Stories from Friday, August 31, 2018

MoDOT urges caution this Labor Day Weekend as motorists and pedestrians will be out for the 61-Mile Yard Sale from Bloomsdale, Missouri, to Jackson. According to a news release Thursday, MoDOT encourages all to "remember the greatest savings of the event could be a life."...

Ken Murphy is at it again -- this October, the Cape Comic Con co-organizer and Cape Championship Wrestling promoter will open a comic-book store in Cape Girardeau: Cape Comics, at 637 Broadway. Murphy formerly owned Marvels & Legends Comics in Cape Girardeau, and for 12 years, he said, he enjoyed having a retail space where people who loved comic books could gather and appreciate them together...

OLMSTED, Ill. -- Federal officials including two leading U.S. senators celebrated the opening Thursday of the $3 billion Olmsted Locks and Dam on the Ohio River. Army Corps of Engineers officials said it is the largest Corps project since construction of the Panama Canal...

SIKESTON, Mo. — A Cape Girardeau man has been arrested for the Aug. 23 shooting death of Marcus De’Andres Price. Shamar A. Lowe, 19, was arrested by the Sikeston Department of Public Safety on Thursday and charged with first degree murder, armed criminal action and resisting/interfering with a felony arrest. Lowe’s bond is $200,000 cash only...

Today is Friday, Aug. 31, the 243rd day of 2018. There are 122 days left in the year. Today's Highlight in History: On August 31, 1972, at the Munich Summer Olympics, American swimmer Mark Spitz won his fourth and fifth gold medals in the 100-meter butterfly and 800-meter freestyle relay; Soviet gymnast Olga Korbut won gold medals in floor exercise and the balance beam...

Most of you who pay attention to this space on a regular basis already know that I don't spin many political stories. I figure you have your reasons for supporting one candidate or another, and that's good enough for me. But recent events compel me to abandon my hands-off policy regarding politics. Here goes:...

Discovery Playhouse offers a unique opportunity for children to play and learn, particularly when the weather outside isn't cooperative. The museum has many interactive exhibits for children to use their imaginations for pretend play. On Sept. 7, Discovery Playhouse will host its first back-to-school carnival. It will include face painting, clowns, balloon animals, a photo booth, a fortuneteller and a dunking booth, Sydnee Woodruff told Southeast Missourian reporter Josh Hartwig...

WASHINGTON -- Increasingly convinced the West Wing is wholly unprepared to handle the expected assault from Democrats if they win the House in November, President Donald Trump's aides and allies are privately raising alarm as his circle of legal and communications advisers continues to shrink...

WASHINGTON -- President Donald Trump is canceling pay raises due in January for most civilian federal employees, he informed Congress on Thursday, citing budget constraints. But the workers still could see a slightly smaller boost in their pay under a proposal lawmakers are considering...

CHEMNITZ, Germany -- Anger over the suspected killing of a man by two refugees has sparked days of protests in this eastern German city, raising fresh concerns about the anti-migrant sentiment shaking up the country's political system and seeing the rise of a far-right party for the first time in decades...

GENEVA -- Fearing a military offensive, the U.N. envoy for Syria proposed Thursday civilians holed up in the rebel-held region of Idlib could evacuate to government areas -- a move that would send many back into parts of Syria they once fled in its 7-1/2-year-old civil war...

Microsoft will begin requiring its contractors to offer their U.S. employees paid leave to care for a new child. It's common for tech firms to offer generous family leave benefits for their own software engineers and other full-time staff, but paid leave advocates say it's still rare to require similar benefits for contracted workers such as janitors, landscapers, cafeteria crews and software consultants...

NEW YORK -- Google is toeing the line between helping you save time and creeping you out as it turns to machines to suggest email replies on your behalf. The customized auto-responses come in the latest version of Gmail on the web and expand on a feature already available on Android devices and iPhones. They're just one more example of how artificial intelligence is seeping into everyday online life, whether it's to tailor product recommendations or correct spelling...

WASHINGTON -- What's lost when the president of the United States can't or won't show up? As the remembrances for the late Sen. John McCain shift from Arizona to Washington the rest of this week, President Donald Trump will be missing. The McCain family asked him to stay away from the four-day tribute to the storied Republican lawmaker. And even if they hadn't, it's unlikely Trump would have been eager to eulogize one of his fiercest critics...

WASHINGTON -- The Justice Department on Thursday sided with Asian-American students suing Harvard University over the Ivy League school's consideration of race in its admissions policy, the latest step in the Trump administration's effort to encourage race-neutral admissions practices...

MISSOULA, Mont. -- A federal judge Thursday temporarily blocked the opening of the first public grizzly bear hunts in Wyoming and Idaho in more than 40 years, as he considers whether the government was wrong to lift federal protections on the animals...

