ST. LOUIS (AP) — Officials say a man has been shot and killed after wielding a knife at St. Louis airport.
St. Louis County Police spokesperson Vera Clay said Friday that about 1 a.m. officers at St. Louis Lambert International Airport noticed a person in an area he should not have been in and who refused to leave.
She said when officers tried to get him to move, he showed them a knife. Officers used Tasers, but the man continued to advance toward them. Clay said an officer then fired his gun, fatally wounding the man. There were no other injuries.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
As President Donald Trump laid it out to reporters this summer, the plan was simple.
Republicans, the president said, were “entitled” to five more conservative-leaning U.S. House seats in Texas and additional ones in other red states. The president broke with more than a century of political tradition in directing the GOP to redraw those maps in the middle of the decade to avoid losing control of Congress in next year’s midterms.
Four months later, Trump’s audacious ask looks anything but simple. After a federal court panel struck down Republicans’ new map in Texas on Tuesday, the entire exercise holds the potential to net Democrats more winnable seats in the House instead.
“Trump may have let the genie out of the bottle,” said UCLA law professor Rick Hasen, “but he may not get the wish he’d hoped for.”
Trump’s plan is to bolster his party’s narrow House margin to protect Republicans from losing control of the chamber in next year’s elections. Normally, the president’s party loses seats in the midterms. But his involvement in redistricting is instead becoming an illustration of the limits of presidential power.
Gov. Greg Abbott announces his re-election campaign for Texas governor in Houston, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP)
Gov. Greg Abbott announces his re-election campaign for Texas governor in Houston, Sunday, Nov. 9, 2025. (Jason Fochtman/Houston Chronicle via AP)
Playing with fire
To hold Republicans’ grip on power in Washington, Trump is relying on a complex political process.
Redrawing maps is a decentralized effort that involves navigating a tangle of legal rules. It also involves a tricky political calculus because the legislators who hold the power to draw maps often want to protect themselves, business interests or local communities more than ruthlessly help their party.
And when one party moves aggressively to draw lines to help itself win elections — also known as gerrymandering — it runs the risk of pushing its rival party to do the same.
That’s what Trump ended up doing, spurring California voters to replace their map drawn by a nonpartisan commission with one drawn by Democrats to gain five seats. If successful, the move would cancel out the action taken by Texas Republicans. California voters approved that map earlier this month, and if a Republican lawsuit fails to block it, that map giving Democrats more winnable seats will remain in effect even if Texas’ remains stalled.
“Donald Trump and Greg Abbott played with fire, got burned — and democracy won,” California Gov. Gavin Newsom, a Democrat, posted on X after the Texas ruling, mentioning his Republican counterpart in Texas along with the president.
Rep. Kevin Kiley, a Republican whose northern California district would be redrawn under the state’s new map, agreed.
“It could very well come out as a net loss for Republicans, honestly when you look at the map, or at the very least, it could end up being a wash,” Kiley said. “But it’s something that never should have happened. It was ill-conceived from the start.”
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a rally with Harris County Democrats at the IBEW local 716 union hall in Houston, on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
California Gov. Gavin Newsom speaks during a rally with Harris County Democrats at the IBEW local 716 union hall in Houston, on Saturday, Nov. 8, 2025. (AP Photo/Karen Warren)
For Trump, a mix of wins and losses
There’s no guarantee that Tuesday’s ruling on the Texas map will stand. Many lower courts have blocked Trump’s initiatives, only for the conservative majority on the U.S. Supreme Court to put those rulings on hold. Texas Republicans immediately appealed Tuesday’s decision to the high court, too.
Even before Tuesday, Trump’s push for mid-decade redistricting was not playing out as neatly as he had hoped, though he had scored some apparent wins. North Carolina Republicans potentially created another conservative-leaning seat in that battleground state, while Missouri Republicans redrew their congressional map at Trump’s urging to eliminate one Democratic seat. The Missouri plan faces lawsuits and a possible referendum that would force a statewide vote on the matter.
Trump’s push has faltered elsewhere. Republicans in Kansas balked at trying to eliminate the state’s lone swing seat, held by a Democratic congresswoman. Indiana Republicans also refused to redraw their map to eliminate their two Democratic-leaning congressional seats.
After Trump attacked the main Indiana holdout, state Sen. Greg Goode, on social media, he was the victim of a swatting call over the weekend that led to sheriff’s deputies coming to his house.
Trump’s push could have a boomerang effect on Republicans
The bulk of redistricting normally happens once every 10 years, following the release of new population estimates from the U.S. Census. That requires state lawmakers to adjust their legislative lines to make sure every district has roughly the same population. It also opens the door to gerrymandering maps to make it harder for the party out of power to win legislative seats.
Inevitably, redistricting leads to litigation, which can drag on for years and spur mid-decade, court-mandated revisions.
Republicans stood to benefit from these after the last cycle in 2021 because they won state supreme court elections in North Carolina and Ohio in 2022. But some litigation hasn’t gone the GOP’s way. A judge in Utah earlier this month required the state to make one of its four congressional seats Democratic-leaning.
Trump broke with modern political practice by urging a wholesale, mid-decade redraw in red states.
Democrats were in a bad position to respond to Trump’s gambit because more states they control have lines drawn by independent commissions rather than by partisan lawmakers, the legacy of government reform efforts.
But with Newsom’s push to let Democrats draw California’s lines successful, the party is looking to replicate it elsewhere.
Next up may be Virginia, where Democrats recaptured the governor’s office this month and expanded their margins in the Legislature. A Democratic candidate for governor in Colorado has called for a similar measure there. Republicans currently hold 9 of the 19 House seats in those two states.
Overall, Republicans have more to lose if redistricting becomes a purely partisan activity nationally and voters in blue states ditch their nonpartisan commissions to let their preferred party maximize its margins. In the last complete redistricting cycle in 2021, commissions drew 95 House seats that Democrats would have otherwise drawn, and only 13 that Republicans would have drawn.
The State Capitol is seen in Austin, Texas, on June 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
The State Capitol is seen in Austin, Texas, on June 1, 2021. (AP Photo/Eric Gay, File)
Gerrymandering’s unintended consequences
On Tuesday, Republicans were reappraising Trump’s championing of redistricting hardball.
“I think if you look at the basis of this, there was no member of the delegation that was asked our opinion,” Republican Rep. Pete Sessions of Texas told reporters.
Incumbents usually don’t like the idea of radically redrawing districts. It can lead to what political experts call a “dummymander” — spreading the opposing party’s voters so broadly that they end up endangering your own incumbents in a year, like 2026, that is expected to be bad for the party in power.
Incumbents also don’t like losing voters who have supported them or getting wholly new communities drawn into their districts, said Jonathan Cervas, who teaches redistricting at Carnegie Mellon University and has drawn new maps for courts. Democratic lawmakers in Illinois and Maryland have so far resisted mid-decade redraws to pad their majorities in their states, joining their GOP counterparts in Indiana and Kansas.
Cervas said that’s why it was striking to watch Trump push Republicans to dive into mid-decade redistricting.
“The idea they’d go along to get along is basically crazy,” he said.
___
Associated Press writers Joey Cappelletti and Kevin Freking in Washington contributed to this report.
At Rooftop Church, just outside St. Louis, Missouri, it’s not collars and frocks — it’s baseball caps and jeans.
Head pastor Matt Herndon sets the tone on Sundays.
