(Missourinet) – Rain in the past week has alleviated drought concerns in Missouri, if only for the time being, according to a state climatologist.

Several periods of rain in the past few days replenished the water table in much of the state, and have come at just the right time for crops according to climatologist Pat Guinan.

“The rains did come. They were badly needed, for corn especially because with this drier spring we had, we had some great opportunities for early spring planting and so corn was beginning to tassel, and that’s a critical period for determining yields at the end of the growing season,” said Guinan.

Before those periods of rain came, Guinan said vegetation was beginning to show signs of struggling.

“Early in the month lawns were green but by the third week of June they’d turned brown, and of course row crops were starting to take a hit, especially corn,” said Guinan.

Guinan says Missouri is actually reaching a point where additional rain could be the problem.

“Pretty much water resources both above and below he ground are now at capacity so there is going to be that potential for more flooding if we do receive more significant rainfall,” said Guinan.

Guinan says rain predicted the rest of this week could bring flooding concerns, then a return to hot, dry conditions is expected next week.

(Missourinet) – Missouri-based Real Time Fantasy Sports doesn’t know if it can afford to continue offering games to Missourians much longer. Real Time Fantasy Sports Chief Operating Officer Tim Jenson says a law taking effect in August requires investigating all principal partners in the company and financial background checks on them, with a cost of up to $50,000.

The measure also requires an annual operating fee of 11.5% of its net revenue from Missouri participants for the previous year and an application fee of $10,000 or 10% of a company’s previous year’s net revenue.

“You need to be making a profit of a couple hundred thousand dollars in Missouri alone, not all fifty states, Missouri alone, to break even. Of the 70 companies that operate fantasy games, there’s probably only two or three that make enough money to make that business decision to operate in Missouri,” said Jenson.

“At the eleventh hour, the lobbyists for the two largest daily players, the Governor’s office and the two leading legislators, wholesale swapped out the language in the bill and replaced it with different language that most of the industry wouldn’t support,” said Jenson. “If the cost to get licensed is going to be higher than our profit margin in Missouri, then as a Missouri company, we’ll vacate Missouri, as we’ve vacated Virginia. We’ll then consider laying off our Missouri-based employees to make up the difference.”

Governor Jay Nixon (D), called on the legislature this year to tax and regulate the daily fantasy sports industry like gambling. Casinos are taxed 21%.

Jenson says it’s not specific to daily fantasy sports.

“That’s really one of the problems the industry has with that bill. It sweeps everybody up in an attempt to regulate Fan Duel and Draft Kings, it sweeps up the rest of the industry as well because it does not make that distinction between season long and daily,” says Jenson. “There are few major daily players and like 60 other players in the industry. Those 60 other players end up being collateral damage because that distinction was not made.”

Real Time Fantasy Sports, based in St. Louis, started in 1995. It operates in 44 states and has more than 600 Missouri players.

(Missourinet) – Last week’s shooting of five police officers in Dallas has prompted St. Louis police to work in pairs and wear protective vests during response calls. Several other officer-involved shootings have occurred nationwide since last week, including one in the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin. Jeff Roorda with the St. Louis Police Officers Association says St. Louis police are following those policies until further notice.

Roorda says elected officials’ support for law enforcement is “a mile wide and an inch deep”. He thinks it’s time for that support to get deeper.

“I think it’s time for politicians to put their money where their mouth is. Not only does this keep police officers safer, not only does it make them perform their job better, two heads are better than sort kind of thing. It might be controversial to say but it’s quite possible that Michael Brown might still be alive today if Darren Wilson had a second officer in the car,” said Roorda. “Brown would have been much less likely to have assaulted officer Wilson. I think that an officer in the passenger seat would have been able to intervene in a way that Darren wasn’t because of the proximity between him and Brown.”

Nimrod Chapel, Jr. with the Missouri NAACP wants Missouri’s law enforcement to wear body cameras while on duty.

