Stories from Friday, January 27, 2023

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — The leader of Missouri's state Senate on Thursday said Republican senators are unified against letting transgender girls play on girls' sports teams. Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden's comments to reporters Thursday signal that restrictions on what teams transgender student athletes can play on have a good chance of passing the GOP-led Legislature this year...

The Missouri Department of Conservation is celebrating the return of bald eagles to Mingo National Wildlife Refuge, Duck Creek Conservation Area and Lake Wappapello. Eagle Days will be held from 8:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Feb. 4 at Puxico Activity Center (FEMA building), 481 N. Bedford St. in Puxico, Missouri. The event will include live bald eagle shows from the World Bird Sanctuary at 8:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 11:30 a.m. and 2 p.m. The eagle shows have a capacity of 400 people...

The fifth annual It's Cold Outside ... So Come on Inside craft fair is happening Feb. 4. Local vendors and crafters will be have there wares for sale from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. at the Osage Centre in Cape Girardeau. Admission is free. Proceeds from the fair will go to support Show Me Care Bags, a not-for-profit organization that provides care bags to cancer patients of all ages receiving treatment for all types of cancers. ...

The journey through middle school can feel like walking through a mine field, and the students at Nell Holcomb Middle School had to do just that — metaphorically, at least. At the beginning of the current school year, Corey Campbell, the Jobs for America's Graduates (JAG) specialist at Nell Holcomb, laid out several cones and beanbags to simulate land mines scattered across the practice field. ...

Cape Girardeau resident and local educator Joseph Moore has debuted his book, "The Call of Jeremiah McGill". The book was published by Gatekeeper Press on Jan. 11. Amazon is calling it the top new release of historical Christian children's fiction. The book is a coming-of-age novel that illustrates growing up as a Black child of faith in the transformative 1970s...

MARBLE HILL, Mo. — Woodland High School is considering a change in its daily schedule for the 2023-2024 school year. Currently, high school students have seven classes per year, each meeting every day for approximately 45 minutes. The proposed change would transition to block scheduling, where students take eight classes, each meeting three times a week. ...

It has been more than 77 years since Allied forces liberated Nazi Germany's concentration and death camps in 1945, a genocide that cumulatively claimed the lives of untold so-called "enemies" of the Third Reich, including an estimated 6 million Jews...

Incidences of flu "probably" will set a record in Missouri this season, Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center assistant director Autumn Grim told PHC's Board of Trustees on Tuesday, Jan. 24. A total of 100,863 influenza cases have been seen statewide since the start of the flu season Oct. 1, she said...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Five fired Memphis police officers were charged Thursday with murder and other crimes in the killing of Tyre Nichols, a Black motorist who died three days after a confrontation with the officers during a traffic stop. Shelby County District Attorney Steve Mulroy told a news conference that although the officers each played different roles in the killing, "they are all responsible."...

Today is Friday, Jan. 27, the 27th day of 2022. There are 338 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Jan. 27, 1967, astronauts Virgil I. "Gus" Grissom, Edward H. White and Roger B. Chaffee died in a flash fire during a test aboard their Apollo spacecraft...

Birthright of Cape Girardeau, a not-for-profit helping women facing unplanned pregnancies, recently celebrated its 50th anniversary. The organization held an event on Sunday, Jan. 22 at the Knights of Columbus Hall in Jackson on the 50th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision, which was overturned by the Supreme Court in June of last year...

O God, may we be anxious for nothing, instead putting our trust in you. Amen.

Most people don't lie awake at night worried about the national debt. Unfortunately, that includes President Joe Biden and the spendaholic Democrats in Congress. They should be worried. Frankly, so should you, no matter what your politics. Economics is a science, and numerous studies by world-class economists confirm that when a nation's debt gets too high, it pushes the economy into decline. Inflation soars, jobs become scarcer and mortgage rates to buy a home are unaffordable. Ouch...

I've never been a huge fan of hot chocolate. For some reason, I don't enjoy cauterizing the inside of my mouth after being duped by the deceptively-tepid whipped cream or marshmallow topping. These days, I mainly have hot chocolate when my three teenage daughters, who I'm pretty sure started drinking coffee as toddlers, invite me and my credit card to join them in the drive-thru of one of our roughly 200 local coffee shops. ...

CAPE GIRARDEAU Cape Girardeau Fire Department responded to the following calls. Jan. 25 n Medical assists were made at 8:44 p.m. on South Hanover Street and 9:47 p.m. on South West End Boulevard. n At 5:10 a.m., hazardous condition on Dunklin Street...

CAPE GIRARDEAU Cape Girardeau Police Department responded to the following calls. Arrests do not imply guilt. Arrests n A warrant arrest was reported on Independence Street. n A Stoddard County warrant arrest was reported on South Sprigg Street. Thefts...

David Axel Nickels, 58, of Cape Girardeau died in early January 2023 in his home. He was a man who loved being in nature, fishing, dancing, playing drums and having a project to work on. He liked to work with his hands fixing and building things, and he was a skilled tuck pointer who enjoyed masonry...

Charles Thomas "Tom" Draper, 87, died Wednesday, Dec. 21, 2022, at Lutheran Home in Cape Girardeau. A life celebration service will be at 2 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 4, at Mount Moriah Baptist Church, 200 Broadway in Cape Girardeau. Arrangements are by McCombs Funeral Home and Cremation Center in Jackson...

