Stories from Wednesday, December 10, 2014

A suspect in the murder of a Cape Girardeau tattoo artist is on trial this week on federal drug trafficking charges. Melvin Scherrer, 50, faces state charges of first-degree murder and four other felonies in connection with the death of 38-year-old Samuel "Tick" Francis...

A local drug and alcohol addiction treatment center is looking at making facility improvements its organizers are saying are much-needed. Using money from refinancing of the loan used to build the facility on Linden Street, the Gibson Recovery Center in Cape Girardeau plans to install new energy-efficient systems and appliances, make various repairs and buy new equipment such as furniture for offices and patient rooms, said John Gary, executive director of the not-for-profit center...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder, a native of Cape Girardeau, plans to run for re-election in 2016, a campaign spokesman confirmed Tuesday. Kinder, who was first elected to the post in 2004, will be seeking his fourth term as Missouri's second-ranking executive and, if he wins, would be the state's longest-serving lieutenant governor...

WASHINGTON -- The United States brutalized scores of terror suspects with interrogation tactics that turned secret CIA prisons into chambers of suffering and did nothing to make America safer after the 9/11 attacks, Senate investigators concluded Tuesday...

SIKESTON, Mo. -- Notre Dame boys basketball coach Paul Unterreiner said his team was feeling confident coming into a matchup against New Madrid County Central.

After my Doctor's appointment, I drove through the Chick fil. When I drove up to the window for my order, I was told it was paid for. How? I asked. I was told the car ahead of me paid for my order. I would like to thank this Christmas Elf for her generosity this time of year...

Judge, the Great Dane, with his best friends Jaxon and Cimarron wishing everyone a Merry Christmas!

Prancer is 8 weeks old. There are 8 in this litter of puppies. They are all adorable! Come on out and see the reindeer litter! They are available at the Humane Society 573-334-5837. See more pets available at semopets.org.

While none match the historic donation made to a candidate considering a run for lieutenant governor, prominent political donor Rex Sinquefield has given political gifts to a few local candidates in recent elections. Sinquefield's $1 million donation Monday to the exploratory committee of Bev Randles -- made the same day the committee was launched -- is thought to be the largest single donation to a single candidate in the state's history. ...

A Cape Girardeau man was in jail Tuesday on a charge of child molestation. Joseph F. Crawford, 44, was charged with first-degree child molestation, a Class B felony, a Cape Girardeau police spokesman said Tuesday. Cpl. Darin Hickey of the Cape Girardeau Police Department said about 4 p.m. Monday, Division of Family Services investigators contacted police about a call that had come in on a child-abuse hotline...

Today is Wednesday, Dec. 10, the 344th day of 2014. There are 21 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On Dec. 10, 1964, Martin Luther King Jr. received his Nobel Peace Prize in Oslo, saying he accepted it "with an abiding faith in America and an audacious faith in the future of mankind."...

WASHINGTON -- It's the new career trade-off: Around the country, areas with the strongest job markets increasingly have some of the costliest homes. And areas with the most affordable homes lack a solid base of middle class jobs that attract workers. ...

WASHINGTON -- A business jet that crashed in a neighborhood near an airport in suburban Washington, killing all three people on board and a mother and her two young sons on the ground, had slowed to the point where it nearly stalled in midair before impact, federal investigators said Tuesday...

NEW YORK -- North America, once a sponge that sucked in a significant portion of the world's oil, will instead be supplying the world with oil and other liquid hydrocarbons by the end of this decade, according to ExxonMobil's annual long-term energy forecast...

The Energy Department again slashed its prediction for next year's average price of gasoline across the U.S., this time to $2.60 a gallon. That would be 23 percent below this year's projected average and the lowest full-year average since 2009. If that comes to pass, the price drop will save U.S. ...

THEBES, Ill. -- Debra Lynn Bentley, age 57, of Thebes, died at 2:27 AM, Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014 at Southeast Missouri Hospital in Cape Girardeau. Visitation will be 5 to 7 p.m., Monday, Dec. 15, 2014 at Crain Funeral Home in Cape Girardeau. Memorial Service for Debra Bentley will be held at 7 p.m., Monday, Dec. 15, 2014 at Crain Funeral Home, Cape Girardeau with Pastor Dennis Lawrence officiating...

Marian Lester White, 70, of Cape Girardeau died Tuesday, Dec. 9, 2014, at Southeast Hospital. Arrangements are incomplete at Ford & Sons Funeral Home.

