(AP) — A Christian County grand jury indicted a southwest Missouri woman in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, who allegedly was given anti-depressants.
Thirty-one-year-old Julie M. Horstmyer of Republic was arrested Wednesday on charges of involuntary manslaughter and endangering the welfare of a child.
The grand jury indictment accuses her of giving the girl drugs used to treat depression and anxiety in November 2011 at their home in Clever. County Prosecutor Amy Fite says Horstmyer also did not seek medical attention for the girl.
Horstmyer was in the Christian County jail Wednesday on $75,000 bond. Her first court appearance is scheduled for Friday. Online records do not indicate if she has an attorney.
(AP) – A pit bull-mix puppy that was dragged down Interstate 55 near St. Louis while tied to pickup truck is now up for adoption.
The dog, named Trooper, needed dozens of surgeries after he nearly died while being dragged down the highway for nearly a mile in November 2012.
The Humane Society of Missouri announced Wednesday it is accepting only online applications to adopt Trooper. It will take applications through Nov. 17.
Benetta Johnson of East St. Louis, Ill., was sentenced to probation and community service after being found guilty in April of misdemeanor animal abuse.
Authorities said when she tried to return the dog to her ex-husband, her son tied the puppy to a trailer hitch. Johnson’s ex-husband didn’t see the dog and drove down the interstate.
On Wednesday U.S. Senator Roy Blunt spoke on the Senate floor about how President Obama’s health care law is forcing millions of Americans, including those in Missouri, to lose their health care coverage
(AP) – A Missouri National Guard member facing a felony forgery charge has pleaded guilty to misdemeanor stealing.
Thirty-nine-year-old Melissa Ireland, of Henley, was placed on two years of unsupervised probation after entering the plea Wednesday in Cole County. Ireland was scheduled to go on trial next week on the felony charge.
The Jefferson City News-Tribune reported Ireland had forged a signature to get a $3,000 grant from the state’s Military Family Relief Fund, which she managed.
Guard spokeswoman Maj. Tammy Spicer said Ireland remains a National Guard member but is no longer is in charge of the relief fund.
(AP) – Missouri Auditor Tom Schweich is sending a team to review attendance records and other issues at a Kansas City charter school.
State education officials are investigating academic integrity issues and reports that attendance was inflated at Hope Academy. The charter school is sponsored by the University of Missouri-Kansas City.
Schweich said his office’s involvement was requested by the Department of Elementary and Secondary and Hope Academy’s board of directors.
Missouri law allows the state auditor to review public and charter schools.
Phil Griffin, the state’s tuberculosis controller at KDHE
A patient at Overland Park Regional Medical Center has tested positive for tuberculosis, potentially exposing some health care workers to the disease.
The Kansas and Johnson County departments of health and environment issued a joint statement Wednesday saying “this situation has potentially affected a limited number of OPRMC staff and patients and (the Johnson County health department) believes the risk of transmission is extremely low.”
Officials said the infected patient was in isolation and responding well to treatment.
“A thorough contact investigation began immediately to determine anyone who may have been exposed to the patient,” said Dr. John Romito, chief medical officer at the Overland Park hospital. “People, including staff and patients, who need to undergo testing in the next week have already been contacted.”
About 40 Kansans per year test positive for tuberculosis, down from an average of 80 in years before 2004, said Phil Griffin, the state’s tuberculosis controller at KDHE.
Griffin said 65 percent of Kansas TB cases are found in foreign-born individuals, from countries where tuberculosis is still endemic. Those individual aren’t necessarily new arrivals.
“We have people who have been in the country for 20 or 30 years that develop TB because they came in with the infection from their home country. That’s one of the challenges with tuberculosis is that it can lie dormant forever. Only 5 to 10 percent of those infected with tuberculosis will ever develop the disease,” Griffin said.
“We’ll also see it in the elderly in their 70s, 80s, 90s — and those may very well be Kansas-born people who have been carrying the infection since they were children. When they were children, there were no treatments for TB, so they may have been exposed…and carried that infection all these years. As their immune system breaks down because of their elderly age, then the disease develops.”
