JENNINGS, Mo. (AP) — Police say a 67-year-old man was able to escape kidnappers who held him at gunpoint and forced him to withdraw money from several banks across Missouri.
Law enforcement officials say the victim was kidnapped outside his Kansas City home early Thursday by two men. The suspects drove the victim around in his own van, stopping at banks and a few fast food restaurants.
Authorities say the victim escaped near the Jennings Police Department with a gun belonging to one of the suspects. Lt. Jeff Fuesting with the St. Louis County police says the victim had injuries to his face.
Police are searching for the men who they say should still be considered armed and dangerous.

HUTCHINSON, Kan. — The state has rested their side of the case against a Missouri man accused of 19  burglaries in Hutchinson.

Joseph Paul Jones Jr. is accused of 45 counts involving the crimes which occurred in the late night hours of May 13 and the early morning hours of May 14, last year.

He’s accused of breaking into the local businesses by prying open doors or breaking the glass windows with a crow bar. Jones is also accused of cutting the telephone lines at several businesses before making entry.

On the stand most of the day was Hutchinson Police Detective Curtis Black told the jury of the athletic shoes seized at the time of Jones arrest matched the shoe prints found at the scene.

The jury also got to see a videos from the Kwik Shop and from Papa Murphy’s Pizza which the state said shows Jones.

The case is expected to go to the jury sometime on Friday.

FULTON, Mo. (AP) — The granddaughter and great-grandson of Winston Churchill will join Gov. Jay Nixon and others this weekend in Fulton to mark the 50th anniversary of Churchill’s death.
The National Churchill Museum at Westminster College is hosting “America’s Service of Remembrance” at 10:30 a.m. Saturday. The event is free and open to the public. Churchill delivered his famous “Iron Curtain” speech at Westminster College in March 1946.
Edwina Sandys, Churchill’s granddaughter, used dismantled sections of the Berlin Wall to create a sculpture that sits on the campus.
The service is among several around the world in 2015 to commemorate the life of Churchill, prime minister of the United Kingdom from 1940 to 1945 and again from 1951 to 1955. He died Jan. 24, 1965.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — The Kansas City Police Department is honoring a man as a hero after he took a bullet in the back to save a woman’s life in June.
KMBC-TV  reports Qwamayne Frazier received a certificate of appreciation on Thursday night from the police department.
Frazier was hit by a bullet while trying to protect a woman from a shooting in Kansas City.
The woman was struck in the arm but wasn’t seriously injured. She is now his girlfriend.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – The Missouri Automobile Dealers Association is suing the state revenue department for allowing an electric car maker to sell directly to customers.

The car dealers filed a lawsuit Thursday in Cole County Circuit Court claiming Missouri violated state law by licensing California-based Tesla Motors as a franchise. That gives the electric car manufacturer the power to sell cars to customers instead of working through a dealership.

Department of Revenue spokeswoman Michelle Gleba says the agency doesn’t comment on pending litigation.

The lawsuit claims the department is giving Tesla special privileges. Tesla says the claims are groundless and called the lawsuit an attempt to decrease competition.

Tesla has come under fire before. Lawmakers proposed failed legislation last year that would have banned Tesla from selling vehicles directly to consumers.

JEFFERSON CITY (AP) – Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon says bond money should be used to pay for a new veterans’ home.

Senate Budget Committee chair Kurt Schaefer said Thursday that there is a need for the new nursing home. But the Columbia Republican noted there were several competing priorities for bond funds.

The governor highlighted the proposal during Wednesday’s State of the State address. He says shortening wait times for about 2,000 veterans seeking care should be a priority.

Currently, Missouri has seven veterans’ homes with a total of 1,350 beds. The governor also suggested $14.5 million in bond proceeds be used for repairs and renovations at the existing homes.

Both proposals need to be approved by the Legislature.

DETROIT (AP) — The U.S. government’s auto safety agency wants to add two automatic emergency braking devices to its list of recommended safety features for new-car buyers.

But it’s unclear when or if the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration will require automakers to put the devices on all new vehicles.

