(Missourinet) – Pheasant hunting is allowed in all of the state during the upcoming season. Previously, pheasants could only be harvested in the northern half and a portion of southeast Missouri.

Charles Anderson with the Missouri Department of Conservation said there are two reasons for the change.

“Rather than having two zones, it simplifies the regulations and then provides opportunity in those outskirt areas,” said Anderson. “The primary pheasant zones are in northern and southeastern Missouri, but there are occasional areas where pheasants do occur outside those areas. So, it provides opportunity to sportsmen to harvest those on occasion.”

Anderson said population was not a factor in the expansion.

“It does not signify that there’s an expansion in the population or that pheasants are found throughout the state. Pheasants are not found throughout the state. We do not have, in numerous areas of the state, we just do not have the habitat that supports pheasants,” said Anderson.

The hunting season starts with a youth-only weekend October 24 and 25 and the regular season is from November 1 through January 15, 2016.

Hunting is limited to male pheasants only. The daily bag limit is two male birds and the possession limit is four.

(Missourinet) – Earlier this year, Congress passed legislation to require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to remove social security numbers from Medicare cards by 2019. Federal funding was provided so the change could be made.

In a Senate Committee hearing, Senator Claire McCaskill (D-Missouri) said other federal agencies such as the Department of Defense and Veterans Affairs have removed social security numbers as identification, but the CMS has not done enough.

“CMS has made minimal steps toward removing social security numbers from Medicare cards despite continued warnings from the Government Accountability Office in 2004, 2012, 2013 and 2015,” said McCaskill. Although CMS has offered a proposed plan and timeline, it has been quote planning to switch from using social security numbers as identifiers to alternative identifiers for almost a decade.”

Sean Cavanaugh, Deputy Administrator and Director of the Center for Medicare at the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, testified at the hearing. He said the centers will make the appropriate changes by April 2019.

“This is a substantial undertaking requiring coordination with federal, state and private stakeholders, updating and modifying numerous IT systems, and conducting extensive outreach to beneficiaries, providers and other stakeholders. CMS must accomplish these tasks without disrupting beneficiaries’ access to care or payments to providers. CMS will assure a smooth transition by moving forward thoughtfully,” said Cavanaugh.

McCaskill said roughly 41-million Americans are enrolled in Medicare and those with social security numbers on their Medicare cards are at risk of identity theft and medical fraud.

She said medical identity theft is the fastest growing form of healthcare fraud.

(Missourinet) – Remains from two more of the men that died in an Korean War-era military plane crash in Alaska have been identified so they can be returned to families for burial, but as of Friday men with ties to Missouri still haven’t been found. The military says it could be weeks before more IDs are released.

The remains identified belong to Captain Walter Perrin Tribble of Champaign, Illinois, and Airman 2nd Class Bernis F. White of Fordyce, Arkansas. Their families will be offered burial will full military honors.

Those men and 50 others died when a C-124 Globemaster crashed into Mount Gannett in Alaska on November 22, 1952. The wreckage and their remains were lost until they were spotted in 2012, some 16 kilometers from the crash site where they had been carried by the Colony Glacier.

Two Missouri men were on that plane: Army Technical Sergeant Leonard George Unger of Gerald, in east-central Missouri, and Air Force Airman 3rd Class Wayne Dean Jackson of Downing, in northeast Missouri. A third man, Private Robert Dale Card originally of Kansas, has a brother and other family living near Springfield.

Remains from 17 other men were identified and returned to families last year, making 19 in all that have been afforded a chance at a proper burial. Tribble’s and White’s remains were among those recovered in June, 2014.

Efforts continue to identify other remains found at the same time, but Armed Forces Medical Examiner Colonel Ladd Tremaine told Missourinet it could be several more weeks before additional identifications are released.

“There are some other cases that are extremely complex that deal with multiple fragments, and those are the ones that we’re really having trouble with – linking samples back to specimens,” said Tremaine.

Tremaine’s agency received the remains in August after a jurisdictional change caused them to be handed over from the Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency.

“We’ve actively been working these since getting them in August and it’s going to take probably a few more weeks to get a couple of them out,” said Tremaine.

The site of the wreckage is only accessible two weeks out of the year in June. Remains recovered in June of this year are also undergoing an identification process.

(Missourinet) – State fire officials are urging Missourians to make sure they have working smoke detectors during this, National Fire Prevention Week. The Week comes as Missourians have experienced a few cool nights and many have in recent weeks turned on the heat for the first time this season.

