Stories from Wednesday, February 1, 2023

One of the top priorities this legislative session in the Missouri General Assembly is to reevaluate how the state amends its Constitution. Missouri passed Amendment 3 with 53% of the vote in November, legalizing the use and sale of recreational marijuana. The state's Constitution is now 253 pages long, of which 39 pages are dedicated to marijuana. Whether you agreed with the main point of the amendment, it was poorly written, murky and full of problematic clauses...

ST. LOUIS — The City of St. Louis will pay nearly $5.2 million to settle claims by people who were arrested during a protest in 2017 over the acquittal of a police officer in the shooting death of a Black man, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. According to a proposed class action settlement filed last week, the city agreed to pay $4.91 million, or about $58,500 per person, to 84 people who were protesting in downtown St. Louis...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — A former Missouri judge on Tuesday stepped down from a powerful appointment after the Missouri Supreme Court suspended his law license for threatening a political opponent years ago. Judges on the state's high court ruled unanimously to suspend Philip Prewitt's law license indefinitely. He can apply to be reinstated in two years...

Southeast Missouri Food bank distributed 13.6 million pounds of food, provided 12.8 million meals and served 80,000 residents each month during 2022, according to a news release from the organization. SEMO food bank in Sikeston is the Feeding America network food bank for the region, according to the organization's website. It serves 16 Missouri counties, and works with more than 140 organizations, including food pantries, soup kitchens and shelters...

Cape Girardeau Police Department officers rescued a missing person from a potentially fatal situation Friday, Jan. 27. Law enforcement were investigating a vehicle in a field near Interstate 55 when three officers found an elderly man who suffered from dementia, according to a department Facebook post...

Jackson Parks and Recreation will hold its first Family Glow Dance from 7 to 9 p.m. Friday, March 24, at Jackson Civic Center. "There are a lot of father-daughter and mother-son activities out there but we were wanting to create something that got the whole family involved to enjoy a night of dancing," said Chris Eastridge, who became Jackson Civic Center manager one year ago. ...

Night to Shine will return this year, but for the first time since 2020, it will be an in-person event. Night to Shine is a worldwide event started in 2015 by the Tim Tebow Foundation to celebrate those with special needs. It is a prom night experience that treats guests to limo rides, red carpet entrances, photography, meals and music...

A public hearing on a possible utility rate increase originally scheduled for Tuesday night, Jan. 31, in Cape Girardeau has been postponed due to inclement weather. Originally planned for the Osage Centre, the hearing from the Missouri Public Service Commission was to discuss a possible rate increase from Ameren Missouri that could affect customers in Southeast Missouri and across the state...

Marilyn Gilmore remembers vividly when she and husband Joe Gilmore Jr. opened Hamburger Express 35 years ago. "On Sept. 14, 1988, [President] Ronald Reagan came to Cape Girardeau [and] that's the very month we opened," Marilyn said. "The president's motorcade drove right by Hamburger Express and Mr. Reagan saw Joe, and the president waved to him."...

The Gibson Center for Behavioral Change will be opening a new Behavioral Health Crisis Center on Wednesday, March 1. Ryan Essex, the Gibson Center's chief operating officer, said the facility will have four overnight beds plus four medical chairs for short-term stabilization. It will be staffed by 10 full-time nurses and medical assistants, as well as two peer-support specialists...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Federal Reserve extended its fight against high inflation Wednesday by raising its key interest rate by a quarter-point, its eighth hike since March. And the Fed signaled that even though inflation is easing, it remains high enough to require further rate hikes...

There's nothing white supremacy can't do. It is supposedly so pervasive and powerful that it can cause Black men to sign up to serve as police officers in a majority Black city and severely beat a Black arrestee. It is to the contemporary left what capital was to Marx, sex was to Freud, and gravity was to Newton...

"To the men of America: This cause is your fight, too. It's not a women's issue. It is a human issue." Sen. Richard Blumenthal was talking about abortion. He was not speaking against it -- he's about as far as you can get from pro-life. He's the lead sponsor of the so-called Women's Health Protection Act, which seeks to ensure that legal abortion remains an option nationwide...