ALGECIRAS, Spain -- Spanish police on Thursday raided the home of a young Moroccan man held over the machete attacks at two Catholic churches the previous night that left a church officer dead and a priest injured in the southern city of Algeciras. A police investigation directed by a National Court judge considers Wednesday's violence a possible act of terrorism. The suspect is believed to have acted alone...

FORT WORTH, Texas -- Boeing pleaded not guilty Thursday to a charge that it misled regulators who approved its 737 Max, the plane that was involved in two crashes that killed 346 people. Family members of passengers who died gave emotional testimony, calling for criminal prosecution of top Boeing officials...

WASHINGTON -- U.S. special operations forces have killed a senior Islamic State group official and 10 other terrorist operatives in remote northern Somalia, the Biden administration announced Thursday. The operation carried out on Wednesday targeted Bilal al-Sudani, a key financial facilitator for the global terrorist organization, in a mountainous cave complex...

KYIV, Ukraine -- Russian forces fired another rash of missiles and self-exploding drones in nearly a dozen provinces of Ukraine early Thursday, causing the first attack-related death of the year in Kyiv and killing at least 11 people in all, according to Ukrainian authorities...

JERUSALEM -- Israeli forces on Thursday killed nine Palestinians -- including at least seven militants and a 61-year-old woman -- in the deadliest single incident in the occupied West Bank in two decades, Palestinian officials said. Two rockets were fired from Gaza early Friday and Israel responded with airstrikes on the territory, further escalating tensions...

DUBAI, United Arab Emirates -- Iran has enough highly enriched uranium to build "several" nuclear weapons if it chooses, the United Nations' top nuclear official is now warning. But diplomatic efforts aimed at again limiting its atomic program seem more unlikely than ever before as Tehran arms Russia in its war on Ukraine and as unrest shakes the Islamic Republic...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- Weeks of historic rainfall in California won't be enough to end a severe drought but it will provide 27 million people with five times more water than suppliers had been told to expect a month ago, state officials announced Thursday...

Will Keeps was a 15-year-old member of a Chicago gang when he witnessed rival members kill his friend. He escaped the streets and moved to Iowa to help other young people from troubled backgrounds. Now, Keeps is hospitalized and in serious condition following just the sort of violence he has devoted his life to stopping: a shooting that killed two teenagers at the Starts Right Here education program he founded in Des Moines. ...

The U.S. is poised to make COVID-19 vaccinations more like a yearly flu shot, a major shift in strategy despite a long list of questions about how to best protect against a still rapidly mutating virus. The Food and Drug Administration asked its scientific advisers Thursday to help lay the groundwork for switching to once-a-year boosters for most Americans -- and how and when to periodically update the shots' recipe...

OMAHA, Neb. -- The contract imposed on railroad workers last fall didn't resolve their quality-of-life issues, but already this year there are indications the major freight railroads are starting to address some of their concerns about demanding schedules that keep many of them on call 24-7 without paid sick time...

CAPE CANAVERAL, Fla. -- NASA marked the 20th anniversary of the space shuttle Columbia tragedy with somber ceremonies and remembrances during its annual tribute to fallen astronauts on Thursday. More than 100 people gathered under a gray sky at Kennedy Space Center to remember not only Columbia's crew of seven, but the 18 other astronauts killed in the line of duty. ...

LOS ANGELES -- Democratic Rep. Adam Schiff, who rose to national prominence as the lead prosecutor in President Donald Trump's first impeachment trial, said Thursday he is running for the Senate seat held by long-serving Democrat Dianne Feinstein. The 2024 race is quickly emerging as a marquee Senate contest, even though the 89-year-old Feinstein, the oldest member of Congress, has yet to announce if she will seek another term, though her retirement is widely expected. ...

NEWPORT NEWS, Va. -- Concerned staff warned administrators at a Virginia elementary school three times that a 6-year-old boy had a gun and was threatening other students in the hours before he shot and wounded a teacher, but the administration "was paralyzed by apathy" and didn't call police, remove the boy from class or lock down the school, the wounded teacher's lawyer said Wednesday...

WASHINGTON -- The National Archives has asked former U.S. presidents and vice presidents to recheck their personal records for any classified documents following the news that President Joe Biden and former Vice President Mike Pence had such documents in their possession...

REDWOOD CITY, Calif. -- A farmworker charged in the killings of seven current and former co-workers at two Northern California mushroom farms admitted during a jailhouse interview Thursday that he committed the fatal shootings. Chunli Zhao, 66, told KNTV-TV that he wasn't in his right mind when he entered a mushroom farm where he worked in Half Moon Bay and shot and killed four people and seriously wounded a fifth. ...

WASHINGTON -- The U.S. economy expanded at a 2.9% annual pace from October through December, ending 2022 with momentum despite the pressure of high interest rates and widespread fears of a looming recession. Thursday's estimate from the Commerce Department showed that the nation's gross domestic product -- the broadest gauge of economic output -- decelerated last quarter from the 3.2% annual growth rate it had posted from July through September. ...

Cape Girardeau and Jackson city officials last night stressed the need for cooperation as the two cities began working on agreements over new highways, annexation and other joint issues; the Jackson Board of Aldermen and Cape Girardeau City Council held their first-ever joint meeting to act on shared issues; the spirit of cooperation was strong, and officials from both cities said working together will benefit both cities...