Stories from Friday, October 21, 2022

FLORISSANT, Mo. — Some parents of children at Jana Elementary School in suburban St. Louis say they'll seek medical testing and guidance from doctors about what to do next, after a privately-funded environmental study found radioactive contamination inside the school and on the playground...

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — Poplar Bluff Police Department officers are investigating alleged threats made against the Poplar Bluff Regional Medical Center facility and/or staff Thursday, Oct. 20, Police Chief Mike McClain said. "The hospital reported that they had received information of threats against their facility and/or their staff," McClain said. ...

SIKESTON, Mo. — A fire Thursday morning, Oct. 20, in a Sikeston apartment complex is being considered arson. At approximately 8:45 a.m., firefighters with the Sikeston Department of Public Safety were alerted to a fire at Twin Oaks Apartments at 600 S. New Madrid St...

Work is underway on the exterior restorations of the Port Cape Girardeau Restaurant and Lounge downtown. ...

Teresa and Stephen Meier, owners of Meier Horseshoe Pines, began growing Christmas trees in 1983. Approximately five years later, they opened for business and have been taking people via wagon ride to their 20 acres of Christmas trees to select live trees since...

The state's Department of Transportation estimates the second phase of the anti-flooding project for Highway 177 in Cape Girardeau County will be completed no later than Saturday, Nov. 5. According to Kevin Plott, resident engineer, contractors will finish up the paving this week...

Penny Williams, recreations division manager for Cape Girardeau Parks and Recreation Department, categorized Cape Splash Family Aquatic Center attendance "back" this past year. The new report — which tabulated visits based on the past fiscal year rather than this past summer's season — showed nearly 59,000 people through the gates in July, August and September of 2021 and May and June of 2022...

This story is updated. Those who wish to vote absentee in the Tuesday, Nov. 8, general election may do so without an excuse starting Tuesday, Oct. 25, said Kara Clark Summers, Cape Girardeau county clerk. Absentee voting by those providing an excuse has been available since Tuesday, Sept. 27...

Tuesday started a new era of air travel in Southeast Missouri. The first Contour Airlines flight from Cape Girardeau to Nashville International Airport took place, and a group of airport board members, area leaders and local media, including a Southeast Missourian reporter, were among the first to participate in the inaugural 34-minute flight...

I was recently reminded of a profound truth about the free market and the prices that sit at its center. Unfortunately, this truth is often overlooked by both critics of the market economy and by economists like myself. This simple truth is that the price system works thanks to and only because of a set of institutions that promote cooperation among us...

O Heavenly Father, we praise you for your ways are higher than our ways. Amen.

CAPE GIRARDEAU Cape Girardeau Fire Department responded to the following calls. Oct. 19 n Medical assists were made at 12:11 p.m. on Sussex Drive; 4:58 p.m. on North Kingshighway; 5:46 p.m. at Champion and Richmond drives; and 5:56 p.m. on Independence 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 Mechaw Drive. n A warrant arrest was reported on North Broadview Street. Assaults n Third-degree assault was reported on Whitener Street...

POPLAR BLUFF, Mo. — Ronald David Reagan, 80, of Poplar Bluff died Saturday, Oct. 15, 2022, at Mark Twain Care Center. He was born May 26, 1942, in St. Louis to Andrew and June Trowbridge Reagan. Survivors include a daughter, Christina (Ron) Hoffmeister of Wappapello, Missouri; three sons, Ronald J. ...

Ann Niswonger, 92, of Jackson died Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2022, at her home. Visitation will be from 4 to 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 24, at McCombs Funeral Home and Cremation Center in Jackson. The Rev. Gary Hoffstetter will conduct the funeral service at 7 p.m. Monday, Oct. 24, at the funeral home. Ann will be privately interred next to her late husband at Niswonger Cemetery near Millersville...

CORNVILLE, Ariz. -- Strips of fabric rain like multicolored tickertape from a tree, remnants of a child's favorite shirt or sock or pillowcase. Little medallions stamped with names of the dead twinkle in the breeze. In a grotto, the brokenhearted have clipped prayer cards to branches, left objects including a baseball and a toy truck, and painted dozens of stones memorializing someone gone too soon...

NEW YORK -- A jury sided with Kevin Spacey on Thursday in one of the lawsuits that derailed the film star's career, finding he did not sexually abuse Anthony Rapp, then 14, while both were relatively unknown actors in Broadway plays in 1986. The verdict in the civil trial came with lightning speed. Jurors at a federal court in New York deliberated for a little more than an hour before deciding that Rapp hadn't proven his allegations...

JACKSON, Miss. -- The federal government is investigating whether Mississippi state agencies discriminated against the state's majority-Black capital city by refusing to fund improvements for its failing water system, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency said Thursday...

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. -- Free-speech advocates asked the Supreme Court on Thursday to overturn a federal appeals court ruling that upheld an Arkansas law requiring state contractors to pledge not to boycott Israel. Contractors that don't sign the pledge must reduce their fees by 20%. Republican legislators who drafted the 2017 law have said it was not prompted by a specific incident in the state...

