(Missourinet) – The entire holiday shopping season is expected to have Black Friday type deals according to David Overfelt with the Missouri Retailers Association.

Nearly 20% of holiday shopping is expected to be done over Thanksgiving weekend, but Overfelt said the best sales day of the year for retailers is not Black Friday.

“It could be the Saturday before Christmas or sometimes even Christmas Eve can be the biggest sales day of the year,” said Overfelt.
He said the deep discounts should help with the state’s holiday retail sales.

Missouri’s holiday sales are expected to increase 3.7% this year from the same time period last year. Overfelt said Missouri’s projected holiday sales increase is usually reflective of the national figures.

Overfelt touted the diverse retail choices the state has.

“Our impact is, of course, more than just one state. We have a lot of cross shopping between Illinois, Kansas, Arkansas and Kentucky.”
Online sales are projected to be more than $600 billion during the holiday season.

“It’s also a good time for people who are looking for employment or who might be underemployed to try to get on with a good store and see where it can lead to,” said Overfelt. “Retail is paying much more and has more benefits than in the past because there’s more competition.”

An estimated 750,000 seasonal employees are expected to be hired this year.

(Missourinet) – Planned Parenthood is looking for ways to continue to perform abortions at its Columbia facility. Planned Parenthood of Kansas and Mid-Missouri President Laura McQuade says the Department of Health will revoke the clinic’s license December 1.

“We won’t know until we hit the deadline. So, we are preparing and looking at all legal options open to us,” said McQuade.

In September the University of Missouri, under then-Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin, ended the type of privileges Doctor Colleen McNicholas claimed as allowing her to perform abortions there. Now that she no longer has the privileges, the Columbia facility is losing its license.
Under state law, abortion providers are considered ambulatory surgical centers. Doctors at such clinics must have privileges to perform surgery at a nearby hospital or a written agreement with a hospital to take patients for emergency services.

McQuade is not sure if chancellor Hank Foley will support reinstating privileges for McNicholas. McQuade hopes Foley will do what she thinks is fair.

“He has all of the written material. He’s certainly receiving feedback from parts of the faculty, from the Legislature, those that are on our side, like Representative Stacey Newman. He’s hearing from all sides” said McQuade. “But, I’m not really able to say where we think that’s going to go at this point.”

McQuade said MU caved to political pressure from Senator Kurt Schaefer (R-Columbia) and some members of the interim Senate committee charged with determining if any laws were being broken in Missouri by Planned Parenthood. The committee was formed shortly after the release of several undercover videos of the organization that pro-life supporters say talk about selling fetal tissue for profit.

(Missourinet) – The state House and Senate budget committees plan to take testimony from four state agencies Monday on Syrian refugees coming to Missouri. The Missouri Catholic Conference also plans to testify at that hearing.

Some lawmakers and political candidates are calling for the entrance of Syrian refugees to Missouri to be blocked, at least until the way they are screened is reviewed. They cite concern that terrorists could enter the state with those refugees and carry out attacks like those two weeks ago in Paris.

Catholic charities are among those agencies that help resettle refugees in Missouri, in part with federal money that is appropriated by the state legislature. Mike Hoey with the Conference says making sure that money isn’t blocked is a priority, so refugee assistance can continue.

“A lot of important services are provided to refugees. English language services so they can learn English, job training and placement, and when they first get here, the first 90 days they can get help with food and rent and those kinds of things,” said Hoey. “We think those services are important. They help refugees assimilate into the mainstream society so we think that’s a good thing.”

Hoey says an interruption in that money would not just impact Syrian refugees.

“There’s about three or four main agencies that resettle refugees in Missouri. Central Missouri Catholic Charities settles about 200 refugees a year. They’re Bosnians, Ukrainians, Somalians,” said Hoey.

Hoey says the screening those refugees undergo is very thorough.

“They often go to U.N. refugee settlement camps and then they go through a process with the United Nations, then they come into the United States and they’re placed in resettlement areas like camps and they get further clearance, so it’s a slow process,” said Hoey. “They do everything from identifying name, address, birth, to they do an iris scan – an eye scan on the Syrian refugees so there’s enhanced security on them, and then they have to go through the FBI Homeland Security, a number of different security checks, then they get health screenings.”

The committee has also asked to hear from the state Department of Social Services, Department of Health and Senior Services, the Department of Revenue, and the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education about what services for refugees they are connected to.

(Missourinet) – The state Supreme Court on Tuesday threw out first-degree murder convictions for Reginald Clemons, who was sentenced to death in 1993 for the murders of sisters Julie Kerry, 20, and Robin Kerry, 19, on the Chain of Rocks Bridge in St. Louis.

The Court had appointed a retired judge to review the case and Clemons’ case that prosecutors had wrongly suppressed evidence and that detectives beat Clemons to force a confession. That judge, Michael Manners, sided with Clemons on those arguments and that they were not harmless mistakes as the state had argued, though he said they were not likely to change the verdicts against Clemons.

The Supreme Court could have taken a number of actions. It ruled 4-3 to send the case back to a circuit court for possible retrial.

The state has 60 days to retry Clemons. If it does not, the case would be dismissed. He would remain in prison, though, on a 15-year sentence in a different case.

Clemons and three other men were convicted of raping and murdering Julie and Robin Kerry in April, 1991. One of those men, Marlin Gray, was executed in 2005. Antonio Richardson was sentenced to death and his sentence was later changed to life without parole. Daniel Winfrey received a 30-year sentence in exchange for testimony and has been paroled.

