GEARY COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a fatal stabbing and have a suspect in custody.

Just before 9:30p.m. Monday, police responded to the 100 Block of East Vine Street in Junction City, according to a media release. At the scene, police found 55-year-old Eddie Starks of Junction City with a stab wound. EMS transported Starts to a Topeka hospital where he died.

Police arrested Vondra Brown, 49, Junction City, on requested charges of 2nd degree murder. Police released no additional details early Tuesday.

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A judge issued another order Monday to keep Missouri’s only abortion clinic operating while a fight over the facility’s license plays out in court.

Circuit Judge Michael Stelzer granted Planned Parenthood’s request for a preliminary injunction, which extends his earlier order to temporarily block the state from allowing the St. Louis facility’s license to lapse. The courtroom win for abortion-rights advocates comes after a string of setbacks in legislatures around the U.S.

The state health department in May declined to renew the clinic’s license to perform abortion procedures, citing concerns about patient safety, “failed surgical abortions” and legal violations.

Stelzer’s ruling on Monday ordered the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services to decide on Planned Parenthood’s application to renew its license by June 21.

Dr. Leana Wen, president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, called the ruling “a clear victory for our patients – and for people across Missouri,” but said the threat against legal abortion remains.

“We’ve seen just how closely anti-health politicians came to ending abortion care for an entire state,” Wen said in a statement. “We are in a state of emergency for women’s health in America.”

Phone and email messages seeking comment from Republican Gov. Mike Parson’s office and the health department were not immediately returned.

Stelzer’s ruling said he wasn’t determining whether the license should be approved or denied. But the judge noted that one issue in dispute is whether the health department can simply allow the abortion clinic’s license to lapse without taking any action.

“The Court does not believe that an ‘official action’ can include non-action,” Stelzer wrote.

The state issued subpoenas to staff doctors and former medical residents who worked at Planned Parenthood’s St. Louis facility, seeking their testimony about what an assistant attorney general called “grave concerns” about patient safety. Clinic leaders said the move is part of an effort by an anti-abortion administration to eliminate the procedure in Missouri.

According to Planned Parenthood, no state has been without a functioning abortion clinic since 1974, the year after the U.S. Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion nationwide.

The fight over the clinic’s license comes as lawmakers in many conservative states, including Missouri, are passing new restrictions that take aim at Roe. Abortion opponents, emboldened by new conservative justices on the Supreme Court, hope federal courts will uphold laws that prohibit abortions before a fetus is viable outside the womb, the dividing line the high court set in Roe.

Parson signed legislation on May 24 to ban abortions at or beyond eight weeks of pregnancy, with exceptions for medical emergencies but not for rape or incest.

The number of abortions performed in Missouri has declined every year for the past decade, reaching a low of 2,910 last year. Of those, an estimated 1,210 occurred at eight weeks or less of pregnancy, according to preliminary statistics from the state health department.

Missouri women also seek abortions in other states. In Kansas, about 3,300 of the 7,000 abortions performed in 2018 were for Missouri residents, according to the state’s health department. Illinois does not track the home states of women seeking abortions.

An abortion clinic is located just across the Mississippi River in Granite City, Illinois, less than 10 miles from the Planned Parenthood facility in St. Louis. Planned Parenthood’s abortion clinic in the Kansas City area is in Overland Park, Kansas, just 2 miles from the state line. State figures show a handful of Missouri hospitals also perform abortions, but those are relatively rare.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a stray bullet struck a 7-year-old in both legs as the vehicle in which she was riding drove past a Kansas City gunfight.

Police say a 16-year-old also was shot in the ankle Sunday night during an exchange of gunfire outside a 7-Eleven. Police say the teen was waiting outside the convenience store for his mother and two younger siblings when he got into an argument with someone.

The teen was found wounded at the scene. The girl showed up later at a hospital, where she is in serious but stable condition.

Police are still searching for the suspect.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A report from Missouri’s attorney general shows that black drivers across the state are 91% more likely than white motorists to be pulled over by police and newly collected data shows that African-Americans are even more likely to be stopped in many communities where they live.

