JOPLIN (AP) – Officials at Missouri Southern State University have found a trove of African art.
Christine Bentley said after she was named to head the art department at Missouri Southern, she wanted to the university’s African art holdings and found a 320-piece collection tucked away in a small room.
She says staff from the Spencer Museum of Art at the University of Kansas in Lawrence viewed the collection recently and stressed that each item must be properly documented and cataloged, and that steps must be taken to ensure the collection’s preservation.
The Joplin Globe reports the overall collection includes ceremonial masks and has an estimated value of about $500,000.
ST. LOUIS (AP) – An insurance company has agreed to return nearly $8 million to St. Louis area consumers as part of a settlement over allegations that the insurer didn’t tell customers about a cheaper, identical plan.
Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Missouri is returning a total of $7.8 million to about 5,500 consumers in the St. Louis area as part of the agreement reached with the Missouri Department of Insurance.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Anthem denies wrongdoing and any failure to provide information, but says it agreed to the settlement to avoid litigation costs.
Anthem spokeswoman Deb Wiethop says the average check per consumer for premiums previously paid into the more expensive plan will be slightly more than $1,000.
JOPLIN (AP) – A Missouri appeals court has overturned the conviction of a 35-year-old Oklahoma man on assault and kidnapping charges because the trial judge restricted public access to jury selection.
The Court of Appeals for the Southern District of Missouri ruled that the judge violated Johnny Davis Jr.’s right to a public trial by closing the courtroom during the voir dire portion of his trial last year.
The Joplin Globe reports that Davis was convicted of kidnapping and assaulting two women south of Joplin in 2011 and sentenced to four, concurrent 15-year terms in Missouri after he finishes a 30-year sentence in Oklahoma.
In its July ruling, the appeals court cited a U.S. Supreme Court ruling affirming that the constitutional guarantee of a public trial extends to jury selection.
A growing gulf in the retirement savings of the wealthy and people with lower incomes threatens to exacerbate an already widening wealth gap.
Traditional pensions are becoming rarer in the private sector, and lower-paid workers are less likely to have access to an employer-provided retirement plan.
This is happening as more than 70 million baby boomers head into retirement, many of them with skimpy reserves.
A widening gap in retirement is likely to put pressure on government services and lead even more Americans to work well into what is supposed to be their golden years.
MANHATTAN, Kan. (AP) — Kansas State University researchers have concluded that the decades-long practice of Kansas ranchers burning grassland in late April could take place virtually any time with no ill effects.
E. Gene Towne and Joseph Craine based their research on 20 years of data collected from burning at the Konza Prairie Biological Station south of Manhattan. They say grass composition and production were not negatively affected by burning in the fall or winter.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that’s contrary to research from more than 40 years ago that suggested grass had to be burned in late spring.
Towne and Craine found that grasses burned in the winter or fall had more time to respond to precipitation, and that schedule also resulted in more grass diversity, which is good for cattle.
LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Ranchers who want to monitor the condition of their pastures now have a mobile application to help them.
The University of Nebraska-Lincoln Extension has released an app called GrassSnap to make the monitoring process easier. The new app allows ranchers to save key information about their pastures, along with a photo. The information can be quickly downloaded to a computer.
UNL Extension educator Bethany Johnston says it’s important for ranchers to monitor the health of their pastures. Photos and other information may also be used to qualify for carbon credits or to comply with government conservation programs.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Supreme Court justices have been silent about last month’s execution in Arizona. Nor did any justice protest executions by lethal injection in Florida and Missouri.
The annual number of executions has dropped by more than half over the past 15 years, and the court has barred states from killing juveniles and the mentally disabled. But no justice has emerged as a principled opponent of the death penalty, as Justices William Brennan, Thurgood Marshall, Harry Blackmun and John Paul Stevens have in the past.
In Arizona, Joseph Wood had sought information on the drugs that would be used to kill him on July 23. He was pronounced dead nearly two hours after his execution began. Witnesses say he appeared to gasp hundreds of times before he died.
KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Sister Simone Campbell, an outspoken proponent for Medicaid expansion who has appeared on several prominent TV talk shows, will address a public forum on social justice issues in Kansas City this week.
Campbell, who led the national “Nuns on the Bus” campaigns in 2012 and 2013, is scheduled to speak at 7 p.m. Aug. 7 at the Community Christian Church, 4601 Main St.
Though free and open to the public, Campbell’s appearance also serves as a fundraising event for NETWORK, a faith-based organization that lobbies Congress on behalf of disenfranchised populations. A free-will offering will be taken.
“In the halls of Congress, NETWORK and Sister Simone are well-known for standing up for working families and for the poor,” said Sister Therese Bangert, social justice coordinator of the Sisters of Charity of Leavenworth. “They’ve been around a long time.”
Bangert said Campbell also is likely to discuss immigration reform, minimum wage laws and building a “faithful budget.”
Campbell addressed the Democratic National Convention in 2012. She’s also the author of “A Nun on the Bus: How All of Us Can Create Hope, Change, and Community,” published earlier this year by HarperCollins.
Her outspokenness led to appearances on “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The O’Reilly Factor.”
The “Nuns on the Bus” tours were designed to call the attention of the public – as well as the Catholic Church – to issues affecting the poor and uninsured.
In Kansas, Republican lawmakers and Gov. Sam Brownback have shown little interest in expanding the state’s Medicaid program, citing concerns about its future costs. Missouri officials also have not expanded Medicaid eligibility.
GARDNER, Kan. (AP) — U.S. Sen. Pat Roberts and tea party challenger Milton Wolf have brought their contentious Republican primary race to the Kansas county with the most GOP voters for a parade and door-knocking days before the election.
Both candidates participated Saturday in the Johnson County Fair’s parade in Gardner. Roberts rode in a red truck well ahead of Wolf, who walked beside a campaign bus that has taken him to dozens of stops across the state.
Afterward, the two men continued campaigning in the Kansas City suburbs of Johnson County.
Roberts is seeking his fourth, six-year term. Wolf is a Leawood radiologist making his first run for public office.
At least a few voters remain undecided, and Johnson County is home to more than 20 percent of the state’s registered Republicans.
GARDNER, Kan. (AP) — Kansas Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer is defending his short-term, $500,000 loans to Gov. Sam Brownback’s re-election campaign as “simple cash management.”
Colyer said Saturday before a parade in Gardner that the Republican governor’s campaign is simply managing its resources well, just as elected officials should manage the state’s finances well.
But Democratic challenger Paul Davis said the reasons behind the loans remain a mystery.
Finance reports filed by Brownback’s campaign show that Colyer loaned the campaign $500,000 on Dec. 31, but the campaign paid him back on Jan. 2. Then, Colyer loaned the campaign another $500,000 on July 23, the day before the finance reporting period ended.
Colyer said repaying the first loan quickly made sense because the campaign wouldn’t have earned much interest on it.
