INDEPENDENCE (AP) – U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver has received the Harry S. Truman Award for Public Service.
Independence Mayor Eileen Weir presented the award to Cleaver, a Democrat, on Saturday in Independence. Before serving in Congress, Cleaver was a member of the Kansas City Council and became the mayor of Kansas City in 1991. He was also senior pastor at St. James United Methodist Church for 37 years.
The Kansas City Star reports that (http://bit.ly/1g00iC5 ) Cleaver said during the ceremony it’s important for everyone to find a way to serve their community.
Cleaver also said he and other Missouri lawmakers are working to put President Truman’s name on Union Station in Washington, D.C.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Gov. Jay Nixon has declared a state of emergency after recent storms and tornadoes swept through the state.
Nixon said in a release Sunday that the Missouri State Highway Patrol is helping residents in Orrick, where a tornado caused significant damage to homes and other buildings Saturday evening. A second tornado also took down trees and power lines near Marshall in Saline County. No injuries have been reported.
Nixon says the State Emergency Operations Center has been monitoring a storm system that’s also forecast to hit sections of Missouri later Sunday and urges Missouri residents to heed weather warnings.
He says he has activated the Missouri State Emergency Operations Plan, which allows state agencies to coordinate with local department to provide emergency services.
JOPLIN, Mo. (AP) — Joplin police say a 34-year-old man died in a Joplin theater and his body was discovered the next day.
Police say they don’t suspect foul play in the death of Justin M. Roark of Seneca. Police say Roark apparently attended a movie at the movie theater complex Thursday night and may have suffered a medical problem without anyone noticing.
The Joplin Globe reports a member of a cleaning crew found Roark’s body Friday morning seated in one of the theaters.
Jasper County Coroner Rob Chappel says toxicology tests are pending, but he anticipates ruling the death to be from natural causes.
With texting for many now second nature, law enforcement negotiators say they’re increasingly being called upon to defuse violent, unpredictable situations through the typed word.
Experts say it’s happened enough in the last five years to warrant new specialized training.
Outside Buffalo, New York, in March, a suspect who’d shot at Erie County Sheriff’s deputies was carrying on text exchanges with several relatives when negotiators got involved. Eventually, they persuaded him to surrender.
New York State Police spokeswoman Darcy Wells says texting isn’t ideal in a crisis, but if it’s all they have, troopers will engage.
It presents challenges. Negotiators say cues they take from a person’s tone of voice are lost and they worry their messages can be misinterpreted or delayed as they fumble to type.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri’s tax revenues have been falling short of expectations. Yet spending is on the rise in the Missouri Legislature.
Legislators this past week approved a $26.4 billion operating budget for the fiscal year that starts in July. It represents a greater than 6 percent increase over the current budget.
Yet state revenues for the current budget year are essentially flat and have fallen short of projections in three of the last four months.
House and Senate budget leaders acknowledge some concern, but they remain hopeful that revenues will still grow enough to fund everything in the budget.
If revenues continue to fall short of projections, it could be up to Gov. Jay Nixon to make budget cuts.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama sends his congratulations to Michael Sam, the first openly gay player drafted by an NFL team.
Obama calls the selection of Sam “an important step forward.”
Obama says that from the playing field to the corporate boardroom, gay and lesbian Americans, quote, “prove every day that you should be judged by what you do and not who you are.”
Sam was the Associated Press defensive player of the year in the Southeastern Conference. He was picked late Saturday in the third and final day of the NFL draft by the St. Louis Rams. Sam played college football at the University of Missouri and came out as openly gay in media interviews earlier this year.
WASHINGTON – Only months after an initial hearing examined one of the biggest fraud investigations in U.S. Army history, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today led a hearing on reports of waste and abuse in spending on sports-related marketing and sponsorships with organizations such as NASCAR and IndyCar.
Each year the National Guard spends more than $56 million on sports marketing with NASCAR and IndyCar, which amounts to 37 percent of its marketing and advertising budget. However in 2012, not a single National Guard soldier was recruited from the NASCAR sponsorship program. In 2013, the program generated fewer than 8,000 leads-far from the roughly 1,000,000 leads the National Guard needs to meet its annual recruiting goal of 50,000 soldiers.
