(Missourinet) – Discussions are taking place to build a curriculum for mandatory reporting of child abuse in Missouri. Emily van Schenkhof, with Missouri Kids First says there’s a communication gap that needs to be fixed.

“We have a lot of people that are legally mandated to report child abuse when they see it that have no idea what that means. That’s scary,” says van Schenkhof. “That’s one of the things our task force is really focused on is making sure that folks who are mandated by law to report child abuse are trained and understand what their obligations are. That’s a pretty big gap that we have going on in our state,” says van Schenkhof.

Van Schenkhof says the standardized curriculum will be available for people and will explain the state’s child abuse laws.

(Missourinet) – Governor Jay Nixon (D) is asking the Legislature to uphold his veto of a bill that would revoke A+ scholarships from students because of their federal immigration status. Nixon says it’s unfair to those students who have worked hard for the scholarships.

“I think it’s a mistake in policy to say to a student that while you’re in high school if you do all these hard things we’re gonna give you a scholarship and come back later on and take it away from them. It’s just a matter of fairness,” says Nixon.

Nixon says the state shouldn’t base Missouri students on their federal immigration status. The budget bill also included a provision to require public colleges and universities to charge those students their international tuition rate. The scholarship grants students two years tuition at any community college or technical school in Missouri.

The Legislature could try and override the Governor’s action during September’s veto session.

A Pineville, Mo., man who is a registered sex offender was sentenced in federal court Wednesday for producing child pornography.

Jeremy Wayne Law, 31, of Pineville, was sentenced by U.S. District Judge Stephen R. Bough to 30 years in federal prison without parole.

On March 25, 2015, Law pleaded guilty to attempting to use a minor to produce child pornography. Law, who has three previous sex convictions, is a registered sex offender.

Law admitted that he communicated via text messages with a 16-year-old female, identified as “T.C.,” who resided in New York. Investigators found pornographic images and videos of T.C. on Law’s computer. Law also admitted that he had twice engaged in sexual intercourse with T.C. in a vehicle and that he had sent her an image of his genitalia.

(Missourinet) – A bill that sought to make the Lake of the Ozarks safer for swimmers saw little attention in the 2015 legislative session, but will come up again next year.

Thirteen year-old Alexandra Anderson and her eight-year-old brother Brayden of Ashland drowned after they were electrocuted while swimming near a dock at the Lake of the Ozarks, July 4, 2012. Columbia representative Caleb Jones sponsored an act named for them would require owners of bodies of water in Missouri to require docks and marinas on those bodies to have ground fault interrupters, that would shut off electricity to those structures in the case of a short.

Jones says he will offer that bill again in 2016.

“I feel like we, as a legislature, should try to make sure that no family has to go through what the Anderson family went through,” Jones told Missourinet.

The bill would also require defibrillators on water patrol division boats, prohibition of swimming in and around docks and marinas, and would set fines and jail time for failure to comply.

Alexandra and Brayden’s mother, Angela, said having defibrillators on water patrol division boats would be important because of many types of medical emergencies those can be needed for, that can happen on or near water. She also remembers emergency responders wanting them when her children died.

“We had two nurses that were helping us, one each with Alexandra and Brayden, and I very specifically remember one of the nurses yelling [to incoming water patrol boats], ‘Where’s your defibrillator? Where’s your defibrillator? These kids need defibrillators!’”

Anderson knows the prohibition of swimming around docks and marinas won’t be popular, but she says it would save lives.

“If I hadn’t lived through this I certainly would be like, ‘There’s no way. Of course we want to go and we want to swim off our dock,’” said Anderson.

Anderson says she doesn’t consider her children’s deaths to have been accidental.

“I believed [they were accidents] all the way up until the point when I started reading and educating myself, and then I came to realize this was not an accident. This was a tragedy waiting to happen,” she said.

She said the bill contains some of the reforms she believes are needed to prevent more people drowning on the Lake, but wants it to go further.

“We need certified electricians in the State of Missouri. Missouri is only one of four states that does not have a certification process,” said Anderson.

