(AP) – An effort by a Kansas City group on behalf of a 41-year-old man detained by immigration officials has apparently failed.

Josue Noe Sandoval-Perez was arrested in mid-January in Kansas City and held since Jan. 22 by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for immigration violations.

Communities Creating Opportunity, a Kansas City faith-based nonprofit, rallied against his deportation, saying he has a wife and two children. CCO says Sandoval-Perez’s children are in the U.S. legally, while Sandoval-Perez and his wife, were not. Sandoval-Perez had been in the U.S. more than decade.

ICE says that as of late Friday Sandoval-Perez had been turned over to Mexican authorities. ICE says Sandoval-Perez was a deportation priority because he’d re-entered the U.S. illegally after being removed in 1998.

CCO didn’t immediately return a call for comment.

Following her two-year-long fight to renew the Farm Bill, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill praised this week’s bipartisan compromise agreement on a renewal, and said she hopes it represents the beginning of the end of needless dysfunction on critical legislation.

“This bipartisan legislation will provide needed resources for Missouri’s farmers and ranchers, and will boost jobs and businesses across my state-and I sincerely hope it’s the first of many agreements that mark a renewed ability to compromise, and that will turn the corner on needless dysfunction in Congress,” McCaskill said. “Missouri’s farmers and ranchers, and our rural communities have paid the price for that dysfunction. We need to do better.”

For the past two years, the U.S. Senate has passed a renewal of the Farm Bill with wide bipartisan majorities that managed to cut billions of dollars of spending, while protecting America’s farmers, ranchers, and low-income families. The U.S. House repeatedly failed to act on the comprehensive legislation. Earlier this year the House-unable to pass a comprehensive bill-split the Farm Bill into two separate pieces and passed them individually, on party-line votes. This allowed a conference committee to be formed between the Senate and House which, following months of negotiations, has merged the two bills into a compromise package.

Last year McCaskill also wrote a letter (available online HERE) to members of the Conference Committee urging them to place a cap on the total amount individual farmers can receive of $250,000 – a change that would save taxpayers over $160 million a year. “We believe farm programs should offer support in tough times, but like other economic safety nets, the assistance should have limits,” the letter read. McCaskill also joined with her Republican colleague Jeff Flake of Arizona to urge the conference committee to end wasteful Direct Payments – direct cash transfers of taxpayer dollars to farmers from the government that do not take into account current yields or prices.

McCaskill vowed to continue working in future legislation to strengthen those caps.

The compromise Farm Bill announced this week:

Creates a Permanent Livestock Disaster Assistant Program, and will provide retroactive payments for producers who suffered losses after the previous Farm Bill expired in late 2011-a significant improvement upon previous livestock disaster provisions, which were ad-hoc or temporary;
Ends Direct Payments and replaces them with a program of crop insurance options to ensure farmers and ranchers retain a basic safety net;
Saves more than $8 billion in the SNAP (“food stamp”) program without negatively impacting Missourians who rely on this assistance;
And provides a year of full funding for the Payment In Lieu of Taxes (PILT) program, which provides funding for vital services in Missouri communities containing federal lands.
McCaskill’s advocacy on the Farm Bill was honored last year at the Golden Triangle Award Ceremony for the National Farmers Union, where she accepted the group’s highest legislative honor awarded to sitting members of Congress in recognition of her leadership working on behalf of Missouri’s rural communities.

(AP) — Give me a high five! And make it official.

If a Missouri lawmaker gets his way, the “high five” could become “the official greeting in the state of Missouri.”

The legislation is proposed by House Democrat Courtney Curtis, of the St. Louis suburb of Berkeley.

Curtis says the high five is “friendly, fun and can lift spirits,” even in a tense work place like the state Capitol. And it’s something Democrats and Republicans can both do — together.

Missouri already has a couple of dozen official symbols, including a state dinosaur, folk dance and musical instrument.

One of the most recent additions to the official list was the state dessert, the ice cream cone. Now how about a high five for that!

 

 

– With snow and freezing rain in the forecast, Missouri travelers are advised to use caution if traveling this weekend.

If you must travel, take your mobile phone and winter survival supplies. If you become stranded, stay with your vehicle and call 911. Be aware that emergency responders may have difficulty reaching you. Remember the following winter driving tips:

•·       Wear your seat belt.

