(AP) – Wintry weather has contributed to four deadly crashes on Missouri roads in two days.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol says one person died Friday morning in Camden County when a vehicle crashed into a minivan after sliding on ice. Later Friday morning in Phelps County, a second person died when a car lost control on an icy road and overturned.

A third person died around noon Friday in Franklin County when a vehicle lost control on an ice-covered bridge and veered into oncoming traffic. The fourth victim died Saturday morning in Henry County when a pickup truck began sliding and hit a tree.

The patrol identified the victims as 42-year-old Karla Brown of Camdenton, 16-year-old Charity Adams of Licking, 23-year-old Whitney Gabathuler of Herman and 80-year-old William Dulaban of Deepwater.

(AP) – A former University of Missouri-Kansas City is accused in a federal indictment of sending an instructor a series of threatening emails.

27-year-old Kenna Haight was arrested Thursday in Norfolk, Va., where she lives. A sealed cyberstalking indictment was returned against her in Kansas City two days earlier.

Haight is in federal custody and will be returned to Kansas City. Her attorney didn’t immediately return a phone call from The Associated Press.

Haight is accused of sending more than 100 threatening emails from September 2012 through this week. In one email, she is accused of stating that “homicidal fantasies” about the instructor were keeping her up at night. The last email reported in the indictment suggested that the instructor might be tortured and mutilated.

(AP) – Three southwest Missouri residents are planning to open a facility to brew mead.

The Springfield News-Leader reports the Buffalo-based Leaky Roof meadery will brew mead, an alcoholic drink that results from the combination of honey, warm water and yeast. The facility could be Missouri’s first dedicated meadery.

Leaky Roof’s Head Mead Maker Todd Rock says the company expects to begin distributing this month.

Rock estimates about $1 million has gone into the development of Leaky Roof. As with most meaderies, Leaky Roof will face the challenge of getting consumers to associate its product with a Friday night out, not just a Renaissance fair.

The company expects to launch with four varieties that will initially be available only on draft.

A southwest Missouri couple has been charged with killing an 87-year-old man after breaking into his home to steal his prescription medication.

48-year-old Brian Benefiel and 27-year-old Kelli Benefiel were charged Friday in Jasper County Circuit Court with first-degree murder, burglary and armed criminal action.

The probable cause statement says the Benefiels told police they beat and stabbed Raymond Ritchhart to death in his Carthage home. A neighbor discovered his body Monday night and called 911. The killing is believed to have taken place the day before.

Ritchhart is a retired farmer and World War II veteran.

(AP) – The case against a mid-Missouri teen charged with a yearbook prank can proceed.

A Boone County judge has denied a motion to dismiss a misdemeanor charge of tampering with computer data. The 17-year-old suspect was arrested in May after she was accused of changing a student’s last name to “Masturbate” in the 2012-13 Hickman High School yearbook.

The teen says she already has been punished with a 10-day suspension from school during finals week and received zeros on all of her exams.

The judge is still weighing whether to allow a written statement that the teen gave to school staff to be used against her. The teen’s attorney says any statements the teen made before her arrest shouldn’t be admissible.

(AP) – The family of former Kansas City Chiefs’ linebacker Jovan Belcher has had his body exhumed so that his brain can be examined for possible clues about why he killed his girlfriend and himself last year.

Family attorney Dirk Vandever said that Belcher’s body was taken Friday from the North Babylon Cemetery in Bay Shore, N.Y. Vandever didn’t immediately respond to Saturday phone and email messages from The Associated Press.

The examination of Belcher’s brain could help determine whether he had a destructive brain disease called chronic traumatic encephalopathy. The condition has been linked to head blows, and early signs in younger athletes can include mood changes.

The delay in conducting the examination might make it more difficult. But researchers say important scientific findings remain possible.

The Right to Farm and Ranch Amendment, foreign ownership of farmland, a new transportation sales tax, term limits, a new state beef checkoff, confidentiality of crop production data and a legal challenge to California’s state law on eggs were among the major issues discussed this year at Missouri Farm Bureau’s 99th Annual Meeting. Almost 1,100 members representing Missouri’s 113 county Farm Bureaus attended the meeting at the Lake of the Ozarks this week.

“There are many state and national issues on the minds of farmers these days that are important to the future of agriculture. At the forefront is approval by Missouri voters of Constitutional Amendment #1, Keep Missouri Farming, that will give constitutional protection to responsible and lawful farming practices,” said Blake Hurst, president of Missouri Farm Bureau. “At this year’s annual meeting we began discussing our game plan for passage of the amendment in 2014.”

During the debate on policy positions, more than 400 voting delegates expressed concern with the newly enacted state law that repeals Missouri’s longstanding and Farm Bureau-supported prohibition on foreign ownership of farmland. The new law allows up to 1 percent foreign ownership. Delegates adopted a policy opposing foreign ownership of Missouri farmland, thereby encouraging state legislators to revisit this issue in 2014.

Delegates voted to support efforts to place on the 2014 ballot a one-cent sales tax earmarked for transportation with a 10-year sunset clause. The policy went on to withhold Missouri Farm Bureau’s endorsement of the sales tax proposal until it is assured the funds are distributed fairly between the rural and urban areas and the funds will be used for road and bridge projects identified with considerable local input and support.

State legislative term limits were also on the minds of Farm Bureau delegates. A policy was adopted to support allowing state legislators to serve up to 16 years in the Senate, House or any combination thereof. Similar legislation was debated in the 2013 legislative session. Currently Missourians are restricted to serving eight years in the Senate and eight years in the House.

The delegates voted to support a voluntary state beef check-off program in addition to the current one dollar national beef check-off. Delegates believe the process should be transparent, approved by a referendum and efforts made to educate all Missouri cattle producers about the voter registration process required by State statute to participate in a check-off referendum. The new funds should be administered by the Missouri Beef Industry Council and only be used for promotion, education and research programs and not for legislative or lobbying purposes.