“When a lot of people come in, they do notice some things that maybe they wouldn’t see at other churches, [like] oh that’s strange, he’s wearing a hat. Oh, we just watched a video clip from ‘Beauty and the Beast,’” Herndon said. “We really do want to engage with people in a way that they can understand and lean into.”
Rooftop is one of an estimated 40,000 nondenominational Christian churches in the U.S., meaning its teachings are rooted in the Bible, but it’s an independent house of worship. What Herndon launched in a community center nearly 25 years ago now attracts as many as 600 people to its seats in any given week.
“Nondenominational is actually the strongest force in American Christianity right now,” said Ryan Burge, a professor who focuses on religion’s impact on American life at Washington University. “They really talk about a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Many of them preach a conservative gospel on things like abortion, same-sex marriage, but they don’t lead with those things.”
In 1972, fewer than 3% of Americans identified as nondenominational Christians. Now it’s 14%, or nearly 40 million people, according to the General Social Survey.
Burge believes it’s possible nondenominational Christians could overtake Roman Catholics in the next 15 years to be “the largest religious tradition in America.”
That looser structure is what attracts Rooftop members Anna and Nathan King, who grew up attending traditional Christian churches.
“Here at Rooftop, we focus on thinking critically about those traditions and challenging each other, but not letting it divide us,” Anna said.
“I love how casual it is. It’s really cool that, like, we could be in the pews and one of our elders or pastors is right in the pew next to us,” Nathan said.
Herndon calls this “big tent Christianity.” He uses videos and pop culture while focusing on what he sees as the fundamentals of the Bible, without taking a hard line.
When asked what he would say to people who view his church as “Christianity light,” Herndon said, “I emphatically disagree. We dig really deep into scripture, we just try to figure out, what does this mean for people?”
He added, “Some denominations, more traditional denominations, I think they’ve realized, we don’t have much of a future unless we try to figure out how to reconnect with people.”
The Missouri Tigers (6-3) look to snap a two-game losing streak and get back to .500 in the Southeastern Conference when they host the Mississippi State Bulldogs (5-5), who can become bowl eligible with a victory on Saturday night.
Missouri took its second straight loss and fell to 2-3 in SEC play last week when No. 3 Texas A&M came to Columbia and delivered a 38-17 thumping. The Tigers dug a 21-0 hole that they couldn’t recover from, never getting closer than 14 the rest of the way. Jamal Roberts gained 110 yards and scored a touchdown on 17 carries, while Ahmad Hardy finished with 109 yards and a score on 13 attempts, but Matt Zollers struggled, going 7-of-22 for 77 yards.
Mississippi State fell behind in the second quarter in a 41-21 loss to visiting No. 5 Georgia last week to fall to 1-5 in conference play. Kamario Taylor ran for three touchdowns and threw for 87 yards after replacing an injured Blake Shapen, gaining 53 yards on 12 carries. The Bulldog defense surrendered 567 yards in the loss, including 303 on the ground. Brenen Thompson finished with four catches for 92 yards.
The Tigers took a 3-2 lead in the all-time series with a 39-20 win at home on Nov. 23, their first win over Mississippi State since joining the SEC in 2012.
This is a great college football matchup that you will not want to miss; make sure to tune in and catch all the action.
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Six months after an EF-3 tornado tore through St. Louis, some residents say they’re still waiting for repairs and assistance as winter approaches.
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Six months after an EF-3 tornado tore through St. Louis, killing five people and causing an estimated $1.6 billion in damage, parts of the city are still littered with broken windows, blue tarps and homes that haven’t been touched since May.
Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley has previously warned that tornado-damaged communities can’t rebuild without strong federal involvement.
In St. Louis, residents say they’re still waiting for the help they were told would be coming.
A home in St. Louis sits partially collapsed after the EF-3 tornado in May, leaving bricks and debris piled along the street.(FOX NEWS)
Benjamin Anderson has lived in one of the hardest-hit neighborhoods for seven years and owns several rental properties in the area. When the storm hit, he was at work a few miles away.
“I got bombarded by about 37 texts from my dad with photos of our buildings. Just totally… some of them literally totally destroyed,” he said, adding that one of his multi-unit buildings suffered six figures’ worth of damage. “After spending a year and a half putting our hearts and souls into a building… that was not a fun experience to have to come back to.”
He said the recovery process has been slow and confusing, even for someone familiar with contractors and insurance systems.
“I applied for FEMA five times on like 4 or 5 different properties. And we were denied every single time,” Anderson said. “I haven’t heard anybody who’s come to me and they’re like, I got a $10,000 check from FEMA, and it’s really going to help me do these things.”
According to FEMA, millions of dollars in federal aid have been approved for Missouri storm survivors, including temporary housing assistance and low-interest SBA loans. But the agency noted in an October recovery update that many applications require follow-up documentation and some denials are later overturned on appeal.
The tornado ripped open the roof and upper floors of this St. Louis building, leaving exposed beams and debris behind.(FOX NEWS)
On the ground, residents say the need is outpacing the help.
Anderson said some neighbors have already left indefinitely, so contractors can work, while others have no idea where to begin. During a walk through the neighborhood, he met a man who is still camping outside their house because the home was condemned and had no power.
At the same time, some people have tried to take advantage of the situation.
“There were people coming through the neighborhood same day… these sort of like opportunistic roofers and window people,” Anderson said, adding that he turned down one man with Florida plates who offered to put a tarp on his roof for $2,000.
He later saw similar tarps on other houses and worried neighbors paid out of fear.
Not everyone lost their homes entirely, but many are navigating a long and confusing recovery.
Homeowner Misty Williams, considers herself lucky, but is still feeling the strain.
“It’s okay. We had some… damage to our house,” Williams said. “Thank God, you know, it was as minor as it was. My heart does go out to people, you know, that’s going to a total loss.”
Boarded windows and a shredded tarp remain on this St. Louis home six months after the tornado, showing how much work is still unfinished.(FOX NEWS)
Still, she said the money they received doesn’t cover everything. “Sometimes the repair cost far exceed the amount that you’re given,” she said.
Williams said she’s hopeful about a new city program called STL Recovers, which helps tornado survivors figure out what assistance they qualify for and how to begin repairing their homes.
Experts say that emotional impact often hits hardest at the six-month mark.
“Six months following a significant natural disaster is an important psychological time,” said Dr. Joshua Klapow, a clinical psychologist. “Six months is really, if you will, the end often of the adrenaline rush. And so now we’re tapping into much deeper resiliency efforts.”
He said survivors often feel more worn down months later than they did right after the storm. “For individuals, they can often feel like they don’t have the steam to keep going,” he said. “This is the time where those feelings of sadness and loss really can hit home.”
Winter weather can make that even more difficult. “Cold temperatures, less daylight… when you are also trying to navigate getting your life back together, those two things can compound,” Klapow said.
A tent sits in the yard of a storm-damaged St. Louis home, where someone appears to be camping on the property months after the tornado.(FOX NEWS)
In St. Louis, residents like Anderson are simply hoping the next six months look different from the last six.
“There’s still people who are sleeping outside their homes and it’s starting to get cold,” he said. “I hope that their situations are figured out so that maybe they do get some of that help… to move back inside in the winter.”
City leaders recently announced an expanded recovery effort, including a housing and temporary shelter program unveiled by Mayor Cara Spencer that is aimed at helping families who still cannot return home six months after the storm.
