the woman involved in the affair. Last June, Mullen appointed Gerard Carmody as special prosecutor to oversee that investigation.
Gardner says she decided to dismiss the case after the judge granted a request by Greitens’ lawyers to call her to testify about Tisaby. Gardner said at the time that it put her in the “impossible” position of being a witness in a case she was prosecuting. Despite the dismissal, Greitens, who was also under investigation over other concerns, resigned last June.
The indictment said Tisaby denied to take notes during his interview of the hairdresser, although a recording of the interview that he initially said was unwatchable because of an equipment malfunction showed him taking notes. The indictment also said that Tisaby falsely denied receiving notes from the prosecutor’s office before he interviewed the hairdresser, although a document uncovered during the grand jury proceedings shows that Gardner had provided Tisaby her notes from an earlier interview.
The indictment also was critical of Gardner, saying she failed to correct false statements.
Tisaby’s attorney, Jermaine Wooten, didn’t immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press seeking comment. He said previously that Tisaby is “very upset he’s being used as a scapegoat” and described him as “an honest and decent man.”
A spokesman for Carmody and a spokeswoman for Gardner said they are unable to comment because of a gag order in the case.
Scott Rosenblum, one of Greitens’ former lawyers, described the prosecution as “misguided” and said that the allegations laid out in the grand jury indictment are “even more egregious than we thought.”
SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a woman’s death and after a standoff that lasted several hours have a suspect in custody.
Just after noon on Sunday, police received a report of an adult victim suffering from an unknown trauma at a residence in the area of 15th and Tyler in Topeka, according to a release from Gretchen Koenen with Topeka police. Upon arrival, officers located a woman identified as 69-year-old Kyong Carol Wood, 69, Topeka, dead at the scene.
Just after 5p.m., a standoff at the home ended peacefully. Police took David E. Wood, 45, Topeka into custody at the scene on requested charges of interference with law enforcement.
Police were continuing to process the crime scene Monday and are awaiting autopsy results to determine Wood’s cause of death.
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SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a woman’s death and after a standoff that lasted several hours have a suspect in custody.
Just after noon on Sunday, June 16, police received a report of an adult victim suffering from an unknown trauma at a residence in the area of 15th and Tyler in Topeka, according to a release from Gretchen Koenen with Topeka police. Upon arrival, officers located a woman dead at the scene.
Just after 5p.m., a standoff at the home ended peacefully. Police took an adult male person of interest into custody at the scene. Police have not identified the victim or the person of interest.
Little is know about kratom, its effects, its dangers and that has the St. Joseph City Council taking a steady approach to the relatively new drug.
The St. Joseph City Council this evening will consider on first reading a bill which would ban possession of kratom to anyone under the age of 21.
According to the United States Drug Enforcement Administration, leaves from the tropical tree Kratom in Asia cause stimulant or sedative effects in different doses. Kratom can be taken as a pill, crushed and smoked, or brewed as a tea. According to the FDA, there is still a lot of research being done on the effects of kratom and the FDA has warned consumers not to use it as they conduct more research.
As previously reported, at the June 3rd city council meeting, the council voted against banning kratom in St. Joseph. After the vote, however, a bill was proposed that would prohibit the possession of kratom by or sale of kratom to anyone under the age of 21.
The city council has heard mixed reports about kratom.
A KFEQ listener told KFEQ Hotline host Barry Birr that he has been taking kratom for almost two years by drinking it as a tea. The listener claimed it has helped him lower his blood pressure, get relief from restless legs syndrome, and get rid of withdrawal symptoms.
“There’s no buzz, there’s no feeling other than the relief from the withdrawal symptoms. When I was going through the heaviest part of my withdrawals, almost two years ago, my blood pressure was really high,” the listener, who declined to identify himself, said. “Within 30-40 minutes of taking my first dose ever of this kratom, my blood pressure went to normal and I was feeling no symptoms of withdrawal.”
That has not been the experience of St. Kolbe-Puckett Center for Healing in St. Joseph co-founder Mark Puckett, a member of the opioid task force.
“We have patients at the clinic right now who are actually addicted to kratom. They tried to use kratom to get off of opioids and discovered that it’s just as addictive as opioids is,” Puckett said. “The biggest fear that we have right now with kratom is that a lot of younger kids, high school age kids are utilizing kratom… when it’s used in a small amount, it actually acts as a stimulant, used in large amounts, it acts as an opioid. So, that’s the scariest part about what’s going on with the kratom right now.”
Puckett said he would prefer a citywide ban, but can accept the council possibly putting age restrictions on kratom. He adds that he wishes the age limit, however, would be at 25 instead of 21.
“It’s proven that the brain doesn’t stop growing in a young adult until they’re 25 years ago, so the damages are still being caused all the way up to the age of 25,” Puckett said. “My hope is that the city council will raise the age limit to 25 and ban it in all facilities that sell alcohol, because, combined with alcohol, it’s not a good substance and I think that it should be third party tested before it’s sold so people know exactly what they’re getting.”
Puckett said one of the problems when kratom comes into the states, is that there are chemicals added and the kratom sold in convenience stores is oftentimes not pure kratom. Puckett encourages people to research kratom and its effects and mentioned the Mayo Clinic has conducted several studies.
The St. Joseph City Council’s meeting begins at 7 p.m.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Two of five people from Kansas City remain hospitalized after their boat exploded on the Lake of the Ozarks.
The 25-foot Chris Craft boat exploded and caught on fire Saturday afternoon at the Millstone Marina & RV resort.
A preliminary report from the Missouri State Highway Patrol says the explosion apparently was caused by a build-up of gasoline vapors and a mechanical failure.
Ryan Baber, a family member, said the accident happened shortly after the boat was refueled.
A spokeswoman at University Hospital in Columbia says Baber’s sister, Cynthia Sterling, and her partner, Carl Harris, were both in fair condition Monday.
The couple’s 6-year daughter suffered burns. Barber said he and his father, Robert Baber, suffered minor burns and he has a sprained foot.
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LAKE OF THE OZARKS — Five people were injured in an accident just before 2:30p.m. Saturday at Lake of the Ozarks.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 1993 Chris Craft had just been filled with fuel at the Millstone Marina dock.
The driver Robert C. Baber, 71, Kansas City, started the engine creating an explosion due to lack of ventilation and a mechanical failure. The explosion ejected passenger Patrick Baber, 39, Kansas City from the boat.
Life Flight transported passenger Carl Harris, 42, Kansas City, to University Hospital.
Camden County Ambulance transported Robert and Patrick Baber to Lake Regional Hospital.
Lake West Ambulance transported Kathryn G. Harris, 6, and Cynthina O. Sterling, 48, both of Kansas City to Lake Regional Hospital. The child was the only occupant wearing a life jacket, according to the MSHP.
