KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City officials say someone dumped the bodies of five dead pit bulls or pit bull mixes in northern Kansas City.
City officials found the dead dogs Wednesday stuffed into four garbage bags along a dead-end street that is often a dumping site for trash.
City spokesman Chris Hernandez says investigators are reviewing video from cameras that were hung in the area to try and catch people who dump their trash. He says there is some evidence that the dogs were abused but that is still being investigated.
If the people who dumped the dogs are caught, they could face animal cruelty and illegal dumping charges.
COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — Despite significant precipitation this past winter, some soil in the Midwest may still not have recovered from recent drought.
University of Missouri-Columbia soil science professor Randal Miles says that soil in Missouri is still dry about 4 to 5 feet below the surface. He says that’s an improvement over last year, but it still could affect crops whose roots reach down that far for moisture.
Miles says much of the precipitation this past winter came in heavy doses instead of a long-term drizzly type of rain or snow that better replenishes the soil.
He says it could take another year of solid rain and snowfall for soil to get back to normal moisture levels.
Four people were hospitalized from a Thursday night I-70 crash in Lafayette County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reports a 2005 Mazda Tribute driven by Dale W. Noland, 30, St. Louis was west bound on I-70 at milepost 61.8.
At 9:42 p.m. the vehicle was changing lanes and the trailer it was hauling jackknifed. The vehicle overturned.
Noland was transported to the hospital in Sweet Springs. Two passengers in the vehicle from St. Louis Davohn W. Noland, 7, and Daylen T. Noland, 3, were transported to I-70 Medical. A third passenger Kyra A. Noland, 30, was transported to I-70 Medical and then flown to a hospital in Columbia.
The MSHP reports the children were not wearing seat belts.
Northwest Missouri State University Provost Dr. Doug Dunham will resign his position, effective June 30, to become vice president for academic affairs at Rockhurst University in Kansas City, the institutions announced today.
Dunham, who came to Northwest in 1995 as an assistant professor in the Department of Behavioral Sciences, has served as the University’s chief academic officer since 2010. He was appointed interim provost in 2009 and also served Northwest as associate provost; interim director of the Office of Assessment, Information and Analysis; and chair of the Department of Behavioral Sciences from 2005 to 2007.
Dunham said the move is a personal and professional decision, and acknowledged it is difficult for him to leave Northwest.
“I have grown as a person, as a faculty member, as a member of a team and as a leader,” Dunham said. “This growth has occurred not only because of the opportunities and challenges I have had, but more importantly because of the people.
“I will be leaving a community that has highly capable and dedicated people who bring a level of expertise and genuine concern for the University, its students, its employees and one another that it is tough for me to fully appreciate at this point how difficult it will be for me to leave.”
Dunham also expressed pride in the work of the University’s Dean’s Council– a team of institutional leaders that meets regularly to discuss issues and determine policy related to academics – and that group’s accomplishments during his five years in the provost office.
“They, too, are a highly competent, caring, compassionate team of people who are constantly focused on the success of our students and care about one another,” Dunham said. “They are all leaders and, individually and collectively, will continue to advance the University.”
Northwest President Dr. John Jasinski commended Dunham’s ability to address issues related to access, affordability and quality within and across academic lines. Jasinski also credited Dunham for playing an important role in Northwest achieving 100 percent of the funding appropriated to the University under the state’s performance-based funding model during the last two years as well as its successes with accreditation and job placement. Northwest’s most recent data show 97.4 percent of its students earning an undergraduate degree and 99 percent for graduate students land a job or enroll in additional degree programs within six months of graduating.
“Doug has been a stalwart Bearcat,” Jasinski said. “Whether it be through teaching, advising, serving in a variety of positions, or protecting and advancing academic quality through his leadership as our chief academic officer, he has been student focused.
“Doug has helped hone our student success model, shepherded a number of improvements within our processes and drive programming changes focused on student and employer needs. Ultimately, he has been a champion for our students as we help provide a more educated citizenry and for our faculty. We wish him the best and he will remain a Bearcat in his support of our exciting efforts moving forward.”
Dunham holds a doctorate degree in experimental psychology with an emphasis in psychophysiology from Washington University in St. Louis. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in psychology from Ball State University in Muncie, Ind. In addition, he received advanced training in his field at the Washington University School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry where he completed a post-doctoral fellowship through a grant from the National Institutes of Alcoholism and Abuse.
Rockhurst University is one of 28 Catholic, Jesuit universities in the United States and is the only institution in the Kansas City area to have earned the community engagement classification from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. Dunham was selected after a nationwide search led by an internal search committee.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill will host public town hall meetings and other events with local leaders across Missouri next week to hear directly from Missourians on how to continue expanding job and business opportunities.
Beginning Monday, “McCaskill on Main Street” will bring the Senator to communities across the state where she will hear ideas and concerns from constituents, answer questions, and give a firsthand update about her ongoing work in the Senate to boost jobs.
“I get my best ideas not from Washington, but from folks on the ground in Missouri-and these meetings are another chance for me to hear directly from families and businesses, and to directly answer their questions,” McCaskill said. “We’ve made a lot of progress these past few years, creating millions of jobs and pulling our economy out of the ditch, but there are some commonsense ideas still on the table to build on that success. And I look forward to talking directly with Missourians about how to keep moving in a positive direction.”