•·       Slow down, and adjust your speed to the conditions.

•·       Give snow plows plenty of room.

•·       Keep your windshield and windows clear to help you see.

•·       Be alert and remember that road conditions can change very quickly.

•·       Allow extra travel time to get to you

Farmers have a new set of free tools to help them make crop decisions.
University of Missouri Extension agricultural economist Ray Massey and Pat Guinan, climatologist for MU Extension Commercial Agriculture, are collaborating with participants across the nation to make information easily available.
Massey and Guinan recently presented at MU’s Crop Management Conference in Columbia.

The websites are important because access to historical climate data helps farm operations that depend on favorable temperatures and precipitation patterns, Massey said.
In October, the Midwestern Regional Climate Center (MRCC) began offering online data free of charge, Guinan said. Previously, much of the climate center’s data archive was available only by subscription.
The MRCC is a cooperative program of the Illinois State Water Survey and the National Climatic Data Center. Information is available at mrcc.isws.illinois.edu/CLIMATE. MRCC’s Application Tools Environment, or “cli-MATE,” offers data with easy-to-read visuals for free.

Customizable charts include growing season statistics, frost/freeze probabilities and information on degree days.
The Vegetation Impact Program (VIP), at mrcc.isws.illinois.edu/VIP, monitors and assesses real-time information from MRCC on the same website. MU collaborates with other universities and agencies across the United States on this site. Data from VIP helps producers with frost and freeze guidance, stress degree days and the Keetch-Byram Drought Index. Information on chilling hours is being developed.
MU Extension also offers Horizon Point at agebb.missouri.edu/horizonpoint. There are rainfall runoff estimators, weed scouting aids, insect scouting aids, fall nitrogen application charts and planting-depth soil temperature, among the many offerings. Users can subscribe to receive advisories by email.

Missouri’s Mesonet presents information from weather stations in 30 locations, 20 of which are real-time. A new station in Lawrence County is set to go live in 2014. The Mesonet site is agebb.missouri.edu/weather/stations.
The Community Collaborative Rain, Hail and Snow Network (CoCoRaHS) includes information from several hundred precipitation observers in Missouri counties at www.cocorahs.org. Users may also sign up to be a CoCoRaHS weather observer.
MU is one of 12 partners in the new five-year “Useful to Usable” (U2U) project to provide decision tools on climate, growing degree days, split nitrogen application and crop water use in the nation’s Corn Belt. U2U is at drinet.hubzero.org/groups/u2u.
U2U has two online decision-support tools: AgClimate View provides a historical view of climate and yield across the Corn Belt. Growing Degree Day allows producers to enter planting date and hybrid to obtain estimates of when critical events such as silking, black layer and freeze might occur.
Yield data for corn and soybean can be plotted and compared over a five-year period on the U2U site. The interactive site also lets users compare nitrogen application using variable prices and percentages.
The Missouri Climate Center, through MU’s Department of Soil, Environmental and Atmospheric Sciences, offers numerous weather and climate-related articles and resources at climate.missouri.edu.
Climate Basic is a new free data system offering weather, soil and crop data at a field level. You can sign up for this service at www.climate.com and enter University of Missouri in the “agent” field.
Guinan says there are many freely available climate resources on the Web, ranging from global to local. Some of these include:
National Climatic Data Center, www.ncdc.noaa.gov
NOAA Climate Portal, www.climate.gov
Regional Climate Centers, www.ncdc.noaa.gov/customer-support/partnerships/regional-climate-centers
State Climate Offices, www.stateclimate.org
National Weather Service, www.weather.gov
Climate Prediction Center, www.cpc.ncep.noaa.gov
MU also has several other agronomy weather sites that are in beta testing.

U.S. Senator Roy Blunt (Mo.) issued the following statement today regarding the latest report by the U.S. Department of State on the Keystone XL Pipeline:

“Enough stalling. More American energy means more American jobs – and this shovel-ready project would create tens of thousands of American jobs at no cost to taxpayers. President Obama needs to use his pen to approve the Keystone XL Pipeline now.”

(AP) – Gov. Jay Nixon has set an Aug. 5 special election to fill three vacant Missouri House seats.

