WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama says he’s taking action on his own because Congress is doing so little for working families.
In his weekly radio and Internet address, Obama says the economy is improving. He says decisions made now can ensure things keep improving.
Obama says he’s been pushing policies addressing jobs, student loans and wages. He says all of the policies would help families feel more stable, but all have been blocked by Republicans.
Obama says Congress left town for their August vacation with unfinished business. He says he hopes when lawmakers get back, Washington can join together in common purpose.
In the Republican address, Rep. Greg Walden of Oregon says Obama is disengaged when he should be leading. He says the midterm elections are a chance to deliver accountability.
Fulton, MO- Gov. Jay Nixon today met with local school and civic leaders for a roundtable discussion at Fulton High School about the negative impact to school funding and other services caused by special breaks and exemptions passed by the General Assembly.
In the final hours of the legislative session, the General Assembly passed 10 bills containing more than a dozen special tax carve-outs and loopholes that would reduce state and local revenues by $776 million annually, including more than $93 million from public school funding and $351 million from local sales revenues. Over the past several months, local officials from more than 60 municipalities and organizations have voiced their opposition to these bills.
“We need to be investing in public education and preparing students to compete in the global economy, not eroding voter-approved resources that our schools rely on to educate our kids,” Gov. Nixon said. “That’s why I’m confident that legislators will stand with their schools this September and sustain my vetoes of these irresponsible and unnecessary bills.”
In 1982, Missouri voters approved Proposition C, a one-cent sales tax designated to provide additional funds for every student, regardless of a district’s reliance on the state’s school finance formula. Because the special interest tax break bills passed by the General Assembly would impact sales tax collections, they would reduce the revenue generated by Proposition C by an estimated $93.7 million annually – or more than $104 for each student in every district.
“Resources generated by Proposition C have helped the Fulton School District prepare our students for success in college and careers,” said Dr. Jacque Cowherd, Fulton Schools Superintendent. “Legislation that results in weakening Proposition C will take needed resources out of our classrooms and make it harder to provide the high quality educational opportunities our kids deserve.”
Some legislators have stated they will attempt to override the Governor’s vetoes when they return to the Capitol for the annual veto session on Sept. 10.
“If legislators chip away at a revenue stream meant for education, schools across Missouri will see real cuts,” Gov. Nixon said. “The General Assembly may not have intended to undermine Proposition C with these bills, but that would undoubtedly be the result if my vetoes are not sustained.”
Grace Horvath, a computer science major from St. Louis, shakes the hand of a company representative attending a Career Day at Northwest. With the help of successful collaborations by faculty, employers and Career Services, Northwest boasts a career placement rate of 97.5.
Northwest Media Release
Northwest Missouri State University graduates continue to have success not just in the classroom but beyond. The latest proof is in the results of the University’s career placement rate, which shows 97.5 percent of undergraduate degree earners are securing jobs or continuing their education within six months of graduation.
The most recent percentage is based on 2012-2013 data gathered by Northwest Career Services and shows a slight increase from Northwest’s 2011-2012 rate of 97.4 percent among bachelor degree recipients. Additionally, 99 percent of Northwest students who have completed master’s degrees for the same period are in a job or continuing their education.
“Northwest is focused on preparing students for success while they’re on campus and in their careers, and our new career placement data continues to support what we hear often – that employers want to hire our graduates,” said Joan Schneider, director of Career Services at Northwest.
According to the survey results, the most recent Northwest graduates are working or obtained internships in 33 states and abroad in a range of roles at companies of all sizes and types. Among students choosing to continue their education, many are doing so at Northwest, but the survey data also shows students are moving on to pursue master’s and doctorate degrees at institutions such as Creighton University, University of Kansas and the University of Missouri-Columbia.
Northwest prides itself on preparing its graduates for successful careers by offering a comprehensive college experience that includes a variety of hands-on experiences, networking opportunities and coursework taught by faculty members who have professional experience in their respective fields. At Northwest, 57 percent of students participate in at least one internship, according to the career placement data.