O Lord Jesus, may all come to know you as Lord and Savior. Amen.

CAPE GIRARDEAU Cape Girardeau Police Department responded to the following calls. Arrests do not imply guilt. Arrests n A warrant arrest was reported on South Louisiana Avenue. n A warrant arrest was reported. n A warrant arrest was reported on South Ellis Street...

CAPE GIRARDEAU Cape Girardeau Fire Department responded to the following calls. Jan. 30 n Medical assists were made at 8:46 a.m. on Cape Meadows Circle; 11:31 a.m. on Engram Street; 12:15 p.m. on Normal Avenue; 12:55 p.m. on William Street; 2:51 p.m. on South Ellis Street; 6:37 p.m. on Themis Street; 7:04 p.m., on South Louisiana Avenue; and 10:14 p.m. on Walden Pond Way...

ST. LOUIS — The attorney for a Missouri man facing lethal injection next week said Tuesday that he will ask the state Supreme Court to postpone the execution by three or four months to allow more time to investigate his innocence claim. Leonard Taylor, 58, faces execution Feb. ...

BEIJING -- China's government accused Washington on Tuesday of pursuing "technology hegemony," as the United States has begun stepping up pressure on tech giant Huawei by blocking access to American suppliers. The Biden administration has stopped approving renewal of licenses to some U.S. ...

WASHINGTON -- Republican Rep. George Santos of New York announced Tuesday he is temporarily stepping down from his two congressional committees, a move that comes amid a host of ethics issues and a day after he met with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy...

PITTSBURGH -- The Justice Department has been scrutinizing a controversial artificial intelligence tool used by a Pittsburgh-area child protective services agency following concerns that the tool could lead to discrimination against families with disabilities, The Associated Press has learned...

KINSHASA, Congo -- Pope Francis demanded Tuesday that foreign powers stop plundering Africa's natural resources for the "poison of their own greed" as he arrived in Congo to a raucous welcome by Congolese grateful he was focusing the world's attention on their forgotten plight...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Four key suspects in the killing of Haitian President Jovenel Moise were transferred to the United States for prosecution as the case stagnates in Haiti amid death threats that have spooked local judges, U.S. officials announced Tuesday...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. -- California released a plan Tuesday detailing how Western states reliant on the Colorado River should save more water. It came a day after the six other states in the river basin made a competing proposal. In a letter to the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, California described how states could conserve between 1 million and nearly 2 million acre feet of water through new cuts based on the elevation of Lake Mead, a key reservoir...

A car with dark tinted windows circles the block a few times before swerving onto the sidewalk. A handful of armed plainclothes police officers jump out and order everyone out of a double-parked car so they can search it, striking terror in the seconds before red and blue lights flash or an officer yells "police."...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- Vice President Kamala Harris plans to attend the funeral of Tyre Nichols, who died three days after he was beaten by Memphis police officers just minutes from his home, the White House said Tuesday. Harris was invited to attend Wednesday's funeral services by Nichols' mother and stepfather, RowVaughn Wells and Rodney Wells, according to Harris's press secretary, Kirsten Allen. ...

DALLAS -- Two monkeys taken from the Dallas Zoo were found Tuesday in an abandoned home after going missing the day before from their enclosure, which had been cut. But no arrests have been made, deepening the mystery at the zoo that has included other cut fences, the escape of a small leopard and the suspicious death of an endangered vulture...

TOKYO -- NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg sharply criticized China on Tuesday for "bullying its neighbors and threatening Taiwan" and stressed the need for Japan and other democracies to work together with the alliance to defend the international order...

PESHAWAR, Pakistan -- Pakistani authorities scrambled on Tuesday to determine how a suicide bomber was able to carry out one of the country's deadliest militant attacks in years, unleashing an explosion in a crowded mosque inside a highly secured police compound in the city of Peshawar. The death toll from the blast climbed to 100...

PARIS -- An estimated 1.27 million people took to the streets of French cities, towns and villages Tuesday, according to the Interior Ministry, in new massive protests against President Emmanuel Macron's plans to raise the retirement age by two years...

