Stories from Monday, March 12, 2018

The sixth annual Cousin Carl Farm Show once again brought crowds to Arena Park to see tractors, tractor pulls, food and vendors. “This is my third year to be here. I brought my old tractor over,” said Don Bogenpohl, who traveled nearly 20 miles with a friend to attend the weekend event. “It’s an 860 Ford, from 1956. My dad bought it new in the spring of 1957, the year I graduated from high school.”...

Big Daddy Weave — along with opening act Brandon Heath — will bring its brand of Christian music to Cape Bible Chapel on Wednesday night. “We feel very grateful and very humble that we still get to do this after 20 years. I can’t believe it,” Big Daddy Weave lead singer Mike Weaver said in a phone interview Friday. “I’ve always felt like somebody was going to call at some point and be like, ‘Alright, now you gotta get a real job.’”...

Southeast Missouri State University and a Dayton, Ohio, community college have formed a partnership on aerospace technologies, including unmanned aircraft systems or drones, university officials said Friday. Southeast and Sinclair Community College plan to work together in the areas of education, workforce training and development and applied research, university officials said in a news release...

Tavious Tipler, 20, was sentenced Friday to 25 years in the Missouri Department of Corrections for the March 31, 2016, shooting death of Airious Darling, according to a news release Saturday from Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Chris Limbaugh...

An infant was shot and killed during a domestic disturbance at 2:30 a.m. Monday, Cape Girardeau police said. Sgt. Rick Schmidt, a public information officer for the police department, said shots were fired during the domestic disturbance, but not by police officers...

Nicole Fouche's Fouche Bridal at 38 N. Main St. in Cape Girardeau is an extension of work she's done in Cape Girardeau for a couple of years now, she said: designing and altering wedding dresses. "It's more an emotional than a style thing," Fouche said of dress design. "It's how a bride feels in the gown."...

Today is Monday, March 12, the 71st day of 2018. There are 294 days left in the year. Today's Highlights in History: On March 12, 1968, President Lyndon B. Johnson won the New Hampshire Democratic primary, with Sen. Eugene McCarthy of Minnesota placing a strong second. The African island of Mauritius became independent of British rule (on this date in 1992, Mauritius became a republic)...

O Lord Jesus, thank you that we have peace because of you, our overcomer. Amen.

Cape Girardeau police chief Wes Blair dropped some disturbing information on the Cape Girardeau City Council last week. Even though all crimes dropped 4.62 percent, violent crime was way up in the city. According to reporting by Mark Bliss, rapes jumped from 11 in 2016 to 23 last year, an increase of more than 109 percent. ...

The cartoonist who created Pepe the Frog has resolved a copyright infringement lawsuit that accused a Missouri woman of misusing the character to sell hate-promoting oil paintings. The settlement is the latest milestone in California-based cartoonist Matt Furie's legal campaign to reclaim his creation from far-right extremists who hijacked Pepe, mixing images of Furie's "chill frog-dude" with Nazi symbols and other hateful imagery. ...

MEXICO CITY — Authorities say they’re worried about a hippopotamus that is roaming loose in a swampy area of southern Mexico. Nobody knows where the animal came from, but hippos are not native to the country. The hippo appears to have been living in a pair of ponds near Las Chopas, in the Gulf coast state of Veracruz. ...

BEIRUT -- Syrian government forces divided the eastern Ghouta enclave outside Damascus into two, pro-government media said Sunday, dealing a major setback to rebels and threatening to exacerbate an already dire humanitarian situation at the doors of the country's capital...

BEIJING -- Xi Jinping, already China's most powerful leader in more than a generation, received a vastly expanded mandate as lawmakers Sunday abolished presidential term limits that had been in place for more than 35 years and wrote his political philosophy into the country's constitution...

RICHMOND, Va. -- As schools around the country brace for student walkouts following the deadly shooting in Parkland, Florida, principals and superintendents are scrambling to perform a delicate balancing act: How to let thousands of students exercise their First Amendment rights while not disrupting school and not pulling administrators into the raging debate over gun control...

SEATTLE -- Recent mass shootings have spurred Congress to try to improve the nation's gun background check system that has failed on numerous occasions to keep weapons out of the hands of dangerous people. The problem with the legislation, experts say, is it only works if federal agencies, the military, states, courts and local law enforcement do a better job of sharing information with the background check system -- and they have a poor track record in doing so. ...

Trump administration officials said Sunday there will be no more conditions imposed on North Korea before a first-ever meeting of the two nation's leaders beyond the North's promise not to resume nuclear testing and missile flights or publicly criticize U.S.-South Korean military exercises...

WASHINGTON -- The White House on Sunday pledged to help states pay for firearms training for teachers and reiterated its call to improve the background check system as part of a new plan to prevent school shootings. But in a move sure to please the gun lobby, the plan does not include a push to increase the minimum age for purchasing assault weapons to 21, which President Donald Trump repeatedly had championed...

PORTLAND, Maine -- Now serving sea monsters. That's the message from members of the fishing industry, environmentalists and regulators who are trying to persuade U.S. consumers to eat more of a particularly weird-looking creature from the deep -- monkfish...

Cryptocurrencies such as bitcoin may not be regulated by the government, but they're still subject to being taxed. There have been various forms of digital currencies around for years, but several have taken off in popularity recently. And that may leave some newcomers to this marketplace unaware they face taxation on their dealings...

