JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. – A Missouri man who was in a vehicle that led police officers in a pursuit was sentenced in federal court Monday for illegally possessing a firearm, according to the United State Attorney.
Ewing -Boone Co.
Justin Craig Ewing, 30, was sentenced by U.S. District judge Stephen R. Bough to four years and eight months in federal prison without parole.
On Feb. 5, 2019, Ewing pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Ewing admitted that he was in possession of a loaded Browning .40-caliber handgun.
On Dec. 22, 2017, police officers attempted to stop a 2006 Chevy Impala driven by Jeremy Wade Gerlach, 36, of Harrisburg, Mo., in which Ewing was the passenger. Gerlach had absconded from supervision by the Missouri Board of Probation and Parole and had an active arrest warrant for his parole violation. When Gerlach stopped in the parking lot at the Days Inn Motel, 900 I-70 Drive Southwest, Columbia, Mo., officers pulled in behind the parked vehicle.
As officers approached the vehicle on foot, Gerlach and Ewing fled north in the vehicle through a grassy area next to the motel. As another patrol vehicle arrived from the east side of the motel, the Impala swerved left to go around them and crashed into an electric pole. An officer ran up to the vehicle and pointed his gun at the occupants. When the officer realized Gerlach was trying to put the vehicle in reverse, he ran back to his patrol vehicle and used it to pinch in the rear of the Impala to prevent escape and further jeopardy to officers.
When officers approached the vehicle, the driver’s side windows were up and the doors were locked. An officer used his baton to break the driver’s window, and officers pulled Gerlach out of the Impala through the broken driver’s side window. Other officers removed Ewing from the car and handcuffed him.
When officers removed Gerlach and Ewing from the vehicle, they saw the Browning handgun (which had been reported as stolen) lying on the floorboard where Ewing had been sitting. Ewing was wearing a shoulder handgun holster. Officers also found a loaded Rock Island Armory .45-caliber handgun wedged between the driver’s seat and center console.
In a search of the vehicle officers also found a glass water pipe and a travel bag that contained a digital scale with methamphetamine residue on it, three glass methamphetamine pipes, and a broken Alprazolam pill. Inside Ewing’s wallet, officers found pieces of paper that appeared to be drug ledgers.
Under federal law, it is illegal for anyone who has been convicted of a felony to be in possession of any firearm or ammunition. Ewing has four prior felony convictions for forgery and prior felony convictions for burglary, resisting arrest, possession of a controlled substance, distribution of a controlled substance, and unlawful use of a weapon.
Gerlach also pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. Gerlach was sentenced on April 9, 2019, to four years and nine months in federal prison without parole.
This case was prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorney Lawrence E. Miller. It was investigated by the Columbia, Mo., Police Department and the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosiv
Voters in November overwhelmingly approved a state constitutional amendment legalizing marijuana and marijuana-infused products for patients who suffer from serious illnesses. Missouri is now among 33 states approving medical marijuana.
Conditions that qualify include cancer, epilepsy and psychiatric disorders such as post-traumatic stress disorder.
Patient and caregiver applications may be submitted beginning July 4. Applicants need a physician certification that’s less than 30 days old.
It will be months before Missouri patients can buy medical marijuana.
The Department of Health and Senior Services won’t begin accepting applications for growing, manufacturing and dispensing marijuana until Aug. 3. The agency estimates medical marijuana will be available as early as January 2020.
TOPEKA – May tax receipts came in $77.1 million above the $486.0 million estimate for all tax categories, according to a media release from the Kansas Department of Revenue.
Individual income tax receipts are $67.9 million, or 32.3%, above the estimate of $210.0 million. Corporate income tax receipts are $9.0 million, or 44.8%, below the estimate of $20.0 million.
Retail sales tax receipts are $201.1 million, an increase of $8.1 million, or 4.2% above the May estimate.
“Increases in May receipts are largely due to the continued growth in individual income receipts,” Kansas Revenue Secretary Mark Burghart said. “Retail sales and use taxes also contributed almost $10.6 million to the growth in receipts.”
SECAUCUS, N.J., – American Medical Collection Agency (AMCA), a billing collections service provider, has informed Quest Diagnostics that an unauthorized user had access to AMCA’s system containing personal information AMCA received from various entities, including from Quest, according to a media release from the blood testing provider with many locations in Missouri, Kansas and nationwide.
AMCA provides billing collections services to Optum360, which in turn is a Quest contractor. Quest and Optum360 are working with forensic experts to investigate the matter.