“I really like NASCAR. And I love the National Guard even more than I like NASCAR. This hearing is not about demonizing NASCAR or the National Guard, this hearing is simply about return on investment of federal tax dollars-[it’s about] whether or not federal money is being used wisely, for the intended purpose, and getting the result desired as a result of that investment.” said McCaskill, a former Missouri State Auditor and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial & Contracting Oversight. “As I stated in February when examining the Guard’s Recruiting Assistance Program, I understand that aggressive recruiting is key to maintaining the strength of our military, but Congress has a responsibility to ensure that every taxpayer dollar spent produces measurable results. In this environment of dwindling recruiting budgets, I want to understand why the Army National Guard has maintained sports sponsorships that fail to reach target recruiting demographics, and also provide less value per dollar than other forms of marketing.”
McCaskill questioned Major General Judd Lyons, Acting Director of the National Guard, and Kathy Salas, the Principal Assistant Responsible for Contracting for the National Guard, on why the Guard continues these contracts when almost every other service branch has discontinued them, and on whether senior Guard officials had the potential to receive perks from NASCAR and Indycar from the sponsorship contracts.
The target demographic for the National Guard is primarily young adults between the ages of 18 and 24. However only 10 percent of NASCAR viewers are between 18 and 24. The average age of an IndyCar fan is between 35 and 54 years old.
The Army, the Navy, the Marine Corps, the Coast Guard, all of which used to sponsor NASCAR, have all decided to end these programs. The Regular Army ended its sponsorship with NASCAR in 2012 after concluding that the program had the highest cost per lead in the Army’s portfolio of sponsorships. The Marine Corps made the same decision in 2006, when it determined that the cost per impression of sponsoring a NASCAR team was almost impossible to measure. The Navy ended its own sponsorship of NASCAR in 2008 because the program was too expensive compared to the marketing benefit it received. And the Coast Guard ended its relationship with NASCAR in 2006 due to the cost of the sponsorship and only generating 350 leads for their $9.6 million investment.
WINSTON—A teenage driver was injured in Sunday crash in Daviess County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported the accident occurred as a 2012 Chevy Cruise driven by Nathan A. Glasgow, 18, Shawnee, KS, was northbound on I-35 one mile west of Winston. The vehicle was checked speeding 85 in a 70 miles per hour zone.
The vehicle traveled off the east side of the road, proceeded down an embankment, rolled several times and struck a tree.
Glasgow was transported to Liberty Hospital in serious condition.
What’s left to say about the ugly, racist views of Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling and the vocal reactions to his comments?
Well, from a First Amendment free expression perspective, several things — some of which may well resonate even longer than Sterling’s repugnant remarks and the lifetime ban imposed on him by Adam Silver, commissioner of the National Basketball Association.
Gene Policinski is senior vice president of the First Amendment Center
Sterling’s views came to light via a “leaked” audiotape given to a relatively new kind of news media, TMZ.com, which is positioned somewhere between a host of serious news media outlets and a long line of popular and widely read Hollywood gossip columns and magazines.
Not long ago, a digital media outlet like TMZ.com — and online phenoms such as Twitter and Facebook — would not have been able to create the kind of national discussion and rhetorical firestorm that followed the first TMZ.com reports of Sterling’s private-remarks-made-public.
But no longer.
A Pew Research Center’s journalism report on the State of the News Media 2014 found that “digital players have exploded onto the news scene, bringing technological knowhow and new money and luring top talent. BuzzFeed, once scoffed at for content viewed as ‘click bait,’ now has a news staff of 170.”
The Sterling incident was yet another example of what the First Amendment’s protection of speech is all about. The amendment restrains government from controlling or punishing most kinds of speech. But nothing in the 45 words shielded the billionaire from public revulsion over his views, suspended endorsement deals, instant campaigns to boycott Clipper tickets and a $2.5 million fine.
The widespread criticism of Sterling echoed earlier public revulsion over negative racial comments by Nevada rancher Cliven Bundy, who attracted national attention about the same time as Sterling. Welcome to another aspect of free speech protected by the First Amendment: the “marketplace of ideas.”