“Northwest’s high placement rate is really a reflection of the students we have at Northwest and the faculty’s collaboration with employers and professional advisory groups to mold the coursework and internship experiences that prepare students for careers,” Schneider said. “It also represents the strong support services we offer at the University and the fact that students understand the value of a strategic job search.”
Students are using Northwest Career Services to their advantage, meeting with the office’s personable and knowledgeable staff to strengthen their resumes and receive interviewing advice. Northwest students participate in multiple career fairs and mock interview days sponsored by Career Services, too.
“Career Services allows students the opportunity to develop relationships with employers early on in their college career,” one survey respondent wrote. “When you go to apply for jobs and internships later on, that relationship is really important. If it weren’t for the opportunities Career Services gave me, I wouldn’t have my job today.”
Northwest is a coeducational, primarily residential four-year university offering a variety of undergraduate and graduate programs. Founded in 1905, the University has evolved into a vibrant and diverse learning community with enrollment of more than 6,500 students hailing from throughout the United States and 30 countries. Northwest offers more than 150 student organizations, and textbooks and a laptop are included in tuition.
Furthermore, Northwest achieved all five benchmarks within the state of Missouri’s performance-based funding model for the second consecutive year in 2014. Those benchmarks include a 67 percent freshman retention rate and a 57 percent graduation rate, both of which are higher than the national averages.
The annual career placement survey seeks information from Northwest graduates during the previous academic year to provide Northwest stakeholders with a near accurate view of “first destination” employment and continuing education statistics. To view the entire report, visit www.nwmissouri.edu/careerserv/faculty/placementreport.htm.
Life experiences teach plenty to those willing to learn. From the time I was a small boy, I remember my dad, uncles and grandfather talking and debating the issues of the day whenever we visited one another.
John Schlageck writes for the Kansas Farm Bureau.
As I grew older, I began to hear some of what they said. I began to understand what they were talking about. But it has taken me several decades to process, learn from and use what my elders were saying about the issues of their days.
About the time I was half way through high school, something he said finally sunk in. Grandpa Bert always said when you know a little about an issue, it’s easy to form an opinion. When you learn a little more, it becomes a little more difficult to make a decision. And when you learn even more about an issue, your decision becomes, “just plain hard.”
Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the issue of farmers and ranchers who often toil long days away by themselves. Sometimes they feel isolated with their backs against the wall. More than one farmer has expressed a feeling of, “It’s me against the world.”
Never before in agriculture has it been more important for farmers to express their basic wants, hopes and needs. Things like protection of personal property, a sound education for their children and a responsible, nonintrusive federal government, water usage to mention a few.
Never before has there been such an opportunity to express agriculture’s needs. Today there are hundreds of satellites in orbit around our globe. Our cable system is loaded with hundreds of networks. The information highway continues to speed forward, and we can communicate with people around the world instantly.
Today’s technology allows individuals to access videos, music, news, weather, markets and consumer information – literally anything happening in our world today.
It’s been more than three decades since newspapers entered the era of national and international publications. In this country, Christian Science Monitor and the Wall Street Journal pioneered the way.
Magazines and newspapers from all over the world are online today, available for anyone with the time and desire to read them. Of course, they are still being shipped by mail. You can also read news, weather, markets and sports and screen after screen on your computer.
And that’s not even mentioning all the data out there on social media – you know Twitter, Facebook, Pinterest – you name it, there’s data out there. All you really need is time.
With all of these different information avenues at your fingertips, it may also be easy for some to tune out and turn off. Farmers, ranchers, businessmen, bankers and professionals cannot afford to do that. We must utilize these communication tools to tell our story.
One way to help do this is by becoming active in the farm organizations and commodity groups of your choice. They can provide the vehicle to help you tell agriculture’s story while developing sound farming policy that must be communicated.
Agriculture finally arrived as a headliner during the farm crisis of the mid-‘80s. Every day, newspapers, radios, televisions and computers are chock full of stories on agriculture. Subjects range from food additives in processing to agricultural chemicals. Stories include animal welfare, cholesterol in the diet, sugar-less foods, the farm bill and finding ways to increase agricultural trade.
