3:44 p.m.  (AP) — Police and witnesses say the gunfire outside the U.S. Capitol today began when a woman tried to ram through a White House barricade with her car.

They say the woman then led police on a chase that ended outside the Capitol. Police say the woman was taken into custody, and a young child who was with her was taken to a hospital.

A police officer was injured when the car crashed outside the Capitol, but the injuries weren’t life-threatening. Police say no officers were wounded by gunfire.

The entire Capitol complex was locked down for about an hour. Both houses of Congress went into recess.

Witnesses say at least 20 police cars were involved in chasing the Infinity toward Capitol Hill. One tourist says he walked toward the scene, curious about what was going on — but then he “heard the gunfire” and hit the ground.

2:24 p.m.(AP) — A law enforcement official says a shooting at the United States Capitol is related to a vehicle that tried to ram a security barricade at the White House.

The official says a driver tried to drive through a barricade that blocks the stretch of Pennsylvania Avenue in front of the White House to vehicles. The driver then proceeded down Pennsylvania Avenue to Capitol Hill, where shots were fired.

The official was not authorized to publicly discuss the incident by name and insisted on anonymity.

2:09 p.m. A suspect has reportedly been apprehended, the President has been briefed on the events.

2:04 p.m. A vehicle reportedly attempted to get through a barricade near the U.S. Treasury.

1:55 p.m. The lockdown has been lifted in the U.S. Capitol.   At least one person has been wounded.  More information will be released soon.

US Capitol Police: Capitol in lockdown; reports of gunshots and injured Capitol police officer. Stay tuned to Eagle Radio and check St. Joseph Post for additional details as they become available.

Falls City Public Schools have been notified that they are one of two schools in Nebraska to receive a $25,000 America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education grant from the Monsanto Fund.

The 2013 project, titled “Technology Enhances Agriculture, Math and Science” (TEAMS), will use iPads in elementary classrooms to provide an enriched curriculum of agriculture-based lessons. Using the tablet computers to research, calculate, measure, photograph, journal, and create projects, all elementary students will learn through hands-on assignments that food items do not come from the grocery store – they come from America’s farmers.

Falls City High School also received a 2012 America’s Farmers Grow Rural Education grant from the Monsanto Fund. That successful $25,000 grant provided iPads and GPS’s in math classrooms at FCHS.

The Farmers Grow Rural Education program helps farmers positively impact their communities and support local school districts. In order to be eligible for the grant, Falls City Public Schools had to be nominated by local farmers. These nominations were one of the criteria in the selection process. FCPS would like to thank the following farmers/land owners for nominating them:

(AP) — Missouri’s attorney general is suing a Kansas City hospice company for refusing to return nearly $40,000 that was intended to send elderly veterans to Washington, D.C.

Attorney General Chris Koster announced Thursday he had filed a lawsuit against Kendallwood Hospice Co. and had obtained a temporary restraining order freezing Honor Flight donations being held by the company.

Koster says Kendallwood agreed to hold the donations in a separate bank account, from which an Honor Flight official could withdraw funds to pay for veterans to travel to see memorials in Washington.

In February the hospice removed an Honor Flight official from the account’s signature card, preventing the charity from accessing its funds. Koster says Kendallwood has refused repeated requests to return the money.

Kendallwood officials were not immediately available for comment.

The federal government shutdown is blocking Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder from filing his congressional exploratory committee.

Kinder completed the paperwork, but  he has been unable to file with the Federal Election Commission. The committee is for a possible run for the 8th Congressional District that covers southeastern Missouri.

Republican U.S. Rep. Jason Smith currently represents the 8th District after replacing Jo Ann Emerson who resigned from Congress. Smith bested Kinder and others this year when an 84-person committee of local Republican leaders selected the party’s nominee for a June special election.

(AP) — A central Missouri sheriff facing charges that include harassment and stalking will appear in court in two weeks.

Osage County Sheriff Michael Dixon is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 17. The Supreme Court has named St. Louis County Circuit Judge Richard C. Bresnahan as a special judge in the case.

Dixon has called the charges “baseless” and said he plans to challenge them in a statement released through his attorney.

The sexual misconduct and assault charges involve allegations that Dixon inappropriately placed a flashlight between a woman’s legs. The stalking and harassment charges accused Dixon of making “numerous and repeated comments of a suggestive or sexual nature” about the woman.

Osage County is rural and east of Jefferson City.

(AP) — Prosecutors and the parents of molestation victims are supporting a proposed Missouri Constitutional amendment that would allow evidence of past criminal

behavior to be used in child sex abuse prosecutions.

Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd says Missouri is unusually restrictive in what it allows prosecutors to tell jurors.  Zahnd wrote the proposed amendment that will voters will consider in fall 2014.

One Platte County case illustrates how the issue plays out in court. Fifty-four-year-old Daryl D. Lemasters was sentenced in August to 180 years in prison for repeatedly sexually assaulting two girls. Their mother says Lemasters might have been persuaded to plead guilty and spared her daughters the ordeal of testifying if prosecutors had been able to tell jurors about previous allegations.

While GOP lawmakers this week helped a group veterans open barricades at the WWII memorial in Washington, Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill says that Republicans are simply using American Veterans to score political points.

At the WWII memorial on Wednesday McCaskill said it was confusing as to how many members of Congress were on hand who didn’t have veterans in their state. “I’m not sure why they’re here other than to play politics on the backs of veterans which I think is bad manners.”