Olivianna Calmes joined Fox News in 2024 as a Multimedia Reporter based in St. Louis, Missouri.
More than 1,000 unionized Starbucks workers went on strike at 65 U.S. stores Thursday to protest a lack of progress in labor negotiations with the company.
The strike was intended to disrupt Starbucks’ Red Cup Day, which is typically one of the company’s busiest days of the year. Since 2018, Starbucks has given out free, reusable cups on that day to customers who buy a holiday drink. Starbucks Workers United, the union organizing baristas, said Thursday morning that the strike had already closed some stores and was expected to force more to close later in the day.
Starbucks Workers United said stores in 45 cities would be impacted, including New York, Philadelphia, Minneapolis, San Diego, St. Louis, Dallas, Columbus, Ohio, and Starbucks’ home city of Seattle. There is no date set for the strike to end, and more stores are prepared to join if Starbucks doesn’t reach a contract agreement with the union, organizers said.
Starbucks emphasized that the vast majority of its U.S. stores would be open and operating as usual Thursday. The coffee giant has 10,000 company-owned stores in the U.S., as well as 7,000 licensed locations in places like grocery stores and airports.
As of noon Thursday on the East Coast, Starbucks said it was on track to meet or exceed its sales expectations for the day at its company-owned stores.
“The day is off to an incredible start,” the company said in a statement.
Around 550 company-owned U.S. Starbucks stores are currently unionized. More have voted to unionize, but Starbucks closed 59 unionized stores in September as part of a larger reorganization campaign.
Here’s what’s behind the strike.
A stalled contract agreement
Striking workers say they’re protesting because Starbucks has yet to reach a contract agreement with the union. Starbucks workers first voted to unionize at a store in Buffalo in 2021. In December 2023, Starbucks vowed to finalize an agreement by the end of 2024. But in August of last year, the company ousted Laxman Narasimhan, the CEO who made that promise. The union said progress has stalled under Brian Niccol, the company’s current chairman and CEO. The two sides haven’t been at the bargaining table since April.
Workers want higher pay, better hours
Workers say they’re seeking better hours and improved staffing in stores, where they say long customer wait times are routine. They also want higher pay, pointing out that executives like Niccol are making millions and the company spent $81 million in June on a conference in Las Vegas for 14,000 store managers and regional leaders.
Dochi Spoltore, a barista from Pittsburgh, said in a union conference call Thursday that it’s hard for workers to be assigned more than 19 hours per week, which leaves them short of the 20 hours they would need to be eligible for Starbucks’ benefits. Spoltore said she makes $16 per hour.
“I want Starbucks to succeed. My livelihood depends on it,” Spoltore said. “We’re proud of our work, but we’re tired of being treated like we’re disposable.”
The union also wants the company to resolve hundreds of unfair labor practice charges filed by workers, who say the company has fired baristas in retaliation for unionizing and has failed to bargain over changes in policy that workers must enforce, like its decision earlier this year to limit restroom use to paying customers.
Starbucks stands by its wages and benefits
Starbucks says it offers the best wage and benefit package in retail, worth an average of $30 per hour. Among the company’s benefits are up to 18 weeks of paid family leave and 100% tuition coverage for a four-year college degree. In a letter to employees last week, Starbucks’ Chief Partner Officer Sara Kelly said the union walked away from the bargaining table in the spring.
Kelly said some of the union’s proposals would significantly alter Starbucks’ operations, such as giving workers the ability to shut down mobile ordering if a store has more than five orders in the queue.
Kelly said Starbucks remained ready to talk and “believes we can move quickly to a reasonable deal.” Kelly also said surveys showed that most employees like working for the company, and its barista turnover rates are half the industry average.
Limited locations with high visibility
Unionized workers have gone on strike at Starbucks before. In 2022 and 2023, workers walked off the job on Red Cup Day. Last year, a five-day strike ahead of Christmas closed 59 U.S. stores. Each time, Starbucks said the disruption to its operations was minimal. Starbucks Workers United said the new strike is open-ended and could spread to many more unionized locations.
The number of non-union Starbucks locations dwarfs the number of unionized ones. But Todd Vachon, a union expert at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations, said any strike could be highly visible and educate the public on baristas’ concerns.
Unlike manufacturers, Vachon said, retail industries depend on the connection between their employees and their customers. That makes shaming a potentially powerful weapon in the union’s arsenal, he said.
Improving sales
Starbucks’ same-store sales, or sales at locations open at least a year, rose 1% in the July-September period. It was the first time in nearly two years that the company had posted an increase. In his first year at the company, Niccol set new hospitality standards, redesigned stores to be cozier and more welcoming, and adjusted staffing levels to better handle peak hours.
Starbucks also is trying to prioritize in-store orders over mobile ones. Last week, the company’s holiday drink rollout in the U.S. was so successful that it almost immediately sold out of its glass Bearista cup. Starbucks said demand for the cup exceeded its expectations, but it wouldn’t say if the Bearista will return before the holidays are over.
The 18th and Vine community is known for a museum telling the story of segregated professional baseball in the decades before Jackie Robinson broke Major League Baseball’s color barrier. Its leaders are talking about expanding the city’s streetcar line to lure more visitors to its cultural and historical attractions.
About 100 miles (161 kilometers) east, Boonville leaders want federal help restoring an old railroad bridge to give cyclists a more direct route on a popular cross-state bike trail near the mostly white farming community.
The two areas are thrust together under a new map Missouri Republicans passed in September in response to President Donald Trump’s push to give the GOP another winnable seat ahead of next year’s elections. Texas answered Trump’s call first, tilting five seats toward Republicans, but lawmakers in both major political parties are fighting a mid-decade, state-by-state battle to squeeze extra territory out of states they control. In California, voters approved a new House map to boost Democrats.
Missouri Republicans targeted Democratic U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, shaving off portions of his Kansas City district and stretching it into Republican-heavy rural areas.
Congressional districts often mix rural and urban areas, but redoing boundaries can alter priorities and change which federal projects representatives pursue and how they pursue things like health care, housing and education funding. When Congress debates a farm bill, is protecting food assistance benefits more important than preserving crop insurance? It often depends on who’s being represented.
That might explain why Robert Sylvan, an 81-year-old Kansas City resident who attends Cleaver’s church, worries “the whole set of dynamics that impact us” could be upended.
Voters fear being forgotten
Even with U.S. politics deeply polarized, there’s bipartisan agreement on Sylvan’s point.
Republican state Rep. Tim Taylor, who represents the Boonville area in the Legislature, said farmers Cleaver previously represented didn’t feel he understood them or came around much.
“Where he lives, things are different than they are here,” said Taylor, who voted for the redistricting plan despite misgivings about it.
It’s unclear how any Republican challenging Cleaver in the redrawn district would balance the needs of the two communities. So far, no likely contender is from Kansas City.
Some Kansas City residents don’t expect people around 18th and Vine to get much attention if Cleaver loses. Cleaver was raised in public housing in Texas and preached about social justice as a Methodist pastor in a predominantly African American congregation.
“Naturally, 18th and Vine is kind of his baby,” said Bob Kendrick, president of the Negro Leagues Baseball Museum. “I don’t want it to be forgotten.”
Fewer than 11% of Boonville’s residents are Black, while more than 64% are in 18th and Vine. The new Missouri map could have the state going from having people of color hold two of its eight House seats to one. Non-Hispanic white people are 62% of Missouri’s population but would hold 88% of its seats.