AMCA first notified Quest and Optum360 on May 14, 2019 of potential unauthorized activity on AMCA’s web payment page. On May 31, 2019, AMCA notified Quest and Optum360 that the data on AMCA’s affected system included information regarding approximately 11.9 million Quest patients. AMCA believes this information includes personal information, including certain financial data, Social Security numbers, and medical information, but not laboratory test results.
AMCA has not yet provided Quest or Optum360 detailed or complete information about the AMCA data security incident, including which information of which individuals may have been affected. And Quest has not been able to verify the accuracy of the information received from AMCA.
Quest is taking this matter very seriously and is committed to the privacy and security of our patients’ personal information. Since learning of the AMCA data security incident, we have suspended sending collection requests to AMCA.
Quest will be working with Optum360 to ensure that Quest patients are appropriately notified consistent with the law.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) — A man has died from injuries he sustained when a powerful tornado tore through Jefferson City, Missouri.
Storm damage in Jefferson City image courtesy KMOV TV
An obituary posted by Millard Family Chapels says 61-year-old John Howard Freeman died May 26 at Capital Region Medical Center in Jefferson City due to injuries he sustained in the tornado that struck the Jefferson City area shortly before midnight on May 22.
Capital Region Medical Center confirmed Monday that Freeman was brought in as a patient May 23 and later died.
He would be the first reported death from the tornado that carved a 32-mile path through central Missouri.
The obituary says Freeman enjoyed working on cars and stereos and playing with his dog, Daisy, who also was killed as a result of the storm.
WASHINGTON (AP) — The Food and Drug Administration’s first broad testing of food for a worrisome class of nonstick, stain-resistant industrial compounds found substantial levels in some grocery store meats and seafood and in off-the-shelf chocolate cake, according to unreleased findings FDA researchers presented at a scientific conference in Europe.
FDA lab in Silver Springs Maryland -photo courtesy FDA
The FDA’s disclosure is likely to add to concerns raised by states and public health groups that President Donald Trump’s administration is not acting fast enough or firmly enough to start regulating the manmade compounds, called “forever chemicals.” A federal toxicology report last year cited consistent associations between very high levels of the industrial compounds in peoples’ blood and health risks but said there was not enough evidence to prove the compounds as the cause.
The levels in nearly half of the meat and fish tested were double or more the only currently existing federal advisory level for any kind of the widely used manmade compounds, which are called per- and polyfluoroalykyl substances, or PFAS.
The level in the chocolate cake was higher: more than 250 times the only federal guidelines, which are for some PFAS in drinking water.
Food and Drug Administration spokeswoman Tara Rabin said Monday that the agency thought the contamination was “not likely to be a human health concern,” even though the tests exceeded the sole existing federal PFAS recommendations, for drinking water.
As a handful of PFAS contaminations of food emerge around the country, authorities have deemed some a health concern but not others. The agency considers each discovery of the compound in food case by case, including the kind of food, levels of contamination, frequency of consumption and latest scientific information, Rabin said.
“Measuring PFAS concentrations in food, estimating dietary exposure and determining the associated health effects is an emerging area of science,” the FDA said.
PFAS, created by DuPont in 1938 and put into use for tough nonstick cookware, now exists in an estimated 5,000 varieties. Industries use the product to keep grease, water and stains off countless consumer items, including in food packaging, carpets and couches, dental floss and outdoor gear.
The chemicals also are found in firefighting foam, which the Department of Defense calls irreplaceable in suppressing jet-fuel fires. Especially around military bases and PFAS facilities, decades of use have built up levels in water, soil and some treated sewage sludge used to fertilize non-organic food crops and feed for livestock.
They’ve been a topic of congressional hearings, state legislation and intense federal and state scrutiny over the past two years.
The federal toxicology review last year concluded the compounds are more dangerous than previously thought, saying consistent studies of exposed people “suggest associations” with some kinds of cancers, liver problems, low birth weight and other issues.
Because the tough compounds are predicted to take thousands of years to degrade, and because older versions have been found to accumulate in peoples’ bodies, PFAS has acquired the name “forever chemicals.”
The Environmental Protection Agency earlier established a nonbinding health advisory threshold of 70 parts per trillion for two-phased out forms of the contaminant in drinking water.
Trump’s EPA said it would consider setting mandatory limits instead in the wake of the federal toxicology report and after federally mandated water sampling found high levels in many drinking water systems around the country. The administration has called dealing with PFAS contamination a “potential public relations nightmare” and a “national priority.”
Impatient for federal action, several states have moved to regulate the chemicals on their own, including setting standards for groundwater or drinking water.
In the FDA study, conducted in October 2017, researchers oversaw market basket testing for more than a dozen PFAS, drawing on samples of food on sale in three undisclosed mid-Atlantic cities.