Interim State Fire Marshal Greg Carrell said one of the themes of the Week is to urge the use of smoke alarms in and close to sleeping areas.

“The theme this year is ‘Hear the beep where you sleep,’” said Carrell. “That’s to drive home the fact that smoke alarms are still your best resource when it comes to getting out of a fire early on. You should have smoke alarms in each of your sleeping areas.”

“A lot of people read that as ‘bedroom,’ but you’ve got to remember that if you have a basement area downstairs, and maybe you’ve got a pull out couch that family or friends are staying on, that’s a sleeping area,” said Carrell. “You’ve got to have a smoke alarm down there.”
Carrell said other monitors could be needed too, depending on your heating source.

“If it’s going to be something that burns a fossil fuel – a kerosene, a propane-type heater, of course your furnace in your home, natural gas or propane – that carbon monoxide alarm also has to be there. All those things are also capable of producing carbon monoxide.”

A University of Missouri expert also recommends replacing smoke alarms that are more than 10 years old.

(Missourinet) – Diversity and inclusion training will soon be mandatory for all incoming students, faculty and staff at the University of Missouri. Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin said the training has been planned for several months.

“Racism exists at Mizzou. It’s not everyone. It’s not necessarily even overt sometimes, but it’s there and we have to deal with it,” said Loftin. “We can’t afford to waste any individual no matter where they come from, what their background might be. We need their intellectual and their physical capabilities to advance our nation and our world.”

The requirement applies to all incoming students starting in January, and all faculty and staff as soon as the program is ready. Students will be ineligible to enroll in classes without successfully completing the training.

It will include discussions on race, gender identity, gender expression, religious discrimination and other topics. MU students already have mandatory sexual assault training, as of this fall.

As part of the diversity initiative, a national search is underway by Mizzou for a newly-created position, Vice Chancellor for Inclusion, Diversity and Equity. Mizzou will also ask students, faculty and staff to participate in a survey related to racial issues on campus.

University Police removed a student from campus earlier this week, after he allegedly yelled racial slurs at a group of black students practicing a Homecoming skit.

(Missourinet) – Missouri will join more than 20 other states in a lawsuit challenging the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Clean Power Plan,” that limits carbon emissions for states.

Attorney General Chris Koster criticized the plan’s compliance schedule and said the plan would hurt Missouri’s competitive advantage in electric rates. He said complying with EPA’s deadlines would cost the state more than $6-billion.

Koster said Missouri is already working toward cleaner energy production and said the state is better off maintaining its competitive advantage while developing that production on a “more reasonable timeline.”

“Renewable energy is a vital piece of our state’s energy portfolio,” Koster said. “It is essential, however, that we achieve this goal in an economically responsible way that makes sense for Missouri.”

Koster said he would join other states in challenging the new regulations when they are formally published. EPA has not publicly announced a firm publication date.
See his full speech here.

Koster, who is also a candidate for Governor, said Missouri has good reason to be skeptical of “sweeping regulatory schemes” imposed by EPA on Missouri residents and businesses. He noted Missouri’s successful challenges, since he has been Attorney General, of EPA regulations of mercury emissions and water rules, which he argued unlawfully encroached on Missouri’s sovereign authority to regulate its air and water.

“I will continue to fight against federal overreach and to keep Missouri strong,” Koster said.

(Missourinet) – A $25 million gift has been given to Mizzou’s Kinder Institute on Constitutional Democracy. The funding comes from the Houston-based Kinder Foundation. The Kinder Institute is an interdisciplinary academic center on the University of Missouri campus designed to promote excellence in teaching and scholarship on the American constitutional and democratic traditions.

Kinder Institute Director Justin Dyer said the gift will transform the one-year-old center.

“I think we could add four or five new faculty members in this area of study, which would be huge for us and for what we are trying to do. With that, we hope to be able to recruit and retain outstanding graduate students,” said Dyer. “Having top-notch faculty and being able to recruit top-notch faculty helps us also kick start and develop a graduate program in this area of study. Being able to bring new people into our ranks to teach these courses and to develop new courses for students is really a unique opportunity we have because of this gift.”

Dyer says the funding will also provide resources for undergraduate students in the classroom and in curriculum development.

Dyer wants to make the program a national leader in American political thought and history.

“That opens up all sorts of different doors. I think on the one hand, it makes us stand out among our peer institutions. I think that recruiting the right kinds of faculty and graduate students helps us with our standing in the AAU. I think it’s attractive to alumni,” said Dyer.

