(AP) – Missouri’s Democratic House leader says a lawmaker from the St. Louis area plans to resign following charges of theft and campaign finance violations.

House Minority Leader Jake Hummel said Wednesday that Rep. Steve Webb told him he intends to resign because of the charges.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported Wednesday that Webb was charged with felony stealing for allegedly soliciting money intended for the Legislative Black Caucus and spending it on himself. The Democrat from St. Louis County also faces seven misdemeanor charges.

Webb had no immediate comment.

Hummel said that using political donations for personal expenditures cannot be tolerated, and it is appropriate for Webb to resign.

Webb was first elected in 2008.

(AP) — The chairman of a special Missouri House panel is outlining potential Medicaid changes that could expand coverage to lower-income adults while reducing it for children.

Jefferson City Republican Rep. Jay Barnes offered a detailed financial estimate Wednesday showing the potential changes could save about $42 million in revenues by the time the changes are fully implemented in 2021.

That figure assumes Missouri would spend more money to add adults living in poverty to its Medicaid rolls and subsidize private insurance policies through a federal online marketplace for adults earning slightly more than the poverty level.

It assumes savings to the state by eliminating Medicaid coverage for some children and blind adults. Barnes says they could get policies through the federally run health insurance exchange.

Record prices in the industry have authorities across the country seeing more cases of cattle theft, making producers extra cautious.
Limited cattle supplies have pushed beef prices to record levels, and demand continues to support those rising values. Cindy Hyde-Smith, a Brookhaven cattle farmer and Mississippi commissioner of agriculture and commerce, told the Mississippi Business Journal rustlers are stealing cattle because the payoff is so high for just a few animals.
Cases of livestock theft are often only a handful of cattle at a time, but even six animals can translate to tens of thousands of dollars and a significant loss for producers.
Stolen cattle are more likely to be sold to individual buyers away from sale barns where inspectors follow procedures to ensure the seller owns the animals. John Michael Riley, an economist with the Agriculture Extension Service, says thieves are likely to sell animals outside of the region they were taken from, but not across state lines to avoid federal Department of Transportation officers requiring a veterinarian’s certificate of health for the animals.
Hyde-Smith advises producers to protect their investment. As prices are high the threat of cattle rustlers remains. Monitor your cattle, and your neighbors’ herds, and note any suspicious activity and unfamiliar vehicles.
“With cattle prices at these rates, I think you’re probably seeing more locks and more chains,” Riley said.
Cattle aren’t the only commodity on alert. Two California men admitted roles in an attempted beef theft this week. The two men, Oganes Nagapetian and Tigran Nagapetian tried to steal beef from a Kansas slaughterhouse in 2011.
The two posed as a trucking firm, with plans of stealing a beef shipment worth $87,500 from Tyson Fresh Meats in Holcomb, Kan. Fox News reports the two are scheduled for sentencing on Jan. 27.—Brett Wessler, Staff Writer Drovers Cattle Network

(AP) — The Supreme Court is wrestling with the appropriate role for religion in government in a case involving prayers at the start of a New York town’s council meetings.

The justices engaged in a lively give-and-take Wednesday that highlighted the sensitive nature of offering religious invocations in public proceedings that don’t appeal to everyone and of governments’ efforts to police the practice.

The court is weighing a federal appeals court ruling that said the Rochester suburb of Greece, N.Y., violated the Constitution because nearly every prayer in an 11-year span was overtly Christian.

The tenor of the argument indicated the justices would not agree with the appellate ruling. But it was not clear what decision they might come to instead.

(AP) – An organization that formed after a May 2011 tornado destroyed parts of Joplin is celebrating the opening of its 100th home in the southwest Missouri city.

Rebuild Joplin held a ribbon-cutting Tuesday at the home of Ron and Margaret Campbell, whose house was damaged during the tornado. The couple had begun repairs but did not have the money to complete them.

Rebuild Joplin began as a website after the tornado to connect people with resources. It eventually began construction projects using volunteer labor. Since November 2011, the organization has completed 47 new constructions and 53 home repairs.

Chad Carson, executive director of Rebuild Joplin, says the organization is still trying to find people who need help to recover from the tornado.

Jackson County voters soundly rejected a proposed half-cent sales tax to fund medical research.

Unofficial returns showed that 84 percent of Tuesday’s voters opposed a plan to impose a half-cent, 20-year sales tax to fund research at two private hospitals and the University of Missouri-Kansas City.

Opponents argued that middle- and lower-income Jackson County residents shouldn’t have to provide research dollars to Children’s Mercy Hospital, St. Luke’s hospitals and Missouri-Kansas City’s four health professional schools.

5 a.m.  Wednesday  (AP)  The parents of Ryan Ferguson hope to have their son home by Thanksgiving after a Missouri appeals court overturned his murder conviction in a 2001 killing.

11:00 Tuesday   (AP) A Missouri appeals court panel on Tuesday overturned the murder conviction of a Columbia man who has been serving a 40-year sentence for the 2001 slaying of a newspaper sports editor.

The appeals court ruled that the prosecution withheld evidence from defense attorneys for Ryan Ferguson that could have aided him during his trial. Specifically, the court said prosecutors should have shared evidence from an interview with the wife of one of the prosecution’s key witnesses that could have raised questions about his ability to identify Ferguson.

Erickson received a 25-year sentence as part of a plea agreement for testifying against Ferguson but has since recanted his testimony.

Another trial witness, former Tribune janitor Jerry Trump, also has recanted testimony in which he identified Ferguson and Erickson as the two men he saw in the Tribune parking lot the night of the slaying.

Trump originally had testified that, while he was in prison for an unrelated reason, his wife had sent him a Tribune newspaper that had pictures of Ferguson and Erickson in it _ and that he recognized them as the people he saw the night of the slaying in the newspapers’ parking lot.

The appeals court said an investigator for the prosecutor’s office had interviewed Trump’s wife, Barbara Trump, who said she did not recall sending her husband a newspaper. The court said the investigator never wrote a report about the interview, so the information never was shared with Ferguson’s defense attorneys, but should have been.

The Western District appeals court said Ferguson should be released if prosecutors have not filed notice of a retrial within 15 days.

(AP) – Gov. Jay Nixon is proposing a Thanksgiving week meeting with Missouri lawmakers to discuss potential changes to the Medicaid health care system.

Nixon wants to meet Nov. 26 with members of House and Senate interim committees who have been studying potential Medicaid changes ahead of the 2014 session. The governor says he wants to talk about ways to “provide better outcomes for patients and better returns for taxpayers.”

The Democratic governor says Missouri’s Medicaid system will be one of the most pressing issues before the Republican-led Legislature next year.

Earlier this year, the Legislature rejected Nixon’s proposal to expand Medicaid to more lower-income adults under the terms of the new federal health care law. Republicans legislative leaders say they want to revamp Medicaid before considering an expansion.

A southern Missouri man has been sentenced to die for killing an elderly couple who interrupted a burglary at their isolated, rural home in July 2010.

Laclede County Circuit Judge Kenneth Hayden followed a jury’s recommendation Tuesday in imposing the death penalty on 33-year-old Jesse Driskill, of Lebanon. Driskill was also given seven consecutive life sentences for rape, sodomy and multiple counts of armed criminal action.

Family members concerned about the couple’s welfare discovered their bodies the next day.