TOPEKA, Kan. (AP) — Kansas officials want to put the brakes on vaping in public schools as usage soars.

The Kansas State Board of Education voted unanimously Tuesday to launch an anti-vaping campaign.

Officials say local school boards need to amend student codes of conduct and district disciplinary policy to outline sanctions for those caught vaping. The state board also agreed to formalize and expand an ad-hoc task force that recommended swift action to dampen demand by youths for the sweet-flavored alternative to smoking.

Kansas State Department of Education commissioner Randy Watson says estimates that half of students in Kansas high school were involved in vaping justified an aggressive statewide response. He described it as a public health epidemic.

PETTIS COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating the death of a man in Pettis County.

Just after 6:30p.m. Tuesday, deputies were called to an assault in progress in the 200 block of East Henry Street in Green Ridge, according to the sheriff’s department.   Upon arrival several subjects were located outside the residence, including an unresponsive man later identified as James Andrew Gill, 32, of Pilot Grove.

Deputies initiated CPR and deployed an AED on  Gill until relieved by PCAD Ambulance personnel, but were unsuccessful in resuscitation attempts.  A Missouri State Highway Patrol Trooper also assisted deptuies on the scene.

Investigators from the Pettis County Sheriff’s Office conducted an investigation throughout the night Tuesday and interviewed several people.  The body was released to the Pettis County Coroner’s Office, with a forensic autopsy being scheduled by the Boone County Medical Examiner’s Office to determine the cause of death, according to the sheriff’s department.

 

 

CLAYTON, Mo. (AP) — Officials say an inmate who had been jailed in St. Louis County for eight days for violating parole in a drug case died less than hour after being taken to a state prison.

Missouri Department of Corrections spokeswoman Karen Pojmann says Daniel Stout was taken Tuesday to the prison in Bonne Terre in a St. Louis County vehicle. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that he arrived about 9:35 a.m., and emergency crews responded at 10:09 a.m. But by the time an ambulance arrived, Stout already was dead.

No further details were released about the circumstances leading to his death. County and state officials are investigating. A series of three deaths in the jail earlier this year resulted in criminal investigations, a council inquiry, a lawsuit and a change of leadership.

HILLSBORO, Mo. (AP) — The former president of a Missouri police charity is accused of stealing thousands of dollars from the organization as well as proceeds intended for an officer paralyzed in the line of duty.

Angela McMunn of De Soto faces four felony counts. She does not have a listed attorney.

McMunn founded the Shop With a Cop charity in 2015 to raise money so police officers could take low-income children holiday shopping. She allegedly used some of the money for personal expenses in 2016 and 2017. Court documents do not say how much is accused of taking.

McMunn also is accused of using proceeds from a fundraiser for Ballwin, Missouri, Officer Mike Flamion for personal expenses. Flamion was paralyzed from the neck down in a 2016 shooting.

COFFEY COUNTY — Authorities in Kansas say an emergency alert indicating an emergency at the Wolf Creek Nuclear Power plant was only a routine test.

According to a social media report for Coffey County Emergency Management, they were “conducting the required weekly test of the IPAWS/EAS system and the test message went live.” The alert was broadcast on several Emergency Alert System radio and television stations.

The system is used by national, state and local authorities to deliver important emergency information such as AMBER alerts and emergency weather information targeted to a specific area.

“Please disregard any warnings for Coffey County, the message does read it is a test.”

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say an armed man has been shot and killed while attempting to rob a suburban Kansas City cellphone store.

The man killed at the Boost Mobile store in Overland Park, Kansas, has been identified as Deshawn Brim, of Raytown, Missouri.

Police spokesman John Lacy says a man working the store opened fire Monday night when the suspect jumped over the counter with a gun in hand. KMBC-TV reports that Lacy says it’s unclear whether the worker was the manager or owner of the store.

Lacy says a woman, who was with the suspect, tried to get into the store after the shooting. But the man working at the store had locked the door. Police are questioning the woman.

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OVERLAND PARK, Kan. (AP) — Authorities say an armed man has been shot and killed while attempting to rob a suburban Kansas City cellphone store.

Overland Park, Kansas, Police spokesman John Lacy says a man working at a Boost Mobile store opened fire Monday night when the suspect jumped over the counter with a gun in hand.

Lacy says it’s unclear whether the worker was the manager or owner of the store.

Lacy says a woman, who was with the suspect, tried to get into the store after the shooting. But the man working at the store had locked the door. Police are questioning the woman.

No other injuries were reported.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri’s top election official on Tuesday rejected a third petition for a public vote on a new law banning abortions at eight weeks of pregnancy.

Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft’s action came as opponents of the law are fighting in court to force the Republican to approve two similar petitions for a referendum that he rejected last week.

The ACLU of Missouri and wealthy Republican businessman David Humphreys filed the petitions to put the law on the 2020 ballot in hopes that voters will overturn it. The abortion ban includes an exception for medical emergencies, but not for rape or incest.

Ashcroft cited a provision in the Missouri Constitution that prohibits referendums on “laws necessary for the immediate preservation of the public peace, health or safety” in his decision to reject the petitions.

A majority of the law, including the eight-week abortion ban, takes effect Aug. 28. But a provision that changed the rules on minors receiving abortions was enacted as soon as Republican Gov. Mike Parson signed the bill in May .

The new law requires a parent or guardian giving written consent for a minor to get an abortion to first notify the other custodial parent, unless the other parent has been convicted of a violent or sexual crime, is subject to a protection order or is “habitually in an intoxicated or drugged condition.”

The law’s “emergency clause” states that enacting the parental-consent portion is vital “because of the need to protect the health and safety of women and their children, both unborn and born.”

In court filings, attorneys for the groups trying to repeal the law argued that enacting that provision is not an actual emergency.

Attorneys for both plaintiffs cited a statement by the bill’s state Senate handler, GOP Sen. Andrew Koenig, who told St. Louis Public Radio that lawmakers tried to “pre-empt that type of situation by putting an emergency clause in there.”

“So there can’t be a referendum,” he said.

ACLU attorneys wrote in court filings that the Legislature “cannot tack an emergency law onto a non-emergency law in order to evade citizens’ fundamental right of review on laws that fall unambiguously within the people’s constitutional referendum power.”

A court hearing on the lawsuits is scheduled for next week.

The legal dispute over the abortion law comes as the state’s only abortion clinic fights its own court battle to continue providing the service, despite the state health department’s refusal to renew the clinic’s license.

A St. Louis judge issued an order Monday to keep the St. Louis Planned Parenthood clinic operating while the fight over the facility’s license plays out in court. Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer also ordered the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to decide on Planned Parenthood’s application to renew its license by June 21.

“We will not stop speaking out about the injustice that Gov. Parson and director Randall Williams from the department of health have intentionally created for the people of Missouri in a sick obsession to ban abortion and to not let women be equal citizens in this country,” Planned Parenthood Medical Director Dr. David Eisenberg said at a Tuesday news conference in reference to Republican Gov. Mike Parson.

Messages seeking comment from spokeswomen for the Republican governor and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services were not immediately returned.

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GREENE COUNTY— One person died in an accident just before 1:30p.m. Tuesday in Greene County.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a Nissan Quest driven by Joshua B. Mitchell, 33, Fair Grove, was northbound on MO 25 just south of Fair Grove. The van traveled off the road, rolled and the driver was ejected.

Mitchell was pronounced dead at the scene and transported to the Greene County Medical examiner’s office. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.