Stories from Tuesday, August 18, 2015

ST. LOUIS -- A member of the grand jury that declined to indict a white Ferguson police officer in the shooting death of Michael Brown is challenging a federal judge's dismissal of her lawsuit that sought to allow her to speak publicly about those secret proceedings...

BANGKOK -- A bomb exploded Monday within a central Bangkok shrine that is among the city's most popular tourist spots, killing at least 18 people and injuring more than 100 across a hectic intersection surrounded by five-star hotels and upscale shopping malls...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- While Congress remains stalled on a long-term plan for funding highways, state lawmakers and governors aren't waiting around. Nearly one-third of the states have approved measures this year that could collectively raise billions of dollars through higher fuel taxes, vehicle fees and bonds to repair old bridges and roads and relieve traffic congestion, according to an analysis by The Associated Press...

Action taken Monday night by the Cape Girardeau City Council may bring the city one step closer to reopening the roadway on South Sprigg Street. A section of the street has been closed since 2013 after a large sinkhole collapsed part of the nearby street, and another sinkhole formed near the base of the bridge...

Fans were confident their former team will relocate back to Los Angeles.

The Jackson Board of Aldermen on Monday offered its official support for a developer's plan to construct a senior apartment complex on Walton Drive. RCH Development Inc. president Chad Hartle said he's been waiting for 15 years to get the project started, and the time finally is right...

Captured a photo of this beautiful Monarch butterfly resting on a flower at the Cape Girardeau Conservation Nature Center.

Enjoying the celebration Spirit of 45 Saturday August 15th at the Veterans Home in Cape Girardeau LaDonna Hengst, Sandy Prichard, Dale Humphries and Shiela Allen

World War II Vets; Spirit of 45 celebration at Veterans Home

World War II Vets; Spirit of 45 celebration at Veterans Home

Spirit of 45 Celebration at Veterans Home

John Dragoni, speaker during Spirit of 45, Veterans Home Saturday August 15th

Just a few weeks after he'd concluded his one and only basketball season at Southeast Missouri State Aaron Adeoye decided to try out for the football team. After going through spring drills with the Redhawks he joined the team as a defensive end. One week into fall camp Adeoye switched sides of the ball...

Today is Tuesday, August 18, the 230th day of 2015. There are 135 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 18, 1587, Virginia Dare became the first child of English parents to be born in present-day America, on what is now Roanoke Island in North Carolina. (However, the Roanoke colony ended up mysteriously disappearing.)...

WATERHILL, Tenn. -- A Middle Tennessee teen is alive, thanks to Siri. Eighteen-year-old Sam Ray says the voice-recognition service on his iPhone -- famously named Siri -- called emergency dispatchers after his truck fell on him while he tried to make repairs...

Son to Kaleb Allen Hendrix and Alexandria Simone Kelley of Cape Girardeau, Saint Francis Medical Center, 9:40 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 12, 2015. Name, Zayden Ezra. Weight, 6 pounds, 8 ounces. First child. Kelley is the daughter of Steve Kelley of Ste. Genevieve, Missouri, and Wanda Kelley of Jackson. Hendrix is the son of Kimberlee Parkerson of Jackson. He is a manager at Hardee's...

SAN ANTONIO -- Shannon Cooper, 68, passed away Saturday, Aug. 8, 2015, in San Antonio. He was a graduate of Southeast Missouri State University. Prior to moving to San Antonio, he was employed by Hart Schaffner Marx and U.S. Industries. For the past 25 years, Shannon owned and operated his own business...

Doniphan kayaker's body found in Current River SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- The body of a Missouri man has been found in the Current River, three days after he fell out of his kayak. The Missouri State Highway Patrol says 52-year-old Russ D. O'Neal of Doniphan fell out of his 12-foot kayak while paddling the Current River eight miles south of Doniphan on Thursday. He held onto his kayak for a long time but became dislodged by exhaustion and debris. The patrol says O'Neal was not wearing a life jacket...