JERUSALEM -- U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday wrapped up a two-day visit to Israel and the occupied West Bank with no visible signs of progress toward halting one of the deadliest outbreaks of Israeli-Palestinian violence in years. The anemic outcome highlighted what appears to be the limited influence the Biden administration has over Israel's new government, which is dominated by hard-line nationalists who oppose concessions toward the Palestinians. ...

As five Memphis police officers attacked Tyre Nichols with their feet, fists and a baton, others milled around at the scene, even as the 29-year-old cried out in pain and then slumped limply against the side of a car. Just like the attack on George Floyd in Minneapolis nearly three years ago, a simple intervention could have saved a life. Instead, Nichols is dead and the five officers are charged with second-degree murder and other crimes...

KYIV, Ukraine -- Ukraine won support Tuesday from Baltic nations and Poland in its quest to obtain Western fighter jets, but there were no signs that larger nations like the U.S. and Britain have changed their stance of refusing to provide warplanes to Kyiv after almost a year of battling Russia's invading forces...

SAN FRANCISCO -- The maker of ChatGPT is trying to curb its reputation as a freewheeling cheating machine with a new tool that can help teachers detect if a student or artificial intelligence wrote that homework. The new AI Text Classifier launched Tuesday by OpenAI follows a weeks-long discussion at schools and colleges over fears that ChatGPT's ability to write just about anything on command could fuel academic dishonesty and hinder learning...

SANTA FE, N.M. -- Actor Alec Baldwin and a weapons specialist have been formally charged with involuntary manslaughter in the fatal shooting of a cinematographer on a New Mexico movie set, according to court documents filed by prosecutors Tuesday. Santa Fe District Attorney Mary Carmack-Altwies filed the charging documents naming Baldwin and Hannah Gutierrez-Reed, who supervised weapons on the set of the Western "Rust."...

SEATTLE -- Boeing bid farewell to an icon on Tuesday, delivering its final 747 jumbo jet as thousands of workers who helped build the planes over the past 55 years looked on. Since its first flight in 1969, the giant yet graceful 747 has served as a cargo plane, a commercial aircraft capable of carrying nearly 500 passengers, a transport for NASA's space shuttles, and the Air Force One presidential aircraft. ...

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Thomas Austin Marshall, 92, of Sikeston died peacefully Sunday, Jan. 29, 2023, at La Bonne Maison. Tom was born June 10, 1930, in St. Louis to the late Ben F. Jr. and Catherine Marshall of Blodgett, Missouri. He was a graduate of St. Henry Catholic School in Charleston, Missouri, and then attended the University of Missouri. He then served in the U.S. Army at Fort Riley, Kansas, as a corporal in the military police...

The congregation of Good Shepherd Lutheran Church is preparing to celebrate its 30th anniversary; special services and a banquet will be held Feb. 8; Good Shepherd Lutheran Chapel, as it was originally called, is the result of work among the Joint Lutheran Council of Cape Girardeau, Trinity, St. Andrew and Hanover Lutheran churches...

Around 10 a.m. or 3 p.m. on any given day in Sweden, you might see people take a break. Wherever they are, in homes, workplaces and cafés, whether alone or with others, they stop what they’re doing to relax for 15 to 20 minutes over a cup of black coffee and a cookie, cinnamon bun or seasonal dessert...

For release immediately, with photo February 1, 2023 DARBY FINANCIAL REPRESENTIVE OF THE MONTH Kelly Darby of Union, a financial representative with Modern Woodmen Fraternal Financial, was named District Representative of the Month for January. Darby has been with Modern Woodmen since November 2010...

For release immediately, with photo February 1, 2023 DARBY RECEIVES LIFE APPLICATIONS LEADER AWARD Kelly Darby of Jackson, a financial representative with Modern Woodmen of America, was Life Application Leader in the Missouri East Region in January...

For release immediately, with photo Febraury 1, 2023 VOLKERDING FINANCIAL REPRESENTATIVE OF THE MONTH Ken Volkerding of Jackson, a financial representative with Modern Woodmen of America, was financial representative of the month in the Missouri East Region for the month of January...