WASHINGTON —The 116th Congress was sworn in Thursday. The ceremony included Missouri’s new Junior Senator Josh Hawley.
I am honored to represent the state of Missouri in the US Senate! pic.twitter.com/vRMYBuDIIS
— Josh Hawley (@HawleyMO) January 3, 2019
At the age of 39, Hawley is the youngest member of the U.S. Senate and the first new senator from Missouri in eight years. Roy Blunt, Missouri’s senior senator was elected in 2010.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say a man was robbed after inviting a date whom he met online to his Lawrence apartment.
The robbery happened around 7:10 p.m. Friday. Police Sgt. Amy Rhoads says the victim told police he met the robber on a dating website. When the man arrived, he brandished a gun and demanded the victim’s bank card.
The suspect fled and used the bank card a short time later. No one was immediately arrested.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Republican Eric Schmitt took the oath Thursday as Missouri’s attorney general, pledging to pursue issues such as the opioid epidemic and vowing that neither he nor his staff would use a message-deleting app on work phones.
The Attorney General’s Office is steeped with history. Being sworn in as the lawyer for 6M Missourians is the honor of a lifetime. I stand on the shoulders of those who came before me and I vow to uphold the rule of law and lead an office of integrity and professionalism. pic.twitter.com/oMkC5v5Yor
— Eric Schmitt (@Eric_Schmitt) January 3, 2019
Missouri Chief Justice Zel Fischer gave Schmitt, 42, the oath of office in the Jefferson City Supreme Court building as his wife and three children surrounded him.
“Now it is time to get to work, with the humility and conviction necessary to honor this office, and fight for all 6 million Missourians,” Schmitt said in prepared remarks.
Schmitt said he’ll focus on the opioid epidemic and supporting local prosecutors during his time in office.
He declined to comment when asked by a reporter whether he’ll continue investigations started by his predecessor, Josh Hawley, who is leaving to join the U.S. Senate after unseating Democrat Claire McCaskill in November.
Schmitt said no one in his office will use a message-deleting app called Confide on their work phones, and he’s encouraging staff not to use it on their personal phones either.
The app raised concerns about government transparency because staffers under former Gov. Eric Greitens, who resigned amid personal and political scandal in June, used it.
Schmitt also said there will be a “bright line” between his political campaign and official work by staffers, a response to pushback Hawley received for hiring political consultants who advised official staff.
When asked whether he plans to run to keep his seat in 2020, Schmitt said he’s “very focused on this job now.”
Schmitt served roughly two years as the state’s elected treasurer until Republican Gov. Mike Parson named him as Hawley’s replacement.
Hawley’s departure set off a chain reaction of vacancies. Parson just weeks ago named the next treasurer, state House Budget Chairman Scott Fitzpatrick, to fill Schmitt’s seat.
Fitzpatrick will be sworn in Jan. 14, a slight delay that will give him the chance to serve two four-year terms on top of the close to two years left of Schmitt’s term, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported.
Under Missouri’s term limits, most statewide elected officials can only run for two terms. But state law allows appointees to run for two full terms if they serve less than two years in their appointed position.
Fitzpatrick told the newspaper that there were other factors aside from term limits that factored into the delayed start date, including reviewing his personal holdings and investments.
LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Republican U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran says many rural hospitals are “hanging on by a thread” and could benefit from the additional revenue that Medicaid expansion would generate.
But Moran says he wants to leave the decision in Kansas to the Legislature. Moran made the comments Wednesday after speaking to LMH Health president and CEO Russ Johnson during a visit to Lawrence.
Kansas has rejected accepting additional federal funding provided through the Affordable Care Act to expand the jointly state and federally funded Medicaid program for the poor and disabled. But the idea is being revisited now that incoming Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly has expressed interest.
Moran says Kansas needs to weigh a funding increase against “how long those federal dollars will be in place.”
The Trump administration remains quiet ahead of talks with China next week, fueling concerns that concessions by China may not be enough to satisfy U.S. demands.
Bloomberg News reports the measures by China to open its economy “mostly fall short” of U.S. Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer’s demands. Lighthizer wants changes on alleged forced technology transfer and theft of intellectual property. China’s moves to open its economy included renewed purchases of U.S. soybeans and rice, critical for a down ag economy.
However, With Lighthizer demanding “structural changes” on technology transfers, China continues to complain “it’s not clear the U.S. side knows what it wants.” A Trade analyst recently told Blomberg “it’s hard to imagine” a deal can be reached by the U.S.-set deadline of March first. Trade officials from the U.S. and China will meet in Beijing next week.
