Fire At Silver Dollar City      Silver Dollar City officials have confirmed a fire broke out tonight, near the Outlaw Run roller coaster.  The flames were contained to the structure that is near the coaster, and the coaster itself was never on fire.      Park officials say firefighters had the flames quickly contained to an area near the depot sign of that building. There is some smoke and water damage to ...

Missouri appeals Nicklasson execution stay to U.S. Supreme Court The fate of Missouri death row inmate Allen Nicklasson is in the hands of the U.S. Supreme Court. Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster late Tuesday appealed a stay of execution granted by a three-judge panel of the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. The full appeals court declined to take up the case, prompting Koster's appeal to the Supreme Court. Nicklasson is scheduled to die by injection ...

Missouri offers billion dollar tax incentive to lure Boeing 777x airliner The Show-me state, along with about a dozen other states, has its sights set on landing a deal to build Boeing's 777x airliner. A week-long special legislative session ended with Governor Jay Nixon signing into law a tax incentive package worth billions to lure the aerospace giant.        Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agreed to offer the company tax credits up to $150 million dollars ...

State auditor blasts past financial practices by City of Bolivar The State Auditor's Office found many negative items that it believes the City of Bolivar needs to fix immediately.  State Auditor Tom Schweich's office gave the city of Bolivar a "poor" rating in its special audit of fiscal year 2012. Schweich delivered the audit report at a public meeting at Southwest Baptist University on Tuesday evening.   His office did the audit at the request of about ...

Weather-related cancellations and postponements If your organization has an event that is postponed or cancelled because of the weather, please post it in the comments section below.  (We started fresh with this item at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday because of so many previously posted cancellations and postponements.) ---- Here are some postponements and cancellations that we received by email, but we can't guarantee that we'll be able to post each event that ...

Helicopter that crashed, killing 2, tangled with power line A helicopter that crashed and killed two people near Cross Timbers, Mo., last spring hit a power line before it hit the ground.  That information is in a federal report released on Tuesday. The report does not determine why the helicopter hit the power line. The crash on May 24, 2013, killed pilot William Higgenbotham, 32, of Arizona, and Catalina Richard, 21, a Missouri State University ...

Alan Alda's science contest asks: What is color?
MINEOLA, N.Y. (AP) — Alan Alda, the actor-turned-part-time professor, has a new question for scientists to consider: How do you explain color to an 11-year-old?

India top court upholds law criminalising gay sex
India's Supreme Court upheld a law criminalising gay sex, setting aside a landmark lower court decision in 2009 which had overturned a colonial-era ban on homosexuality. A two-judge bench ruled that the courts should not intervene and that it was up to parliament to legislate on the issue in a decision that comes as a major blow for gay rights in the country. "It is up to parliament to legislate on this issue," Judge G.S. Singhvi, the head of the two-man bench, said in the ruling. The Delhi High Court ruled in 2009 that section 377 of the Indian penal code prohibiting people from engaging in "carnal acts against the order of nature" infringed the fundamental rights of Indians.

GM to stop making cars in Australia by 2017
CANBERRA, Australia (AP) — General Motors Co. said Wednesday it will stop making cars and engines in Australia by the end of 2017, with nearly 2,900 jobs to be lost, because of high production costs and competition.

Chinese paper rejects comparison between Mandela and Nobel laureate Liu
An influential Chinese paper lashed out on Wednesday at comparisons between Nelson Mandela and China's jailed Nobel Peace Prize laureate Liu Xiaobo, saying Liu was a common criminal not worthy of any praise. Many Chinese internet users have noted the apparent contradiction of Beijing lauding Mandela's legacy at the same time that it continues a harsh crackdown on its own human rights activists. Microbloggers have particularly alluded to Liu, whose name is banned from appearing online by government censors. Chinese state media almost never mention well-known dissidents by name, making the editorial highly unusual and underscoring government anger at foreign criticism of its rights record, especially from the United States.

Cortege departs to take Mandela's body to lie in state
A cortege transporting the body of former South African president and anti-apartheid hero Nelson Mandela left the capital's main military hospital on Wednesday en route to the Union Buildings, where he will lie in state. Thousands of people lined the streets as a procession of police motorcycles lead the black hearse carrying Mandela's coffin, which was draped in the South African flag. Mandela's death last Thursday at the age of 95 has sparked an outpouring of grief and mourning in the country he led from 1994 to 1999 as its first black president. "This a significant moment for me and my children," said 48-year-old teacher Thapelo Dlamini, who had been on waiting on the street for two hours with his two children.