“We could potentially have folk representing us who have no interaction and have never had any interaction with people of color and have no idea of what goes on in the urban context,” said Cleaver’s son, Emanuel Cleaver III.
The areas often see common needs differently. Is the pressing problem with health care cuts that they cause rural hospitals to struggle or that millions of Americans don’t have insurance? An 18th and Vine resident is nearly twice as likely as a Boonville resident to have no health insurance. Boonville has been without a hospital since 2020.
Other differences: Buses stop every 15 minutes in 18th and Vine but must be prescheduled in Boonville. Kansas City leaders want more gun laws to combat violence while Republicans like Taylor have fought to expand gun rights. Trump won 67% of Boonville’s vote, compared with 14% of 18th and Vine’s.
The Kansas City neighborhood, celebrated for barbecue and jazz joints, hosted a 1920 meeting that founded the Negro National League, where Robinson got his start. Later, the area fell into disrepair.
Cleaver helped change that, seeking taxpayer dollars for 18th and Vine since 1989, first as a city councilman and then mayor before his two decades in Congress. The city’s spending has exceeded $100 million, helped by federal grants. Most recently, Cleaver helped obtain $15.5 million in federal money to renovate the nation’s oldest Black-owned housing cooperative, which he called “one of the citadels for the African American community.”
That project followed Cleaver’s efforts to bring money to neighborhoods on the historically Black side of Troost Avenue, long known as the city’s unofficial racial dividing line. It’s now one of his new district’s borders, which he finds outrageous.
“I feel more skeptical about the society’s direction than I did when I was a kid growing up in public housing,” Cleaver lamented during an interview at the church his son now leads.
Now, 18th and Vine also is home to all-night jazz jam sessions, a dance company, an arts center and an MLB Urban Youth Academy. Kendrick’s museum hopes to raise $35 million to triple exhibit space.
If there’s unease among locals, it’s that they might be priced out as taxpayer money helps transform the area. The city is working on a pedestrian plaza and a parking garage. Local officials are studying a streetcar line extension. There’s no cost estimate yet, but the latest streetcar extension got $174 million in federal funds.
Carmaletta Williams, executive director of the Black Archives of Mid-America in Kansas City, an area museum, wonders about a new representative: “Will they see the value in what’s going on?”
A bike trail lures tourists to Boonville
Boonville is surrounded by row crops and cattle ranches. One local school district graduates fewer than 10 students a year.
Yet it lures tourists with the Katy Trail. At 240 miles (386 kilometers), it’s the longest trail built on former rail lines in the U.S., and work on it began at nearly the same time as the rebuilding in 18th and Vine.
Taylor said after the trail’s first section opened in 1990 it was instrumental in reviving a town that was “pretty much dying” when he was a teenager in the 1980s. His wife runs Taylor’s Bake Shop & Espresso downtown.
Heading into Boonville, bikers detour off the railroad’s original path, crossing the Missouri River on a highway bridge that includes a designated bike path. The path leads them away from a 1932 railroad bridge, which trail riders would love to see refurbished. The city applied unsuccessfully last year for a $236,000 federal planning grant.
“The Katy Bridge is like the Eiffel Tower of Missouri if it would only be fixed,” said Annie Harmon, who runs a store in downtown Boonville called Celestial Body that sells essential oils, herbs, tie-dyed clothing and crystals.
Missouri has received $30 million in federal funds over the years for the Katy Trail and a related trail-building effort that cycling enthusiasts hope will loop almost 450 miles (724 kilometers), said Brandi Horton, a spokeswoman for the Rails to Trails Conservancy, a Washington-based nonprofit.
“You can’t do trail development at this scale,” Horton said, “without the dollars and the investment that the federal government can uniquely provide.”
Hanna reported from Topeka, Kan.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Space weather forecasters confirmed that storms reached severe levels on Tuesday, triggering vibrant northern lights as far south as Kansas, Colorado and Texas.
What You Need To Know
A rare G4 geomagnetic storm occurred Tuesday night
The northern lights were seen as far south as Florida
Another powerful storm is likely tonight
Using your smartphone’s night mode is the best way to capture the lights
There were some impacts to GPS communications and the power grid, Shawn Dahl with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a video posted on X.
Over the past few days, the sun has “burped” out several bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections or CMEs. Two have reached Earth, but at least one more is still on the way and could arrive sometime on Wednesday.
Forecasters think this solar outburst could be the most energetic of the three and have issued a severe storm alert. How bright the auroras are and how far south they are visible will depend on when the burst gets here and how it interacts with Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere.
How northern lights happen
The sun is at the maximum phase of its 11-year activity cycle, making the light displays more common and widespread. Colorful northern lights have decorated night skies in unexpected places and space weather experts say there are more auroras still to come.
Aurora displays known as the northern and southern lights are commonly visible near the poles, where charged particles from the sun interact with Earth’s atmosphere.
Skygazers are spotting the lights deeper into the United States and Europe because the sun is going through a major face-lift. Every 11 years, its magnetic poles swap places, causing magnetic twists and tangles along the way.
Last year, the strongest geomagnetic storm in two decades slammed Earth, producing light displays across the Northern Hemisphere. And soon afterward, a powerful solar storm dazzled skygazers far from the Arctic Circle when dancing lights appeared in unexpected places including Germany, the United Kingdom, New England and New York City.
The sun’s active spurt is expected to last at least through the end of this year, although when solar activity will peak won’t be known until months after the fact, according to NASA and NOAA.
How solar storms affect Earth
Solar storms can bring more than colorful lights to Earth.
When fast-moving particles and plasma slam into Earth’s magnetic field, they can temporarily disrupt the power grid. Space weather can also interfere with air traffic control radio and satellites in orbit. Severe storms are capable of scrambling other radio and GPS communications.
In 1859, a severe solar storm triggered auroras as far south as Hawaii and set telegraph lines on fire in a rare event. And a 1972 solar storm may have detonated magnetic U.S. sea mines off the coast of Vietnam.
Space weather experts aren’t able to predict a solar storm months in advance. Instead, they alert relevant parties to prepare in the days before a solar outburst hits Earth.
Make your best effort to get away from city lights and find somewhere dark. Experts recommend skygazing from a local or national park. And check the weather forecast because clouds can cover up the spectacle entirely.
Visibility tonight could be reduced in places like the West, Plains, and Northeast due to clouds. The Southeast should have great visibility if the northern lights can make it that far south again.
Many areas in northern latitudes should be able to see the northern lights with the naked eye. If you’re farther south, your smartphone cameras may also reveal hints of the aurora that aren’t visible to the naked eye. Long-exposure is your best bet to reveal all the colors in the night sky.
When taking the photo, turn on “night mode” and place your phone on a steady surface. The longer the exposure, the better the photo will turn out!
Space weather forecasters confirmed that storms reached severe levels on Tuesday, triggering vibrant northern lights as far south as Kansas, Colorado and Texas.
What You Need To Know
A rare G4 geomagnetic storm occurred Tuesday night
The northern lights were seen as far south as Florida
Another powerful storm is likely tonight
Using your smartphone’s night mode is the best way to capture the lights
There were some impacts to GPS communications and the power grid, Shawn Dahl with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said in a video posted on X.
Over the past few days, the sun has “burped” out several bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections or CMEs. Two have reached Earth, but at least one more is still on the way and could arrive sometime on Wednesday.
