(AP) — A divided appeals court panel is siding with Ohio business owners who challenged the birth control mandate under the new federal health care law.
The business owners are two brothers who say the mandate to provide contraceptive coverage would make them violate their Roman Catholic beliefs.
The ruling Friday by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit is one of many on the birth control issue, which likely will be resolved by the Supreme Court.
The appeals court panel says the mandate limits the right of free exercise of religion.
The brothers are Francis and Philip M. Gilardi. They say they don’t want to provide contraceptives like the Plan B pill for their employees. The Gilardis own Freshway Foods and Freshway Logistics of Sidney, Ohio.
(AP) — The Missouri Supreme Court is weighing whether a legal standard that protects sports teams from being sued over fan injuries caused by in-game events should also apply to those caused by mascots or other team personnel.
The court’s ruling on John Coomer’s lawsuit against the Kansas City Royals could affect how major sports teams engage their fans during games.
Coomer says he was hit in the eye by a foil-wrapped hotdog thrown by the Royals’ mascot four years ago. The Kansas man says he’s had to endure two eye surgeries and that his vision was permanently damaged.
The team argues that it should be protected by the so-called “baseball rule.” That legal standard holds that fans assume the risk of being struck by foul balls or stray pucks at games.
On his Facebook page Thursday evening, Missouri Senator asked for constituents to contact him about their experience with the new health care law.
“Since October 1st, American families have seen headline after headline discussing the disastrous roll-out of President Obama’s health care law.
The launch of this website should have been the most basic step in rolling out this costly health care law. But unfortunately, this administration overpromised on ObamaCare, and as expected, their signature piece of legislation is under-delivering.
President Obama recently said that ObamaCare is “much more” than a website. American families who have seen their hours at work reduced, health care cost skyrocket, and coverage dropped agree that ObamaCare is more than a website with technical glitches. This law is a train wreck.
I am committed to fighting for Missourians who are being crushed by ObamaCare. And we must work together to dismantle this law and create relief for families, seniors, and job creators across the country.
In order to repeal this costly health care law and replace it with common-sense solutions that puts patients and doctors in charge of health care – I need your input. I hope you’ll share your story of how this costly law is impacting you, your family, and your community in the space below or by sending me a tweet using #MoObamaCareImpact.”
(AP) — Safety workshops were held this week in Kansas for people who work around combustible grain dust.
The workshops in Effingham were sponsored by the Kansas City chapter of the Grain Elevator and Processing Society. More than 60 grain industry employees from the region attended the sessions.
The classes were conducted around the second anniversary of an explosion at a Bartlett Grain facility that killed six people. A moment of silence was held in honor of the victims.
Kingsly Ambrose, assistant professor in milling/grain processing at Kansas State university, said the workshops are intended to increase awareness of grain dust and its explosiveness. He says it takes the dispersal of billions of fine dust particles to create the devastating explosions.
(AP) – A 56-year-old man who is already in jail solved a 17-year mystery when he pleaded guilty to killing a northwest Missouri woman.
Michael Wilson pleaded guilty Thursday to killing 36-year-old Therese Campen of Raytown in February 1996. Prosecutors say Campen gave Wilson a ride to a bus stop in Raytown and Wilson later called her and made a date.
Wilson told an Andrew County judge Thursday that he planned to kill Campen. He strangled her and dumped her body in a cemetery near Amazonia, after hitting her with a piece of a broken gravestone to make sure she was dead.
Wilson is serving three 20-year sentences for convictions from Jackson County. He was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
(AP) Seven weeks after thwarting a veto override attempt on a highly publicized gun bill, a Missouri Senate leader put forth a pared-back proposal Thursday that still seeks to nullify some federal gun control laws but stops short of criminalizing federal agents had pledged to work on a revised plan after he and Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey split from the rest of the Republican caucus to defeat a veto override attempt of the gun legislation in September. At the time, they cited concerns about the constitutionality of the bill..
Senate Majority Leader Ron Richard
The new draft still attempts to declare void any federal policies that “infringe on the people’s right to keep and bear arms,” but it deletes wording that could have allowed state misdemeanor charges to be filed against federal agents for attempting to enforce certain federal gun control laws.
It also limits the proposed circumstances in which people could sue police and prosecutors for enforcing those gun laws and drops a provision that could have subjected journalists to misdemeanor charges for publishing the identities of gun owners.
