JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri’s two leading Republican candidates for governor disagree over education policy as they look toward the 2016 elections.

State Auditor Tom Schweich and former House Speaker Catherine Hanaway spoke Thursday at the Capitol to media editors and reporters.

Hanaway said she supports eliminating teacher tenure so local schools have more flexibility in hiring and salary decisions. Schweich said he supports tenure protections and equated repealing them to trying to coerce teachers into improving their performance.

Both candidates shied away from proposals raising taxes for transportation. Schweich said he thinks the transportation department can be more efficient. Hanaway said she wants to direct cost-savings from the general state budget to highways.

Democratic Attorney General Chris Koster, who also is running for governor, did not attend the event.

Kansas CITY- A Kansas man was injured in an accident just before 8 a.m. on Thursday in Johnson County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2005 Chevy Cavalier driven by Bret L. Bridge, 39, Kansas City, was northbound on Interstate 35 just south of College.

The vehicle struck a 2011 GMC Yukon that started a chain reaction.

The Yukon struck a 2012 Honda Pilot. The Honda struck a 2000 Toyota Camry.

Bridge was transported to Overland Park Regional Medical Center.

No other injuries were reported.

The KHP reported all were properly restrained at the time of the collision.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri senators have approved legislation to require the state to notify businesses of changes in sales tax policies.

The Senate voted unanimously Thursday in favor of the bill, which would exempt businesses from paying certain taxes if the Department of Revenue doesn’t give notice of changes.

The legislation aims to inform businesses if the courts or Revenue Department alter policies that could impact services and products subject to sales taxes.

Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon last year vetoed similar legislation. He said the notification requirement could have meant as much as $100 million in lost revenue annually for the state.

Legislators failed to override the veto.

Republican lawmakers have disputed Nixon’s cost estimates. Recent fiscal estimates find that the legislation could cost the state about $425,000 next fiscal year.

WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill issued the following reaction to a Missouri State Legislature resolution calling for the Missouri Congressional delegation to “endeavor with ‘manly firmness’ and resolve to totally and completely repeal” and not replace the 2010 Affordable Care Act—a law that is providing health insurance to more than 200,000 Missourians, and has barred insurance companies from denying coverage because of a preexisting condition, dropping coverage for a person after becoming sick, or discriminating based on whether a patient is male or female:

“I don’t think you prove your manhood by kicking folks off their health coverage and once again letting insurance companies discriminate against women and sick people.”

McCaskill also reiterated her commitment to protecting Medicare from elected officials who believe, as the Missouri State Representative who authored this resolution has stated, that the federal government has “no business in health care, anyway…”

It is estimated that a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act would strip more than 200,000 Missourians of health insurance coverage, and—according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office—would raise the national deficit by billions of dollars.

TONGANOXIE – A Kansas woman was injured in an accident just before 6 a.m. on Thursday in Leavenworth County.

The Kansas Highway Patrol reported a 2010 Chevy Cobalt driven by Rosemary Lewis, 43, Kansas City, was southbound on Kansas16 at McLouth Road in Tonganoxie.

The vehicle left the roadway and struck an anchor wire for a pole.

Lewis was transported to Lawrence Memorial Hospital.

The KHP reported she was properly restrained at the time of the accident.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — At least three southwest Missouri school districts are considering switching to four-day school weeks.

The Springfield News-Leader reports the Miller, Pierce City and Stockton districts are studying whether to have school next year only from Tuesday through Friday.

Missouri law allows four-day weeks but the school year still must provide at least 1,044 hours. Stockton Superintendent Shannon Snow says that district plans to increase its hours from 1,066 to 1,080 by making each day 30 minutes longer.

The Miller district forecasts the switch could save up to $175,000 a year in fuel, utilities, hourly salaries and by reallocating some work.

TROY, Mo. (AP) — The attorney for a woman who helped stage a 6-year-old’s kidnapping says she and three others may be guilty of bad judgment but not criminal behavior.

Lawyer Charles James is representing the 58-year-old, whom authorities say helped plot the kidnapping with the boy’s mother, a 38-year-old woman and a 23-year-old man to teach him about stranger danger.

James tells the St. Louis Post-Dispatch the charges against the four are like taking care of a “small nail with a sledgehammer.”

James says all three women and the boy lived together in Troy. He says the child called his client and the 38-year-old his grandmother and aunt respectively, but they aren’t blood relatives.
Authorities say the man is the 38-year-old’s co-worker and lured the child into his vehicle last week.

COLUMBIA (AP) – Television game show host Alex Trebek and his wife have donated an undisclosed amount of money to a new Stephens College screenwriting program.

The online graduate program in TV and film writing at the women’s college in Columbia sends students to Jim Henson Company Studios in Hollywood for 10 days each semester.

Trebek and his wife Jean are friends of program director and Los Angeles screenwriter and playwright Ken LaZebnik, a Columbia native. The two families’ children attended school together.

The gift from the Alex and Jean Trebek Family Foundation will fund an endowed chair in screenwriting. The new faculty position will focus on the psychology of film and television characters.

School officials say they hope to boost the number of female writers in Hollywood.