COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Police are investigating a shooting in Columbia that left one person dead and another injured.
A news release from the Columbia Police Department says that officers responded to a report of an armed robbery around 4 p.m. Sunday. Police then received numerous reports of shots fired in the same area moments later.
The news release says one victim was transported to a hospital and pronounced dead. The victim was not immediately identified.
A second victim arrived at a hospital a short time later with injuries that were not life-threatening.
Police say bullets hit multiple homes in the area during the shooting. An investigation is ongoing, and no further details were immediately available.
Author: Stan Unruh
Mo. high school choir director charged with stalking
COLUMBIA (AP) – A choir director at Hickman High School in Columbia has been charged with stalking and is on leave from his job.
The Columbia Missourian reports that Matthew Wade Felts was accused in court documents of calling a woman “five or six times a day.” The probable cause statement said he sent the woman “threatening text messages and messages on Facebook” over the course of a week.
The statement said he also threatened to come to the victim’s house on multiple occasions and “threatened to have drugs planted” on the victim so she would be arrested as well.
Court records say a warrant was issued for Felts’ arrest after he failed to appear for his arraignment on Dec. 19. No attorney is listed for him in online court records.
Mo. man arrested for series of bicycle bank robberies
COLUMBIA (AP) – Authorities have arrested a man suspected of escaping from a series of Columbia bank robberies on a bicycle.
Police said in a news release that the latest robbery happened Saturday morning at Boone County National Bank. Afterward, officers found clothing matching the suspect’s attire during the robbery, as well a bag used to steal an undisclosed amount of money and a bicycle.
The release said officers questioned the suspect after finding him walking along a road with the same amount of money taken in the robbery stashed in his pants and shoes. Police said the man admitted to Saturday’s robbery, as well as five others committed in November and December.
The suspect escaped on a bicycle in most of the robberies.
Columbia looks at options after Christmas Eve website attack
COLUMBIA (AP) – Columbia is looking to bolster its cybersecurity after a Christmas Eve attack shut down its website for nearly three days.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reports that the city website, gocolumbiamo.com, experienced a distributed denial of service attack beginning around 11 p.m. Dec. 24. The website was flooded with requests from multiple computers, and remained offline until around noon Dec. 27.
Deputy City Manager Tony St. Romaine says it’s not possible to prevent such an attack from happening, but there are ways to mitigate it, at a price.
St. Romaine says content delivery networks are among the options the city is considering.
St. Romaine has said an online post said the hacker group Anonymous was taking credit for the attack.
Ethics on Missouri lawmakers’ 2015 agenda
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s legislative leaders say 2015 is the year they’ll rein in lavish gifts from lobbyists and unchecked campaign donations.
But political scientists are skeptical ethics bills will pass after years of failure.
Interest in ethics gained momentum after an October New York Times article claimed Attorney General Chris Koster was influenced by lobbyist gifts and campaign contributions.
Lawmakers so far have filed 28 bills addressing current ethics laws, which currently allow limitless lobbyist spending on gifts and campaign contributions.
Proposals also include “cooling-off” periods to prevent lawmakers from going into lobbying immediately after leaving office.
But ethics legislation is introduced regularly and hasn’t gone far in the past two previous sessions.
Missouri State University political scientist George Conner says smaller bills on ethics might pass, but meaningful reform is unlikely.
Kansas legislators expected to tackle many issues
TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas legislators are expected to debate a wide variety of issues after opening their annual 90-day session Jan. 12.
They include:
— Education standards: Opposition to multistate Common Core standards for reading and math remains strong among conservative Republicans. The State Board of Education adopted the guidelines in 2010.
— Election fraud: Secretary of State Kris Kobach plans to seek the authority for his office to prosecute election fraud cases. He narrowly missed obtaining that power in 2013.
— Immigration: The city of Wichita plans to lobby legislators to allow immigrants living in the U.S. illegally to receive driver’s permits.
— Judicial selection: GOP conservatives want to give the governor more control over Kansas Supreme Court appointments, subject to Senate confirmation. Lawmakers currently have no role.
— Marijuana decriminalization: Proposals to decriminalize marijuana for medical and possibly even recreational use could surface but don’t appear to have much political traction.
Farmers’ Efforts Put Agriculture a Few Steps Ahead for 2015
BY ERIN ANTHONY
Weather. Input costs. Commodity prices. From planning to harvesting, there’s plenty that’s out of farmers’ and ranchers’ control. Perhaps that’s why when they have the chance to hold sway, they go all in.
There’s hardly a better example of that than the American Farm Bureau Federation’s Ditch the Rule campaign, launched this spring to challenge EPA’s proposed “Waters of the U.S.” rule. The rule could ultimately lead to the unlawful expansion of federal regulations to cover routine farming and ranching practices as well as other common private land uses, such as building homes.