The Andersons filed a lawsuit against the owner of the Lake, Ameren Missouri, saying the company was liable by not inspecting the family’s dock, nor requiring ground fault interrupters on it, but the case was dismissed. The Missouri Supreme Court upheld that dismissal in June.

In the week after that dismissal, a man died and a woman was injured when they were shocked while in the Lake of the Ozarks.

(Missourinet)- The effort to ban powdered alcohol in Missouri has not ended.

Word last year that a company was prepared to market powered alcohol sparked numerous state legislative efforts throughout the country to ban its sale. 89 bills were offered in 40 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico. The latest state to enact a ban was Illinois, where no lawmakers voted against it.

A bill to ban it in Missouri didn’t advance out of the committee process, but its sponsor, Representative Patricia Pike (R-Adrian), says she’ll try again in the 2016 session.

“I do feel there are still concerns,” Pike told Missourinet. “We did hear from pediatricians, the Missouri Narcotics [Officers’] Association, Children’s Mercy Hospital Network and Cardinal Glennon poison centers.”

Julie Weber with the Poison Center at SSM Cardinal Glennon Children’s Medical Center told a House Committee in April she was concerned with how much powdered alcohol might look like candy.

“We receive 54-thousand calls a year and of those, traditional alcohol products comprise over 1,300 of our calls,” said Weber. “59-percent of our calls come in on pediatric patients, and you think about the accessibility in-home, and the majority of these calls happen because of look-alikes, like candy, looks like medicine sometimes. With this, if you look at the powdered alcohol, it looks like fun dip, and they can have a good taste.”

Jason Grellner with the Missouri Narcotics Officers’ Association said the product’s original website promoted sneaking it into concert venues or sporting events to avoid high drink prices or last calls.

“This is purely being marketed for abuse. This is just an easy way to conceal alcohol and continue the disease of alcohol abuse,” said Grellner.

The website for Palcohol, maker of powdered alcohol whose website Grellner saw a previous version of, has since revamped that website and said the language he saw was “experimenting with some humorous and edgy verbiage about Palcohol. It was not meant to be our final presentation of Palcohol.”

It now decries its earlier statement about sneaking its product into venues, which it said also included a disclaimer elsewhere on the page about using it in a responsible and legal manner. It’s page now includes this argument: “Powdered alcohol will make it easier to sneak into venues. Not true. A shot of liquid alcohol is 1/4 the volume of a shot of powdered alcohol so it’s much easier to sneak liquid alcohol into venues.”

The site also presents the argument that banning the product will increase demand for it and make it easier for children to access it. It concludes a series of rebuttals with the statement, “all of the criticisms are just hyperbole created by people who have no knowledge of the product.”

A request for an interview with Palcohol maker Mark Phillips was unanswered by the time this story was written.

(Missourinet) – The 2015 Kids Count report ranks Missouri higher this year in child well-being compared to last year, though it still comes in the middle of the field.

Laura Speer with the Annie E. Casey Foundation, which conducts the report, said the state came in 26th.

“Missouri improved,” Speer said. “It’s actually one of the biggest improvements across the country it’s actually gone up three places from 29th in 2014.”

Speer said it’s hard to say if the change is more due to improvements in Missouri or declines in other states. The report also says Missouri had more children living below the poverty line in 2013 than in the recession year of 2008.

“During the period of economic recovery many children and families got left behind and there’s still a long way to go,” she said.

About 100-thousand Missouri children lacked health insurance in 2013 according to this year’s report.

“At the national level there’s been pretty substantial improvement in providing health insurance to kids over the last five years and so I think that’s something that’s worth paying attention to,” Speer said.

She adds that there are fewer people who have access to employer-sponsored health insurance today than ten years ago.

(Missourinet) – The state auditor’s office is conducting an audit of the state legislature.

Democrat Nicole Galloway said her office’s reviews of the Republican-controlled House and Senate are regularly scheduled audits, the findings of the last ones having been released in 2013 under then-auditor Tom Schweich (R).

“We look at policies, procedures, adherence to laws and statutes, and report those findings. We also look at prior audits to determine if prior findings and recommendations have been implemented,” Galloway told Missourinet.