MINNEAPOLIS -- General Mills announced a deal last week to create South Dakota's largest organic crop farm as the company works to secure enough organic ingredients to meet growing consumer demand worldwide. Gunsmoke Farms will convert 34,000 acres -- more than 53 square miles -- near Pierre to organic by 2020, where it will grow organic wheat for General Mills' popular Annie's Macaroni & Cheese line...

Former Southeast Missouri State University debate directors Fred Goodwin and the late Forrest H. Rose have been chosen to be inducted into the Pi Kappa Delta National Debate Honorary's Hall of Fame in a ceremony March 20 in Seattle. Roosevelt Bank of St. ...

PERRYVILLE, Mo. -- Rudolph "Rudy" H. Ochs, 89, of Perryville died Sunday, March 11, 2018, at Independence Care Center of Perry County. Visitation will be from 4 to 8 p.m. Tuesday and from 6:30 to 10 a.m. Wednesday at Young and Sons Funeral Home. The funeral will be at 10 a.m. Wednesday at the funeral home, with the Rev. Jim Kiefer officiating. Burial will be in Crestlawn Cemetery in Ste. Genevieve, Missouri...

Ruth Illers, 91, of Jackson passed away Friday, March 9, 2018, at her home. She was born July 7, 1926, in Flat River, Missouri, to Walter and Mae Fikuart Keisker. Ruth graduated from Jackson High School in 1944. She and Lynn Illers were married April 4, 1946. He preceded her in death Nov. 10, 1976...

BREWER, Mo. -- Patricia A. Heberlie, 82, of Brewer died Sunday, March 11, 2018, at her home. She was born Nov. 24, 1935, in Ste. Genevieve County, Missouri, daughter of Oliver and Estell Kohm Martin. She and Martin A. Heberlie were married June 28, 1952. He survives in Brewer...

Leavada Daniels, 91, of Oak Ridge died Sunday, March 11, 2018, at Southeast Hospital in Cape Girardeau. Visitation will be from 4:30 to 8 p.m. Tuesday at Ford and Sons Funeral Home in Jackson. The funeral will be at 11 a.m. Wednesday at the funeral home, with the Rev. Bill Rhodes and CH (Capt.) Jeff Militti (retired) officiating. Burial will be at Russell Heights Cemetery in Jackson...

The Cape Girardeau Fire Department responded to the following calls: Friday n Medical assists were made at 12:53 a.m. on South Pacific Street; 4:21 a.m. on Elm Street; 11:13 a.m. on Bloomfield Road; 2:11 p.m. on North Hanover Street; and 3:52 p.m. on North Main Street...

The Cape Girardeau Police Department released the following items. Arrests do not imply guilt. DWI n Kailey M. Congdon, 27, of Jackson was arrested at 1624 N. Kingshighway on suspicion of driving while intoxicated. Arrests n A suspect was in custody pending formal charges of driving while revoked at 612 S. Sprigg St...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's Department of Social Services director still is being overpaid despite his promises to stop the practice. The Jefferson City News Tribune reported this past week director Steve Corsi again received a second salary payment from a different state agency. He came under scrutiny last month for taking roughly $128,000 salary a year from the department he leads, along with close to $13,800 from the Department of Health and Senior Services...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The Missouri Students Association presidential election has been canceled after the discovery of offensive tweets by three candidates who since have dropped out. Presidential candidates Blaine Thomas and Claire Jacobs dropped out of the race Tuesday and vice-presidential candidate Caius Gillen quit Wednesday after a student journalist publicized racist, sexist and homophobic tweets from their Twitter accounts, the Columbia Missourian reported...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Each week, the Columbia Police Department's K-9 Unit reports for training day at the Central Missouri Events Center, where open fields and simulated apartments await eager four-legged officers ready for a hard day of work. Raf, an 8-year-old German shepherd, is the veteran of the bunch, although you wouldn't know it at first glance. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri lawmakers are threatening to make "painful cuts" to a state department's funding for refusing to release information about a virus that killed a state employee last year. Republican Rep. Justin Alferman first proposed Wednesday at a House budget committee hearing a 10 percent budget reduction for administrative staff at the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services. ...

Pastel artist Michele Wells, left, helps Andrea Talley with color shading during a pastel painting workshop Sunday at the Arts Council of Southeast Missouri in Cape Girardeau.

It’s one thing for Mike Jensen to voice skepticism about the Southern Poverty Law Center’s (SPLC) claim Sikeston is home to a hate group, but quite another to claim the organization benefits from promoting hate. That’s right, “promoting ... hate.” That is such an incredulous and outrageous statement, Mr. Jensen owes the SPLC specifically and the public in general a sincere apology. ...

Voices for Children/CASA of Southeast Missouri announced the retirement of Linda Clark Nash as executive director, effective March 31. Nash has been with the agency for eight and a half years. Before working for CASA, she wrote and administered Teaching American History grants for the Jackson School District and taught history at Jackson High School for a combined 35 years...

Chelsey Hargrove, CNA at Chaffee Nursing Center, Skilled Nursing by Americare, recently received The Caregiver of the Year award, the top honor at the company’s annual Caregiver Conference held in St. Louis. Nearly 300 of Americare’s top frontline staff from the company’s 110 communities attended the conference having been nominated by their peers and community residents...