TexasTowelie
TexasTowelie's JournalNew numbers have Mizzou leaders boasting the university is on the rebound
Is the University of Missouri making a comeback after the 2015 racially charged protests that erupted on the Columbia campus, tarnished its reputation and stunted enrollment growth?
University leaders sure think so.
As proof, they’re pointing to MU’s latest preliminary applications-for-admission numbers from potential freshmen and transfer students.
As of Jan. 29, freshman applications at MU were up 16.8 percent, from 15,060 at this time last year to 17,583. Transfer applications increased 12.2 percent, from 806 to 904.
“Mizzou is roaring back,” Chancellor Alexander N. Cartwright said in a statement Friday afternoon.
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article198109604.html
No, Josh Hawley, the sexual revolution is not to blame for sex trafficking
You’d think by now that politicians who try to burnish their credentials with appeals to biblical morality would learn to do so in ways that do not make laughingstocks of themselves and their purported biblical morality.
Consider the case of Missouri Attorney General Josh Hawley, who recently claimed the sexual revolution of the 1960s and ’70s, and the “anything goes” culture pushed by “Hollywood” and “cultural elites,” is responsible for the scourge of human trafficking.
How is it that a candidate for high office can actually believe the commerce in women and children as sexual chattel -- a trade that has certainly abided as long as human civilization -- has somehow been facilitated by a movement that gained women more rights over their own wombs and livelihoods?
“We have a human trafficking crisis in our state and in this city and in our country because people are willing to purchase women, young women, and treat them like commodities,” Hawley said in a taped speech given in December at an event in Kansas City hosted by the Missouri arm of the American Renewal Project, which reaches out to evangelicals, blending messages of faith with politics. “There is a market for it. Why is there? Because our culture has completely lost its way. The sexual revolution has led to exploitation of women on a scale that we would never have imagined, never have imagined.”
Read more here: http://www.kansascity.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/mary-sanchez/article198198704.html
Blind Missourians with spouses making $36,000 a year would lose state aid under proposal
JEFFERSON CITY • More than 350 blind people could be cut off from a special state fund under legislation being considered by Missouri lawmakers.
In testimony to a House budget panel Wednesday, Rep. David Wood, R-Versailles, said the state should impose new financial limits on the state's Blind Pension Fund program and remove any recipient who has a driver’s license from receiving the benefit.
“We want to make sure it goes to the right people,” Wood said.
The state's Blind Pension Fund was established in the 1920s as a social safety net for the visually impaired. Last year, monthly payments of about $730 per month were paid out to an average of 2,874 recipients.
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/blind-missourians-with-spouses-making-a-year-would-lose-state/article_f1636602-9944-5784-a37f-99bbf91bb41e.html
University presidents sound alarm to lawmakers over governor's proposed budget cuts
JEFFERSON CITY • The leaders of Missouri's public universities sounded the alarm to lawmakers this week about the governor's proposed budget cuts to higher education.
During hearings Tuesday and Wednesday, presidents of universities that receive state money - from the University of Missouri System to the two-year State Technical College in Linn - told members of the House subcommittee on education funding that they've already cut many programs they didn't want to and, with the additional proposed eliminations, they had to consider firing faculty and staff and raising student tuition.
"They have every right to be gloomy," Rep. Donna Lichtenegger, R-Jackson, said. "They have been hit tremendously hard. We're going to try and find them some money this year. We can't keep going at this rate."
Gov. Eric Greitens' proposed budget called for $68 million in reductions in higher education spending. Senate and House leaders have said they won't cut universities' funding by that amount.
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/university-presidents-sound-alarm-to-lawmakers-over-governor-s-proposed/article_df780d5f-4e2a-53ad-b5f9-f9fa5e3cb19a.html
Man who sold ammo to Vegas shooter charged
CHANDLER, Ariz. — An Arizona man who sold ammunition to the gunman in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history was charged Friday with manufacturing armor-piercing bullets, according to court documents obtained by The Associated Press.
Unfired armor-piercing bullets found inside the Las Vegas hotel room where the attack was launched on Oct. 1 contained the fingerprints of ammunition dealer Douglas Haig of Arizona, according to the complaint filed in federal court in Phoenix. It says Haig didn't have a license to manufacture armor-piercing ammunition.
The records don't say if the ammunition was used in the attack. Haig was charged shortly before holding a news conference Friday where he said didn't notice anything suspicious when he sold 720 rounds of ammunition to Stephen Paddock in the weeks before the attack that killed 58 people.
Haig, a 55-year-old aerospace engineer who sold ammunition as a hobby for about 25 years, said he met Paddock at a Phoenix gun show in the weeks before the shooting and he was well-dressed and polite.