The gift will be given to Mizzou in installments over the next five years.

The Kinder Foundation was established by Rich and Nancy Kinder. Mr. Kinder is a native of Cape Girardeau and earned his bachelor’s and law degrees from MU.

(Missourinet) – The Missouri House will honor a primary backer of the Katy Trail who also helped lead Edward Jones to become a Fortune 500 company. Edward “Ted” Jones will be inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians in a ceremony tomorrow morning.

Jones is credited with starting the branch office model that made the investment company founded by his father such a success, according to Edward Jones CEO Norman Eaker.

“Ted had a love of Missouri and a love of farms and had a love of the business, but he saw the business very different than his father. Ted saw the business as one that should service retail investors and specifically retail investors not located in major metropolitan areas but in small communities,” said Eaker. “In 1957, Ted opened our first branch office in Mexico, Missouri. Ted wanted to serve people in rural communities – thought they were underserved – with quality financial advice. It was a brilliant idea and today we have over 14,000 offices throughout the United States and Canada.”

Jones also pushed for the creation of the Katy Trail, which stretches nearly 240 miles along the former Missouri-Kansas-Texas rail line’s route.

Eaker calls that one of Jones’ great, lasting contributions to the state of Missouri, but he says it took a fight with Missouri landowners to see it through.

“He had to fight with the Missouri landowners, and Ted considered himself a farmer,” said Eaker. “When the Katy trail was abandoned by the railroads, Ted took advantage of the national Rails to Trails Act to sponsor Missouri acquiring that land from the railroad and instead of it going back to the farmers, Ted put up $2.5-million to complete the Katy trail and now it’s the longest bike trail in the United States.”

Eaker said the trail has benefitted Missouri ever since.

“I believe they have over 400,000 riders on the Katy Trail every single year, and it was a contribution not only to those that enjoy the trail … but there are communities all along the trail that now have small businesses designed to serve those 400,000 tourists,” said Eaker.
Eaker says Jones was always looking for ways to serve others, and that included maintaining Edward Jones as a partnership.

“When his father wanted to have the firm owned by Ted and his sisters, Ted wanted to make sure that the firm was owned by the workers at Edward Jones, and today we’re the largest remaining partnership on Wall Street, we believe,” said Eaker.

He believes Jones would be pleased and humble about being inducted into the Hall of Famous Missourians.

“He would probably feel totally unworthy but incredibly pleased to be included among the Famous Missourians,” said Eaker.

The Hall of Famous Missourians is found between the House and Senate chambers on the third floor of the Missouri Capitol. Its inductees are honored with bronze busts and are generally chosen by the Speaker of the House. Other inductees include Mark Twain, Harry Truman, Walt Disney and George Washington Carver.

Jones is the first inductee chosen by House Speaker Todd Richardson. Jones’ bust has been paid for by Edward Jones.

(Missourinet) – Senator Roy Blunt (R-Missouri) and three of his colleagues have introduced a bill meant to give military families more flexibility when a service member has to move.

The proposed Military Family Stability Act of 2015 would let military families keep receiving an unchanged level of support for six months when a service member is ordered to relocate. That service member, meanwhile would be given temporary housing or compensation at their station.

Blunt says that will make transitions easier on families.

“Allowing somebody to go earlier, allowing somebody to stay back a little longer, allowing that separated individual in the military to be treated as just that and look for quarters that make it possible for them to achieve their assignment but still let family members who need to finish a semester of school, to get started a little earlier, make something that make sense for their career or transition at the same time to happen,” said Blunt.

The bill is also sponsored by Senators Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York), Richard Burr (R-North Carolina), and Mazie Hirono (D-Hawaii).
Gillibrand said the legislation reflects the role of the modern military family.

“Military families in the 21st century are very different, and we need new laws to reflect the new reality,” said Gillibrand. “Senator Blunt and I have authored the Military Family Stability Act so that military families have more flexibility and resources when deciding when to move.”

Blunt says supporting service members’ families helps strengthen the military.

“There are times when the unanticipated change of duty post – the change that comes at just the wrong time for the family – isn’t really that hard to work out.”

The bill is also backed by several military groups: The Veterans of Foreign Wars, the American Legion, the National Military Family Association, the Military Officers Association of America, the Military Child Education Coalition, the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America, Blue Star Families, and the Veterans Support Foundation.