WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack will be headlining the National Farmers Union convention meeting in Wichita.

Kansas is hosting the group’s national conventional for the first time since 1946. The four-day event begins Saturday at the Hyatt Regency Hotel in Wichita. Its theme is “Driving the Future of Agriculture.”

Vilsack will be speaking Monday to the group. He will be joined later that day by EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. They will be addressing agricultural and environmental issues.

Convention breakout sessions include farm safety, weather patterns, perennial grain crops, among other topics.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – The Missouri Senate has moved forward a measure that would reinstate limits on noneconomic awards in medical malpractice lawsuits against doctors or hospitals.

The Senate gave initial approval Tuesday to limits on noneconomic damages, including pain and suffering, in medical malpractice cases.

The state Supreme Court overturned $300,000 limits in a 2012 case.

Business and health care industry groups have called for new caps since. They warn that without limits, insurance costs will rise and doctors will leave.

The limits are $400,000 in most cases with $700,000 for catastrophic injuries or death. The caps increase 1.7 percent each year.

The measure was a compromise between Democrats and Republicans. Senate Democrats have opposed previous efforts to reinstate caps.

The bill faces another vote in the Senate before going to the House.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) – John Shaw is out as the Ferguson city manager following a scathing Justice Department report that already has led to a Missouri appeals court judge being tapped to overhaul the local court system.

The City Council in the St. Louis suburb, beleaguered by unrest since a white police officer fatally shot 18-year-old Michael Brown last summer, announced a resolution Tuesday removing Shaw following the report last week that accused the Ferguson Police Department and municipal court system of racial bias.

The Justice Department investigation already has resulted in a shakeup: Racist emails included in the report led to the firing of the city clerk and resignation of two police officers last week.

And on Monday, Municipal Judge Ronald J. Brockmeyer resigned and was immediately replaced with a state appellate judge.

PHILADELPHIA (AP) — A manufacturer of over-the-counter infant’s and children’s liquid medications has agreed to plead guilty to a federal criminal charge that it sold products that contained metal particles.

Court documents unsealed Tuesday say McNeil Consumer Healthcare, of Fort Washington, Pennsylvania, will acknowledge selling adulterated bottles of Infants’ and Children’s Tylenol and Children’s Motrin. The company agreed to pay $25 million to resolve the case.

Court documents say metal particles, including nickel, iron and chromium, were introduced during the manufacturing process. Prosecutors said McNeil failed to take immediate steps to fix the problem.

McNeil issued a recall in April 2010. The Food and Drug Administration said the potential for serious medical problems was remote but advised consumers to stop using the medicine.
McNeil is a unit of healthcare giant Johnson & Johnson.

RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press
KEVIN VINEYS, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A new government report shows that nearly 8 million people could lose up to $24 billion in health insurance subsidies this year in a case before the Supreme Court.

The case threatens the future of President Barack Obama’s health care law in some three dozen states. Health overhaul opponents argue that subsidies are illegal in states where the federal government took charge of sign-ups.

Tuesday’s report from the Department of Health and Human Services shows that about 7.7 million people in those 37 states are getting an average of $263 a month to help pay premiums. That’s around $2 billion a month, although the number will fluctuate over the year.

The biggest loser: Florida, with nearly 1.5 million residents getting an average of $294 a month.

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — A new report says no animal mistreatment was found during a recent inspection of a federal livestock facility in Nebraska, but regulators have halted new research at the facility.

The Omaha World-Herald reports that U.S. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack shut down research at the Meat Animal Research Center near Clay Center until improved animal welfare oversight procedures are enacted.

An animal welfare panel for the U.S. Department of Agriculture released the report Monday, saying no mistreatment was found during a three-day visit last month at the facility. The 50-year-old center conducts scientific studies to help the livestock industry increase the quantity and quality of meat production.

The panel plans to issue a second report later based on its review of three to five other federal research facilities.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri’s top law enforcer says Ferguson’s police department is among 17 statewide that illegally missed a deadline for submitting to his office racial data relating to traffic stops.

Attorney General Chris Koster says those police agencies that missed the March 1 deadline set by Missouri law risk having state funding withheld.

Missouri’s attorney general uses the data from the state’s 699 police agencies to compile a yearly report by June 1 about any racial disparities among municipalities when it comes to traffic stops.

Koster says his office since last October has sent four written notices to the 17 police agencies that ultimately missed the deadline, reminding them of their filing obligations by law.

Messages seeking comment Tuesday from a Ferguson city spokesman were not immediately returned.

KEARNEY, Mo. (AP) — A Kearney couple has won more than $10 million in a lawsuit against a California rehabilitation facility where their 20-year-old son died.

KCTV-TV reports that Ted and Kim Jacques were awarded $10.25 million in a wrongful death lawsuit after their son, Brandon Jacques, died of cardiac arrest at the First House facility due to an electrolyte imbalance from “unabated” binging and purging.

First House In California was the third facility that the couple sent their son to after he began drinking heavily to off-set his bulimia. The Park University student initially spent 30 days at the Sober Way home in Arizona. As recommended by the facility,

Jacques was transferred for more intense treatment at a center in California, where he was not allowed to make phone calls. That facility suggested another transfer to the First House where the student died.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — The U.S. Court of Appeals has ruled that the House of Worship Protection Act, which bans anyone from intentionally disturbing the order or solemnity of a house of worship through profane discourse, rude or indecent behavior, is a violation of the First Amendment.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that the St. Louis-based court ruled against the state law Monday after the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri filed a lawsuit challenging the law in 2012.

The lawsuit was on behalf of various groups, including the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests. The groups argued that the First Amendment protects their freedom to protest, pray and distribute literature outside places of worship.

Under the law, which took effect in 2012, anyone who violated the act is guilty of a misdemeanor and faces months of jail time. Third and subsequent charges are felonies.

When the lawsuit was filed, American Civil Liberties legal director Tony Rothert cited the severe sentences that were handed down to members of the Russian punk band Pussy Riot for their political protest inside a Russian Orthodox Church.

“In Missouri, Pussy Riot wouldn’t have to set one foot inside a church to land in jail because the House of Worship Protection Act makes it a criminal act simply to protest on a sidewalk near a church,” Rothert said.

UNITED NATIONS (AP) — Hillary Rodham Clinton says she had no reason to save personal emails from her time as secretary of state.

The possible Democratic presidential candidate during a news conference on Tuesday there were more than 60,000 emails in total sent and received. About half of them were personal emails, she said.

Clinton was answering questions Tuesday for the first time about her email practices as secretary of state. She spoke following a Tuesday afternoon speech at the United Nations.

She says she went “above and beyond” what she was required to do as a State Department employee.

Her comments come after days of silence and intensifying calls from Democrats as well as Republicans to address the matter.

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BRADLEY KLAPPER, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — The State Department says the full trove of Hillary Rodham Clinton’s emails as secretary of state will be published on a website after they are reviewed.

Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki says a review of the 55,000 pages of emails will take several months. They’ll be posted online afterward for the public to see.

Psaki also said Tuesday the reasons for any redactions will be made public, in line with Freedom of Information Act guidelines.

Those could include any passages revealing anything from trade secrets to sensitive national security information.
Clinton’s aides have said no classified material was transmitted via that private email account that she used for official business while in office.