Nixon announced the House election dates Friday, but he did not call for a vote to replace Sen. Ryan McKenna, who he appointed in December as the state labor director.

The 120th House District has been vacant since Republican Jason Smith, of Salem, resigned in June upon winning a special election to Congress.

The two other House seats opened up in December. Democratic Rep. Steve Webb, of Florissant, resigned while facing criminal charges. Republican Rep. Dennis Fowler, of Advance, resigned when Nixon appointed him to the state Board of Probation and Parole.

The special election announcements come as Nixon is facing a lawsuit seeking to compel him to call the elections.

(AP) – A new report from the U.S. State Department on the Keystone XL pipeline has drawn varying reactions in Kansas, where a separate section of the Keystone pipeline is operating.

The State Department on Friday raised no major environmental objections to the $7 billion pipeline from Canada, though the report stops short of recommending its approval. Keystone XL would travel through Montana and South Dakota before reaching Nebraska. An existing spur runs through Kansas and Oklahoma to Texas.

Sen. Jerry Moran, a Republican, says in a release the report should push the “job-creating, domestic energy-producing project forward.”

But Marion County Commissioner Dan Holub says the six counties in Kansas where the pipeline runs through “got no big jobs,” and he says he’s also concerned about the possibility of a spill.

U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill released the following statement after the Response Systems Panel-an expert group created in the 2013 annual defense bill to study how to curb sexual assaults in the military-announced interim findings that recommend against stripping military commanders of their ability to launch courts-martial:

“After an exhaustive and careful study of the issue, these independent and diverse experts have reached an unequivocal conclusion-stripping commanders of their ability to launch courts-martial in sexual assault cases would not result in more prosecutions of predators or more protections for victims. Just weeks ago, we passed into law an historic re-write of the military justice system to curb these heinous crimes, with reforms grounded in sound policy. And as we aggressively implement those reforms, this panel’s diligent work is providing us with crucial information that must inform any future debate about alternative proposals.”

The Response Systems Panel was set up as part of the 2013 National Defense Authorization Act to examine the military’s response to reports of sexual assault and to make recommendations to improve that response. Today’s interim findings by the “Role of the Commander Subcommittee”- which come just weeks after Congress passed historic reforms to the military justice system – were issued by a panel subcommittee which heard testimony from McCaskill last year. These findings reject an alternative legislative proposal by Senator Kirsten Gillibrand that would strip commanders of their responsibilities in sexual assault cases-and specifically refutes several assertions by proponents of the Gillibrand alternative.

The findings (available online HERE) read, in part:

Based on all information considered to this point, a strong majority of Subcommittee members agrees the evidence does not support a conclusion that removing authority to convene courts-martial from senior commanders will reduce the incidence of sexual assault or increase reporting of sexual assaults in the Armed Forces. Nor does the evidence indicate it will improve the quality of investigations and prosecutions or increase the conviction rate in these cases. Further, the evidence does not support a conclusion that removing such authority will increase confidence among victims of sexual assault about the fairness of the military justice system or reduce their concerns about possible reprisal for making reports of sexual assault. As a result, the Subcommittee’s assessment at this time is that the authority vested in senior commanders to convene courts-martial under the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ) for sexual assault offenses should not be changed.

The expert panel previously issued findings, based on detailed analysis of U.S. military allies that had removed military commanders from any role in prosecutions, which found that those countries saw no corresponding increase in reporting of military sexual assault. The panel also reported that the reason our allies chose to change their systems was often to strengthen the rights of the accused-not to increase reporting of military sexual assault.

McCaskill grilled military leaders last year in several Senate hearings and introduced legislation – which has since been passed into law-that curtailed the authority of military commanders to dismiss jury convictions against sex offenders. That proposal became law as part of last year’s annual defense bill, which ultimately included a host of historic reforms to curb sexual assaults in the military, including:

Stripping commanders of the ability to overturn jury convictions,
Requiring civilian review if a commander declines to prosecute a case,
Assigning victims their own independent legal counsel to protect their rights and fight for their interests,
Mandating dishonorable discharge for anyone convicted of sexual assault,
Criminalizing retaliation against victims who report a sexual assault,
And eliminating the statute of limitations in rape and sexual assault cases.
The Obama Administration recently released comments supporting of these historic reforms, and urging Congress to give these reforms the time they need to succeed.