4 p.m. Thursday 10/24   (AP) — A state House member from western Missouri has been convicted of misdemeanor animal abuse for the escape of his cattle from a pasture.

Republican Warren Love, of Osceola, was found guilty Thursday by a judge in St. Clair County. He is to be sentenced in November. Maximum penalties are a year in jail and a $1,000 fine.

Love says he is disappointed but not surprised. The St. Clair County prosecutor had said in court documents that Love had cattle in his custody and knowingly failed to provide adequate control of the animals.

Love took office in January. He joined fellow lawmakers last month in overriding Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of legislation that included a change in Missouri’s animal abuse and neglect law.

A western Missouri legislator is headed to trial on a misdemeanor charge of animal neglect after his cattle escaped from a pasture last year.

House Republican Warren Love, of Osceola, was ticketed in August 2012. He’s scheduled to be tried by a judge Oct. 24.

Love said Thursday his cattle escaped and went to a field that had burned. He said the cattle did not cause damage and that he moved them to a hay meadow where they stayed contained. Love says he does not neglect his cattle.

Love joined lawmakers last month in overriding Gov. Jay Nixon’s veto of legislation that included a change in the definition of animal neglect.

(AP) Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says his administration is withdrawing a proposal for rolling back an expansion of the food stamps program.

Since 2009, the state has qualified for a waiver allowing able-bodied adults without children to qualify for the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program despite failing to meet federal work requirements. Officials had proposed changing eligibility rules to waive the work requirements only in counties where the unemployment rate is higher than 10 percent.

Missouri had about 915,000 people receiving food stamps in August. That’s down from a peak of nearly 962,000 in December 2011.

A Springfield man has been charged with killing a teenage girl during sex and then dumping her body into a southwest Missouri lake.

Forty-eight-year-old Anthony James Balbirnie faces charges that include second-degree murder and statutory rape. The charges were filed last week in Benton County Circuit Court after county officials dropped a single count alleging that he abandoned the corpse of 15-year-old Khighla Parks and referred the case to the state attorney general’s office.

Balbirnie is incarcerated at the state prison in Bowling Green, where he is serving time for violating parole. A phone call to the Missouri State Public Defender Office wasn’t immediately returned.

(AP) — A Topeka man has been sentenced to life in prison for killing his wife in 2012.

Manuel Alcala was the second defendant to be sentenced Thursday for charges tied to the Oct. 18, 2012, murder of 34-year-old Ashley Alcala at her Topeka home.

Manuel Alcala’s mother, Manuela Alcala, was also sentenced Thursday to two years and six months in prison for obstruction and other charges. She was then placed on 18 months’ probation.

Sentencing for the third defendant, Gabino Alcala, was postponed until Nov. 5 because attorneys needed more time to discuss the case.

Gabino Alacala is the brother of Manuel Alcala and son of Manuela Alcala.

from Michael Pagels via http://www.littleapplepost.com

11:25 a.m.  update      Kansas Governor Sam Brownback spoke to a packed room in Manhattan, Kansas Thursday morning, October 24, at The Hilton Garden Inn Conference Center at around 9:30 a.m. The Governor took the stage in order to address the future of Kansas water, specifically the Ogallala Aquifer and the federal reservoirs.

The conference was sponsored by K-State Research and Extension, Kansas Center for Agricultural Resources and the Environment, the Kansas Water Office and the Kansas Water Resources Institute. Speakers included Charles Fishman, Pat Mulroy, and James Stack.

Over 550 people were present at the conference, the max capacity for the event center. Brownback took the stage and outlined the problems that Kansas is currently facing with it’s underground water supply. According to the Governor, the Ogallala Aquifer currently had a $5 billion value, and was responsible for $1.75 billion in corn production, and $384 billion in beef.