“We were on the hills of Ferguson where there was international outrage sparked at what happened to Mike Brown. That still wasn’t enough for our legislature to pass legislation that just called for the most basic of protections,” said Chapel. “If they can look at not only individual stories that we’re seeing played out in Louisiana and Minnesota. If we can look at data collected across the state through state statute that’s verified. To look at those pieces of information and not make better determinations about how we regulate ourselves is just asking for trouble.”

Police body camera legislation has been offered in the Missouri legislature since Brown was killed, but none of the proposals have passed.

(Missourinet) – An advocate for child abuse victims says the budget restrictions made last week by the governor could hurt children.

Of the $115.5-million Governor Jay Nixon (D) has frozen the spending of, $408-thousand would hire ten more child abuse caseworkers. Emily van Schenkhof with Missouri KidsFirst says after the responsibilities of the state Children’s Division were expanded last year to include assessing reports of child-on-child sexual abuse, these caseworkers were badly needed.

“We were flooded with calls as soon as we got this because we knew it was a big problem, but even the number of hotline calls the Children’s Division got as soon as we changed the law – it surprised everyone, and so the caseloads for children’s division skyrocketed,” said van Schenkhof.

She said the national standard for one worker’s caseload is 15 a month, but some have had as many as 45 cases a month. Five caseworkers were assigned to handle the new case responsibilities last year, and van Schenkhof says they all had full caseloads within weeks. Each case must be assessed in 45 days.

“They desperately need more staffing,” said van Schenkhof. “I really am concerned about the safety of children in Missouri when we overburden and overwork our Children’s Division staff, and this was meant to be relief for them so that they could do their job at the level that we need them to.”

Van Schenkhof and other advocates were glad to see the state make that change in statute last year to begin assessing cases of children abusing children.

“About 25-percent of sexual abuse of children is perpetrated by other juveniles on children, and we believe that by interrupting these behaviors early on we can prevent a lot of child sexual abuse,” said van Schenkhof.

She said she worries about the message being sent to caseworkers.

“When the General Assembly works and Missouri KidsFirst and advocates all over the state work to try to ease their burden saying, ‘Your work is valuable. We value what you do,’ and then these restrictions come across and sort of say, ‘Maybe it’s not a priority to make your workload manageable,’” said van Schenkhof.

She said she’s “frustrated” that the $408-thousand couldn’t have come from some other program or programs in the $27.2-billion dollar state budget.

“I respect everyone who’s involved in the process and I respect the governor, and I understand it’s tough to work on the budget and these are not easy decisions that the administration makes, but I’m close to begging,” said van Schenkhof. “I really want this money released because I believe that it’s so critical to the safety of our children.”

The Nixon administration said, and at least one Republican budget leader agreed, that the budget restrictions were necessary because state revenue is coming in slowly. Nixon’s State Budget Director Dan Haug said it is unlikely any restricted money would be released until at least September.

(Missourinet) – Governor Jay Nixon (D) has agreed that adoptees need a way to get a copy of their original birth certificates.

The sponsor of the law signed last week by Nixon, Representative Don Phillips (R-Kimberling City), said people born before 1941 will be able to get their certificates when it takes effect, August 28.

“The rest of the folks in the state will have to wait until January 1, 2018. The reason being there’s a couple of provisions in there that require taking time to really notify, as much as possible, what some options are within the bill for the birth mother,” said Phillips.

Birth mothers can fill out a form to say whether they’re willing to be contacted by the child they gave up for adoption.

“Either say, ‘Yes, I want to be contacted,’ ‘No, I don’t want to be contacted at all,’ or, ‘Yes I’d like to be contacted, but with an intermediary source,” said Phillips. “With any of the options the can fill out a medical history form and leave that with the birth certificate no matter what.”

Phillips says many adoptees want to learn about their birth families to be able to learn medical histories.

“The real important thing is the medical history. In this day and age you just can’t get it from anywhere except directly from the source,” said Phillips.