With satellite technology available today to accumulate real-time crop yield data from combine yield monitors, a policy was adopted stating that farmers should own whatever data is generated from their farms, that farmers should be compensated for their data when shared with third parties and that compilations of yield data should be shared with farmers who helped generate the data and only used for developing yield estimates with the farmers’ knowledge and permission.Policy was adopted supporting legal action announced during Missouri Farm Bureau’s annual meeting by Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster challenging California’s state law prohibiting the sale of eggs from out-of-state that are not produced in compliance with production standards that are as strict as California’s. In his remarks, the attorney general also announced that Missouri will join American Farm Bureau Federation’s litigation challenging EPA’s water quality initiative that preempts state authority by imposing regulatory restrictions directly affecting farmers and ranchers in the Chesapeake Bay area.

About 500 policy positions, new and renewed, were adopted at Missouri Farm Bureau’s annual meeting. Other major issues are as follows:

Renew call for Congressional approval of a Farm Bill.
Oppose making the state director of agriculture an elected position.
Support state efforts to revitalize Missouri’s dairy industry (including programs to assist dairy farmers, enhance dairy consumption in school nutrition programs and the repeal of the “Unfair Milk Practices Act.”)
Call for holding utilities to height, width and depth standards that accommodate modern farming practices, including subsoiling and chisel plowing.
Oppose implementation of Common Core education standards at the state and federal levels.
Encourage U.S. Forest Service officials to maximize their efforts in addressing oak decline within the Mark Twain National Forest that would optimize forest health while increasing rural economic growth.
Urge the Missouri Department of Conservation to assist landowners in eradicating wildlife that damages property or threatens human safety.
Oppose allowing third class counties to adopt county building codes.
Support for Renewable Fuel Standards 2 as passed by Congress.
Oppose allowing school districts to exceed 15 percent cap on bonding.
Support for increased Congressional oversight of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service river mitigation projects.
Urge the Department of Natural Resources to establish a streamlined process for declassifying waters that should not be classified under new classification standards.
Support education and enforcement regarding stream trespass to promote respect for private property rights.
Support banning texting while driving for all drivers.
– See more at: http://www.mofb.org/NewsMedia/News.aspx?articleID=423&articleYear=2013#sthash.b82OtQGO.dpuf

(AP) — The victim in a fatal head-on collision in southeast Kansas has been identified as a Pittsburg State University student.

30-year-old James Lee Potocnik was killed shortly before 1 a.m. Sunday on a highway north of Riverton when his SUV crossed the center line and struck a southbound tractor-trailer.

In a statement Monday, Pittsburg State officials said Potocnik was a junior majoring in electronics engineering. He was a native of the southeast Kansas town of Frontenac.

A Kansas man died in an early Saturday morning head on crash in Cherokee County.
According to the Kansas Highway Patrol thirty-year-old James L. Potocnik Jr. of Frontenac was driving a 2008 Chevy Trailblazer northbound on U69 Alternate, a mile north of Riverton.

His vehicle went left of center and hit a 2011 Freightliner semi truck head on. The semi was driven by 46 year old John A. Shaw of Kansas City. Potocnik died at the scene. It is not known if he was wearing a seat belt. Shaw was transported to the hospital in Joplin.

(AP) — China on Saturday successfully carried out the world’s first soft landing of a space probe on the moon in nearly four decades, the next stage in an ambitious space program that aims to eventually put a Chinese astronaut on the moon.

The unmanned Chang’e 3 lander, named after a mythical Chinese goddess of the moon, touched down on Earth’s nearest neighbor following a 12-minute landing process.

The probe carried a six-wheeled moon rover called “Yutu,” or “Jade Rabbit,” the goddess’ pet. After landing Saturday evening on a fairly flat, Earth-facing part of the moon, the rover was slated to separate from the Chang’e eight hours later and embark on a three-month scientific exploration.

China’s space program is an enormous source of pride for the country, the third to carry out a lunar soft landing — which does not damage the craft and the equipment it carries — after the United States and the former Soviet Union. The last one was by the Soviet Union in 1976.

“It’s still a significant technological challenge to land on another world,” said Peter Bond, consultant editor for Jane’s Space Systems and Industry. “Especially somewhere like the moon, which doesn’t have an atmosphere so you can’t use parachutes or anything like that. You have to use rocket motors for the descent and you have to make sure you go down at the right angle and the right rate of descent and you don’t end up in a crater on top of a large rock.”

State-run China Central Television showed a computer-generated image of the Chang’e 3 lander’s path as it approached the surface of the moon, saying that during the 12-minute landing period it needed to have no contact with Earth. As it was just hundreds of meters (yards) away, the lander’s camera broadcast images of the moon’s surface.

The Chang’e 3’s solar panels, which are used to absorb sunlight to generate power, opened soon after the landing. The Chang’e 3 will set up antennae that will transmit pictures back to Earth.

The Chang’e mission blasted off from southwest China on Dec. 2 on a Long March-3B carrier rocket.

China’s military-backed space program has made methodical progress in a relatively short time, although it lags far behind the United States and Russia in technology and experience.

China sent its first astronaut into space in 2003, becoming the third nation after Russia and the United States to achieve manned space travel independently. In 2006, it sent its first probe to the moon. China plans to open a space station around 2020 and send an astronaut to the moon after that.

“They are taking their time with getting to know about how to fly humans into space, how to build space stations … how to explore the solar system, especially the moon and Mars,” Bond said. “They are making good strides, and I think over the next 10, 20 years they’ll certainly be rivaling Russia and America in this area and maybe overtaking them in some areas.”