MOBERLY, Mo. (AP) — Court records say a methamphetamine robbery led to a double homicide outside a central Missouri bar.
20-year-old Christopher Esry, 40-year-old Aaron Bloss, 29-year-old Travis Koenig and 22-year-old Steven Dale Bell are jailed on $1 million bonds.
Charging documents say Bloss told police that Esry asked for a ride early Friday and threatened him to get him to participate in the robbery outside the bar in Moberly. Bloss said he wasn’t the one who pulled the trigger. The shooting killed 51-year-old Darren Stacey Tharp, of Columbia, and 24-year-old Shane Austin Hare, of Jacksonville, Florida.
Bloss said Koenig was the getaway driver, and Bell helped dispose of evidence.
Esry is charged with first-degree murder, and Bloss and Koenig with second-degree murder. Bell is charged with evidence tampering.
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MOBERLY, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say four men have been arrested in a central Missouri shooting that left one man from Florida and another from Missouri dead.
The Columbia Missourian reports that 40-year-old Aaron Bloss, 29-year-old Travis Koenig, 22-year-old Steven Dale Bell and 20-year-old Christopher Esry are jailed on $1 million cash-only bonds. Bloss, Esry and Koenig face murder charges, while Bell is charged with tampering with evidence.
Surveillance video showed 51-year-old Darren Stacey Tharp, of Columbia, Missouri, and 24-year-old Shane Austin Hare, of Jacksonville, Florida, pulling into the parking lot of a Moberly, Missouri, bar early Friday. The bar, called Bud’s Place, said in a Facebook post that staff found the men’s bodies the next day.
Hare’s sister, Sara Hare, said her brother was staying with Tharp’s nephew while visiting friends in Missouri.
New leaders convene in Congress Thursday with the need to find an end to the government shutdown. The Department of Agriculture and other federal agencies are reaching a “breaking point,” according to Politico, as many agencies are running out of carryover funding.
Democrats who now control the House of Representatives were expected to vote on a spending package upon taking office Thursday, but the Senate isn’t expected to accept the plan. USDA has closed Farm Service Agency offices across the nation due to the shutdown.
Producers who have certified 2018 production are expected to receive Market Facilitation Program payments, the aid package designed to offset trade losses to farmers stemming from the Trump administration’s trade agenda. However, producers who have yet to certify 2018 acres will have to wait until the shutdown concludes.
USDA has continued some services, included meat and commodity inspections, along with Forest Service law enforcement, some research measurements and the continuation of SNAP benefits.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — A 73-year-old man has been charged with murder after he admitted to beating his roommate to death at a Missouri nursing home.
Police were called to The Estates of Spanish Lake Nursing and Rehabilitation facility in St. Louis County just after 7 a.m. Wednesday. Officers found 69-year-old Larry Harris dead.
Prosecutors charged 73-year-old Willie Clemons with second-degree murder. He is jailed on $250,000 bond.
A probable cause statement says the men were roommates. A nurse found Harris in his bed and not breathing. The statement says Clemons admitted to the nursing staff that he punched Harris several times. It wasn’t immediately clear what led to the attack.
With the U.S. government closed for business for the 21st time since 1976, this time with a partial shutdown, the personal-finance website WalletHub today released its report on the States Most & Least Affected by the 2019 Government Shutdown to add some hard data to all the rhetoric.
According to the study, Missouri is the 26th and Kansas is the seventh least affected state by the partial shutdown.
WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia in terms of five key metrics, ranging from each state’s share of federal jobs to federal contract dollars per capita to the share of families receiving food stamps.
Impact of the Government Shutdown on Kansas (1=Most Affected, 25=Avg.):
To view the full report, please visit:
https://wallethub.com/edu/government-shutdown-report/1111/
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LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — Prosecutors say text messages show that a woman plotted her ex-boyfriend’s death with a friend for more than a month before his body was found inside a burning home near Lawrence.
The Lawrence Journal-World reports that prosecutors want to present the texts at the upcoming trial of 39-year-old Tria Evans. But the defense says allowing them wouldn’t be fair.
Evans and 38-year-old Christina Towell are charged with first-degree murder in the November 2017 killing of 34-year-old Joel Wales. Evans and Wales had a child together and a history of domestic disputes. Towell is accused of driving Evans to the scene.
One text between the women reads: “This needs done this week.” Evans also called Wales a “psycho” in a text and said she hates being “scared all the time.”