FDA researchers discussed the results at the annual conference by the Society of Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry in Helsinki, Finland, last week.
Two environmental groups, the Environmental Defense Fund and the Environmental Working Group, obtained written results and charts from the FDA presentation and provided them to The Associated Press.
PFOS, an older form of PFAS no longer made in the U.S., turned up at levels ranging from 134 parts per trillion to 865 parts per trillion in tilapia, chicken, turkey, beef, cod, salmon, shrimp, lamb, catfish and hot dogs. Prepared chocolate cake tested at 17,640 parts per trillion of a kind of PFAS called PFPeA.
The FDA presentation also included what appeared to be previously unreported findings of PFAS levels — one spiking over 1,000 parts per trillion — in leafy green vegetables grown within 10 miles (16 kilometers) of an unspecified eastern U.S. PFAS plant and sold at a farmer’s market.
It also previewed test levels for a previously reported instance of PFAS contamination of the food supply, in the feed and milk at a dairy near an Air Force base in New Mexico.
The FDA said the contamination in that milk was a health concern. It said it would release detailed data on that soon.
The FDA in 2015 and 2016 revoked approval for some older versions of PFAS in food packaging, although it was one of those versions that was found in high levels in its testing of meat and seafood.
In its statement, the FDA noted studies suggesting newer forms may also pose a health risk. It said it was working with other federal agencies to determine appropriate next steps.
“What this calls for is additional research to determine how widespread this contamination is and how high the levels are,” Linda Birnbaum, director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences, said separately in an interview. “We have to look at total human exposure — not just what’s in the water or what’s in the food … or not just dust. We need to look at the sum totals of what the exposures are.”
Birnbaum added, “Nobody is exposed to just one form of PFAS in isolation. You’re exposed to a whole mixture.”
It’s unclear what human health risks are posed by the presence of PFAS chemicals in foods, said Jamie DeWitt, a toxicologist at East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina, who studies PFAS compounds.
The discovery of PFAS contamination in wells and land around a Chemours Co. manufacturing plant near Fayetteville has made North Carolina one of the focuses of study for exposures.
“Drinking one glass of contaminated water is unlikely to be associated with health risks, as is eating one slice of contaminated chocolate cake,” DeWitt said. “Individually, each item is unlikely to be a huge problem, but collectively and over a lifetime, that may be a different story.”
Sally Brown, a University of Washington researcher who supports the use of treated sewage sludge by agriculture, said the FDA’s findings were “not a major concern.”
“If you are worried about this type of compound it makes sense to ban the cookware and the dental floss” treated with PFAS, Brown said.
Near Fayetteville, neighbors of the Chemours PFAS facility are making plans for a Fourth of July parade float dedicated to warning others just how widely PFAS was turning up in the area.
The float will feature men fishing in a contaminated pond and vegetables growing in a contaminated garden, said Michael Watters, who lives a mile (1.6 kilometers) from the plant. Watters said he has stopped consuming well water and vegetables from his own land.
ST. LOUIS (AP) — The swollen Missouri and Mississippi rivers are closing hundreds of roads and inundating homes and businesses.
Flooded roads in Jackson County Missouri Saturday-photo courtesy Jackson Co. Sheriff
Locks and dams upstream of St. Louis are shut down as the Mississippi River crests at its second-highest level on record in some areas, straining agriculture levees.
Floodgates also have been closed in St. Louis in advance of the river cresting there Thursday.
The high water already is causing problems. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that several hotels that were crowded with visitors for the Stanley Cup Final and Cardinals-Cubs baseball games were left without hot water Sunday after too much water overwhelmed a pump station.
Along the Missouri River, water levels were falling in Jefferson City after a crest that flooded railroad tracks and airport property. Statewide, nearly 400 roads are closed.
WASHINGTON (AP) — Top officials from the U.S. and Mexico will begin talks Monday in a scramble to fend off President Donald Trump’s threat of devastating tariffs on imports from the southern ally and meet his demand for fewer migrants at the border.
Border Patrol continues to apprehend large groups of 100 or more migrants arriving at the U.S. Mexican border. This photos show USBP and BORSTAR agents processing individuals in March at El Paso, TX – image courtesy Department of Homeland Security, U.S. Border Patrol
Trump is in London for a long-planned overseas trip, leaving others to stem a potential trade crisis. It’s unclear what more Mexico can do — and what will be enough — to satisfy the president. Trump’s Republican allies warn that tariffs on Mexican imports will hit U.S. consumers and harm the economy.
The president all but taunted negotiators for a quick resolution. “Mexico is sending a big delegation to talk about the Border,” the president tweeted Sunday. “Problem is, they’ve been ‘talking’ for 25 years. We want action, not talk.”