ST. LOUIS -- U.S. Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat in a decidedly Republican state, is seizing on an issue she believes resonates in even the most conservative corners of the state -- the financial future of the lowest wage earners. The two-term incumbent campaigned Thursday in St. Louis, where she celebrated the resounding defeat of a so-called right-to-work measure earlier this month and touted the value of raising the minimum wage...

Missouri Attorney General and Senate candidate Josh Hawley visited Jackson Egg Company during a campaign stop held in conjunction with the Missouri Farm Bureau Thursday. Hawley praised the egg business and its founders, Christopher Ludwig and Adam Birk, for their initiative; the pair started the business in 2016 and has since grown to oversee roughly 6,000 birds...

ST. LOUIS -- The top prosecutor in St. Louis has established what she calls an "exclusion list" of 28 city police officers and is reviewing all open cases in which those officers were essential witnesses, a spokeswoman for the circuit attorney's office said Thursday...

LONGWOOD, Fla. -- Ted J. Plunk, 80, passed away peacefully Sunday, Aug. 26, 2018, at his home, surrounded by family and loved ones. Born Nov. 30, 1937, to Nova and Charlotte Page Plunk, Ted was a resident of Poplar Bluff, Missouri, until 1976, when he moved his family to Cape Girardeau. Upon his retirement as a food broker, Ted and his wife moved to Central Florida...

While the Mississippi River at Cape Girardeau continues to fall, water keeps rising inside the East Cape Girardeau-Clear Water Levee District in Illinois; the rise is expected to continue there until the river stage at Cape Girardeau falls below 30 to 32 feet; then the surface water can drain into the river again...

RAYTOWN, Mo. -- Dorothy Hulsey, 69, of Raytown died peacefully at her home Tuesday, Aug. 28, 2018, surrounded by her family. She was born Nov. 18, 1948, in Cape Girardeau, the youngest of seven children of Bertha and Percy Farrar. Her fondest childhood memories were playing with her sister Margie, cooking with her mom and delivering eggs with her daddy...

For local thrift store hunter-gatherer Jo Rodgers, her collection of art deco pieces is a part of who she is. When Rodgers thinks "art deco," the Google definition doesn't necessarily come to mind; 1920s "dangly jewelry," elaborate cigarette lighters, fur coats, sculpted and iron dogs and gold-trimmed furniture is how Rodgers imagines "art deco," she said...

O Lord Jesus, thank you for the blessing of work. Amen.

I love our President. He loves our country. We had an opportunity to elect Senator McCain as our President. We chose instead to elect a completely unremarkable community organizer who oversaw a loss of more than 1,000 Democrat legislative seats while spending a trillion dollar stimulus and whose single greatest accomplishment was paving the way for Donald Trump's Presidency. We had our chance to honor John McCain...

JOPLIN, Mo. -- A 24-year-old man is charged with first-degree murder after a shooting death at a Joplin motel. The Jasper County prosecutor filed a first-degree murder charge Thursday against Kosaksy Phillip, of Joplin, in the shooting death of 33-year-old Diamond Bradley...

ST. LOUIS -- A Christopher Columbus statue in a St. Louis park is being called into question about a year after a Confederate monument was removed from another park in the city. A commission is being formed to review whether the 130-year-old statue belongs in Tower Grove Park, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. The panel will include historians, art experts, and representatives of Italian-Americans and Native Americans in St. Louis, said David Lauber, the park's director of development...

Power Rangers originally morphed its way into the lives of children in the early 1990's and on Tuesday the superhero franchise celebrated its 25th anniversary. According to a recent GQ article, Power Rangers originator Haim Saban is the main reason why the long-running Power Rangers television series is "uniquely American."...

The pools close Monday, and school is back in session, so how about some pre-gaming for fall? This weekend you and your family can enjoy the final hours of Benton Neighbor Days through Saturday. On Sunday, take it easy and take in the historical sights at the Bollinger County History Museum...

OZORA, Mo. -- Dorothy F. Bleckler, 74, of Ozora died Monday, Aug. 27, 2018, at her home. Visitation will be from 4 to 6 p.m. Tuesday at Young and Sons Funeral Home in Perryville, Missouri.

Please don't forget to watch for signs of summer waning... the mysterious signs of nature right under our noses! My passion flower is still blooming and my sister took the butterfly picture in Oklahoma. Stop.. look... and listen!!!

A group of students at CJHS in the Challenge Program entered the Lexus Eco Challenge. The group started an organisation where they gather citizens from the community and clean the park. They're first gathering will be on September 12, 2018. The group will be meeting in the pavilion by the small parking lot in Capaha Park. ...