McCaskill has worked with Republican colleagues including Senator Rob Portman of Ohio to write the Federal Permitting Improvement Act, to cut through federal red tape and expedite job-creating infrastructure projects. She has also joined with a bipartisan group of Senators, including Missouri Senator Roy Blunt, to introduce two innovative infrastructure proposals: the Building and Renewing Infrastructure for Development and Growth in Employment (BRIDGE) Act and the Partnership to Build America Act, both of which would provide hundreds of billions of dollars in loans and loan guarantees for infrastructure projects without the use of federal tax dollars.
McCaskill also recently introduced legislation to crack down on “patent trolls,” companies that threaten jobs and small businesses.
Details for each of McCaskill’s town halls and other public events will be announced in advance.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s Republican-led House has passed legislation setting the state’s 2016 presidential primary for March 15.
Missouri previously held its party primary in February, but faced losing some delegates to the 2016 Republican convention because of new party rules.
The Republicans only want four states — Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada and South Carolina — to hold contests in February. States that hold primaries before the March 15 date must also award delegates proportionally, not on a winner-take-all basis.
Sponsoring Rep. Tony Dugger, a Hartville Republican, says the bill ensures Missouri will be relevant in selecting the 2016 presidential nominee. Opponents say holding the primary in April when municipal elections take place would save money.
The House sent the bill to the Senate Thursday on a 97-48 vote.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — NASA has selected a Lawrence business to develop a drone for high-altitude air sampling.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports NASA and KalScott Engineering Inc. are in the contract phase of the nearly $1 million unmanned air vehicle project.
The drone is expected to provide data for earth science programs at NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Other possible uses could include military or civilian surveillance, cell and GPS services and wildlife and crop surveys.
The Federal Aviation Administration hasn’t yet formalized rules for flying drones in the United States.
NASA says KalScott’s was one of 108 projects totaling $87 million selected for part of NASA’s Small Business Innovation Research Program.
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri schools would be barred from electronically tracking students if legislation passed by the state Senate ultimately becomes law.
The legislation approved Thursday would prohibit public school districts from using “radio frequency identification technology” to track to location of students or transmit information about them.
The technology already is used to identify livestock and pets, track inventory for businesses and allow cars to pass by electronic toll readers without stopping to pay.
Republican Sen. Ed Emery, of Lamar, is sponsoring the bill banning the devices to track students. Emery said he’s not aware of any Missouri schools that have sought to use the technology.
The Senate voted 27-5 for the bill, which now goes to the House.
DETROIT (AP) — Chrysler is recalling more than 49,000 Dodge Charger muscle cars because a connector can overheat and knock out low-beam headlights.
The recall affects 2011 and 2012 Chargers equipped with halogen headlamps. Dealers will inspect and replace for free the headlight wiring, bulbs and assemblies if necessary.
Canadian safety regulators say the problem could compromise driver visibility and lead to a crash. But Chrysler says it knows of no crashes or injuries. The problem is similar to one that led to a 2012 recall of Charger police cars.
The new recall covers 43,450 Chargers in the U.S., 2,850 in Canada, 375 in Mexico and 2,700 outside North America. Customers with concerns can call Chrysler at (800) 853-1403.
WASHINGTON – U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill today questioned Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Secretary Jeh Johnson during a hearing on DHS’s budget request for Fiscal Year 2015.
McCaskill, a former Missouri State Auditor and Chairman of the Subcommittee on Financial & Contracting Oversight, asked Secretary Johnson about the effectiveness of taxpayer-funded performance-based bonuses currently being awarded to highly paid Senior Executive Service (SES) employees.
“When the SES workforce was created, it sounded really good,” said McCaskill. “It sounded like what we were going to do is develop executive-level leaders and they were going to move through the government… that cross-pollination would be very important because the federal government is a large endeavor and having some kind of rotating superior executives that could help with government management issues sounded like a great idea. Well, that’s not what happened. What’s happened is these folks have burrowed in to the agencies where they work, and they never go anywhere. The vast majority of the SES personnel-and we’re up to 7,000 of them-have stayed in the same position and in the same organization for the entire SES portion of their career.”
A report by McCaskill’s oversight committee showed that the federal government spent more than $340 million on cash bonuses from 2008-2011 for SES employees. Additionally, nearly every member of the SES receives a bonus. In 2011, the federal government gave bonuses to 6,519 members of the SES, approximately 81% of all SES employees.
McCaskill continued: “[SES personnel] are highly compensated, and in many agencies of the government they get automatic bonuses no matter what-no matter if they’ve had a good year or a bad year-and many times those bonuses are five figures, so I just would like you to take a look at whether or not we should go back and acknowledge that the original goal of this was a wrong goal and we want to burrow in and get expertise, and look at it from a department-wide situation because you probably have a huge number of SESs at DHS.”
McCaskill, previously introduced bipartisan legislation to stop the awarding of bonuses to SES employees during budget cuts from sequestration, and sent a letter urging the head of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to study the effectiveness of these bonuses in improving the performance of managers and the agencies that they run.
McCaskill also questioned Johnson on the prevalence and oversight of contractors at DHS, saying, “It’s worrisome to me that we continue to increase the number, size, and complexity of contracts, but the contracting workforce continues to shrink. That is a recipe for disaster.”
Johnson said in response: “I agree that is a problem that should be addressed and I want to work with this committee and make sure we have that balance exactly right.”
KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Kansas City officials say someone dumped the bodies of five dead pit bulls or pit bull mixes in northern Kansas City.