Remember, farmers and ranchers must continue to voice their message in the public information arena. Agriculture must utilize this medium to promote and persuade others to bring about change – change that will benefit agriculture and a society that relies on U.S. farmers and ranchers for the safest and most abundant food source in the world.
A Kansas citizen said it best more than 90 years ago, “This nation will survive, this state will prosper, the orderly business of life will go forward only if men can speak in whatever way given them to utter what their hearts hold – by voice, by postal card, by letter or by pres
William Allen White wrote this in his Emporia Gazette during the post World War I recession in 1922. These words ring true today.
John Schlageck, a Hoxie native, is a leading commentator on agriculture and rural Kansas.
OMAHA, Neb. (AP) — The value of cropland in Nebraska continues its upward climb, rising 6.6 percent from a year ago to an average of $5,180 an acre.
The value of cropland has been on the rise in many states in recent years. Nebraska cropland has increased 113 percent since 2010.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture says in a report released Friday the average value of farm real estate in Nebraska — a measurement of the value of all land and buildings on farms — climbed 11.4 percent to $3,120 an acre.
The state trend reflects a similar increase nationally. The USDA says U.S. cropland value is up 7.6 percent and farm real estate values rose 8.1 percent.
The annual report is based on producer surveys completed in the first two weeks of June.
WASHINGTON (AP) — House Republicans passed legislation late Friday to address the crisis on the U.S.-Mexico border by sending migrant youths back home without hearings, winning over conservatives with a companion bill that could lead to deporting more than half a million immigrants whom the Obama administration granted temporary work permits. President Barack Obama condemned the Republican action and said he’d act unilaterally, as best he could.
A day after GOP leaders pulled the border bill from the floor in a chaotic retreat, tea party lawmakers were enthusiastically on board with the new $694 million version and a companion measure that would shut off a program created by Obama granting work permits to immigrants brought here illegally as kids. The second bill also seemed designed to prevent the more than 700,000 people who’ve already gotten work permits under the program from renewing them, ultimately making them subject to deportation.
The spending bill passed 223-189 late Friday, with only four Republicans voting “no” and one Democrat voting “yes.” The measure ending Obama’s deportation relief program passed 216-192, with 11 Republican “no” votes and four Democrats crossing party lines to vote in favor.
“It’s dealing with the issue that the American people care about more than any other, and that is stopping the invasion of illegal foreign nationals into our country,” said Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn. “And we got to yes.”
But Obama said no. “They’re not even trying to solve the problem,” the president said. “I’m going to have to act alone, because we do not have enough resources.”
Obama said he would reallocate resources where he could, while making clear his options were limited without congressional action. The administration already has taken steps including re-ordering immigration court dockets and boosting enforcement measures.
The moves in the House came on what was to have been the first day of lawmakers’ five-week summer recess, delayed by GOP leaders after their vote plans unexpectedly collapsed on Thursday. Senators had already left Washington after killing their own legislation on the border crisis, so there was no prospect of reaching a final deal. But three months before midterm elections, House Republicans were determined to show that they, at least, could take action to address the crisis involving tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors fleeing violence and poverty in Central America to cross illegally into South Texas.
“It would be irresponsible and unstatesmanlike to head home for the month without passing a bill to address this serious, present crisis on the border,” said Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky., chairman of the Appropriations Committee.
To reach a deal, GOP leaders had to satisfy the demands of a group of a dozen or more conservative lawmakers who were meeting behind the scenes with Sens. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, and Jeff Sessions, R-Ala., and taking their cues from outside groups such as the Heritage Foundation that opposed earlier versions of the legislation.
These lawmakers objected to sending any more money to Obama without a strong stance against his two-year-old deportation relief program, which Republicans blame for causing the current border crisis by creating the perception that once here, young migrants would be allowed to stay — a point the administration disputes.
House GOP leaders agreed earlier in the week to hold a separate vote to prevent Obama from expanding the deportation relief program, as he’s signaled he plans to do, but that didn’t satisfy conservatives who held out for stronger steps.
Thursday night, those lawmakers huddled in the basement of the Capitol with new House Majority Whip Steve Scalise, R-La., until coming up with a deal ending funding for the deportation relief program as well as making changes to the border bill aimed at ensuring the faster removal of the Central American migrant youths.
