COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s only abortion clinic on Tuesday asked a state panel for an extension to continue providing abortions after its license is set to expire Friday.

The state health department last week refused to renew the St. Louis Planned Parenthood affiliate’s license, and a court order protecting abortions at the clinic is set to expire Friday.

If the Administrative Hearing Commission doesn’t act before then, Missouri could be the first state without a functional abortion clinic since 1974 — the year after the landmark U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

“Missouri has 1.1 million women of reproductive age who will have no access to abortion care anywhere in the state if a stay is not granted,” attorneys for the clinic wrote in a legal filing to the assigned commissioner, former Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon appointee Sreenivasa Rao Dandamudi.

Other services could continue at the clinic if it loses its license to perform abortions.

The state has said concerns about the clinic arose from inspections in March. Among the problems Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services investigators have cited were three “failed abortions” requiring additional surgeries and another that led to life-threatening complications for the mother, The Associated Press reported last week , citing a now-sealed court filing.

Planned Parenthood has said Missouri is using the licensing process as a weapon aimed at halting abortions and sued in response.

A St. Louis judge on Monday issued a court order shielding abortions at the clinic through Friday and then kicked the issue to the Administrative Hearing Commission , which handles licensing fights and other disputes between state agencies and businesses.

Commission decisions can later be appealed in court.

An Administrative Hearing Commission hearing on Planned Parenthood’s license is set for Aug. 1 in St. Louis. In the meantime, Planned Parenthood wants Dandamudi to rule on its request for a stay before Friday.

A hearing on Planned Parenthood’s request has not yet been scheduled.

Missouri is among several conservative states, emboldened by new conservative justices on the Supreme Court, to pass new restrictions on abortions in the hope that the high court will eventually overturn Roe v. Wade.

Republican Gov. Mike 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.

The number of abortions performed in Missouri has declined every year for the past decade, reaching a low of 2,910 last year. Of those, an estimated 1,210 occurred at eight weeks or less of pregnancy, according to health department data.

More Missouri women are getting abortions in Kansas than in Missouri. Information from the state of Kansas shows that about 3,300 of the 7,000 abortions performed there last year involved Missouri residents.

Kansas has an abortion clinic in Overland Park, a Kansas City suburb just 2 miles (3 kilometers) from the state line.

The nearest clinic to St. Louis is in Granite City, Illinois, less than 10 miles (16 kilometers) away. Executive Director Dr. Erin King has previously said Hope Clinic for Women is open to Missouri women and staff will “do everything in our power to make sure that further barriers associated with seeking abortion care out of state are minimized.”

Illinois does not track the home states of women seeking abortions so it’s unknown how many Missouri residents have been treated there.

SEDALIA, Mo. (AP) — A man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after accepting a plea deal in a Missouri drug-deal shooting that left one man dead and another wounded.

The Sedalia Democrat reports that 30-year-old Antonio Harper, of the Chicago suburb of Maywood, was sentenced Tuesday after pleading guilty to one count of first-degree burglary. Harper originally was charged with first-degree assault, armed criminal action, first-degree robbery and unlawful use of a weapon in the April 2018 shooting death of 42-year-old Maurice Harper Sr. in Sedalia.

Court documents say Antonio Harper implicated himself in the shooting, telling a deputy that he only fired after he came under fire.

His brother, 26-year-old Eric Harper, of Chicago, is charged with first-degree assault, armed criminal action and unlawful use of a weapon.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a Columbia woman has been arrested after swimming across a river to escape capture.

25-year-old Jasmine Bronger initially took off while deputies were arresting a 55-year-old Sedalia man on outstanding warrants. The Cooper County Sheriff’s Office says in a news release that Missouri State Highway Patrol helicopters assisted in the search after she allegedly swam across the Lamine River.

The release says she was arrested just before 5 p.m. Monday on an outstanding Boone County burglary and theft warrant after she was spotted walking toward a home. She is being held in the Cooper County Detention Center on suspicion of drug possession, property damage, resisting arrest and receiving stolen property. She hasn’t yet been formally charged in that case.

