Missourinet

Your source for Missouri News and Sports

You are here: Home / Archives for St. Joseph

St. Joseph couple pleads guilty in mortgage fraud scheme

By Leave a Comment

A married couple from St. Joseph has pleaded guilty in federal court to identity theft and mortgage fraud totaling $184,000. Tyrone and Stephanie Davis, co-owners of Davis Custom Homes in St. Joseph, have admitted to their involvement in a fraud scheme that used stolen identities to obtain loans on several residential properties.

Tyrone Davis has admitted that, from March 1 to November 1, 2006, he participated in a conspiracy to defraud banks and mortgage lenders by receiving fraudulent loans, with conspirators preparing and submitting fraudulent bank loan or mortgage loan applications containing false information and forged signatures in order to receive bank or mortgage loans.

Stephanie Davis pleaded guilty to the interstate transportation of stolen property, related to the wire transfer of $166,000 obtained through mortgage fraud.

"Bodies Revealed" Exhibit Under Fire

By Leave a Comment

The Kansas City-St. Joseph Catholic Diocese says church school field trips should not be taken to the "’Bodies Revealed" exhibit that opens Friday in Kansas City. The statement from the Diocese says Catholic moral teaching considers the person as a unity of soul and body and that respect for human dignity extends to the body even after the soul has left it.

The exhibit uses specimens of people who died of natural causes and donated their bodies to science. The exhibit will be at Kansas City’s Union Station. Organizers of the exhibit say it has great educational value that will be valuable to students of all faiths.

 

Door-to-Door Salesman Won’t Take "No" For an Answer

By Leave a Comment

A persistent door-to-door magazine subscription salesman has been arrested in St. Joseph, charged with stabbing a man who told him, twice, that he didn’t want to buy any subscriptions.

Police say the salesman left the house after the first refusal but returned 15 minutes later and stabbed the man at the house in the arm when his sales pitch was rejected a second time.

 

A Clear, Mild Christmas Day for Missouri

By Leave a Comment

Clear, mild weather is expected this Christmas Day. The National Weather Service reports high pressure stretching from the lower Mississippi Valley to the eastern United States is providing clear and tranquil weather.

Highs today are expected to hover between the mid-40s to the lower 50s in the St. Louis area. The National Weather Service expects temperatures in northern Missouri to be in the 30s, with the temperatures rising into the 40s in central Missouri. The Kansas City area should see temperatures near 50. Christmas Day in the Ozarks, including Springfield, is expected to bring temperatures in the mid-50s.

The Missouri Department of Transportation reports all roads are clear today, a stark contrast to this past weekend. The heavy snowstorm that hit northwest Missouri shut down Interstate 29 from Dearborn to the Iowa state line. The State Highway Patrol counted between 20 to 40 vehicles in a pile up at St. Joseph on I-29 and said whiteout conditions made it difficult to clear the interstate.

The Weather Service predicts nothing like that today and predicts the next winter storm will enter Missouri Wednesday evening. It is expected to be mild. Forecasters expect little snow accumulation and say that the precipitation could come in the form of rain if temperatures hold. A wary eye is being kept on a system that could enter the state prior to this weekend. This strong winter weather system brings with it a better chance of accumulation. The snow is expected to affect far northwest Missouri the most.

More Than 3,000 Missouri Households Still Without Power

By Leave a Comment

Power has been restored to most of the Missouri households left without electricity in wake of the massive ice storm that struck the state last week. The State Emergency Management Agency reports that 3,264 residences are without power as of early Tuesday morning. The greatest concentration of homes without power is located in northwest Missouri, where 1,315 houses still have no electricity. United Electric reports 1,100 customers in Maryville and Savannah have yet to have their power restored. Aquila reports 1,249 customers in the St. Joseph and Maryville areas still are without power. Empire Electric says that its number of customers without power has dropped to only 700. Those customers have been without power since the first wave of the ice storm hit Sunday, the 9 th . The ice storm knocked out power to an estimated 170,000 Missouri households at its peak. SEMA reports that four Missourians died during the ice storm.

MWSU Hires New President

By Leave a Comment

The new President of Missouri Western University calls his job "a dream come true".   The university Board of Governors has hired Robert Vartabedian to replace Jim Scanlon, who is retiring next June after seven years as Western President. Vartabedian is now the Vice President of Academic Affairs at Eastern New Mexico State.  He says his top priorities for Western are to improve graduation and student retention rates, and lobby the legislature for better funding for higher education.

 

One Massive Storm, Not Two, Hit Missouri Last Week

By Leave a Comment

It might have seemed like two ice storms hit Missouri last week, but it actually was one very big storm that slowly moved through the Midwest, hitting the state a couple of times, knocking out power to tens of thousands of homes.

