By Mike Lear, Missourinet
Tours of Missouri’s 178-year-old state penitentiary resumed today as work continues to save its oldest buildings.

The state and the City of Jefferson are splitting up to $2-million of the cost of mold remediation and roof repair in four buildings at the Missouri State Penitentiary in Jefferson City. Buildings dating as far back as 1868 had been going without major maintenance since the prison was decommissioned in 2004.

Mark Schreiber spent 42 years working for the Department of Corrections, much of it inside “the Walls,” where he developed a passion for its history. He has advocated for years to see those buildings saved and credits the state for setting this in motion.

“It’s very pleasing to see the progress that’s been made,” says Schreiber. “It’s the difference between night and day already, and to see that we’re moving forward and getting something done with the roofs, seeing that they’re doing something with the condition of the interiors of the buildings and how they’re sealing them and preserving them, it’s just really great.”

Crews are putting roofs on and remediating mold in three cell blocks that once held inmates like Charles Arthur “Pretty Boy” Floyd, James Earl Ray and Sonny Liston, and the gas chamber where 39 men and 1 woman were executed between 1938 and 1989.

Tours of the prison were suspended in September due to concerns about mold in some of those buildings. Director of the Jefferson City Convention and Visitors’ Bureau Diane Gillespie says she’s excited to see those tours resume, though for the first couple of months of the tour season the route will be “modified.”

“We will not have access to all four of the buildings,” explains Gillespie. “Currently Housing Unit 3 is going to need some additional work so that is going to take a little bit longer, but we will have access to Housing Unit 1 and Housing Unit 4 along with the gas chamber.”

She tells Missourinet the full tours and a full offering will open up after July 1.

“We’re filling up actually for August, September and October for the ghost tours,” Gillespie tells Missourinet. “At that time we’ll have full access to all four of the buildings, and actually we’ll be able to have maybe a little bit more access to some of the buildings than what we’ve had in the past.”

Schreiber, always the historian, notes there is a significant difference between the people working on those buildings now and those that would have worked on them during much of the prison’s use.

“Instead of the contractors that we have now it would have been inmates … offenders, which would have been called convicts back then,” says Schreiber. “We know that from even back in the 1920s when the roof burned off of A-Hall … we’ve got photographs that show the inmates putting the roof back on.”

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — The U.S. Department of Agriculture is announcing a new program that will provide $150 million to help small agriculture-related startups in rural areas that need cash to expand.

Secretary of Agriculture Tom Vilsack is in Cedar Rapids on Monday to announce the formation of the first Rural Business Investment Company, licensed by the USDA to establish a fund that will invest in businesses.

The money is coming from eight Farm Credit banks in six states.

New Orleans-based Advantage Capital Partners will choose the businesses to receive investment cash. The company, which has experience investing in small startups in rural areas, will manage the fund.

Vilsack says it’s the first step in USDA plans this summer to create a buzz about business activity in the nation’s rural areas.

ST. LOUIS (AP) – Industry and special interest groups have spent more than $200,000 in the last three years on trips for Missouri lawmakers.

Records reviewed by The St. Louis Post-Dispatch showed the travel-related spending in many cases included airline tickets, hotel rooms, meals and convention fees. While the lobbyist spending is legal in Missouri, critics say the practice creates conflicts of interest when legislators go to vote on issues important to those lobbyists and industries.

Those who defend lobbyist spending say providing trips focused on giving lawmakers valuable information is not the same thing as plying legislators with perks.

The Missouri Biotechnology Association, which promotes the growth of Missouri’s biotechnology and biomedical industries, spent more than $40,000 between 2011 and 2013 on tours of Missouri biotech facilities and other events in Missouri.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri lawmakers are poised to send Gov. Jay Nixon legislation to overhaul the state’s criminal laws.

House Majority Leader John Diehl says the chamber will vote on a measure that passed the Senate earlier this year. An affirmative House vote would send the bill to Nixon, who has expressed concern over the bill’s size and scope.

The measure creates new classes of felonies and misdemeanors, and reorganizes crimes to fit the new penalty structure.

Some crimes, such as possessing small amounts of marijuana for the first time, would be punished less severely than under current law. But other crimes, including child molestation, would carry longer possible prison sentences.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri House members plan to advance legislation that seeks to address a student transfer law requiring unaccredited school systems to pay for students who want to attend better-performing schools in nearby districts.

A House committee could vote on a measure this week, and leaders say the student transfer measure could be debated by the full House next week. Legislation passed the Senate in February.

Republican House member Rick Stream says there likely will be changes to what the Senate approved. He says the changes could involve the tuition paid by sending school districts, charter schools and attempts to prevent borderline districts from slipping.

The deadline to pass new legislation is May 16.

NEW YORK (AP) – Kraft Foods is recalling 96,000 pounds of its Oscar Mayer wieners because they may mistakenly contain cheese.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Food Safety and Inspection Service said Sunday that Kraft’s “Oscar Mayer Classic Wieners” may instead contain the company’s “Classic Cheese Dogs.”

The agency said the product labels are incorrect and do not reflect the ingredients associated with the pasteurized cheese in the cheese dogs. Those products were made with milk, a known allergen, which is not declared on the label.

It said the problem was discovered by a consumer who notified Kraft on Friday. The company alerted the USDA the following day, according to the statement.

The Food Safety and Inspection Service said it has not received reports of adverse reactions. A representative for the agency wasn’t immediately available for comment.

A representative for Kraft Foods Group Inc., Joyce Hodel, said in an email that the hot dogs were made in a plant in Columbia, Mo.

The products were made in early March and bear the number “Est. 537H” inside the USDA mark of inspection. People with questions about the recall are being asked to contact Kraft’s consumer relations department at (855) 688-4386.

The recall applies to:

-16-ounce individual consumer packages of “Classic Wieners Made with Turkey & Chicken, Pork Added,” with a “USE BY 16 Jun 2014” date and product code “044700000632.”

-Cases of 16-ounce packages that were distributed to retailers of “Classic Cheese Dogs Made with Turkey & Chicken, Pork Added, and Pasteurized Cheese Product,” with “USE BY 16 Jun 2014” date and case code “00447000005300.”

Those cases may contain packages that are mislabeled as “Classic Wieners,” according to Hodel.

DINA CAPPIELLO, Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) — A study paid for by the federal government says biofuels made from the leftovers of harvested corn plants are worse than gasoline for global warming in the short term.

The research published in the journal Nature Climate Change challenges the Obama administration’s conclusions that biofuels are a much cleaner oil alternative and will help fight climate change.

The study is being criticized by the biofuels industry and Obama administration as flawed.

Corn residue is one of the most promising ways to make cellulosic biofuels. Biofuels have struggled to reach the volumes required by law.

The administration and biofuel supporters claim biofuels are better for the environment than are gasoline and corn ethanol.

A 2007 law requires that they release 60 percent less carbon than gas to qualify as renewable fuel.

 

SPRINGFIELD (AP) – The last known Pearl Harbor survivor living in the Ozarks has died.

The Springfield News-Leader reports William Martin died last week at age 90. His family said Martin died in the Missouri Veterans Home in Mount Vernon.

Martin was 18 when Japanese planes bombed a U.S. naval base in Hawaii on Dec. 7, 1941. Martin, a gunner’s mate on the USS Nevada, told the News-Leader in 2010, he had plans to tour the Hawaiian island early that morning, but when the planes attacked he said he jumped behind his anti-aircraft gun and started firing. He lost one eye in the attack, and was awarded the Purple Heart in 1988.

Martin spent six months recovering in a San Francisco hospital before being discharged from the Navy and returning to Springfield.