The Attorney General’s Office for the first time last year collected data on whether people pulled over by police lived in the area or not. That’s significant because law enforcement organizations for years have said that if drivers of color from out of town are pulled over as they commute through a city with a large white population that could skew a local police agency’s data to make the disparity rate artificially high.

While that appears to be the case in some jurisdictions, the numbers show the disparity is sometimes actually higher when comparing arrests of only resident white and black drivers.

The Missouri NAACP in 2017 issued a travel advisory warning people to be careful while in Missouri because of a danger that civil rights won’t be respected, citing in part the attorney general’s annual report on disparities in police stops.

For example, St. Louis County police were 80% more likely to stop black drivers compared to white drivers, when analyzing the total number of police stops. But when only comparing St. Louis County drivers, data show black drivers were more than twice as likely to be pulled over.

In the Kansas City-area city of Blue Springs, which is 87% white based on 2010 census data and close to Interstate 70, black drivers in general were 275% more likely to be stopped. When isolating stops to residents, data show black drivers were nearly three times as likely to be stopped compared to white resident drivers.

“That is worrisome, because now we have a more accurate indicator of disparity because the population base is, if you will, the correct one,” said Richard Rosenfeld, a University of Missouri-St. Louis criminologist who analyzed the data for the attorney general’s office.

The 2018 report comes nearly five years after protesters in Ferguson drew national attention to longstanding concerns about police treatment of black communities following the 2014 police shooting death of Michael Brown, a black, unarmed 18-year-old who lived in the St. Louis suburb.

Data released by Republican Attorney General Eric Schmitt show that since then, reports of black drivers being pulled over at a disproportionately high rate compared to their white counterparts have only increased. Last year’s statewide disparity rate between white and black drivers is the highest recorded in the almost two decades since the state first began compiling data.

In Ferguson, black drivers in 2014 were 265 percent more likely than white motorists to be pulled over. When comparing only residents, black drivers were more than three times as likely to be stopped compared to white motorists in 2018.

“For the eighteenth year in a row, the Missouri Attorney General’s office has released a report that shows black communities, and people of color are disproportionately stopped and searched by law enforcement,” ACLU legislative and policy Director Sara Baker said in a statement. “A report is not enough. Actions must be taken.”

In 2015, data show black drivers were roughly 70% more likely to be stopped by police compared to white motorists statewide. That disparity climbed to 75% in 2016 and up to 85% in 2017 .

“One has to be cautious about how you interpret that,” Rosenfeld said, “because in the more recent years of course we’re moving further and further away from the 2010 Census, which was used as the population base. But I don’t think use of the 2010 Census alone explains that increase in disparity.”

Missouri Sheriff s’ Association Executive Director Kevin Merritt in a Monday statement said “law enforcement has no tolerance for racial bias in policing and in general is not opposed to data collection.” But he raised issues with drawing conclusions from police stops and said law enforcement officials have pushed to collect additional data on whether officers knew the race of the driver before pulling them over.

“There is much more to this issue than raw data of stops,” Merritt said. “Those who support our law enforcement officers should not blindly conclude bias exists without being part of the solution.”

Missouri Police Chiefs Association President Wes Blair referred questions about the attorney general’s findings to Executive Director Sheldon Lineback, who on Friday said he has been out on medical leave and had not yet read the report. Lineback did not immediately comment.

The attorney general released the annual police stops findings on May 31, within days of Plain View Project researchers flagging 166 bigoted or violent social media posts by active-duty and former cops in St. Louis and other cities, sparking an internal affairs probe and officer sensitivity training in St. Louis.

One St. Louis police official shared a meme asserting that “if the Confederate flag is racist, then so is Black History Month.”

The progressive advocacy group Empower Missouri is calling for increased communication between police and communities and policies “that help to break down the socioeconomic barriers that disproportionately affect People of Color in our state,” according to a release from the group in response to the latest police stops report.

The organization also wants “meaningful legislation to address the inherent structural problems within our criminal justice system.”

“If you don’t have any teeth in that law that bans racial profiling, then you won’t get compliance,” said Republican state Rep. Shamed Dogan, of the St. Louis suburb of Ballwin. “We need to get Republicans on board to recognize that it’s a crisis. We have data to prove this has been going on for two decades.”

