JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill has contributed an additional $50,000 to the Missouri Democratic Party as election day nears for state legislative candidates.
McCaskill’s contribution reported Thursday by the Missouri Ethics Commission brings her yearly total to $340,000 for the state party.
McCaskill is not up for re-election this year. Her donations are intended to help the Democrats gain ground in the Missouri Legislature, where Republicans hold a two-thirds majority in both chambers. Those elections are Nov. 4.
Other top Democrats also are aiding the legislative campaigns. Attorney General Chris Koster has given $200,000 to the state party as part of a four-year pledge to contribute $400,000.
State Treasurer Clint Zweifel gave the Democratic Party $10,000 in July.
SPRINGIFELD (AP) – The city of Springfield has agreed to pay $700,000 to an unarmed panhandler who was shot in the back by a police officer while he was running away from a Wal-Mart.
The Springfield News-Leader reports the city announced the settlement amount to Eric Butts on Thursday. He suffered severe internal injuries on May 9. His attorney says his medical bills have totaled more than $216,000.
Officer Jason Shuck says he got his gun and Taser mixed up. He was sentenced Wednesday to two years of unsupervised probation and has agreed to never again work a job where he would carry a firearm.
The city says the payment will be made from its general fund reserves because Butts was shot before its officers were covered by liability insurance.
COLUMBIA (AP) – Missouri’s point man for men’s college basketball has been suspended indefinitely after he was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated.
Dave Reiter, an assistant athletic director for strategic communications, was arrested early Wednesday in Lafayette County.
The Columbia Daily Tribune reported the 36-year-old Reiter was taken to the Odessa Police Department and later released.
Reiter is a 2001 graduate of Kansas State University and a native of Halstead, Kansas. He came to Mizzou in 2005 after spending two years in the Northern Illinois media relations office, which preceded two years as a graduate assistant with the University of Illinois in their athletic communications office. He spent the 2011-12 season as director of athletic communications at the University of Houston before returning to Mizzou.
UNITED NATIONS (AP) — The spokesman for the U.N. secretary-general says the United Nations believes air travel to and from the West African countries affected by the Ebola virus should continue despite the first reported case in the United States.
Stephane Dujarric told reporters Thursday that “it’s very important not to isolate these countries” as it would worsen their political and economic situations. He says aid groups need access to the region.
The first reported U.S. case involves a man who flew from Liberia to visit relatives. His travel took him through Brussels and Washington before reaching Texas.
Dujarric emphasized the importance of screening at travelers’ departure and arrival.
The United Nations has spoken out repeatedly against travel restrictions on the Ebola-affected countries.
The U.N. has lost one staffer in Liberia to “probable” Ebola.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A St. Louis County woman is denying she posted a claim on Twitter that a member of a grand jury told her the panel lacked evidence to prosecute the Ferguson police officer who killed 18-year-old Michael Brown.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch (bit.ly/1rQTWsG ) reports that Susan M. Nichols of Affton said Thursday that her Twitter account was hacked.
A tweet posted Wednesday under Nichols’ name suggested that a friend serving on the grand jury reviewing Brown’s shooting said the panel lacked evidence to warrant criminal charges against the officer.
Nichols told the newspaper she had “talked to the authorities” about the matter.
County prosecutors said Wednesday they were reviewing the report.
A spokesman for Prosecuting Attorney Bob McCulloch could not be reached for comment Thursday by The Associated Press, and Nichols declined to comment.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill, Chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial & Contracting Oversight, today issued the following statement after the Justice Department’s announcement that it has indicted five current and former Army National Guard officials on charges of bribery regarding marketing and recruiting contracts, including those from the office charged with overseeing programs she earlier found to be rife with waste and fraud:
“This kind of betrayal of the public trust is outrageous, and dishonors the uniform of the brave members of the National Guard. We’ve already uncovered the wasteful spending of millions of taxpayer dollars on an ineffective NASCAR recruitment program that yielded zero recruits, and millions of dollars in fraud in the Guard’s Recruiting Assistance Program, but bribery by top Guard leadership who administered these programs should result in jail time, and I’m pleased the Justice Department has taken action to bring these corrupt officials to justice.”
In February, McCaskill led a hearing on reports of fraud in the Army National Guard’s Recruiting Assistance Program (RAP), which was administered by the Army National Guard’s former Strength Maintenance Division (ASM). She found that RAP was a vehicle for massive fraud by Guard service members, with up to $100 million in potential fraud of taxpayer dollars, and more than a thousand people implicated.