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — A woman beat and tortured at least some of her 15 children and forced them to watch as she brutally killed their pets, authorities said in New Mexico, the latest place where the woman and her husband have been the subject of complaints.

Martha Crouch and her husband Timothy of Aztec, New Mexico, were arrested Monday following interviews with a number of their adult and young children living in different states, according to court records. It was not immediately clear if all the allegations made by the children had been verified by authorities.

State officials say documents also point to prior complaints involving the couple in Missouri, Alaska, Kansas and Montana.

Martha Crouch, 53, was charged with child abuse and extreme cruelty to animals. Timothy Crouch, 57, is facing an obstruction charge. The couple has yet to be assigned public defenders. They are due in court Wednesday.

The San Juan County sheriff’s office began an investigation following the arrest of one the couple’s adult children on a charge of assault with a deadly weapon. Detectives say they uncovered false allegations that two sons beat another brother to death and kidnapped a sister, but heard other claims of abuse, torture and extreme animal cruelty.

One teen daughter told authorities of physical and emotional abuse that had gotten so bad that two of her older siblings took her from New Mexico to Arizona to keep her safe, according to court documents. The teen said after one of their dogs had puppies, the mother “took the puppies and put them into a giant pot and boiled them, making all the kids watch,” the documents said.

The girl told investigators the mother also fed a kitten poison.

She said she was hit by her mother with a plastic cooking spatula for questioning why she wasn’t allowed to go to school. Another, whose age also wasn’t disclosed, said she got pregnant at 14 and her mother beat her until she had a miscarriage.

Another daughter told authorities she was kept in a “fat chain” for three years while the family lived in Alaska because her mother thought she was overweight.

A son told detectives he was “beaten, shot, stabbed and run over by his parents” and “had BBs still inside his arm from when the mother shot him with a shotgun.”

He said New Mexico child welfare investigators recently came to the house to look into allegations of educational neglect but the mother loaded up the three younger children in a car and took them to the Navajo Dam to avoid them being spotted.

The children told detectives the family had lived in a number of places over the years and every time authorities questioned the parents’ activities, they fled to a new place, according to court documents.

Deanna Taylor, an investigator with the New Mexico Children, Youth and Families Department, said she received hundreds of pages of reports from other social service agencies in several other states, including Alaska, Kansas, Missouri and Montana. It is not clear what types of allegations were made against the couple in those states and whether any action was taken against them.

Court records show Timothy Crouch pleaded no contest to a theft charge in 1999 in Alaska. A forgery charge in Alaska also was dismissed that year.

Court records show the family had at least one other recent encounter with authorities. San Juan County officials cited Timothy Crouch in May with illegally burning trash.

Court records also show that county authorities’ initial investigation into an assault by an adult son at the family’s home on May 30 came after several brothers said they had been arguing over food.

The son, a 31-year-old also named Timothy Crouch, was accused of pointing a gun at three of his brothers saying he would shoot them. One of the three said the fight started because he was allergic to beef and could not eat hot dogs, an affidavit for an arrest warrant said.

A sister told a deputy there were guns located “throughout the house.”

Authorities also reported finding the body of a dog buried in the backyard that was shot as a punishment to the children.

 

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The funeral for a Missouri police officer killed in the line of duty will be Monday in St. Louis.

North County Police Cooperative Officer Michael Langsdorf was shot to death Sunday while answering a call about a bad check at a market in the St. Louis County town of Wellston. Langsdorf was a 40-year-old father of two. He was a longtime St. Louis city officer who had been with the police cooperative for just three months.

Visitation will be from noon to 6 p.m. Sunday at Hoffmeister Colonial Mortuary in St. Louis. The funeral is at 10 a.m. Monday at the Cathedral Basilica of St. Louis, followed by burial at Resurrection Cemetery.

Prosecutors charged 26-year-old Bonette Kymbrelle Meeks with first-degree murder and three other crimes. Meeks is jailed without bond.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A Missouri death row inmate who has received last-minute reprieves twice before over concerns about a rare medical condition is now scheduled to die in October.

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday set an Oct. 1 execution date for Russell Bucklew, who was convicted in the 1996 shooting death of a man who was living with Bucklew’s former girlfriend.