“The original bill had great intent, but there were some language problems that kept local law enforcement (from being able) to work with federal authorities on bad guys with guns,” said Richard, of Joplin.
Richard said he posted the revised plan on his website Thursday so that people can review it and recommend any changes before pre-filing of bills for the 2014 session begins in December.
The gun legislation “will be the first bill Tom is going to send to committee, and it will be the first bill that we do on the floor and we’ll stay on it until we get it done,” Richard said.
In September, a 109-49 vote by the Republican-led House barely met the minimum two-thirds majority needed to override Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of the gun legislation. But the Republican-led Senate’s subsequent 22-12 vote fell a single vote shy of the mark needed to complete the override.
The new proposal is less specific about which federal laws it seeks to nullify. It removes references the 1934 and 1968 gun control acts while keeping generic references to fees, registration and tracking policies that “have a chilling effect on the purchase or ownership” of guns and ammunition by law-abiding citizens.
Like the original, it would allow specially trained school personnel to carry concealed guns. But it removes a section that would have allowed them to detain students for up to four hours for any suspected violation of state laws or school policies. Instead, the proposal allows them to detain only people who are acting violently toward others and requires a student’s parents to be immediately notified.
The Missouri Sheriffs’ Association was one of several law enforcement groups that had expressed concerns that the original bill could have inhibited the ability of local officers to work with federal authorities on certain criminal cases and could have subjected officers to lawsuits from convicted felons.
Association Executive Director Mick Covington said Thursday that the new version addresses its concerns.
The draft also contains a new provision _ prompted by discussions with some sheriffs _ requiring federal agents to notify local sheriffs before serving warrants in their counties unless the case pertained to national security or defense. That provision wouldn’t take effect until Aug. 28, 2017, or when at least four other states enact similar laws, whichever occurs first.
(AP) — Ten children and a school bus driver have been rescued after the bus they were in toppled into a southern Kansas creek swollen by heavy rain.
Butler County Sheriff Kelly Herzet says the children climbed through a roof hatch to await rescue Thursday afternoon as the bus lay on its side, half-submerged.
County 911 director Chris Davis said the Douglass School District bus apparently went off a bridge about 4 p.m. Thursday.
Herzet said the oldest children were 13 and helped the younger ones through the hatch. Rescuers used a line to help them to safety.
The driver was taken to a hospital to be checked for hypothermia. One child was seen being put inside an ambulance, but the sheriff says all 10 were turned over to their parents.
The alleged mastermind of a $96 million tax fraud scheme is scheduled to change his plea to dozens of federal charges next week.
Lawyers for 48-year-old Gerald Poynter, also known as Brother Jerry Love, filed a motion this week seeking a change-of-plea hearing, which is set for Nov. 7. Poynter and 13 others were charged in late 2011 with conspiracy and filing false claims for tax refunds.
Prosecutors say Poynter devised a scheme in which he and his co-conspirators inflated the amount of taxes on individual returns they claimed the government withheld, then filed for refunds – some for more than $1 million.
Eight people have entered into plea deals, but there doesn’t appear to be any such agreement with Poynter. Five other defendants are scheduled for trial in January.
(AP) — Sen. Claire McCaskill says she’s “embarrassed and angry” about the rollout of a key part of the new federal health care law. But the Missouri Democrat believes people will eventually come to like it.
The federal government’s online health insurance marketplace being used in Missouri and many other states has been plagued by problems since it launched Oct. 1. And many people who currently have individual insurance policies have been getting cancellation notices from their insurers, because their policies will no longer comply with the federal law.
McCaskill says the rollout of the online insurance marketplace has been botched. But she says people also were upset when the Medicare program was launched decades ago.
McCaskill believes people eventually will appreciate the health insurance exchanges, just as they do Medicare.
(AP) — Johnson County officials say there’s no connection between two bodies found separately in De Soto this week.
Sheriff’s deputies reported that the body of a man in his 20s was found Wednesday outside an apartment complex. On Tuesday afternoon, another body was found about two miles away from the first body. The sheriff’s office hasn’t released any details about the age or gender of the person found Tuesday.
The sheriff’s office says both cases are being investigated as unattended deaths.
The office also hasn’t said if either case is connected to the disappearance of a 22-year-old Brad Cook of nearby Olathe. His motorcycle was found in De Soto on Oct. 21.
(AP) — A divided appeals court panel is siding with Ohio business owners who challenged the birth control mandate under the new federal health care law.