Forecasters think this solar outburst could be the most energetic of the three and have issued a severe storm alert. How bright the auroras are and how far south they are visible will depend on when the burst gets here and how it interacts with Earth’s magnetic field and atmosphere.
How northern lights happen
The sun is at the maximum phase of its 11-year activity cycle, making the light displays more common and widespread. Colorful northern lights have decorated night skies in unexpected places and space weather experts say there are more auroras still to come.
Aurora displays known as the northern and southern lights are commonly visible near the poles, where charged particles from the sun interact with Earth’s atmosphere.
Skygazers are spotting the lights deeper into the United States and Europe because the sun is going through a major face-lift. Every 11 years, its magnetic poles swap places, causing magnetic twists and tangles along the way.
Last year, the strongest geomagnetic storm in two decades slammed Earth, producing light displays across the Northern Hemisphere. And soon afterward, a powerful solar storm dazzled skygazers far from the Arctic Circle when dancing lights appeared in unexpected places including Germany, the United Kingdom, New England and New York City.
The sun’s active spurt is expected to last at least through the end of this year, although when solar activity will peak won’t be known until months after the fact, according to NASA and NOAA.
How solar storms affect Earth
Solar storms can bring more than colorful lights to Earth.
When fast-moving particles and plasma slam into Earth’s magnetic field, they can temporarily disrupt the power grid. Space weather can also interfere with air traffic control radio and satellites in orbit. Severe storms are capable of scrambling other radio and GPS communications.
In 1859, a severe solar storm triggered auroras as far south as Hawaii and set telegraph lines on fire in a rare event. And a 1972 solar storm may have detonated magnetic U.S. sea mines off the coast of Vietnam.
Space weather experts aren’t able to predict a solar storm months in advance. Instead, they alert relevant parties to prepare in the days before a solar outburst hits Earth.
Make your best effort to get away from city lights and find somewhere dark. Experts recommend skygazing from a local or national park. And check the weather forecast because clouds can cover up the spectacle entirely.
Visibility tonight could be reduced in places like the West, Plains, and Northeast due to clouds. The Southeast should have great visibility if the northern lights can make it that far south again.
Many areas in northern latitudes should be able to see the northern lights with the naked eye. If you’re farther south, your smartphone cameras may also reveal hints of the aurora that aren’t visible to the naked eye. Long-exposure is your best bet to reveal all the colors in the night sky.
When taking the photo, turn on “night mode” and place your phone on a steady surface. The longer the exposure, the better the photo will turn out!
A woman in Missouri who already confessed to murdering the man she cheated with is now switching up her story and blaming her boyfriend!
According to multiple outlets, 25-year-old McKayla C. Archambeau pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree murder, armed criminal action, tampering with evidence, and tampering with a motor vehicle in August following the fatal shooting of 31-year-old Taylor Hawkins in 2022. Her boyfriend, 35-year-old Cordero T. Cervantes, was charged with tampering with evidence and tampering with a motor vehicle at the same time for his involvement in the incident. However, he did not get charged with murder… not until three years later!
KCTV reported that Cervantes is facing a second-degree murder charge for Hawkins’ death as of Monday. And it is all because Archambeau changed her story, telling police that it was her boyfriend who forced her to pull the trigger after she cheated on him with the victim a week before! Whoa! Here’s what happened…
The Day Of The Shooting
Police responded to a report of a shooting at a Platte City home back in October 2022. When cops arrived at the scene, they found Hawkins dead behind a barn on the property. A witness told law enforcement it was Archambeau who shot the victim, so they launched a search for both her and Cervantes, stating that it’s believed they were in a relationship and “armed and dangerous.”
The pair fled the state following the shooting. Per KCTV, Cervantes and Archambeau left the scene separately before reconnecting. Along the way, investigators discovered they ditched their electronic devices, and Archambeau threw the gun into a river in Illinois. They also drove to Columbia a day after the crime, where they printed off directions to get to Spruce Pine, North Carolina. They made it as far as Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, before they heard they were wanted in Missouri. At that point, police said they started to head back to Platte County. The couple was ultimately arrested in Carlisle, Arkansas.
What The Witness Said
During the investigation over the years, police said a witness provided key details about what happened that day. The witness claimed the only people present for the shooting were himself, Hawkins, Archambeau, and Cervantes. Law&Crime reported that he was helping Hawkins unload boxes at the home when Hawkins and Cervantes started to argue. The situation allegedly escalated when the two men went behind the barn with Archambeau to hash things out. The witness alleged he heard Hawkins upset and say one last thing before he died:
“No, why’d you do it?”
Around the same time, according to law enforcement, a single shot rang out. The witness said Cervantes then reappeared from behind the barn “with a smirk on his face.” After that, the witness told cops he ran for his life.
How chilling…
Their Police Interviews
Despite Cervantes’ suspicious reaction, Archambeau was charged with the actual shooting. Law&Crime, KCTV, and KMBC reported that a probable cause affidavit stated police learned she and Hawkins slept together about a week before his death. They believed Hawkins came to the impression that Archambeau would leave Cervantes to be with him following their encounter. But per court filings, investigators claimed Archambeau and Cervantes were in an on-and-off again relationship, and she often stepped out to hook up with ex-boyfriends. This supposedly was nothing new for her…
Throughout their interviews with police, KCTV reported the Sheriff’s Office said both claimed Hawkins had raped her. And on the day of the shooting, Cervantes claimed Hawkins came to the home to fight him. He alleged Hawkins hit him, but he was a “pacifist,” so he did not retaliate.
For her part, investigators said Archambeau was not truthful during her interviews in July 2022. She allegedly told several different stories about how she shot Hawkins, but the evidence from the scene disputed all her claims. Police claimed Archambeau said Hawkins had a knife on him when they started to fight, so she ran to her bag, grabbed her firearm, and shot him in the abdomen. She then alleged Hawkins grabbed the knife and began to lunge for Cervantes, so she shot him in the back. Here’s the thing, though. Police said they never found a knife at the scene.
According to law enforcement, Archambeau also maintained she was the sole shooting and the only person responsible for Hawkins’ deaht for years. She ultimately pleaded guilty to all the charges in August 2025. However, that is not the end of this case!
Her Story Changes
A month later, investigators sat down to talk with Archambeau again — and she had a letter for them. When asked, law enforcement said she confirmed she wrote it and admitted she cheated on Cervantes with Hawkins and that he “was mad and made me kill him.” OMG! Archambeau claimed she was told to leave her weapon for Cervantes, and he would take Hawkins out to a field and convince him to commit suicide.
When Archambeau didn’t leave the firearm, he became angry and looked at her with “such rage in his eyes.” She reportedly thought “he wanted me to be the one to kill Taylor because I was the one that had slept with him and I didn’t leave the gun behind…” After Cervantes gave her the look, Archambeau said she became terrified, so she shot Hawkins. He started to run, so Cervantes allegedly ordered her to “finish him.” Awful…
Furthermore, when asked if Cervantes was ever abusive, Archambeau said she had come to believe he was in the years since the shooting. The affidavit stated she claimed Cervantes would hit her in bed while she was sleeping, but he always blamed it on nightmares. She noted she had noticed a pattern that the nightmare assaults only seemed to happen on nights after they had argued.