NEW YORK -- Underestimate the crossover appeal of N.W.A at your peril. More than 25 years after the Los Angeles hip-hop group went double platinum with its unheralded debut album largely without the benefit of radio play, Ice Cube, Dr. Dre and the rest shook up Hollywood in the dog days of summer...

Easter Seal Society officials say they won't close their doors, despite reports their building will be converted into a nursing education facility for Southeast Missouri Hospital; while the status of the building at 316 Plaza Way is unclear, Easter Seal wants to assure the public the facility will continue to operate...

SALT LAKE CITY -- Actor Emile Hirsch began serving 15 days in a Utah jail Monday after pleading guilty to misdemeanor assault for putting a female studio executive in a chokehold and body-slamming her at a nightclub during the Sundance Film Festival...

NEW YORK -- Amazon isn't the only company that is using data on employees to improve productivity. A New York Times article over the weekend portrayed Amazon's work culture as "bruising" and "Darwinian" in part because of the way it uses data to manage its staff...

WASHINGTON -- Scientists might have found a way to tell who's at risk of having a premature baby -- by checking the bacterial community that lives in mom's reproductive tract. Trillions of microbes share our bodies, living on the skin or in the gut, mouth or vagina, what scientists call our microbiome. Many of these germs play critical roles in health, from good digestion to immunity, but they can contribute to health problems if they get out of whack...

MOREHEAD, Ky. -- A Kentucky county clerk who objects to same-sex marriage was given room Monday to continue denying licenses to gays and lesbians as she takes her case to a federal appeals court. Rowan County Clerk Kim Davis is being sued by two gay couples, and U.S. District Judge David Bunning ordered her last week to issue them licenses despite her objections...

DES MOINES, Iowa -- Donald Trump is dividing his Republican presidential rivals anew with his call to rewrite the Constitution to crack down on millions of immigrants living in the U.S. illegally and to force Mexico to pay for a better border fence...

Southeast Missouri State University students Taylor Hess and Amanda Gassel pick up their textbooks for the upcoming semester Monday in Cape Girardeau.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A group of Missouri gas station and convenience-store owners that fought previously proposed cigarette tax increases announced Monday it was backing a 23-cent tax increase per pack. The Missouri Petroleum Marketers and Convenience Store Association has proposed two petitions to raise Missouri's cigarette tax, the lowest in the nation at 17 cents per pack, to 40 cents. ...

JAYAPURA, Indonesia -- An airplane with 54 people on board that crashed in the mountains of eastern Indonesia was carrying nearly half a million dollars in government cash for poor families to help offset a spike in fuel prices, an official said Monday...

NEW YORK -- The boyfriend of Morgan Freeman's granddaughter has been arrested in her fatal stabbing on a New York City street. Lamar Davenport, 30, was arrested on a murder charge Monday, a day after 33-year-old actress Edena Hines was found with stab wounds to her chest in front of her Upper Manhattan apartment building...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Most students at Missouri's two failing school districts aren't proficient in math or English and scored lower on standardized tests than students statewide, data released Monday by the Department of Elementary and Secondary Education show...

NEW YORK -- Donald Trump pulled up in a long, black limousine and gave a presidential wave as he made his way into the building. Then the billionaire found himself seated next to ordinary, wage-earning, subway-riding New Yorkers, forced to wait -- and wait some more -- for the wheels of justice to turn...

Members of the Cape Girardeau City Council got to hear firsthand Monday night some of the issues with the radios used by the city's public-safety officials. Assistant fire chief Mark Hasheider and battalion fire chief Brad Dillow gave a brief demonstration to the council, discussing the current system and its interest in an upgraded system...

The city of Jackson is about 24 acres larger after the board of aldermen Monday night approved the voluntary annexation of property on South Old Orchard Road. The property is slated to be developed by Silver Keys Properties and Master Craft Development into a subdivision called McKendree Crossing...