This winter storm didn’t treat regions of the state equally. National Weather Service meteorologist Mike Looney in Kansas City says that while a portion of southwest Missouri around the Joplin area got hit hard, central Missouri took a shot and ice coated power lines in portions of northeast Missouri and nearly blanketed northwest Missouri in ice, the Bootheel stayed nice and warm. And Looney says that while it seemed like two separate storms hit Missouri, it actually was a double punch from the same massive ice storm.

It might not help you feel any better, but Looney says that if you think of it as a main storm with smaller storms moving through the main system you get an idea of what did all the damage. Looney says when the storm hit last weekend, the atmosphere held in a locked pattern. The storm first hit Missouri early Sunday morning. That phase of the storm hit the Joplin area hard as well as the Lake of the Ozarks region, Jefferson City and portions of the state around O’Fallon and northeast to Bowling Green. The second phase hit the state early Tuesday morning. It slugged northwest Missouri, especially hitting the St. Joseph and Maryville area, then spread throughout the northern tier of the state.

The storm knocked power out for tens of thousands of Missouri households. The first phase knocked out about 50,000. The second took out another 120,000. Many utilities in the state were affected, including AmerenUE, Aquila, Kansas City Power and Light, Empire Electric and the state’s rural electric cooperatives.

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (:60 MP3)

Restoration Work Continues; Thousands Still Out of Power

By Leave a Comment

Work to restore electricity to tens of thousands of Missouri households left without power from the double-punch ice storm that hit the state continues; still 36,000 homes remain without power.

The main focus of restoration work has shifted to northwest Missouri, where the second ice storm did incredible damage. Thousands still have no power in a small portion of southwest Missouri, mainly around the Joplin area. Scattered outages are reported across the state.

Aquila of Kansas City reports that 15,000 of its customers entered the weekend without power. The primary focus of restoration work is concentrated on St. Joseph and the surrounding area. The state’s rural electric cooperatives say their numbers have dropped below 10,000, but still hover around the 9,000 mark. Empire Electric of Joplin has under 13,000 customers without electricity, victims of the first ice storm that hit the state early Sunday morning. AmerenUE and Kansas City Power and Light report that they have completed restoration efforts.

Nearly 160,000 Missouri Households Remain Without Power

By Leave a Comment

Efforts to restore electricity to nearly 160,000 Missouri households should get a boost from the weather with precipitation finally tapering off and sunshine back in the forecast.

AmerenUE reports a bit more than 13,000 households remain without power from Sunday’s ice storm, nearly 6,000 in Jefferson City. Ameren’s Mike Cleary says the ice really wrecked the system. He says the extreme amount of damage and the large amount of repairs that must be made are holding things up.

Aquila reports that nearly 47,000 customers remain without power this morning in wake of the second storm that hit the state. Aquila’s Al Butkus is looking forward to a better weather forecast as the Kansas City-based utility sends extra crews to St. Joseph, which took the brunt of the second storm.

Empire Electric of Joplin reports 42,000 customers remain without power. The Association of Missouri Electric Cooperatives reports the various rural electric co-ops have nearly 47,000 still without electricity and Kansas City Power and Light reports fewer than 10,000 do not have power. The total number of Missouri households without electricity Wednesday morning totaled 158,713.

One aspect could hold up homeowners hoping to have power restore. Damage at the household might prevent the utility from getting power restore. Ameren says it is up to the homeowner to make repairs to such things as the meter base, weatherhead or point of attachment, which all could have been damaged by a power line pulling them away from the house.

Ameren has a diagram on its Web site to help customers determine if they need to contact an electrical contractor to make repairs before the lights can be turned back on. 

Download/listen Brent Martin reports (:60 MP3)

Second Ice Storm Slams Into Missouri

By Leave a Comment

A second ice storm has slammed into Missouri, this time taking direct aim at northwest Missouri. One official in Maryville states simply, "It’s a mess".

The total number of Missourians without electricity now is estimated at 170,000. Tens of thousands of households in central and northeast Missouri still struggle without power. More than 66,000 northwest Missouri residents now have no power.

Aquila of Kansas City reports that 49,000 households in St. Joseph don’t have power as ice has either brought power lines down by itself or has weighed down tree limbs, which has snapped and fallen on power lines. A few substations have been knocked out. Maryville and Mound City have been hard hit as well. Some reports indicate that the entire city of Savannah, north of St. Joseph, is without power. Kansas City has an estimated 27,000 households without electricity.

Those numbers only add to Missouri residents coping without electricity. There are an estimated 44,000 households without power in Joplin. Jefferson City has about 27,000 households still without power from the Sunday ice storm. An estimated 32,000 customers with rural electric cooperatives do not have power.

Shelters have been opened at many of the communities to allow residents without electricity to warm up. Some shelters are providing food and overnight shelter. Others are only meant to provide a place to get some warmth during the daytime.

The weather forecast provides a bit of hope. Temperatures are suppose to rise tomorrow and the precipitation should dwindle and give way to sunshine at the end of the week.