Arrest Warrant
At this time, there is a warrant out for Cervantes’ arrest. He is currently not in custody as he was released on probation following the lesser charges in 2022. Anyone with any information that could lead to his arrest is asked to report it to the TIPS Hotline at 816-474-TIPS. Platte County Prosecuting Attorney Eric Zahnd said in a statement following the case update:
“This was a brutal and senseless killing. We allege this defendant played a direct role in the death of another man, and then fled the state to avoid justice. Platte County detectives and their law enforcement partners have worked tirelessly to allow us to bring these charges.”
Meanwhile, Archambeau is expected to be sentenced on November 14. Hopefully, prosecutors will get justice for Hawkins’ horrible death.
The new congressional map that California voters approved marked a victory for Democrats in the national redistricting battle playing out ahead of the 2026 midterm election. But Republicans are still ahead in the fight.
The unusual mid-decade redistricting fray began this summer when President Donald Trump urged Republican-led states to reshape their voting districts to try to help the GOP retain control of the House in next year’s election. Democrats need to gain just three seats to win the chamber and impede Trump’s agenda.
Texas responded first with a new U.S. House map aimed at helping Republicans win up to five additional seats. Proposition 50, which California voters supported Tuesday, creates up to five additional seats that Democrats could win.
What’s the score in the redistricting battle?
If the 2026 election goes according to the redistricting projections, Democrats in California and Republicans in Texas could cancel each other’s gains.
But Republicans could still be ahead by four seats in the redistricting battle. New districts adopted in Missouri and North Carolina could help Republicans win one additional seat in each state. And a new U.S. House map approved last week in Ohio boosts Republicans’ chances to win two additional seats.
Some big uncertainties remain. Several Ohio districts are so competitive that Democrats believe they, too, have a chance at winning them. Lawsuits persist in Missouri and North Carolina. And Missouri’s redistricting law faces a referendum petition that, if successful, would suspend the new map until it’s put to a statewide vote.
What’s next in California?
Republican legal challenges are likely to continue against California’s new districts, which impose boundaries drawn by the Democratic-led Legislature in place of those adopted after the 2020 census by an independent citizens commission.
But candidates can’t afford to wait to ramp up campaigns in the new districts.
Though Democrats could win up to 48 of California’s 52 U.S. House seats, several districts are closely divided between Democratic and Republican voters.
“Some of the Democratic districts are probably going to vote blue, but I wouldn’t call them locks,” said J. Miles Coleman, of the University of Virginia Center for Politics. “You could still have some expensive races,” Coleman added.
Republicans who control the Legislature chose not to convene a special session on redistricting Monday, after Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Braun had called for it. But efforts to round up enough votes continue. Lawmakers now are planning to consider redistricting during a rare December regular session.
Republicans currently hold seven of Indiana’s nine U.S. House seats and could attempt to gain one or two more through redistricting.
Kansas Republican lawmakers had been collecting signatures from colleagues to call themselves into a special session to try to draw an additional Republican-leaning congressional district. But some lawmakers remained reluctant, and House Speaker Dan Hawkins ended the effort Tuesday.
Redistricting could still come up during Kansas’ regular legislative session that begins Jan. 12.
Could more Democrats join in gerrymandering?
Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin said he hopes approval of California’s redistricting “sends a chilling effect on Republicans who are trying to do this around the country.” But “if the Republicans continue to do this, we will respond in kind each and every step of the way,” Martin said.
On Tuesday, Democratic Maryland Gov. Wes Moore announced a commission on congressional redistricting, even though the Democratic Senate president has said his chamber won’t move forward with redistricting because of concerns the effort to gain another Democratic seat could backfire.
National Democrats also want Illinois lawmakers to redistrict to gain an additional House seat. But lawmakers thus far have resisted, citing concerns about the effect on representation for Black residents.
Virginia’s Democratic-led legislature recently endorsed a proposed constitutional amendment allowing mid-decade redistricting. But it needs another round of legislative approval early next year before going to voters. Democrats currently hold six of Virginia’s 11 U.S. House seats and could try to gain two or three more by redistricting, though no specific plan has been released.
Does all this remapping matter?
Over the past 90 years, when the president’s party has held a House majority, that party has lost an average of more than 30 seats in midterm elections. No amount of Republican redistricting this year could offset a loss of that size. But the 2026 election may not be average.
Those past swings were so large partly because the president’s party often held large House majorities, which meant more competitive seats were at risk.
The Republicans’ current slim majority is most similar to GOP margins during the 2002 midterm election under President George W. Bush and Democrats’ margins during the 2022 midterm under President Joe Biden. Republicans gained eight seats in 2002, when Bush was widely popular after the 2001 terrorist attacks. Democrats lost nine seats in 2022, when Biden’s approval rating was well under 50%, as Trump’s is today.
If next year’s swing is similarly small, a gain of just half-dozen to a dozen seats through redistricting could make a difference in which party wins the House.
“Because we have this tiny numerical sliver separating a Democratic majority from a Republican majority, the stakes are incredibly high — even in a single state considering whether to redraw its districts,” said David Hopkins, a political science professor at Boston College.
What does this mean for future years?
The battle to redraw congressional voting districts for partisan advantage isn’t likely to end with the 2026 election.
The Republican State Leadership Committee, which supports GOP candidates in state legislative races, warned in a recent memo that “the redistricting arms race has escalated to an every cycle fight” — no longer centered around each decennial census.
Democratic lawmakers in New York are pursuing a proposed constitutional amendment that could allow redistricting ahead of the 2028 election. Several states currently under split partisan control also could pursue congressional redistricting before 2028 if next year’s election shifts the balance of power so one party controls both the legislature and governor’s office.
“It’s important to recognize that the fight for 2027 redistricting — and the U.S. House in 2028 — has already started,” RSLC President Edith Jorge-Tuñón wrote.
Lieb reported from Jefferson City, Missouri. Associated Press writers John Hanna in Topeka, Kansas; Marc Levy in Lancaster, Pennsylvania; and Brian Witte in Annapolis, Maryland, contributed.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Ohio’s Republican-led redistricting commission unveiled a proposed U.S. House map Thursday that could give Republicans a chance at winning two more seats in next year’s midterm elections, bolstering President Donald Trump’s efforts to hold on to a slim congressional majority.
Ohio’s redistricting plan comes amid a nationwide battle for partisan advantage ahead of next year’s congressional elections. Trump kick-started the fray this summer by urging Republican-led states to reshape their U.S. House districts in an attempt to win more seats. Republican lawmakers in Texas, Missouri and North Carolina already have done so.
Democrats in California have countered with their own redistricting plan being decided by voters in a Tuesday election. And other states, including Republican-led Indiana and Virginia‘s Democratic-led General Assembly, are convening in special sessions aimed at redistricting.
Unlike those other states, which are voluntarily redrawing districts, Ohio is required by its state constitution to enact new congressional districts before the 2026 elections because the current map was adopted by Republican officials without bipartisan support. Republicans currently hold 10 of Ohio’s 15 congressional seats, but some Republicans view the mandatory redistricting as opportunity to expand upon that.
The proposed map appears to increase Republican chances in the districts held by Democratic U.S. Reps. Greg Landsman in Cincinnati and Marcy Kaptur around Toledo, an area that gave Trump a majority in the 2024 presidential election. Kaptur won a 22nd term last fall by about 2,400 votes, or less than 1 percentage point. Landsman was reelected with more than 54% of the vote last year.