Missouri law allows the governor to strip state funding from police agencies that don’t comply with the state’s racial profiling law . State Budget Director Dan Haug said at least as far back as 2015, that has not occurred.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — Missouri Gov. Mike Parson has signed a roughly $30 billion budget outlining state spending for the next year.

Parson on Monday approved the package of budget bills for the fiscal year that begins in July.

We are proud of the General Assembly and their efforts with the FY 2020 budget protecting taxpayers’ hard-earned money. They have created a fiscally-responsible, balanced budget that will move Missouri forward.

Budget signed, zero line-item vetoes.

🔗https://t.co/DcOi7vpLHT pic.twitter.com/J7UZn450Un

— Governor Mike Parson (@GovParsonMO) June 10, 2019

The budget includes $61 million more in core K-12 public school funding compared to this year. That meets funding goals outlined in state law.

Colleges and universities are each set to get at least $1 million more in funding.

The spending plan also includes $50 million in un-earmarked general revenue on bridge repairs next fiscal year, plus another $50 million for a local cost-share program.

BUTLER, Mo. (AP) — Authorities say a pilot has been killed after a small plane crashed into a grain bin in western Missouri.

The Federal Aviation Administration says the Cessna C425 departed from Vero Beach, Florida, and was headed to the Butler Memorial Airport when it crashed Monday morning. The Missouri State Highway Patrol says the pilot was the only person aboard the plane. The pilot’s name wasn’t immediately released.

The Bates County Sheriff’s Office said in a Facebook post that multiple agencies responded and secured the scene. The post said they are waiting for federal investigators. No details have been released about the cause of the crash.

Butler is about 55 miles north of Kansas City.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (AP) — A Missouri woman who is accused of buying lingerie and condoms for a 12-year-old girl and encouraging her to have a sexual relationship with an 18-year-old man has been charged with child endangerment.

66-year-old Jo Garrison, of Springfield, was arrested last week and freed after posting bond. Charging documents say Garrison bought condoms for the girl and told her not to get pregnant when she was diagnosed last year with chlamydia.

The 18-year-old, who is charged with statutory rape, allegedly told police he tried to end the relationship, but Garrison manipulated him into continuing and bought lingerie for the girl.

Documents say Garrison told officers she was fine with the relationship. Her attorney didn’t immediately return a phone message from The Associated Press.

WASHINGTON (AP) — The Supreme Court rejected a challenge to federal regulation of gun silencers Monday, just days after a gunman used one in a shooting rampagethat killed 12 people in Virginia.

The justices did not comment in turning away appeals from two Kansas men who were convicted of violating federal law regulating silencers. The men argued that the constitutional right “to keep and bear arms” includes silencers.

The court’s action in the silencer cases was among dozens of orders in pending appeals, including decisions to add an international child custody dispute and four other cases to next term’s docket. The justices also will hear cases dealing with a death row inmate in Arizona, racial discrimination claims against Comcast by an African American owned media company, environmental cleanup at a Superfund site in Montana and a dispute between Intel Corp. and a retired Intel engineer.

The court also rejected an appeal from a Yemeni man who has been held at the Guantanamo Bay naval base for more than 17 years. But Justice Stephen Breyer said “it is past time” for the court to decide whether indefinite detention at the U.S. Navy base in Cuba is legal.

In the silencer cases, Kansas and seven other states joined in a court filing urging justices to hear the appeals. The states said the court should affirm that the Second Amendment protects “silencers and other firearms accessories.” The other states are: Arkansas, Idaho, Louisiana, Montana, South Carolina, Texas and Utah.

President Donald Trump’s administration asked the court to stay out of the case and leave the convictions in place.

Shane Cox, owner of a military surplus store Tough Guys, was convicted of making and transferring an unregistered silencer, and customer Jeremy Kettler was convicted of possessing one, all in violation of the 85-year-old National Firearms Act. Both men were sentenced to probation.

Meanwhile, police are trying to determine a motive for the deadly shootings in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Authorities have said that city employee DeWayne Craddock opened fire in a municipal building on May 31. Police say Craddock was armed with two semi-automatic handguns, a silencer and extended ammunition magazines.

Craddock later was killed in a shootout with police.