WASHINGTON -- The Pentagon will provide travel funds and support for troops and their dependents who seek abortions but are based in states where they are now illegal, according to a new department policy released Thursday. The military will also increase privacy protections for those seeking care...

PENYABANGAN, Indonesia -- It took a broken air conditioner for Tom Bowling to figure out -- after nearly eight months of failure -- how to breed the coveted pink-yellow tropical fish known as blotched anthias. Bowling, an ornamental fish breeder based in Palau, had kept the fish in cool water, trying to replicate the temperatures the deep-water creatures are usually found in. ...

A town employee who quietly lowered the fluoride in a Vermont community's drinking water for years has resigned -- and is asserting that the levels had actually been low for much longer than believed. Richmond water superintendent Kendall Chamberlin disclosed in his five-page resignation letter, submitted Monday, that fluoride levels have not been in the state-recommended range for over a decade -- instead of nearly four years, as the state had recently disclosed...

COLUMBIA, S.C. -- U.S. Sen. Lindsey Graham must testify before a special grand jury investigating whether then-President Donald Trump and others illegally tried to influence the 2020 election in Georgia, a federal appeals court said Thursday. The ruling by a three-judge panel of the 11th U.S. ...

PHOENIX -- Gathered at a table in the Capitol in Phoenix a little less than two years ago, two Republicans and a Democrat took part in a ceremony prescribed by state law that made official Joe Biden's 10,500-vote victory in Arizona's 2020 presidential contest...

NASHVILLE, Tenn. -- More than 150 years after slaves were freed in the U.S., voters in five states will soon decide whether to close loopholes that led to the proliferation of a different form of slavery -- forced labor by people convicted of certain crimes...

Associated Press ARACUAI, Brazil -- After Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro boosted welfare payments in August by 50%, many people in the Jequitinhonha Valley, one of the poorest regions of the country, felt they could once again afford some meat, keep electricity running and repair leaky roofs...

Gas stoves in California homes are leaking cancer-causing benzene, researchers found in a new study published on Thursday, though they say more research is needed to understand how many homes have leaks. In the study, published in Environmental Science and Technology on Thursday, researchers also estimated that over 4 tons of benzene per year are being leaked into the atmosphere from outdoor pipes that deliver the gas to buildings around California -- the equivalent to the benzene emissions from nearly 60,000 vehicles. ...

KYIV, Ukraine -- When a missile struck a power station less than a mile from his apartment on the outskirts of Kyiv, Oleksander Maystrenko didn't panic, run to a bomb shelter or consider evacuating, even though he lives close to what suddenly has become the Russian military's main target in the war: anything related to Ukraine's vital infrastructure...

BRUSSELS -- European Union leaders stood divided Thursday on whether, and how, the bloc could impose a gas price cap to contain the energy crisis fueled by Russian President Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine and his strategy to choke off gas supplies to the bloc at will...

TEFE, Brazil -- Just months after enduring floods that destroyed crops and submerged entire communities, thousands of families in the Brazilian Amazon are now dealing with severe drought that, at least in some areas, is the worst in decades. The low level of the Amazon River, at the center of the largest drainage system in the world, has put dozens of municipalities under alert...

LONDON -- British Prime Minister Liz Truss quit Thursday after a tumultuous and historically brief term marred by economic policies that roiled financial markets and a rebellion in her political party that obliterated her authority. After just 45 days in office, Truss became the third Conservative prime minister to be toppled in as many years, and she will go down as the shortest-serving leader in British history. ...

JAY, Maine -- Across the U.S., families are looking to the winter with dread as energy costs soar and fuel supplies tighten. The Department of Energy is projecting sharp price increases for home heating compared with last winter and some worry whether heating assistance programs will be able to make up the difference for struggling families. The situation is even bleaker in Europe, with Russia's continued curtailment of natural gas pushing prices upward and causing painful shortages...

More than 60 years after Anna May Wong became the first Asian American woman to receive a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the pioneering actor has coined another first, quite literally. With quarters bearing her face and manicured hand set to start shipping Monday, per the U.S. ...

ST. LOUIS -- A federal judge in St. Louis on Thursday dismissed an effort by six Republican-led states to block the Biden administration's plan to forgive student loan debt for tens of millions of Americans. U.S. District Judge Henry Autrey wrote that because the six states -- Nebraska, Missouri, Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas and South Carolina -- failed to establish they had standing, "the Court lacks jurisdiction to hear this case."...

LOUISIANA, Mo. -- The police chief in a small Missouri town has been charged with felony drug crimes after his girlfriend's brother was found dead from an apparent overdose in the police chief's apartment. William Jones, 50, was charged Wednesday with second-degree drug trafficking, possession of a controlled substance and tampering with evidence. He was jailed on $150,000 cash-only bond...

RIVERSIDE, Mo. -- A northwest Missouri school district faced a massive disruption after four freshmen students posted a "petition" that suggested restarting slavery, district officials said in a response to a federal lawsuit filed by the students' parents...

The Cape Girardeau City Council last night approved an ordinance outlining where halfway houses can operate within the city; under the ordinance, halfway house programs will be allowed to operate with special use permits in most of the city's commercial, manufacturing and industrial zones...