Dr. Gerald N. Stott, 72, of Cape Girardeau died Sunday, Dec. 7, 2014, at Saint Francis Medical Center. A memorial service will be held at 10 a.m. Saturday at Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in Cape Girardeau, with Bishop James Chesnick officiating...

Marilyn Reece, 65, of Murray, Kentucky, died Monday, Dec. 8, 2014, at Western Baptist Hospital in Paducah, Kentucky. She was born Dec. 2, 1949, in Cape Girardeau, to Howard and Lois Davis Cobb. She and Bill Reece were married Nov. 21, 1970, in Cape Girardeau...

JACKSON The Jackson Police Department released the following items. Arrests do not imply guilt. DWI n Ashley M. Strop, 19, of Jackson was arrested on suspicion of operating a motor vehicle while intoxicated, possession of alcohol by a minor, failure to register a motor vehicle, failure to maintain insurance and failure to signal...

CAPE GIRARDEAU The Cape Girardeau Police Department released the following items. Arrests do not imply guilt. DWIs n Angela Marie Chross, 45, of Gasconade, Missouri, was arrested on suspicion of driving while intoxicated at LaSalle Avenue and Baldwin Road...

McCLURE, Ill. -- Bonnie Emmalee Pickel, 81, of McClure died Monday, Dec. 8, 2014, at Chateau Girardeau in Cape Girardeau. She was born Jan. 20, 1933, in Union County, daughter of Earl Eugene and Viola Wareing Eudy. She and James F. Pickel were married Dec. 5, 1954, in Anna, Illinois. He preceded her in death March 7, 1997...

Son to Ryan Emerson and Paige Noel Lucy of Jackson, Saint Francis Medical Center, 4:11 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 30, 2014. Name, Corbin Beckett. Weight, 7 pounds, 3 ounces. First child. Mrs. Lucy is the former Paige Koch, daughter of Chris and Susan Koch of Jackson. She is a cosmetologist at Mirror Image Salon. Lucy is the son of Ken and Pam Lucy of Jackson. He is a driver/laborer with Negwer Materials Inc...

Sam Tanksley Trucking Inc., owned by the Harris Family Interests, will cease operations Jan. 11; more than 500 pieces of "rolling stock," including semi-tractors and trailers, will be liquidated at a public sale Jan. 11 and 12 in Oklahoma City; the firm was founded in 1958...

NEW YORK -- Britain's Prince William and his wife, Kate, paid their respects with a handwritten note Tuesday at the Sept. 11 museum and told its leaders they were struck by the enormity of the loss in the 2001 terror attacks. "In sorrowful memory of those who died on 11th September and in admiration of the courage shown to rebuild -- William and Catherine," she wrote in a note the couple left with flowers on the memorial pools lined with the names of the nearly 3,000 victims...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Judges on the Missouri Supreme Court appeared skeptical Tuesday as an attorney for a convicted drug dealer argued that a new state constitutional amendment should allow nonviolent felons to carry guns. The judges are considering how to interpret an amendment approved by voters in August that enhanced the state's existing right to keep and bear arms. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A deadly deer disease has been found for the first time in a northern Missouri county. The Missouri Department of Conservation reported this week that an adult buck killed by a hunter in Adair County tested positive for chronic wasting disease...

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. -- The city of Poplar Bluff has paid nearly $50,000 in just under three months to a man city manager Heath Kaplan used as a reference when applying for his current position. Certified public accountant Neil Conway arrived Aug. 19 in Poplar Bluff, the day after Kaplan officially began work, according to a request made under Missouri's open records law...

MINNEAPOLIS -- A man accused of fatally hitting a Muslim teenager with his car last week in what's being investigated as a possible hate crime had been diagnosed with schizophrenia, committed to a hospital and sometimes stopped taking his medications, according to court records and his family...

ST. LOUIS -- A federal autopsy in the Ferguson police shooting reached similar conclusions to those performed by local officials and a private examiner hired by 18-year-old Michael Brown's family, documents show. The Armed Forces Medical Examiner System's autopsy on Brown, conducted at the request of the Department of Justice, was among grand jury documents that St. ...

WASHINGTON -- Time running short, Republicans and Democrats agreed Tuesday on a $1.1 trillion spending bill to avoid a government shutdown and delay a struggle over President Barack Obama's new immigration policy until the new year. In an unexpected move, lawmakers also agreed on legislation expected to be incorporated into the measure that will permit a reduction in benefits to current retirees at economically distressed multi-employer pension plans. ...