(Missourinet) – Spring Senator Bob Dixon has ended his campaign for Governor of Missouri, although he has not said why.
In a press release from Dixon, he thanked his family and supporters.

“Your authentic support inspired me every day. Together, I know we could have renewed the spirit of Missouri and made our state a place of renewed freedom where no one, right or poor, would settle for living off the backs or the work of others, but rather a place where all would be free to determine their destiny and enjoy the reward of their own labor,” said Dixon.

He first announced his run for governor at the end of July. Dixon was elected to the state senate in 2010. He has served in the Missouri legislature since 2003.

Dixon said he will not be endorsing a candidate.

Other Republican candidates running for Missouri governor include former Missouri House Speaker Catherine Hanaway, businessman John Brunner, Lieutenant Governor Peter Kinder and author Eric Greitens. Democrat Attorney General Chris Koster is also running for the post.
Based upon the most recent financial reports, Koster leads in fundraising with more than $5.5 million, followed by Greitens with $2.2 million, Hanaway with 1.5 million, Kinder has $275,000, Brunner has $256,000 and Dixon with $82,000.

(Missourinet) – Missouri lawmakers are pressing Governor Nixon to look for ways to discourage the entry of Syrian refugees to the state. The state’s religious groups are watching as that debate grows more political.

Missouri Catholic Conference Executive Director Mike Hoey says to totally block refugees would be an “extreme position.”

“I understand the anger and I understand the fear, but when we’re angry and we’re fearful we’re not necessarily operating out of our best place,” said Hoey. “We need to check the people over carefully but we still need to allow some Syrian refugees in. I think it’s the humanitarian thing for us to do.”

The Catholic bishops of Missouri, in a statement, said refugees go through up to two years of a vetting process to enter the U.S.

The Missouri Baptist Convention does not take a position on refugee policy, said its Team Leader for Communications, Rob Phillips, but it calls on all sides in that debate to pray.

“For peace in Syria and other war-torn countries, we should pray for wisdom for our leaders who have some very difficult decisions to make, we should pray for the safety and protection for the refugees who are fleeing war and genocide, and I think we should pray also for a civil debate when we discuss the complex issues relating to human dignity and border security,” said Phillips.

The state’s House and Senate budget committees will hold a hearing Tuesday morning on state financing of refugee assistance.

(Missourinet) – A retiring state trooper who calls himself a whistleblower said he will testify if asked to in a federal suit against Missouri brought by the family of an Iowa man who drowned while in a trooper’s custody last year.

Brandon Ellingson drowned after a Water Patrol trooper handcuffed him and improperly put a life jacket on him on Memorial Day, 2014. Retiring trooper Randy Henry says Ellingson’s death was the result of the 2011 merger of the Water and Highway patrols. He had been critical of the merger and took that criticism public after Ellingson’s death.

Henry was facing an internal complaint and demotion, but the complaint was withdrawn late last month. He then retired before hearings in his appeal of that demotion.

Henry said he was being demoted in retaliation for his whistleblowing. The Jefferson City News Tribune reported the Patrol accused Henry of misconduct for obtaining information from a 2013 investigation, leaking it, lying about it, and instructing another person to lie about what he knew.

Henry told Missourinet he could not comment on how the disciplinary situation was resolved, except to say it has been resolved. He claimed his attorney was going to be prevented from calling witnesses to support his position.

“We knew that we were going to lose and I was prepared to take it to the circuit court and appeal it when we did lose,” said Henry. “They knew that and I’m sure that’s one of the reasons why they cancelled the hearing because they knew they would lose it in the circuit court. We were confident of that.”

As for the merger, Henry alleges the patrol, Governor Jay Nixon, and Attorney General Chris Koster are involved in a cover-up following Ellingson’s death because, he said, it was a result of the merger. Henry said he thought there was a cover-up beginning when he was told he didn’t need to write a report on the drowning, even after talking to Trooper Anthony Piercy, the trooper who had taken Ellingson into custody, about the incident.

“When I’m not requested to do a report when I’m responsible for his training and I interviewed him in-depth that night without doing a report, I knew the fix was in,” said Henry. “You wouldn’t do any other type of investigation that way.”

Henry said he would make himself available in the federal suit filed against Missouri by the Ellingson family.

“I will make myself available for all court proceedings. Whether I’m going to be deposed again or not I don’t know, but obviously if this goes to trial I will be a cooperating witness for the Ellingson family.”

Henry’s retirement is effective next month.

The Attorney General’s Office, the Governor’s Office and the Patrol declined a request for comment on this story.

The Attorney General’s office was recently fined $9,500 because attorneys for the Patrol failed to comply with a court order to release agency e-mails related to the Ellingson family’s lawsuit.

(Missourinet) – A Mexico man faces six charges including second degree murder in connection with the death of a state trooper on the morning of August 28.

The Audrain County prosecutor says 20-year-old Serghei Pavel Comerzan caused the death of state trooper James Bava, when Comerzan refused to stop after Bava saw him speeding on a motorcycle on an Audrain County road. Comerzan is accused of fleeing from Bava as fast as 105 miles per hour in a zone with a 55-mile per hour speed limit and passing other vehicles while looking behind himself at the pursuing trooper. During the ensuing chase, Bava’s vehicle left the road, hit a ditch, a fence and some trees, then caught fire.

Comerzan could face between 10 years and life in prison for the murder charge.

At about 8:30 that morning Bava radioed that he had seen a motorcyclist commit at traffic violation. Patrol radio operators were not able to establish further contact with him. A few minutes later the patrol received a report that a patrol vehicle had crashed.