Each seat could be pivotal, because Democrats need to gain just three seats nationally in next year’s elections to win control of the House from Republicans and impede Trump’s agenda. The president’s party historically has lost seats in midterm elections.
The Ohio Redistricting Commission faces a Friday deadline to adopt a new map, which would require support from at least two Republicans and two Democrats on the seven-member panel.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
(Reuters) -The Democratic-controlled Virginia House of Delegates voted on Wednesday to amend the state constitution to allow legislators to redraw Virginia’s congressional maps next year, joining a multistate mid-decade restricting war spawned by President Donald Trump.
Passage of the resolution, on a party-line vote of 51-42, sent the measure to the Virginia state Senate, where the Democratic majority in that chamber is expected to approve the measure as well.
(Reporting by Steve Gorman in Los Angeles, Editing by Franklin Paul)
The Missouri Gaming Commission (MGC) has announced the issuance of nine temporary online sports betting licenses in preparation for the upcoming launch of sports wagering in the Show-Me State in December of this year.
Missouri Gaming Commission Gives Nine Licenses
The announcement represents the conclusion of years of discussion and legislative work to introduce regulated sports betting in Missouri. All nine applicants have been granted temporary licenses, allowing major operators to begin preparing for the market’s launch. The applicants are: BetMGM, bet365, Caesars Sportsbook, Circa Sports, DraftKings, ESPN BET, Fanatics Sportsbook, FanDuel, and Underdog.
Interestingly, seven operators were required to obtain tethered licenses by partnering with an existing Missouri-based entity. Among these partnerships, BetMGM teamed up with Century Casinos in May, while bet365 secured market access through an agreement with the St. Louis Cardinals in March.
FanDuel will enter the state via its partnership with MLS club St. Louis City SC, and Fanatics Sportsbook has joined forces with Boyd Gaming.
ESPN Bet and Caesars Sportsbook are leveraging their parent companies’ established casino holdings in Missouri, including Hollywood Casino, River City Casino, Harrah’s Kansas City, and Horseshoe St. Louis. Meanwhile, Underdog gained market entry through a partnership with the Kansas City Royals.
However, some operators, namely DraftKings and Circa Sports, previously secured untethered online licenses earlier in the year. These partnerships granted both operators the ability to conduct operations independently of any in-state casino or professional sports team.
More Needs to Be Done Before Sports Betting Officially Launches
While the nine operators have received licenses before Missouri officially launches sports betting on December 1, there is still much more work to be done in preparation for the changes. For starters, the Missouri Gaming Commission is set to officially enact its sports betting regulations on November 30, just one day prior to the market’s launch. Any changes to internal controls or house rules must be submitted before this date.
In the future, the MGC may issue up to 19 retail sports betting licenses and 14 online licenses if it chooses to do so. However, it has not confirmed whether it will reach this level, and such extensive market saturation seems unlikely to be sustainable. Operators may begin user account registration and funding starting at midnight on November 17, as long as all procedures adhere to state regulations.
However, some concerns, especially on the business side, remain. Some have called into question whether all these operators will be able to make a decent profit, and have pointed out several potential issues. For starters, Missoula has a population of about 6.24 million. Combining this with the fact that up to 14 operators will have licenses, tax, and other financial obligations, and the fact that the state’s neighbors also have legal sports betting, this might result in an oversaturation of the market. This might leave a very thin margin for each operator, posing the question if sports betting will be a stable business sector in Missouri in the long run.
A death row inmate in Missouri was executed Tuesday night after the state’s governor denied his clemency petition.
The Missouri Department of Corrections said in a statement that 48-year-old Lance Shockley was executed at the Diagnostic and Correctional Center in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6:13 p.m. local time. Officials had previously said he would be executed by lethal injection.
Shockley was convicted of first-degree murder for fatally shooting a Missouri state trooper in 2005, court records show. Shockley had maintained his innocence for the last 20 years, as his lawyers argued in multiple rounds of appeals that their client did not receive a fair trial or sentencing, claims that the state repeatedly refuted.
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe on Monday announced his decision to reject Shockley’s plea to stay the execution, allowing the corrections department to proceed as planned with his lethal injection at the state prison in Bonne Terre.
“Mr. Shockley has received every legal protection afforded to him under the Missouri and United States Constitutions, and his conviction and sentence will remain for his brutal and deliberate crime,” said Kehoe in the announcement. “The State of Missouri has—and will continue to—pursue justice to the fullest extent of the law. Carrying out Lance Shockley’s sentence is evidence of our commitment to the pursuit of justice.”
A jury unanimously convicted Shockley in the death of Missouri State Highway Patrol Sgt. Carl Graham, who was killed at his home on March 20, 2005, according to court records. Prosecutors had said during Shockley’s trial that before Graham’s murder, the patrolman was investigating Shockley for manslaughter, in connection with a car accident that took place in November 2004 and resulted in the death of a passenger, who was Shockley’s friend, the records said.
Prosecutors said Shockley murdered Graham in an effort to stop his investigation into the wreck. Prosecutors alleged he drove to the patrolman’s house, waited for Graham to return home, and, as he was exiting his vehicle, shot the state trooper multiple times before leaving the scene.
The prosecution said Shockley had borrowed a red Pontiac Grand Am from his grandmother on the day of the murder, and witnesses reported seeing a red car parked near Graham’s home around the time it happened, according to court records. They also said bullet fragments found at the property of Shockley’s uncle matched those recovered at the scene of the shooting.
But Shockley’s attorneys have argued the state’s case against him relied predominantly on circumstantial evidence. They also say the state failed to conduct DNA testing on “numerous pieces of critical evidence” found at the site of Graham’s murder.
“From the beginning, this case has suffered from a failure of due diligence,” said Jeremy Weis, one of Shockley’s attorneys, in a July statement released through a website advocating for his client’s clemency.
“There are significant issues with the prosecution’s timeline. Several other viable suspects were overlooked and to this day, numerous pieces of critical evidence, up to 16 items, have never been tested for DNA,” Weis’ statement continued. “These items could hold the key to the truth to what really happened on March 20, 2005. Despite these facts, the court denied our motion to conduct DNA testing.”
Although jurors convicted Shockley in Graham’s murder, they could not agree on whether to sentence him to life in prison or impose capital punishment, court records show. Because of the deadlock, a trial court judge presiding over Shockley’s case decided the sentence, and sentenced him to death.
Missouri and Indiana are the only two states in the U.S. where a judge can impose a death sentence in situations where the jury deadlocks on sentencing, according to the Death Penalty Information Center, a nonprofit organization that shares data and other resources about capital punishment but does not take a position on the issue.
The father now faces assault charges, police said.
Photo by Thomas Park via Unsplash
A father boarded a school bus with his 6-year-old daughter and instructed her to repeatedly punch one of her classmates, Missouri authorities say.
Maurice Fox pushed past the Ferguson-Florissant School District bus driver Oct. 9 with his daughter, then he pointed to a seat where a 7-year-old girl was sitting, according to a criminal complaint.
“Do what I told you to do,” Fox is accused of telling his daughter, who the Ferguson Police Department said began to punch her classmate in the head.
On two occasions when his daughter stopped the attack, Fox told her to do it “again,” authorities said. Both times, the girl continued punching her classmate, according to the complaint.
“I want her crying,” Fox told his daughter, police said.
Fox and his daughter then left the bus, but authorities said the attack was caught on video.