On Monday, Mexican Economy Minister Graciela Marquez plans talks with Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross. Two days later, delegations led by Secretary of State Mike Pompeo and Foreign Relations Secretary Marcelo Ebrard will also meet in Washington.
Trump has been here before, issuing high-stakes threats, only to back off come crunch time. But a top White House official warned that the president was “deadly serious.” Trump is threatening 5% tariffs on Mexican imports starting June 10.
Trump claims Mexico has taken advantage of the United States for decades but that the abuse will end when he slaps tariffs on Mexican imports. His frustration with the flow of migrants is nothing new, but it’s a subject he often returns to, as he did last week after special counsel Robert Mueller’s rare public statement on the Trump-Russia report.
The president said last week that he will impose the tariffs to pressure the government of Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador to block Central American migrants from crossing the border into the U.S. Trump said the import tax will increase by 5% every month through October, topping out at 25%. It swiftly refocused attention on the border issues.
Mick Mulvaney, the acting White House chief of staff, said on “Fox News Sunday” that the president is “deadly serious.”
Still, Mulvaney acknowledged there are no concrete benchmarks being set to assess whether the U.S. ally is stemming the migrant flow enough to satisfy the administration. “We intentionally left the declaration sort of ad hoc,” he said.
“So, there’s no specific target, there’s no specific percentage, but things have to get better,” Mulvaney said. “They have to get dramatically better and they have to get better quickly.”
The tariff threat comes just as the administration has been pushing for passage of the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which would update the North American Free Trade Agreement and top Republicans warned it could derail that effort.
GOP Sen. John Kennedy of Louisiana, called the tariffs a “mistake” and said it was unlikely Trump would impose them.
Republicans on Capitol Hill and GOP allies in the business community have expressed serious unease with the tariffs. Some see this latest threat as a play for leverage and doubt Trump will follow through. Earlier this year Trump threated to seal the border with Mexico only to change course.
The president “has been known to play with fire, but not live hand grenades,” Kennedy said on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“It’s going to tank the American economy,” he said. “I don’t think the president’s going to impose these tariffs.”
Republicans have repeatedly tried to nudge Trump away from trade wars and have specifically questioned the White House’s ability to rely on executive authorities to impose some of them as national security issues.
At the same time, Trump’s efforts to revamp immigration laws have drawn little support in the Congress.
“I think what the president said, what the White House has made clear, is we need a vast reduction in the numbers crossing,” Kevin McAleenan, acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
Mulvaney, who also appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” said Mexico could take various steps to decrease the record numbers of migrants at the border.
He suggested the Mexican government could seal its southern border with Guatemala, crack down on domestic terrorist organizations and make Mexico a safe place for migrants seeking to apply for asylum.
“There are specific things that the Mexicans can do,” he said.
Economists and business groups are sounding alarms over the tariffs, warning that they will impair trade and increase the costs of many Mexican goods that Americans have come to rely on.
But Mulvaney played down those fears, saying he doubts business will pass on the costs to shoppers. “American consumers will not pay for the burden of these tariffs,” he said.
He also suggested the tariffs were an immigration issue, separate from the trade deal the United States is trying to negotiate with Mexico and Canada.
Several top GOP lawmakers have expressed concerns that Trump’s tariff threat could upend that deal. The chairman of the Finance Committee, Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, said last week the tariffs would “seriously jeopardize” passage of that agreement, which needs approval in Congress.
BOONVILLE, Mo. (AP) — Flooding along the Missouri River has prompted the cancellation of this year’s Katy Trail Ride, which was scheduled for June 17-21.
Missouri State Parks and the Missouri State Park Foundation said in a news release that about 100 miles of the Katy Trail State Park between Boonville and St. Charles is closed because of flooding.
The Missouri River is expected to crest at near record levels early next week and it could be several weeks before the water recedes from the trail.
The annual five-day ride covers 240 miles and attracts hundreds of riders.
For more information about the 2019 Katy Trail Ride cancellation, visitmostateparks.com/2019ktride, email katytrailride@gmail.com or call Missouri State Parks toll-free at 800-334-6946. #KTRide2019
CAMDEN COUNTY — One person was injured in an accident just after 10:30p.m. Sunday in Camden County.
The Missouri State Highway Patrol reported a 1995 Buick Regal driven by Brian B. Means, 56, Linn Creek, was northbound on Route V just past Country Meadows Drive. The vehicle traveled off the road, struck a culvert, returned to the road, overturned and the driver was ejected.
Means was pronounced dead at the scene. He was not wearing a seat belt, according to the MSHP.