Through official comments to EPA, hundreds of thousands of tweets and Facebook posts, testimony before Congress, calls, e-mails and in-person meetings with policymakers, interviews with reporters and much more, Farm Bureau members were relentless in telling EPA, the media and Congress why this proposal is such a threat to agriculture, not to mention an end-run around congressional intent and rulings by the U.S. Supreme Court.
While Ditch the Rule focused on administrative action, immigration reform is Congress’ job. Growers were optimistic that Senate passage last year of an immigration reform bill that addressed agriculture’s labor needs would provide momentum for House action in 2014, but that was not to be. Nearly everything ground to a halt this summer with the mid-term elections looming. Still, farmers’ and ranchers’ leadership on the issue became even clearer when President Obama’s executive order made everyone ask: “What does this mean for agriculture?” Although the president’s move does little, if anything, for farmers and ranchers in dire need of a stable workforce, Farm Bureau has successfully made the agricultural labor crisis a political reality that cannot be ignored in 2015.
Farm Bureau was also front and center in the push for a national food labeling policy. Legislation introduced earlier this year would provide a federal solution to protect consumers from a patchwork of individual state GMO labeling policies, and the confusion and high food costs that would come with them. At a congressional hearing earlier this month, Kansas Farm Bureau board member Stacey Forshee made a strong case for why lawmakers should pass the Safe and Accurate Food Labeling Act (H.R. 4432).
Labeling foods with biotechnology traits “will mislead consumers into believing such food products are materially different, create undue risk and should be avoided—all of which are scientifically false,” she said.
Also this month, Congress extended retroactively for 2014 a series of tax provisions that expired at the end of 2013. These “extenders” are important because they help farmers invest in the machinery, equipment and other depreciable capital that they can’t do their jobs without. In addition, a number of the provisions encourage the production and use of clean, renewable energy.
In the end, Congress took longer than farmers and ranchers would have liked, but the final extenders bill, which included Farm Bureau priorities like Section 179 small-business expensing, was one of the few pieces of legislation the House, Senate and the president agreed upon in the second half of the year—a testament to farmers’ and ranchers’ ability to deliver a strong message. With the extenders secure for 2014, farmers and ranchers will push forward in 2015 to make some of the key small business provisions permanent.
Stepping out of the policy arena, Farm Bureau lead the way with a historic agreement on data privacy and security principles that will encourage the use and development of a full range of innovative, technology-driven tools and services to boost the productivity, efficiency and profitability of American agriculture. The data privacy and security principles detailed in the agreement provide a measure of needed certainty to farmers regarding the protection of their data.
From Ditch the Rule to immigration reform, tax extenders and big data, looking at farmers’ and ranchers’ 2014 successes shows us agriculture is clearly a few steps ahead for 2015.
Erin Anthony is the editor of FBNews, the American Farm Bureau Federation’s official e-newsletter.
Mo. woman hospitalized after vehicle overturns in the snow
HOLT – Two people were injured in an accident just after 12-midnight on Sunday in Clinton County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 2004 Nissan Extera driven by Amber R. Cunningham, 29, Kansas City, was southbound on Interstate 35 two miles north of Holt.
The driver lost control on the snow-covered road. The vehicle traveled into the median and overturned.
A passenger Alta G. Cunningham, 48, New London, was transported to Liberty Hospital. Cunningham refused treatment at the scene.
The MSHP reported both were wearing seat belts.
State regulators approve Ameren coal ash landfill
LABADIE (AP) – State regulators have cleared the way for a proposed coal ash landfill in eastern Missouri.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources granted a construction permit for the landfill on Friday. The landfill would serve Ameren Missouri’s Labadie power plant.
Labadie residents and other project opponents say the landfill in the Missouri River flood plain could contaminate the local drinking water supply. Ameren says the landfill will have a protective liner and extensive pollution monitoring equipment. The company says it is needed as on-site coal ash storage ponds become full.
The DNR permit will require Ameren to comply with new federal rules governing coal ash. That was a concession to opponents who had urged the department to wait for the new rules.
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Brown shooting prompts array of Missouri bills
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) – The fatal police shooting of Michael Brown has led lawmakers in his home state to propose a flurry of legislation attempting to address concerns that have fueled nationwide protests.
When Missouri lawmakers convene Wednesday, nearly five months will have passed since Ferguson Police Officer Darren Wilson shot the unarmed black 18-year-old after a scuffle in suburban St. Louis.
Three dozen bills stemming from Brown’s shooting already have been filed. Some address when police officers can use deadly force and whether special prosecutors must be appointed when police kill people.
Others would require uniformed police to wear video cameras.
Still others attempt to address underlying racial tensions by requiring cultural diversity training for police and limiting the amount of money cities can reap from traffic fines and court costs.