Friday morning, as the full Republican caucus met in the Capitol, conservative lawmakers were declaring victory.
“I’m very satisfied,” said Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, the leading immigration hardliner in the House.
The GOP plans met with howls of protest from immigration advocates and Democrats, who warned Republicans that they’d be alienating Latino voters for years to come.
“This, in all honesty and candor, is one of the most mean-spirited and anti-immigrant pieces of legislation I’ve seen in all my years in the Congress,” said longtime Rep. John Conyers, D-Mich.
Democrats also accused Republicans of handing control of their policies to the most conservative lawmakers in the House, within months of abandoning pledges to act on broad-based legislation to overhaul U.S. immigration policy and bring millions of immigrants here illegally out of the shadows.
The new GOP border bill adds $35 million more for the National Guard, which would go to reimburse states for guard deployments. Like earlier versions, it would increase spending for overwhelmed border agencies, add more immigration judges and detention spaces, and alter a 2008 anti-trafficking law to permit Central American kids to be sent back home without deportation hearings. That process is currently permitted only for unaccompanied minors arriving from Mexico and Canada.
The bill would pay for strapped border agencies only for the final two months of this budget year, falling far short of the $3.7 billion Obama initially requested to deal with the crisis into next year. More than 57,000 unaccompanied youths have arrived since October, mostly from El Salvador, Honduras, and Guatemala, plus tens of thousands more migrants traveling as families.
DETROIT (AP) — The government says General Motors vehicle owners should recheck the company’s recall identification website if previous checks indicated their cars aren’t being recalled.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration says GM’s vehicle identification number, or VIN, look-up system has been incorrectly telling some owners that their cars aren’t involved in recalls if parts for the repairs aren’t ready. The system should have said the cars were under active recalls.
The agency says it asked GM to fix the problem, and owners checking Friday evening or later should see the correct information.
GM has issued 60 recalls covering 29 million vehicles this year.
A message seeking comment was left for GM.
Starting Aug. 20, all automakers must have systems that allow owners to search recall information by VIN.
WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors say a Kansas foster father was high on marijuana when he left a 10-month-old girl in a hot car, where she died.
The details of the case surfaced during a bond hearing Friday for Seth Jackson. He’s charged with first-degree murder in the July 24 death.
Police say the girl was in the sweltering car for more than two hours in Wichita, where temperatures were 90 degrees.
KWCH reported that Sedgwick County District Attorney Marc Bennett cited the marijuana use in court as the reason for raising Jackson’s bond to $250,000.
Bennett told the court Jackson had gone to his drug dealer’s house and bought marijuana. Prosecutors believe he then intended to smoke marijuana. But they have said there’s nothing to indicate the girl’s death was intentional
CRETE, Neb. (AP) — An athletic department official from a Kansas college has been named athletic director at Doane College in Crete.
Doane announced Friday the appointment of Jill McCartney as its new athletic director. She will oversee intercollegiate athletics for Doane’ 21 athletics teams.
Since 2009, McCartney has worked as the assistant athletic director for compliance and academics at Washburn University in Topeka.
Doane President Jacque Carter says McCartney has an “exceptional track record as an educator, coach and administrator.”
She holds a doctorate in education from Capella University, a master’s in English literature from the University of Arizona and a bachelor’s in English from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
McCartney will be the only female athletic director in the Great Plains Athletic Conference.
OREGON, Mo. (AP) — A man found dead along railroad tracks in northwest Missouri earlier this week has been identified as a Nebraska resident.
Holt County Sheriff Scott Wedlock says 59-year-old Shawn Sumpter apparently died of injuries from a fall. The death has been ruled accidental.
Sumpter was from the Superior, Nebraska, area, and had recently been at a homeless shelter in Lincoln. Employees of Burlington Northern Santa Fe found his body Wednesday along the tracks in southern Holt County.
Authorities believe Sumpter was a transient who was riding in a rail car when he fell from the moving train. The fall may have occurred 12 to 16 hours before his body was discovered.