“We have been reminded of the importance of water with another year of extreme drought for our state, which is now beginning to ease in eastern Kansas, but continues to persist in the west,” said Governor Sam Brownback. “Water and the Kansas economy are directly linked. Water is a finite resource and without further planning and action we will no longer be able to meet our state’s current needs, let alone growth.”

The Ogallala Aquifer also has a large impact with the cost of power, yet according to a recent K-State study at least 30% of the total aquifer. Brownback explained that this would be the ‘top 30%’ of the aquifer, or the easiest to use, but in many places over use of the aquifer has depleted areas to critical levels. According to the K-State study, the aquifer will be completed in 150-200 years.

Brownback insisted that now is the time to address these issues, and put out a a ‘call to action’ for the state of Kansas to act to save our underground water. Projections show that in the next 50 years, 70% of the Ogallala Aquifer will be depleted, with 40% of the area now irrigated with underground water unable to support a 400 gallon per minute irrigation well. The federal reservoirs will be 40% filled with sediment, and five of the seven basins which reservoirs support municipal and industrial water won’t be able to meed demands during a drought.

Browback’s vision for the future held to main points; to conserve and extend the high plains aquifer, and to secure, protect, and restore our reservoir storage. He explained the importance of a 20 year goals, with 5 year actions, with local leadership and involvement by Kansas Water Authority and Kansas Economics Advisers Council.

(AP) — Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback and other officials are taking part in a two-day summit in Manhattan on the state’s long-term water needs.

Brownback was scheduled to speak Thursday morning at the start of the Governor’s Conference on the Future of Water in Kansas. His office said he would deliver a “50-year vision” for Kansas water and issue an executive order.

Organizers were expecting several hundred state and local officials to attend. Brownback’s office said the conference would deal with water needs, plans for rebounding from future droughts and the growing amounts of sediment in Kansas reservoirs.

The conference is sponsored by the state’s Water Office and the Kansas Water Resources Institute at Kansas State University.

The American Civil Liberties Union is suing Missouri over a statute that prohibits the identification of those involved in prisoner executions without the permission of the Corrections Department director.

The lawsuit, filed Wednesday by the St. Louis-based ACLU-Missouri, says the statute is unconstitutional.

The proposed use of propofol drew concerns from the medical community because most of the drug is made in Europe, and the anti-death penalty European Union has threatened to limit export if propofol is used in an execution.

The new protocol makes a compounding pharmacy part of the execution team, and the statute protects the anonymity of the pharmacy.

“The government’s trend toward unwarranted secrecy that conceals practices of doubtful constitutionality needs to stop,” Jeffrey A. Mittman, executive director of the ACLU-Missouri, said in a statement.

Messages left Thursday with officials with the Corrections Department and the Missouri Attorney General’s office were not returned.

Nixon’s decision stopped the execution of convicted killer Allen Nicklasson scheduled for Oct. 23. The execution of another convicted killer, Joseph Franklin, is scheduled for Nov. 20, and would be the first in Missouri using a single drug.

Missouri has previously used a three-drug cocktail of drugs for executions in the modern era. Those drugs have become increasingly difficult for prisons and corrections departments to obtain because the makers are opposed to their use in executions. As a result, Missouri and most other states have switched to single-drug executions.

The Missouri Department of Corrections earlier this month turned over hundreds of pages of documents related to the use of propofol to the ACLU in response to another lawsuit. The documents were posted on the ACLU website and included the names of companies that provided propofol and other drugs to the state.

ACLU later removed the documents from its website, citing fear of violating the state statute.

(AP) A son of an alleged organized crime leader in Kansas City has been sentenced to 21 months in federal prison.

Fifty-nine-year-old Nicholas A. Civella was sentenced Wednesday for being a drug user in possession of a firearm.

Authorities said Civella’s father, Anthony Civella, had been an organized-crime leader before his 2006 death. Anthony Civella was the son of Carl Civella and nephew of Nick Civella. The Star reported that authorities long alleged that the two men were Kansas City mob leaders.