Governor Jay Nixon (D) and others have suggested that the legislature does not follow the state’s open records and meetings law. The 2013 audit of both chambers found that both chambers lacked a formal written policy about the use and retention of e-mails. The legislature told auditors it doesn’t believe the Sunshine Law applies to individual members, and Schweich’s office said the law in that area is “ambiguous.”

Schweich’s office suggested that both chambers establish an e-mail policy and archiving system and amend the Sunshine Law to clearly apply to individual members, with legitimate and needed exceptions. No such amendment has been made.

Galloway reiterated that compliance with laws is one of the things auditors investigate, and that will include the recent dismissal of a lawsuit filed by Progress Missouri against the senate for alleged Sunshine Law violations.

“I’ll withhold judgment on that until the work of the audit is done,” said Galloway.

The 2013 audit also noted raises given to House staff beyond the 2-percent cost of living adjustment given to other state employees making less than $70-thousand a year. Recent audit’s by Schweich’s office of the Attorney General and Governor noted similar raises.

The Senate was also found to have spent more than $21-thousand in 2009 for a review of its policies and procedures by the National Conference of State Legislatures, but never implemented some of the Conference’s recommendations.

Galloway said her office will see if those have been implemented since the 2013 audit.

“Those include developing a written job description for office staff, including policies in the employee handbook, and holding training for senators and staff on personnel policies,” said Galloway.

In 2013 the auditor’s office also suggested both chambers needed to develop a plan for resuming business after a disaster, and said the House needed to obtain and keep documentation for items reported as stolen.

How long the audit will take is unpredictable, but Galloway says they typically take several months.

(Missourinet) – A consumer alert has been issued by the Internal Revenue Service warning Missourians that scammers are targeting people through direct mail now.

Michael Devine with the I-R-S says taxpayers need to be vigilant if being asked for personal information or to send money immediately.

“Some of them may look very authentic but they’re fake,” Devine says. “If the only contact you normally have with the IRS is sending in your tax return once a year you should be very suspicious of any unexpected contact.”

Devine says the letters being sent out look very authentic and if in doubt, he says to double-check by calling the I-R-S. He says the I-R-S will not contact taxpayers via phone, email or social media.

WICHITA, KAN. – A Wichita man was sentenced Wednesday to 71 months in federal prison for robbery, U.S. Attorney Barry Grissom said.

Eric Emmanuel Dear, 23, Wichita, Kan., pleaded guilty to one count of commercial robbery. In his plea, he admitted that on July 27, 2014, he robbed the Dollar General Store at 2747 E. Boulevard Plaza in Wichita.

He entered the store about 10:25 a.m., approached the cash register and demanded money. He carried what appeared to be a handgun in his right hand. During the robbery, he touched the counter with his left hand. Fingerprints taken from the counter were matched to three fingers on his left hand. No firearm was recovered.

(Missourinet) – Missouri’s public and charter schools who teach sexual education must now include information about sexting, sexual predators and online predators. The addition was signed into law last week by Governor Jay Nixon.

The bill’s sponsor, St. Louis representative Genise Montecillo, hopes such education will make children safer from predators on the internet and cell phones.

“It’s just a huge door that’s been opened for them to get to our children in a much easier way, so hopefully we can get kids to understand that there is a risk,” Montecillo told Missourinet.
Missouri KidsFirst Deputy Director Emily van Schenkhof says such education could avert many abuses.

“Kids that have been kind of struggling to find community and connection, they go online looking for entertainment and looking for friendship, and these kids are vulnerable,” said van Schenkhof. “They simply don’t have the capacity at that point, both the emotional maturity and the knowledge, about how you talk to people safely online.”

The bill received broad support and no lawmakers voted against it throughout the legislative process. Montecillo said that was due, in part, to taking this provision out of earlier efforts to pass it as part of larger, more sweeping bills. She says once this language was offered on its own, it drew support from a broad spectrum of both conservative and liberal interests.

“This was an issue that there’s not a lot of disagreement. We want to protect our kids from pedophiles,” said Montecillo.

Some critics, though, say it doesn’t do enough to change Missouri’s laws regarding sex education.