WASHINGTON DC– The new White House press secretary is from Kansas City.

Josh Earnest has been White House Special Assistant to the President, Principal Deputy Press Secretary and Chief of Staff.

On Friday, President Obama announced that Earnest would replace Jay Carney as the White House Press Secretary. Carney had held the demanding position for over three years.

Earnest attended Rice University, where he majored in political science and policy studies. He joined then-Senator Obama’s presidential campaign in March 2007 as his Iowa Communications Director.

He attended the private Barstow school in Kansas City.

JIM SALTER, Associated Press

 

ST. LOUIS (AP) – A federal appeals court in St. Louis has overturned a Missouri law that makes it a crime to burn or otherwise desecrate the American flag.

Frank Snider III of Cape Girardeau sued the southeast Missouri city after his 2009 arrest for cutting up a U.S. flag on the sidewalk outside his home, throwing it in the street and trying to set it on fire. Snider was jailed for eight hours, but prosecutors dismissed the charges after learning of a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed a similar law in Texas unconstitutional.

The Eighth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals on Friday upheld a 2012 lower court ruling that the law violated the First Amendment’s right to free speech. The American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri represented the Cape Girardeau man.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) released the following statement today regarding U.S. Secretary of Veterans Affairs (VA) Eric Shinseki’s resignation amid the VA scandal:

“I’ve long said these serious and systemic problems at the VA were never about one individual – and it will not be fixed until the president steps forward to take action and fix this failure on behalf of Americas’ heroes. President Obama must show leadership and give our veterans the care they deserve.”

This week, Blunt visited the John Cochran VA Hospital in St. Louis, Mo. and the Harry S. Truman Memorial Veterans’ Hospital in Columbia, Mo. to meet with officials and discuss mental health care at the VA. On May 12, 2014, Blunt joined U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill (Mo.) in sending a letter to the VA Secretary and the VA St. Louis Health Care System demanding answers regarding serious allegations of delays and inefficiencies at the John Cochran VA in St. Louis, Mo.

 

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — One of Missouri’s most prominent political activists has called Gov. Jay Nixon an “idiot” for vetoing an income tax cut.

Rex Sinquefield twice repeated the label while speaking Thursday at a forum hosted by the Heritage Foundation in Washington, D.C.

Nixon’s office had no immediate response Friday to Sinquefield’s comment.

Sinquefield is a retired investment firm executive who has poured millions of his own dollars into Missouri politics. One of his top quests has been to cut or eliminate Missouri’s income tax.

Nixon, a Democrat, has twice vetoed bills to cut the income tax. But the Republican-led Legislature earlier this month overrode Nixon’s veto to enact a law that will gradually reduce Missouri’s top individual income tax rate from 6 percent to 5.5 percent.

 

LINCOLN, Neb. (AP) — Experst say corn farmers in parts of southeast Nebraska can expect to take a hit on yields this year, thanks to a late spring freeze.

DuPont Pioneer seed account manager Ron German tells the Lincoln Journal Star that the May frost hit mainly from the Bennet area southeast to areas around Tecumseh.

German says about 10 percent of plants in affected fields won’t recover, and those that survive likely will yield 20 to 25 percent less corn.

Experts are not recommending replanting in most cases, because the late start on replanted corn also would mean reduced yields. German says only about 5 percent of fields were hit hard enough for replanting to pay off.

 

ST. LOUIS (AP) – The Missouri Supreme Court has set a July execution date for John Middleton, a methamphetamine dealer convicted of killing another drug dealer in western Missouri in 1995.

Middleton, who is 54, is scheduled to die at 12:01 a.m. July 16 at the state prison in Bonne Terre.

Missouri has executed four men this year and six since November. Another convicted killer, John Winfield, is scheduled to be put to death on June 18.

Meanwhile, Russell Bucklew’s execution, originally scheduled for May 21, remains on hold after the U.S. Supreme Court granted a stay over concerns that Bucklew’s rare medical condition could cause him to suffer during lethal injection.

Only Texas and Florida have performed more executions than Missouri in 2014.

QUICK CITY, Mo. (AP) – Johnson County Sheriff Chuck Heiss says a wanted felon who said he would not go back to prison died in a shootout with law enforcement officers.

Heiss says 54-year-old Ricky Lee Higgins died in the confrontation Wednesday in Quick City after he shot at officers.

The Warrensburg Daily Star-Journal reports Higgins was being sought on a parole violation. Officers went to a mobile home after the Missouri State Highway Patrol said Higgins was staying there.

Heiss says Higgins tried to escape by crawling out from under the mobile home. He says Higgins shot at officers at least twice before deputies fired 10 rounds, killing him.

Higgins was released from prison in December after serving 12 years for receiving stolen property and second-degree burglary.

BISMARCK, NORTH DAKOTA- A white supremacist who unsuccessfully tried to take control of a small North Dakota town is following through with plans to try to move to Missouri.

Sixty-two-year-old Craig Cobb late last month was sentenced to four years of probation for terrorizing residents of Leith, where he’d tried to establish an all-white enclave. The Missouri native said during his sentencing that he wants to go to that state to care for his mother.

North Dakota Corrections Department spokesman Tim Tausend says Cobb has made a formal request to Missouri to accept him through an interstate compact that regulates the supervision of adult offenders.

Tausend says Cobb has been living in Bismarck since his release from jail, where he spent nearly half a year before reaching a probation deal with prosecutors.