The amendment’s guarantee of freedom to speak one’s mind without government restriction or penalty doesn’t bring with it any assurance the speaker will find acceptance or be insulated from critics and negative public reaction. That particular civics lesson rings true across the political spectrum and over the last decade and more.
Still, some people are confused over what the First Amendment does and does not do. Witness what a CBS Radio report datelined from Charlotte, N.C., called a “Twitter firestorm” following the NBA sanctions against Sterling.
“I guess Donald Sterling is not allowed to use his First Amendment rights,” said one post attributed to “Joey Bag O’ Donuts.”
Calling the NBA sanctions “ridiculous,” another tweet, attributed to “Zac Palmer” asked, “Are we just taking his First Amendment rights away?”
Sterling may attempt some legal action against the person who made the tape — presumably without his knowledge. But that would be a civil lawsuit, likely involving state privacy laws in California where the tape is said to have been made. No First Amendment claim applies here — there is no government involvement. And for the record, there is no Fourth Amendment claim (unlawful search and seizure) either, for the same reason.
Owner groups govern their leagues but are not government. They are privately held associations, and when purchasing a team, that person or group agrees to abide by the association’s rules and regulations. In the NBA’s case, it’s Article 24(l) of the league’s constitution that empowered Silver to act in the “best interests of the Association.”
Silver said Sterling’s remarks were “contrary to the principles of inclusion and respect that form the foundation of our diverse, multicultural and multiethnic league.”
We’re more able to be heard and more likely to be heard by many in today’s digital world. But as Sterling and others have demonstrated all too well, we’re also more likely than ever to be held accountable by many for our views.
Or as one might tweet: “Freedom of speech works in both directions.”
Gene Policinski is chief operating officer of the Washington-based Newseum Institute and senior vice president of the Institute’s First Amendment Center. gpolicinski@newseum.org
Vicki Vossler, special education director for the Holton school district-Photo KHI News
By Dave Ranney
KHI News Service
TOPEKA — A panel of school officials today urged members of the Governor’s Behavioral Health Services Planning Council to propose a major overhaul of the state’s approach to educating children with serious emotional and behavioral problems.
“So many of these children are not seen as young people with mental health needs,” said Vicki Vossler, special education director in Holton. “They’re seen as young people with behavior problems or conduct problems. And the solution to those problems, all too often, is punishment.
“But punishment isn’t going to solve the problem,” she said. “We need to recognize that, and we need to be coming up with strategies for dealing with those behaviors.”
Dee McGee, who runs the special education program in Marysville, said she has been frustrated with state and federal policies and “red tape” that limit students’ access to school nurses, counselors and social workers.
“We’ve got to think differently,” McGee said.
Policymakers, she said, should rethink the practice of tying the students’ high school graduation to completion of college-bound coursework, which often has the effect of setting them up to fail.
“Since 70 percent of the future jobs do not require a college degree, we probably shouldn’t be telling everybody they need to get a regents university degree and take (college level) algebra and a foreign language,” McKee said. “Some of our children cannot do that, and they’re not going to meet the Lake Wobegon average by the fact that we want them to.”
Steve Wolfe, school superintendent in Erie, said school officials need to recognize that some hard-to-handle “kids have baggage – unbelievable baggage – that you may not know about. Once you hear their stories, your life will change.”
Beryl New, principal at Highland Park High School in Topeka, said she often reminds her teachers that many of the district’s students have post-traumatic stress disorder and “have been in their home multiple times when police have come in at 3 o’clock in the morning and dragged away a parent or significant family member in handcuffs.”
These students, she said, often struggle to succeed.
“They have the potential to do well,” New said. “But because of all the stressful situations they’ve been through, their performance declines.”
About 50 people attended the six-hour meeting, which also featured presentations by Laura Howard, administrator of the federal Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration regional office in Kansas City, and Alfonzo Dorsey, a director with the Kansas Housing Corporation.
“We’ll be incorporating what we heard today into our annual report to the governor,” said Wes Cole, chairman of the planning council. “This was really good information.”
Cole said the report should reach the Governor’s Office “sometime in June.”