When the contact preference form and medical history form are developed, birth mothers will be able to get them from the state registrar.

One of the reasons Phillips sponsored the bill was an encounter he had with a constituent – a 71-year-old great grandmother.

“She also encouraged me to sponsor this legislation because she can’t get a copy of her original birth certificate without a court order and unnecessary expenses,” said Phillips.

(Missourinet) – Missouri has had several rounds of severe weather lately, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has an app to help people deal with it. Brenda Gustafson with FEMA says the app’s severe weather alerts could save lives.

“There’s several different scenarios that are in there to give you what to prepare for, what to do if that disaster actually happens and what to do afterwards,” says Gustafson. “Being prepared is what helps save lives in disasters. The more prepared you are, the better for your family including your pets.”

The app is free and can be downloaded in your mobile app store.

“The nice thing about this is that you can get up to five different counties or areas in the United States,” says Gustafson.

The app is also available in Spanish.

(Update) – JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Republican sponsor of a bill to require Missouri voters to show photo identification at the polls says he’ll try to overturn Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of the measure.

Nixon on Thursday vetoed the bill, saying it would make it harder to vote.

Rep. Justin Alferman says he’ll try to override Nixon’s veto during a September session. The bill previously passed with enough votes to overturn Nixon’s action.

The bill would allow people without photo ID to vote after signing a statement saying they don’t have the required identification and can show some other form of identification. It calls for the state to cover the cost of IDs for voters without them.

The measure wouldn’t take effect unless voters approve a proposed constitutional amendment.

Supporters say it could prevent fraud.

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(Missourinet) – A bill that would require voters to show a photo ID to vote is still awaiting action by Governor Jay Nixon.

Senator Will Kraus (R-Lee’s Summit) sponsored the measure that would also require the state to pay for photo IDs for those that don’t have one and for any supporting documentation, like a birth certificate.

“I fully believe he (Nixon) will veto it,” said Kraus. “We will be discussing it during veto session, which is perfectly fine. I believe we’ll have the votes [to overturn the veto].”

Those without photo ID could still vote if they sign an affidavit swearing under penalty of perjury that they don’t have a photo ID, and if they provide a utility bill or paycheck.

“We worked this bill with the minority party. They actually probably want this to pass because it will put voter ID to bed for a while anyways. We have the situation where [voters] can sign a statement. If this didn’t pass on an override, then we would have to potentially be back to address the actual implementation bill,” said Kraus.

Opponents argue voter fraud and impersonation don’t occur and the measure is an effort by Republicans to drive more conservative voters to the polls during an election year.

Kraus is running for Secretary of State.

Nixon has until July 15th to sign or veto bills passed by the legislature this year or they automatically become law.

The legislature’s veto session is September 14.

(Missourinet) – After record enrollments several times in the last decade, the University of Missouri is projecting a 2,600 drop in enrollment this fall. Interim chancellor Hank Foley says the decline has given administrators a chance to reflect.

“For about 10 or 15 years, we’ve had nothing but year over year growth, to the point where we’ve stretched everything to the limit. We’ve got lots of people who are teaching classes, students taking them out of sequence and that sort of thing. So, in a sense, although we wouldn’t want it to happen this way, it’s good to have a break,” says Foley. “It’s good to have a chance to really look back at what we’ve done, take a break and think about what does it mean to have grown by than 50% in less than ten years. Are we really still as student-centric as we were?”

Administrators have responded to the enrollment drop by cutting staff and spending and applying a hiring freeze. Mizzou officials think racial protests on campus last fall are partly to blame for the enrollment drop and the revenue loss.

Foley credits state lawmakers for giving the school more funding than it received the previous year.

“Wherever I go, I really explain to people how incredibly happy I am with the leadership in the state house and how incredibly smart those guys are,” says Foley.

Some lawmakers wanted to make significant budget cuts to the University system in response to its handling of those protests.