Several area law-enforcement agencies took to the streets -- and the sky -- in a street-crimes operation Friday in Cape Girardeau. As a result of the operation, three people were taken into custody, and three were issued summonses, Lt. Barry Hovis of the Cape Girardeau Police Department said in an email. In addition, 16 traffic summonses were issued, and nine stops conducted in which no action was taken...

Ameren workers remove a snapped utility pole that was struck by an automobile Monday morning in the 400 block of South West End Boulevard in Cape Girardeau. Ameren cut power to the nearby houses in order to replace the pole.

A Scott County man was injured Sunday while riding a motorcycle in Bollinger County. Christian B. McCombs, 20, of Sikeston, Missouri, was traveling north on Highway 51 about 5 p.m. Sunday when he failed to negotiate a curve and ran off the road, according to the Missouri State Highway Patrol online crash report...

The outfielder hurt himself while making a throw in Sunday's loss to the Marlins.

Wacha had a strong outing in his first meeting with the Giants since surrendering a season-ending HR against them in last year's NLCS.

ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis' credit rating has been downgraded by a credit rating agency. Moody's Investors Services downgraded the rating on $27.4 million of the city's outstanding general obligation bonds by one notch...

WASHINGTON -- A computer breach at the IRS in which thieves stole tax information from thousands of taxpayers is much bigger than the agency originally disclosed. An additional 220,000 potential victims had information stolen from an IRS website as part of a sophisticated scheme to use stolen identities to claim fraudulent tax refunds, the IRS said Monday. ...

LAKE GEORGE, N.Y. -- An archaeological dig at an 18th-century military site in the southern Adirondacks has uncovered large sections of stone walls that are believed to have been constructed within a larger British fortification that never was completed more than 250 years ago...

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. -- A Michigan woman who was believed to be the nation's oldest veteran at 110 has died, about a month after meeting President Barack Obama in the Oval Office. Emma Didlake died Sunday in West Bloomfield, northwest of Detroit, according to the Oakland County medical examiner's office...

TAIPEI, Taiwan -- A pair of roadside mailboxes that were uniformly bent by a falling signboard during a typhoon earlier this month have become celebrities in Taiwan, drawing steady lines of people to snap photos and inspiring fan merchandise. Many Taiwanese think the public mailboxes resemble faces. Security guards protect the mailboxes while chuckling fans pose next to them, either bending themselves or pretending to push the boxes...

James Paul Davidson, 33, of Cape Girardeau died Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015, at his home. Arrangements are incomplete at Amick-Burnett Funeral Chapel in Scott City.

MARBLE HILL, Mo. -- Susan Bardesbain, 60, of Marble Hill died Sunday, Aug. 16, 2015, at Saint Francis Medical Center in Cape Girardeau. Graveside services will be at noon Wednesday at the Grassy Friendship Cemetery in Grassy, Missouri. Liley Funeral Home in Marble Hill is in charge of arrangements...

CAPE GIRARDEAU The Cape Girardeau Police Department reported the following items. Arrests do not imply guilt. DWI n A suspect was in custody pending formal charges of driving while intoxicated and driving while revoked. Summons n Aaron L. Turner, no age given, of Jackson was issued a summons for failure to maintain a single lane...

O Lord Jesus, may we conduct ourselves in a manner worthy of the gospel of Christ. Amen.

"Convicted felon" is a phrase that conjures images of hardened criminals, supermax prisons, and repeat offenders. These are who many people have in mind when they refuse to hire those with felonies in their past. The question -- "have you ever been arrested for or convicted of a felony?" -- often precludes consideration for an opening, no matter how unrelated the job is to the original offense or how many years in the past the crime happened. ...

After reading the article about the young lady named Allison bonding and training Chico the wild mustang, I was dismayed to hear she would even think of letting him go to another adopter, especially since she has worked with other abused horses in the past. The thought of you doing that is unimaginable. The two of you have something extraordinary. Don't let him go...

Most of us think of slavery as a stain on America's past, put to rest in large part with the assistance of President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation. Our children study it in school, and we often refer to it as one of the world's greatest tragedies that "we must never forget" and will "never again" tolerate. ...