Read more: http://www.stltoday.com/news/national/man-who-sold-ammo-to-vegas-shooter-charged/article_3c35bfc2-922b-5f6c-9c0a-eedf58fa1958.html
Judge declines to issue order barring Greitens' texting app
JEFFERSON CITY (AP) — A judge has refused to issue a temporary restraining order that would have prohibited Republican Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens and his staff from using a texting app that erases messages after they are read.
The Kansas City Star reports that Cole County Judge Jon Beetum issued the ruling Friday in a lawsuit that accuses Greitens and his staff of engaging in a conspiracy to violate Missouri's open records law by using the Confide app.
Critics contend that with the app, it is impossible to determine whether the governor and his staff use it to conduct state business in secret.
Beetum set a hearing for further arguments in March, acknowledging there are "open questions."
Read more: https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/politics/2018/02/02/judge-declines-issue-order-barring-greitens-texting-app/302707002/
State not considering sale of 4 closed parks
JEFFERSON CITY— Missouri officials say the state is not currently planning to sell four new state parks.
Former Gov. Jay Nixon's administration bought the four parks but they haven't been opened. The possibility of selling the parks was mentioned in the legislature and the park division, as Missouri tries to solve a $200 million maintenance backlog at its other parks.
The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports Ben Ellis, director of Missouri State Parks, said last week the state isn't considering selling the parks at the present time.
The parks are Ozark Mountain State Park in Taney County; Jay Nixon State Park in Reynolds and Iron counties; and Bryant Creek State Park in Douglas County. A lawsuit has been filed challenging the legality of the fourth park, Eleven Point State Park in Oregon County.
Read more: https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/local/missouri/2018/01/29/report-state-not-considering-sale-4-closed-parks/1076727001/
Greitens aims to change state worker rules. Lawmakers say they don't know what he means.
JEFFERSON CITY — If Gov. Eric Greitens has his way, he'll be able to exercise more control over state employees — many of whom would get a $650 raise in the budget proposed by the Republican governor.
Greitens has said he wants to bind this pay plan to legislative civil service reforms. And while a Springfield lawmaker has discussed such changes with the governor's office, key Republican legislators are unsure of what exactly their governor wants from them.
"We're kind of waiting on some details on that," said Rep. Scott Fitzpatrick, who chairs the House Budget Committee.
Fitzpatrick, R-Shell Knob, added that he would consider the governor's proposal but would also explore alternative pay-plan options for state workers. "The goal is that this year we'll do something for state employees."
Read more: https://www.news-leader.com/story/news/politics/2018/01/28/how-does-greitens-want-revamp-state-employee-rules-plan-revamp-employment-rules-state-workers-remain/1066327001/
PrideFest Protesters See Charges Dropped by City of St. Louis
One week after Pride St. Louis publicly pleaded with the city to drop the charges pending against two activists who were arrested last year while protesting PrideFest, the activists got their answer: Sure.
One of the activists, Justin Michalik, tells RFT that he received word on Wednesday that the city had dropped the municipal charges of trespassing and interfering with an officers. The news was a huge relief.
"They kept delaying, giving us different court dates after different court dates," Michalik says. "I don't know what the reasoning was."
The arrests dated back to June 26, last year's PrideFest. In a video posted to Facebook, Michalik and others can be seen holding a banner in front of Monsanto's booth at the event and chanting "No justice no pride." Later, the video captured Michalik being carried to a patrol vehicle by two bike officers.
Read more: https://www.riverfronttimes.com/newsblog/2018/02/02/pridefest-protesters-see-charges-dropped-by-city-of-st-louis
Ex-banker pleads guilty to $1 million theft
McALLEN — A former bank employee faces up to 30 years in federal prison after she pleaded guilty to bank fraud charges, according to a news release.
Cynthia Luna Rodriguez, 45, who remains free on a $50,000 bond, pleaded guilty to two counts of bank fraud, and one count of theft or embezzlement by a bank officer Wednesday, according to court records.
Rodriguez was arrested in connection with the charges in July 2016. She was facing a total of eight counts against her, including six for bank fraud and the theft or embezzlement charge.
Federal agents arrested Rodriguez, a former employee with PlainsCapital Bank in Edinburg, who allegedly stole more than $1 million from customer accounts, court records show.
The Pharr native admitted to federal prosecutors that, over the course of eight years, she withdrew money from customers’ accounts and then hid the unauthorized withdrawals by back-filling them with funds from other customers’ accounts. This was also accomplished by changing the address on the accounts without authorization, according to the release from the U.S. Attorney’s office.
Read more: http://www.themonitor.com/news/local/article_3c1886b8-0703-11e8-9de7-f37bd187241d.html
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