“Student and staff safety is always our top priority, and we will not tolerate anything that compromises their safety,” the school district said in a statement to KMOV. “School buses are an extension of the school campus. Trespassing on a school bus and engaging in the behavior described in this incident are completely unacceptable.”
According to the court records, Fox was charged with first-degree harassment, trespassing of a school bus and two counts of fourth-degree assault.
More charges are possible, St. Louis County Prosecutor Melissa Price Smith said in a statement to KSDK.
“We cannot have adults getting on school buses and ordering a child to assault another one,” she told the station.
Mike Stunson covers real-time news for McClatchy. He is a 2011 Western Kentucky University graduate who has previously worked at the Paducah Sun and Madisonville Messenger as a sports reporter and the Lexington Herald-Leader as a breaking news reporter.
On the interstate outside St. Louis, it took Missouri state trooper Brock Teague just minutes to spot a suspected distracted driver with a taillight out and cellphone in hand.
This time, the driver got a warning, but a ticket can cost $150 for a first offense. It goes up from there, for something Teague says he sees every day.
“They’re just as dangerous if not more than a drunk driver on the highway,” Teague said. “They’re not paying attention to the road, they’re not paying attention to what they’re supposed to be doing.”
That’s what happened in Columbia, Missouri, in 2019. A distracted driver was video chatting and speeding and crashed into volunteers picking up traffic cones after a triathlon. The crash killed Randall Siddens, a father of three. His youngest was born just a month before he died.
“They didn’t get to know him, which is sad. He would have loved them, they would have loved him,” said his widow, Adrienne, who pushed Missouri lawmakers to pass the hands-free law Teague is now enforcing.
“Once it touches your family, you realize just how it only takes an instance,” Adrienne Siddens said.
On average, distracted driving kills about nine people every day in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2023, the last year for which stats were available, about 325,000 people were injured in distracted driving crashes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Missouri is one of 32 states, along with Washington, D.C., that have laws banning handheld cellphones while driving, according to the Governors Highway Safety Association. The state has relied on police crash reports for distracted driving data, but that doesn’t tell the whole story.
Now, the Department of Transportation is aiming to identify distracted driving hot spots using data gathered anonymously from smartphones and vehicles, data that is often called telematics.
“Our crash reports would tell you that somewhere around 10 to 15% of our fatal crashes involve a distracted driver. When you look at the telematics data, it indicates that it’s probably closer to one in three,” said Jon Nelson, Missouri’s highway safety and traffic engineer.
“We’ve learned that like, in the southeast part of our state, there’s a higher rate of distracted driving happening there compared to other places of the state,” Nelson said.
He’s unsure exactly why that is, but said it’s a more rural part of the state where there is less traffic and more open roads.
“But for us to know that now we can know, hey, maybe we need to increase our educational programs in that area. Law enforcement agencies could increase their visibility in that area,” Nelson said.
Adrienne Siddens said her message is simple.
“Is it worth it? Would your family’s life be worth that? And I think 100% of people would say no,” she said.
The woman is facing a felony charge, Missouri authorities say.
Getty Images/iStockphoto
A woman is charged with a felony after officials say she gave a cooler with a fetus inside to a man and told him the child was his, according to Missouri authorities.
Makayla Haedt, who is in her late 20s, messaged the man on Sept. 17, telling him she had miscarried, the Pulaski County Sheriff’s Office said, according to a probable cause affidavit filed Oct. 8. The message came about two months after she told him she was pregnant, but the man told deputies Haedt is a “habitual liar,” so he didn’t believe her, investigators said.
No attorney information was available for the woman as of Oct. 12.
They had been friends for years but the man said they “ never dated” and their relationship “was more of a fling,” documents read.
After she sent the message, Haedt picked up the man at his Waynesville home and they ran some errands together, deputies said. They returned to the home, and at about 8:30 p.m. Haedt handed the man a red and white cooler, sealed with green tape, and told him “here’s your kid,” the affidavit read. Then she left.
The man told deputies she was calm when giving him the cooler, so he thought she was playing a cruel joke, but he was still afraid to open the container.
He sat next to the cooler deciding what to do, then contacted friends and family for help, deputies said. About an hour later, a friend came over and they opened the cooler, saw there was a fetus inside and called the sheriff’s office, the affidavit read.
The man was tearful as he spoke to deputies and said he was shocked Haedt would do something like this, investigators said. A deputy confirmed there was a fetus in the cooler.
Haedt caused “emotional distress” and is charged with first-degree harassment, which is a felony in Missouri, according to officials.
Waynesville is a roughly 130-mile drive southwest from St. Louis.
Mitchell Willetts is a real-time news reporter covering the central U.S. for McClatchy. He is a University of Oklahoma graduate and outdoors enthusiast living in Texas.
DENVER (AP) — Voting equipment company Dominion Voting Systems, a target of false conspiracy theories from President Donald Trump and his supporters since the 2020 election, has been bought by a firm run by a former Republican elections official, the new company announced Thursday.
KNOWiNK, a St. Louis-based provider of electronic poll books that allow election officials to confirm voter information, announced the deal and the name change. In a possible nod to a groundless conspiracy theory that linked Dominion to the late Venezuelan dictator Hugo Chavez, the release highlighted that the company would become “100% American-owned.”
The announcement also quotes KNOWiNK’s owner, former St. Louis elections director Scott Leiendecker, as vowing to provide “election technology that prioritizes paper-based transparency,” one of the longtime demands of election conspiracy theorists. Almost all U.S. voting equipment already leaves a paper trail.
Dominion’s former CEO confirmed the sale in a single-sentence statement on Thursday: “Liberty Vote has acquired Dominion Voting Systems,” John Poulos said.
The release from the new company vows to reintroduce “hand-marked paper ballots” and adjust company policies to follow Trump’s executive order on voting procedures, which is not in effect because judges have ruled that Trump doesn’t have the power to mandate them. Part of the president’s order sought to prohibit voting equipment that produces a paper record with “a barcode or quick-response code” — equipment that is currently in use in hundreds of counties across 19 states.
Denver-based Dominion was at the heart of some of the most fevered conspiracy theories about Trump’s loss to Democrat Joe Biden in the 2020 election., Those false allegations sparked a number of defamation lawsuits against conservative-leaning media and the president’s allies, including a settlement in 2023 in which Fox News agreed to pay Dominion $787 million and one this year that Newsmax settled for $67 million.
The announcement from the new company does not disclose the cost of the transaction, but a spokesman said all the money was put up by Leiendecker. Both companies involved are privately held.
The false allegations against Dominion made its brand toxic in many Republican-leaning states and counties. But voting machine companies are usually careful about making overt political statements, given that the market for their equipment is split between places under Republican and Democratic control.
But some election officials said Thursday that KNOWiNK had seemed to steer clear of 2020 conspiracy theories and acted like a typical, nonpartisan firm.
“They have a good reputation in the field,” Stephen Richer, a Republican who was targeted by Trump and his allies when he served as the top elections official in Arizona‘s Maricopa County, which includes Phoenix.
Despite years of detailed debunking of the Dominion conspiracy theories, Trump has continued to repeat them even as recently as a few weeks ago, when he vowed to get rid of voting machines. The president doesn’t have the power to do that because the Constitution gives states and Congress the authority to set election and voting rules.
Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
A young girl plays dead to live through a shooting that destroyed her family — and describes her remarkable story of survival. “48 Hours” correspondent Erin Moriarty reports.