The agency plans to add crash-imminent braking and dynamic brake support to its recommendations. Crash-imminent braking automatically stops a car if sensors detect a possible crash, while dynamic braking adds force to the brakes if the driver isn’t pressing hard enough to avoid a crash.

The agency will decide later if the features should go on window stickers that show government safety ratings. A start date for the recommendations will come after public comment.

The proposed changes were announced Thursday in Washington.

By JIM MCLEAN
Advocates for allowing dental hygienists with advanced training to perform a broader range of procedures are now in their fifth year of trying to convince legislators to approve the necessary changes in state law.

Wearing bright yellow and black scarves, they rallied Wednesday morning and then headed for meetings with legislators to press their case for expanding access to services in a state where 95 of 105 counties have a shortage of dental providers .

Their challenge this year, as it has been every year since 2011, is to overcome opposition from the Kansas Dental Association, which maintains that allowing hygienists trained as dental therapists to perform an expanded but proscribed list of routine dental procedures would endanger patients.

When the licensure bill was first introduced in 2011, Paul Kittle, a pediatric dentist from Leavenworth, told legislators that allowing dental therapists to fill cavities and pull teeth would reduce dental care in Kansas to “third world” levels.

“We cannot allow any non-dentist — whether they be a dental hygienist, an expanded therapist or someone straight out of high school — to drill into the nerve on a primary tooth, to extract a solidly embedded or an abscessed primary molar,” Kittle said.

Kevin Robertson, executive director of the Kansas Dental Association, has said repeatedly that the 18 months of training that hygienists receive to become dental therapists “is simply not adequate” for them to learn the restorative and surgical procedures they would be allowed to perform under the proposed changes.

Analysts for the National Governors Association reviewed the findings of several studies for a January 2014 report and concluded the safety concerns of dentists were unfounded. Their report said a limited number of studies conducted in the United States “have shown safe and effective outcomes.” It went on to say, “International research provides stronger evidence that advanced-practice dental hygienists deliver safe, high-quality care.”

Dr. Kevin Nakagaki employs dental therapists in his St. Paul, Minn., practice. The Kansas Dental Project — a coalition of advocacy organizations headed by Kansas Action for Children and supported by several health foundations, including the Kansas Health Foundation — paid for Nakagaki to come to Kansas and take part in Wednesday’s kickoff of the coalition’s 2015 lobbying effort.

In his meetings with lawmakers, Nakagaki stressed his belief that dental therapists are better at some procedures than dentists because they’ve received more focused and intensive training.

“Dental therapists get to concentrate just on those restorative procedures that are in their skill set,” Nakagaki said. “So, when they come out, they’ve done many, many more of them than the dental students.”

Economics, not safety, is the main concern of dentists, said Dr. Daniel Minnis, of Pittsburg. They are worried about possible competition down the road, he said.

“I think that dentists are afraid that someday these registered dental therapists will go out on their own and be practicing across the street from us,” Minnis said. “I don’t think that is going to happen. I think the model works best when they’re working under our direct and indirect supervision.”

The fact that hygienists are not seeking to practice independently gives the legislation a chance, said Rep. Susan Concannon, a Beloit Republican and vice chair of the House Health and Human Services Committee.

“Probably a key to this particular issue is that you’re asking for a collaborative practice, not asking to go out on your own,” Concannon said during brief remarks at a luncheon sponsored by the dental project.

Still, advocates appear to face an uphill climb. It isn’t yet clear whether the licensure bill will even receive a hearing in the HHS committee, Concannon said.

Jim McLean is executive editor of KHI News Service in Topeka, a partner in the Heartland Health Monitor team.

OLATHE, Kan. (AP) — A former Johnson County physician has been denied a chance for a different sentence for killing two of her children in a 1995 arson fire.
The Kansas City Star  reports that Johnson County District Judge Brenda Cameron ruled Thursday that

Debora Green isn’t entitled to a new sentencing hearing. Green had wanted her sentence of life in prison with no chance of parole for 40 years vacated and replaced.
At issue are recent Kansas and U.S. Supreme Court rulings that certain sentences must be determined by a jury and not a judge. The ruling has led some inmates to successfully challenge their sentences. But Cameron found that Green’s situation was different because she was sentenced based