WASHINGTON -- Only a fraction of campus sexual assault victims go to police. Senators on Tuesday grappled with the issue of why some just let their college handle it -- or don't report it at all. Some sexual-assault victims have said they prefer to work within their university system to seek disciplinary action against the perpetrator, such as expulsion, without the stress of pressing criminal charges...

Thankfully, most in this country do not know starvation. Even the poorest in the United States would be considered well cared for in other countries, where poverty and starvation are catastrophic. Feed My Starving children is a faith-based program that has helped many people around the world with food. Locally, thousands have helped through mobile food- packing outreaches...

Hillary Clinton has a problem. But this time the problem is not her husband, it's her mouth. The would-be presidential candidate told a Georgetown University audience recently that America should show respect for our enemies and "empathize with their perspective and point of view."...

WASHINGTON -- Abu Zubaydah was the CIA's guinea pig. He was the first high-profile al-Qaida terror suspect captured after the Sept. 11 attacks, and the first to vanish into the spy agency's secret prisons, the first subjected to white noise and sleep-deprivation tactics and the first to gasp under the simulated drowning of waterboarding. Zubaydah's ordeal became the CIA's blueprint for the torture of terror suspects, according to the Senate Intelligence Committee's report released Tuesday...

SEOUL, South Korea -- Forget dust-ups over reclining seats in economy class. There's a new and exclusive twist on in-flight anger: Nut rage in first class. A recent Korean Air flight was delayed when its chairman's daughter, who was also vice president responsible for cabin service at the airline, ordered a senior crew member off the plane...

NEW YORK -- A man with a history of mental illness slipped into the headquarters of a major Jewish organization in Brooklyn in the middle of the night and stabbed an Israeli student in the head as he was studying in the library. Then, as the screaming, bloody victim was taken away, the attacker lunged at police with his knife and was shot and killed, authorities said...

JERUSALEM -- An American Christian who passed himself off as an ex-U.S. Navy SEAL faces charges in Israel of trying to blow up Muslim holy sites in Jerusalem, Israeli authorities said Tuesday. Israeli police and the Justice Ministry identified the man as Adam Everett Livix, 30. Police said he faces drug charges in the U.S. and that he once turned down an offer from a Palestinian to assassinate U.S. President Barack Obama during the leader's visit to the Holy Land in 2013...

SARY-SU, Crimea -- Since Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine, armed men have shown up frequently to search the cinder-block houses, mosque and school in this settlement of Crimean Tatars, a Muslim ethnic minority that has long suffered from discrimination in the peninsula that is its historic homeland...

NAIROBI, Kenya -- Street prices for illegal ivory are soaring in China, where newly wealthy middle and upper class citizens are buying carved ivory and whole tusks as a status symbol of their riches, a report released Tuesday found. The group Save The Elephants said in its report the wholesale price of raw tusks has tripled since 2010. It said retail prices of ivory have increased by 13 times between 2002 and 2014 in Beijing shops...

PARIS -- France's last hostage was freed Tuesday after being held for more than three years by al-Qaida's North Africa branch -- rekindling debate over whether countries should negotiate with extremists or stick to a muscular, uncompromising policy that runs the risk of a beheading or a botched rescue attempt...

DENVER -- When President Barack Obama outlined why he was letting as many as 4 million immigrants stay and work legally in this country last month, it sounded like he was talking about Arturo Hernandez. Hernandez, 42, meets the criteria for Obama's deportation relief. He has a daughter who was born here and is a U.S. citizen, a steady job and he has lived here since 1999 without being convicted of crime. But the president's administration is trying to deport Hernandez anyway...

SAN JUAN, Philippines -- A storm that began as a powerful typhoon started to blow away from the Philippines Tuesday after leaving at least 21 people dead and forcing more than 1.6 million into shelters. Typhoon Hagupit dissipated into a tropical depression after crossing Lubang Island, 85 miles southwest of Manila, and was blowing into the South China Sea, forecasters said...

WASHINGTON -- MIT economist Jonathan Gruber -- an often-quoted adviser on the president's health care law -- told Congress on Tuesday he was glib and "inexcusably arrogant" when he said it was "the stupidity of the American voter" that led to the law's passage...

