(AP) The director of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum says he plans to retire in May.
Michael Devine has led the library in Independence since 2001. The 69-year-old Devine plans to stay in the job until after several events are held to honor Truman’s birthday on May 8.
During Devine’s tenure, the Truman Library built a gallery to maintain Truman’s working office at the museum. Devine also supervised the completion of the White House Decision Center.
Devine says he is proud of partnerships the library formed with other groups to tell Truman’s story, such as the Bennett Forum, which brought several high-profile speakers to Independence to discuss American presidents and their cabinets.
(AP) — A Missouri House committee has endorsed legislation requiring voters to show official photo identification at polling places.
The House Elections Committee on Wednesday adopted a bill and a proposed constitutional amendment to implement the change.
Republicans supported the measures and argued they were necessary to prevent election fraud.
The bill would let people obtain one government-issued ID free of charge. It would also allow voters who can’t afford an ID or were born before 1941 to cast provisional ballots.
Missouri voters would need to approve the constitutional amendment in November for the legislation to take effect.
DETROIT (AP) — General Motors is recalling nearly 780,000 compact cars in North America because the engines can shut down unexpectedly and cause crashes. The company says six people have been killed in crashes related to the problem.
The recall affects Chevrolet Cobalts and Pontiac G5s from the 2005 through 2007 model years.
U.S. safety regulators say the weight of the key ring and rough roads can move the ignition switch out of the run position, cutting the engine and electricity. If that happens, air bags may not work.
GM says there have been 22 crashes from the problem. All were off the road and happened at high speeds.
Dealers will replace the ignition switch for free. GM says owners should remove nonessential items from key rings until the problem is fixed.
(AP) — Some Missouri House members have filed legislation that would make them subject to the state’s open-records law.
The legislation was introduced Wednesday by Democrat John Mayfield, of Independence. It follows a 2013 report by Republican State Auditor Tom Schweich that criticized the Legislature for adopting a double standard on open records.
The Legislature has interpreted the Sunshine Law to apply to the full House and Senate, committees and staff members, but not to individual lawmakers. That means documents and emails in the possession of individual lawmakers are considered exempt from public disclosure.
Mayfield said his bill to make individual legislators comply with the Sunshine Law would bring greater transparency to the Legislature. The bill has 22 co-sponsors.
University of Kansas Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little is scheduled to appear before a legislative committee Thursday to renew a request for state help in financing a state-of-the-art classroom building at its medical school.
In testimony to the Joint Committee on State Building Construction, Gray-Little is expected to say that the $75 million building is urgently needed to meet accreditation standards and to accommodate new ways of teaching that emphasize active learning in small-group settings over note taking in large lecture halls.
“We want to make sure that we have a facility that is adequate to (meet) those standards and that provides us with an opportunity to educate our medical students the way that medical students are educated now rather than the way they were educated 50 years ago,” Gray-Little said in a recent interview.
The proposed structure would replace one built on the school’s Kansas City, Kan. Campus in 1976 that university officials say is outdated and needs $5.3 million of repairs.
The new building also would allow the university to do more address the growing shortage of physicians across the state, Gray-Little said.
“Part of the reason for the health education building is to allow us to expand the size of our classes,” she said. “We are 39th in terms of the number of physicians for the population. We need to replace physicians at a much higher rate that we’re (now) able to do.”
The university’s plan is to increase students on its Kansas City campus to 200 per class year instead of the current 175.
The university has authority to issue $75 million in bonds to finance construction of the building, but Gray-Little said it can’t afford to move forward with the project unless lawmakers and Gov. Sam Brownback agree to cover $40 million of the cost.
“This would be a partnership between the state, the university and private donors to make this possible,” she said.
At the start of the session, the governor proposed restoring some of the $33 million in higher-education cuts approved last year. But his budget proposals didn’t include any money for the health education building.
The university is requesting that the state provide $15 million over several years to help it pay off the bonds. In addition, the university wants to use $25 million recently returned to the state to compensate it for Social Security contributions made on behalf of medical school residents that were subsequently deemed unnecessary.