In May, McCaskill led a hearing on reports of waste and abuse in spending on sports-related marketing and sponsorships with organizations such as NASCAR and IndyCar, which was also administered by the same office under a different name. Following the hearing, McCaskill also sent a letter to Major General Judd Lyons, the Acting Director of the Army National Guard, pressing for answers on the Guard’s sponsorship and marketing contracts. In August, the National Guard announced a decision to curtail its spending on sports-related marketing and recruitment with organizations such as NASCAR and IndyCar.
SPRINGFIELD (AP) – The trial of a man suspected of kidnapping and killing a 10-year-old girl will stay in Springfield but a jury will be brought in from northern Missouri.
Circuit Judge Dan Conklin ruled Thursday that Craig Wood will stand trial in Springfield in front of a jury from Platte County.
Wood is charged with kidnapping, rape and first-degree murder in the death of Hailey Owens on Feb. 18. Prosecutors say he grabbed her off the street as she walked home, sexually assaulted her and shot her in the head. Her body was found in Wood’s home.
The Springfield News-Leader reports Wood’s attorney asked that the trial begin in April 2016, while prosecutors want it to start next April.
Patterson will seek the death penalty if Wood is convicted.
Shawn Sullivan, director of Gov. Sam Brownback’s budget office- KHI photo
By Jim McLean
KHI News Service
A $21 million shortfall in September tax collections has renewed the debate on Gov. Sam Brownback’s economic policies heading into the last month of the 2014 campaign.
Over the last five months, tax receipts have fallen more than $360 million short of official projections, driven largely by the 26 percent reduction in income tax rates championed by Brownback and passed by the Republican-controlled Legislature in 2012 and 2013.
The continuing shortfalls are forcing the state to spend through its reserves, a strategy that analysts in the nonpartisan Kansas Legislative Research Department say could put the state nearly $240 million in the red by July of 2016.
Paul Davis, Brownback’s Democratic challenger, used the September revenue report to launch another attack on what he calls the governor’s “failed policies.”
“The governor’s economic experiment isn’t working, and it’s not going to work,” Davis said in a campaign news release. “It is damaging our schools, hurting our economy and putting our children’s future in jeopardy.”
Brownback and others in the administration insist that the drop in revenue is temporary and that the tax cuts will transform the Kansas economy if given enough time to work.
Shawn Sullivan, director of the governor’s budget office, said small business owners whose taxes were eliminated by the cuts are telling him they eventually will use the money they’re saving to create new jobs.
“What they tell me is, ‘These tax cuts and these policy changes take time (to work),’” Sullivan said. “These tax policy changes aren’t like you flip a switch and you have 100,000 new jobs. It’s trying to set the environment right for small businesses that employ the majority of Kansans.”
Kansas is doing well compared to neighboring states when it comes to job growth in the small business sector, Sullivan said.
Revenue Secretary Nick Jordan points to the $21.5 million collected above the September estimate in corporate income taxes as an indication of the state’s improving business climate. But critics say the corporate tax windfall was more than offset by a $42.4 shortfall in individual income tax receipts.
Broader measures reported by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics still show the state lagging the region and nation in job growth.
To head off possible budget cuts, Sullivan said the administration is implementing “efficiencies” that he estimates can save $101 million by the end of the 2015 budget year.
Eventually, Sullivan said, he expects that taxes paid by Kansans hired to fill the new jobs created by the governor’s tax policies will restore state revenues to pre-cut levels.
But Duane Goossen, a former budget director who worked for both Republican and Democratic governors, said that is wishful thinking.
“It seems almost impossible to think given our current tax structure that increased economic activity could replace the losses that have occurred,” Goossen said.
Neither the governor nor anyone in his administration has been able to show precisely how the job growth they’re hoping for will restore the lost revenue, Goossen said.
“In fact, the opposite is true,” he said. “The Kansas Legislative Research Department has been predicting and forecasting all along that with these tax changes revenue would drop dramatically, and it has.”
NEOSHO (AP) – A state prison inmate has been charged with murder in the 2001 death of a Missouri woman whose body has never been found.
Newton County prosecutor Jake Skouby charged 56-year-old Mark T. Walsh with second-degree murder, armed criminal action and statutory sodomy in the death of Freida Franks. The Newton County woman disappeared in August 2001. Prosecutors allege she was killed at a campground in Joplin.
The charges were filed in late September after Newton County detective Mike Barnett reviewed the case.
The Neosho Daily News reports a woman told investigators that she was with Franks and Walsh at the campground in 2001, when she was a child. The woman said Franks saw Walsh sexually abusing her and was injured when she tried to stop the abuse.