Bucklew narrowly escaped execution in 2014 and again in 2018. Each time, the U.S. Supreme Court intervened moments before Bucklew was scheduled to be put to death.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 in April that the state could move ahead with the execution. The court’s five conservative justices rejected Bucklew’s argument that subjecting him to lethal injection would violate the Constitution’s ban on cruel and unusual punishment.

Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote that Bucklew’s claim “isn’t supported by either the law or the evidence.”

Justice Stephen Breyer wrote in a dissenting opinion that his colleagues acknowledged that the Constitution’s Eighth Amendment prohibits states from executing prisoners by “horrid modes of torture” such as burning at the stake.

“But the majority’s decision permits a state to execute a prisoner who suffers from a medical condition that would render his execution no less painful,” Breyer wrote.

Bucklew’s attorney, Cheryl Pilate, did not immediately respond to phone and email messages seeking comment. She has said previously that Bucklew’s condition, in addition to the tumors, causes weakened and malformed blood vessels and vein problems.

Missouri uses an injection of the drug pentobarbital for executions. Bucklew had proposed that the state execute him by having him breathe pure nitrogen gas through a mask. Missouri officials said no state has ever carried out an execution as Bucklew suggested.

Bucklew, now 51, was convicted of killing Michael Sanders. After entering a trailer where Sanders and Bucklew’s former girlfriend lived with their children, Bucklew fatally shot Sanders and later raped his former girlfriend. Bucklew was arrested after a car chase and shootout with police.

The execution would be the first in Missouri since Mark Christeson was put to death in January 2017. None of the 20 inmates executed since Missouri began using pentobarbital in 2013 have shown obvious signs of pain or suffering.

KANSAS CITY (AP) — Authorities have apprehended a fired worker who is accused of threatening a shooting in Kansas City’s massive subterranean network of businesses housed in old limestone mines.

UPDATE: Suspect has been taken in custody at another location. The lockdown at the Subtropolis is lifted.

— Kansas City Police (@kcpolice) June 25, 2019

Police said Tuesday in a tweet that they found the worker in Kansas City, Kansas, and lifted the lockdown at Hunt Midwest SubTropolis in Kansas City, Missouri. No other details were immediately released about the capture, including the worker’s name.

Police said earlier that security spotted the worker entering the cave system after he said he would “shoot the place up.” Numerous federal, state and local agencies helped search while workers were told to stay inside their locked offices.

Many of the businesses in the cave system specialize in storage or warehousing because they are protected from extreme weather and boast stable, year-round temperatures and humidity.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A man was convicted Tuesday in a shooting that killed three people in a popular downtown area of the Kansas college town.

Anthony Roberts Jr., 22, of Topeka, was found guilty of two counts of first-degree felony murder, one count of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder.

Deputy District Attorney David Melton said Roberts opened fire in October 2017 after he and his friends confronted a group of other Topeka men with whom they had “bad blood” as crowds were leaving bars, concerts and other events on the main downtown Lawrence street.

But Roberts’ attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense and was legally openly carrying a gun with an extended magazine before the shooting.

“Anthony and his friends are being pummeled, and Anthony’s about to be next,” said Joshua Seiden, one of two defense attorneys representing Roberts. “Anthony saw guns being drawn, he had no time to think, and he reacted. Anthony drew his gun, a 9-millimeter Glock. To protect his friends and to protect himself, Anthony fired that Glock.”

The gunfire killed 22-year-old Leah Brown, of Shawnee; 20-year-old Colwin Lynn Henderson, of Topeka; and 24-year-old Tre’Mel Dupree Dean-Rayton, of Topeka. Two others were wounded but survived. Brown was the only victim who knew no one else involved.

But Douglas County District Attorney Charles Branson urged jurors not to excuse Roberts’ action as self-defense. He said forensic testing showed all 15 9mm shell casings left behind in the area were fired by Roberts’ Glock 26.

“There was no self-defense in this case,” he said. “There simply was murder.”

A second defendant was convicted previously of attempted voluntary manslaughter, and a third of misdemeanor battery.

Sentencing is set for Aug. 1. The maximum sentence is life imprisonment.