Potentially lethal, tuberculosis is spread through the air by coughing, laughing, singing and sneezing. The only way to contract the infection is by prolonged contact in close proximity to a person who has TB. It cannot be spread through casual contact or by contact with someone’s clothing or eating utensils.
Symptoms include cough persisting more than three weeks, unexplained weight loss, night sweats, chills, fever, coughing up blood, fatigue and/or blood in the urine. TB can be treated and cured with up to nine months of antibiotics, Griffin said.—KHI News Service
55 days ahead of an impending deadline that could drastically raise the price of dairy products and leave farmers and ranchers with no financial protection from natural disasters, U.S. Senator Claire McCaskill is continuing her fight to pass a bipartisan Farm Bill renewal into law.
For the past two years, the U.S. Senate has passed a renewal of the Farm Bill with a wide bipartisan majority that managed to cut billions of dollars of spending, while protecting America’s farmers, ranchers, and low-income families. The U.S. House 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 has allowed a conference committee to be formed between the Senate and House with the goal of merging the two bills.
“A lot of my colleagues have worked hard and engaged in real compromise to ensure that our farmers and ranchers have the certainty they need to continue powering Missouri’s economy,” McCaskill said. “But there are ‘my way or the highway’ extremists in the U.S. House who don’t appear to support anything. I still think we can come together and pass this bill, but the time to act is now.”
If a comprehensive bill is not passed by January 1, several provisions relating to dairy products would revert back to rules written in 1949-which could double the price of dairy products, including milk, overnight.
Many programs, including those designed to protect farmers and ranchers from unexpected natural disasters, have already expired leaving thousands of farmers who have suffered losses in limbo. This has taken on even greater significance after an early-season storm in South Dakota left 100,000 cattle dead last month. Programs that aid in wetlands conservation and some nutrition programs, including the Senior Farmers’ Market Nutrition Program, have also expired.
McCaskill has been active in trying to shape the Farm Bill and find savings for Missouri taxpayers, recently proposing legislation that would 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.
Last week McCaskill 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 leads.
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.
4 p.m. (AP) — Authorities say two Wisconsin men died when their single-engine plane crashed near the Kirksville Regional Airport
Kirksville airport Director Glenn Balliew says the Piper 32-A Saratoga crashed while on approach to the northern Missouri airport.
Adair County Coroner Brian Noe identified the victims Wednesday as 64-year-old Robert Groh and 66-year-old James Quinn. The coroner did not know which one was the pilot.
Balliew says the plane’s wreckage was scattered along a 300-yard path through a pasture, a wooded area and a bean field about three miles from Kirksville. The bodies of the two victims were found in a ditch.
Investigators say the airplane was stopping for fuel on a flight from Denver. An investigation by the National Transportation and Safety Board continues.
10: a.m. (AP) — Airport authorities say two people died when their single-engine plane crashed near the Kirksville Regional Airport.
Kirksville airport Director Glenn Balliew says the Piper 32-A Saratoga crashed Tuesday night while on approach to the airport.
Adair County Coroner Brian Noe declined to release the names of the victims Wednesday until family members are notified.
Balliew says the plane’s wreckage was scattered along a 300-yard path through a pasture, a wooded area and a bean field about three miles from Kirksville. The bodies of the two victims were found in a ditch.
Investigators say the airplane was stopping for fuel on a flight from Denver.
National Transportation and Safety Board agents arrived at the airport Wednesday morning to begin an investigation.
(AP) — Four people are hospitalized in northeast Kansas for carbon monoxide poisoning that authorities blame on a car left running inside a closed garage.
The fire department in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park says two adults and two children were taken from a home around 7:30 a.m. Wednesday. Two people were reported in critical condition and two in serious condition.
A passer-by noticed a sick teenager in the home’s front yard. Emergency responders found the other three people inside the house.
Family members said the car was accidentally left running Tuesday night inside the garage with the door closed.
The level of carbon monoxide inside the house registered more than 40 times higher than safe exposure levels.
(AP) — A Christian County grand jury indicted a southwest Missouri woman in the death of her 2-year-old daughter, who allegedly was given anti-depressants.