An attempt last week by Sen. Laura Kelly, a Topeka Democrat, to add $1.5 million to the fiscal 2015 budget to cover the first debt-service payment failed on a tie vote. She said she is hoping that the chancellor will make a strong enough case to switch a vote or two.
“Some members have expressed an interest in knowing more,” Kelly said. “So, that’s why we asked the chancellor and officials from the Med Center to come over here and educate the committee.”
The committee is scheduled to meet at noon Thursday in room 159-South at the Statehouse.
U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) voted today to pass a bipartisan bill to protect military retirement pay for America’s servicemen and women who enlisted before January 1, 2014.
“I was proud to vote for this bill today, which restores our promise to the brave servicemen and women and their families who have sacrificed so much to protect America,” said Blunt, who is one of three members to serve on both the defense authorizing and appropriating committees in the U.S. Senate.
Blunt previously co-sponsored U.S. Senator Kelly Ayotte’s (N.H.) legislation, “Keeping Our Promise to Our Military Heroes Act,” which would replace the military retiree benefit cuts by making a simple fix to the U.S. tax code. Ayotte’s bill would require filers to have Social Security Numbers in order to qualify for the Additional Child Tax Credit (ACTC). The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimates that this change will save approximately $20 billion over 10 years.
In December 2013, Blunt also co-sponsored a “sense of the Senate” resolution that was introduced by U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss (Ga.) and stated Armed Forces retirees should not unfairly bear the burden of excessive government spending, and the Senate should seek alternatives to the military retirement provisions in the budget.
One man was injured in a Wednesday night crash in Harrison County.
According to the Missouri State Highway Patrol 28 year old Christopher A. Bain of Ames, Iowa was driving a 1994 Chevy 1500 truck north on Route D, a mile west of Bethany on Wednesday evening.
The truck began sliding on the snow covered road, left the west side of the road, struck an embankment, and came to rest facing northwest in a ditch. Bain was taken to Harrison County Community Hospital. He was wearing a seat belt.
(AP) – A federal judge has temporarily blocked an Oklahoma pharmacy from selling a drug to the Missouri Department of Corrections for use in an upcoming execution.
The judge agreed late Wednesday to issue a temporary restraining order in a lawsuit filed by Missouri death row inmate Michael Taylor.
Taylor’s attorneys say the Department of Corrections contracts with The Apothecary Shoppe, a compounding pharmacy in Tulsa, to provide the drug set to be used in his Feb. 26 lethal injection.
The lawsuit says several recent executions involving the drug, compounded pentobarbital, indicate it will likely cause “severe, unnecessary, lingering and ultimately inhumane pain.”
The state hasn’t confirmed the pharmacy is the source for its drug. There was no immediate word on whether the ruling could delay the execution.
(AP) — Toyota is recalling 294,000 vehicles in North and South America for a skid-control software glitch.
No accidents or injuries have been reported.
Toyota Motor Corp. said Thursday the recall affects the RAV4 sport utility, Tacoma pickup and Lexus RX 350 luxury model, manufactured from March 2012 through December 2012.
Some 260,000 of the vehicles were sold in the U.S.
The Japanese automaker said the problem can cause stability control, anti-lock brakes and traction control to turn off, although standard braking will keep working.
The recall was announced Wednesday in North America along with a bigger global recall involving 1.9 million Prius hybrid vehicles, over a different software problem.
Toyota suffered massive recalls starting in 2009, affecting more than 14 million vehicles for problems including floor mats, gas pedals and brakes.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A Utah company is recalling about 90,000 pounds of beef jerky products that were mislabeled and didn’t list on the packaging the ingredient soy lecithin, an allergen.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s food safety service announced Tuesday that Salt Lake City-based Prime Snax Inc. is recalling products made before Feb. 2 that were shipped around the country.
The recall affects five of the company’s beef jerky brands: Arizona Jacks, Desert Star, Southwest Trail, Terrell and Kettle Creek.
Officials say there have been no reports of adverse reactions to the products.
Prime Snax CEO Kevin Howard says the recall was voluntary and a technical labeling mistake.
He says soy lecithin is used as part of a cleaning procedure during production, and regulators informed the company it should be listed on the label.
(AP) The director of the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum says he plans to retire in May.