NEW YORK -- Could the Crowley family of "Downton Abbey" -- and their loyal servants -- ever come to America? Executive producer Gareth Neame says he'd like to see it happen. PBS hosted a Q&A with Neame and some of the cast members Monday in New York, where a portion of the season-five premiere was screened...

Volunteer journeymen Jim Leonard, left, and Larry Rapp place metal roofing to the new pavilion at Capaha Park on Tuesday in Cape Girardeau. (Laura Simon)

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Five finalists are vying to be chosen as the next Missouri commissioner of education. The State Board of Education this week announced the list of candidates to replace commissioner Chris Nicastro. Former Rockwood and Wentzville superintendent Terry Adams of Lake St. ...

ST. LOUIS -- St. Louis police are responding to an outbreak of downtown violence by targeting the parents of youthful offenders. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported that police have issued summons on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor to relatives of four teens targeted in a weekend drive-by shooting of a 16-year-old...

The Southeast Missouri State women's basketball team will try for its first winning streak of the season when it faces the Kangaroos of Missouri-Kansas City on the road. Today's 7 p.m. contest at the Swinney Recreation Center in Kansas City, Missouri, is the second game of a four-game road stretch for the Redhawks (3-5)...

It's been four years since the Southeast Missouri State and Southern Illinois men's basketball teams have met on the hardwood. The regional rivals will face each other for the first time since 2010 at 7 p.m. today at the Show Me Center. "It's great. ...

SIKESTON, Mo. -- After losing to Poplar Bluff in the opening round of the SEMO Conference Tournament, the second-seeded Cape Central boys basketball team bounced back with a 41-29 win over No. 9 Dexter. Central (4-1) held a slim 12-10 lead after one quarter, but extended the lead to 18-14 at the break...

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. -- Alabama and Missouri each placed seven players on the coaches All-Southeastern Conference teams. The league released the All-SEC teams on Tuesday and will announce individual award winners Wednesday. The SEC champion and top-ranked Crimson Tide placed five players on the first team, including Heisman Trophy finalist Amari Cooper, linebacker Trey DePriest, offensive lineman Arie Kouandjio, safety Landon Collins and punter JK Scott...

Ten major findings from the newly released summary of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence report on the CIA's detention and interrogation program: n Enhanced interrogation techniques used on terror detainees, including simulated drowning and sleep deprivation, were ineffective in gaining intelligence leads that led to important operations against terrorist groups or prevented attacks on the U.S...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Hallmark Cards Inc. has removed blue and silver gift wrap from circulation after a customer complained she saw a swastika embedded in the design. The company alerted retailers Monday after receiving a complaint Sunday from a Walgreens customer in Northridge, California. The wrap was featured in a Hanukkah display. Elliott said no one at Hallmark noticed that intersecting lines in the paper could be seen as a swastika pattern...

BERLIN -- A German court on Tuesday threw out the case against a former SS man accused of involvement in the largest civilian massacre in Nazi-occupied France, saying there was not enough evidence to bring the 89-year-old to trial. Cologne, Germany, resident Werner C., whose last name has not been revealed in accordance with German privacy laws, was charged with murder and accessory to murder in connection with the 1944 slaughter of 642 civilians in Oradour-sur-Glane in southwestern France...

All the local high school events reported Tuesday to the Southeast Missourian.

Lord Jesus, we ask for wisdom that we may honor you in all things. Amen.

Ron Anderson enjoyed school so much, he never left. "(If) you go to school, and you've always liked school, it's a neat thing to be able to continue to do that for the rest of your life," Anderson said in a telephone interview Wednesday. Nearly 50 years after taking a position as a high-school business teacher in Nebraska, Anderson, 70, is preparing to retire as superintendent of the Jackson R-2 School District...

After years of planning and construction, Cape Girardeau's new wastewater facility is online. Water was diverted from the old system on Cooper Street, and the new facility went live early Tuesday. Originally, city officials expected this process would begin during the summer, but persistent winter weather led to delays in construction...

Calling it the "final piece" of infrastructure needed to develop Greater Cape Girardeau Business Park, a group of local officials and economic development representatives on Wednesday toured a large fiber-optic cable installation project by AT&T. AT&T employees led Cape Girardeau Mayor Harry Rediger and assistant city manager Molly Hood, Cape Girardeau Area Chamber of Commerce president and CEO John Mehner, state Rep. ...