Missouri

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- On the surface, nothing about last month's picture-perfect delivery of Linda Kerr seemed amiss. Her mother needed no pain medication. The labor was quick. Excited family members gathered nearby to welcome the newborn into the world. But in Missouri, where the Kerr baby was born in a carefully planned home birth, the experienced midwife hired to oversee the delivery was committing a Class C felony. "Can you imagine that?" asked Jessica Kerr, the mother of the healthy newborn.

BUTLER, Mo. -- Chris Tabor has a dream.Someday what will be akin to an archaeological dig will take place 8 miles southwest of here, and human remains will turn up. Those bones, buried for 137 years, belong to the first black combat soldiers killed in the Civil War.The public perception, cemented by the hit movie "Glory," is that black troops saw their first combat and suffered their first casualties in mid-July 1863 in the storming of Fort Wagner near...

JOHN LOTT JR.'s book, "More Guns, Less Crime," argues that states with laws allowing licensed citizens to carry concealed weapons deters criminals who, supposedly, won't prey on people when they don't know who is armed and who isn't.The pro-gun movement used his misleading theory and others in a $4 million campaign to push a referendum in Missouri that would have allowed people to carry concealed weapons in that state.Voters knew better. They defeated the initiative, realizing that the opposite was true: more guns, more danger.

No. 23 Missouri (7-4) vs. West Virginia (8-3)When: Tonight, 8.Where: Tucson, Ariz.TV: ESPN.Line: Missouri by 3 1/2 .Series record: Tied 2-2.Outlook: The Tigers may be the best four-loss team in recent history. They nearly upset heavyweights Kansas State, Nebraska and Texas A&M, and led Ohio State at halftime. Electrifying senior QB Corby Jones salvages broken plays and improvises well. Powerful TB Devin West, a second team All-American, has 1,578 yards rushing and 17 TDs. The Mountaineers were largely forgotten after a season-opening defeat against Ohio State and losses to Miami and Virginia Tech.

No. 19 Missouri (7-4) vs. No. 18 Colorado State (10-2)Time: 8 p.m. todayTV: ESPNLine: Colorado State by 3 1/2Series: Missouri leads 1-0Last meeting: Missouri won, 28-14, in 1982Coaches: Larry Smith (18-26-1); Sonny Lubick (40-19)Outlook: The 19th-ranked Tigers averaged 42 points during a five-game second-half surge, but opponents are averaging 30.2 points and 386.5 yards. Colorado State is averaging 41 points and 423 yards during an eight-game winning streak behind quarterback Moses Moreno (2,257 yards passing, 20 touchdowns)

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Coppin State ditched its Cinderella tag last night and proved it could play with the big boys in their back yard.Before shocking Missouri, 78-70, on its home court last night behind a scintillating, 31-point performance by Antoine Brockington, Coppin had been known primarily as a team that loves to ride an emotional wave into the NCAA tournament and create a lot of havoc.But now the Eagles have shown they can go out in the second game of the season in early December and beat a Big 12 team before 13,300 screaming fans simply because they have talent.

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Coppin State held on for dear life in the final hectic minutes last night against a rallying Missouri basketball team and walked off the court with a 78-70 upset victory that left 13,300 Tigers fans in disbelief.The Coppin win ended an 0-for-16 losing streak by the Baltimore school against Big 12 teams and sent the Eagles players dancing toward their locker room in delight.Senior guard Antoine Brockington, who emerged in last year's NCAA tournament, was once again the hero for Coppin, as he scored a game-high 31 points, with five rebounds and three assists.

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Missouri is down this season, and No. 20 Maryland has struggled at times.But no one will really care much at a raucous Hearnes Center at 8 tonight, when the Terps and Tigers collide.This is the Atlantic Coast Conference against the Big 12, a game in which pride and the usual NCAA tournament implications are on the line.For Maryland (7-3), it will be a final test before 15 straight ACC games, beginning with No. 3 Duke on Saturday night at Cole Field House.This date with the Tigers is timed perfectly because it comes with all the trimmings of a conference road game, a lot of pressure and a packed field house of hostile fans making as much noise as they can."

LAKE FOREST, Ill. -- Mercury Finance Co., facing a widening financial crisis, suspended its quarterly dividend yesterday as Missouri regulators moved to protect the assets of Mercury's insurance unit.The company's shares fell 37.5 cents to $2.25 on heavy trading of 8.8 million shares. After trading in a narrow range most of the day, they fell in the final minutes of trading on word of Jayhawk Acceptance Corp.'s intent to seek bankruptcy protection. Both Mercury and Jayhawk finance car loans for borrowers with poor credit.

ST. LOUIS -- When officials were organizing Missouri's Adopt a Highway program in 1994, a half-mile stretch of Interstate 55 was routinely assigned to a local applicant, Michael Cuffley.Nothing was routine after that.Cuffley turned out to be state coordinator of the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and he was applying on behalf of the group to be the "adopter" of that segment of road.About 5,000 groups, from schools to churches, volunteer in the highway program in Missouri, cleaning up litter or planting flowers, and their efforts are acknowledged by signs that identify their organizations.

Levance Fields pointed Pittsburgh in the right direction just in time - as usual. For the second straight game, the orchestrator of the offense took the big shots himself, hitting a three-pointer with 50.9 seconds left, then scoring off his steal as the top-seeded Panthers reached a regional final for the first time in 35 years with a 60-55 win over No. 4 seed Xavier on Thursday night in the East Regional in Boston. One more win and they will be headed to Detroit for the Final Four. "We came in expecting to win two games," Fields said.

Todd Reesing threw a touchdown pass to Kerry Meier with 27 seconds left to give Kansas a 40-37 win over No. 12 Missouri yesterday in Kansas City, Mo. The Tigers will still play for the Big 12 title, but they'll do so coming off a hard-fought loss to their border rivals. The Jayhawks (7-5, 4-4) led by 16 early in the third quarter, let Missouri (9-3, 5-3) back in it, then traded touchdowns with the Tigers in the fourth quarter before Reesing hit Meier. Reesing finished 37-for-51 for 375 yards with two interceptions, throwing two touchdown passes to Meier and one each to Dezmon Briscoe and Dexton Fields.

Illinois vs. Missouri 8:30 p.m. [ESPN] This is pretty big for an opening college football weekend. No. 6 Mizzou, led by quarterback Chase Daniel, can entertain notions of landing in the national title game. But not if the Tigers stumble against the No. 20 Illini in the Arch Rivalry at St. Louis' Edward Jones Dome. Last season, Missouri just got by Illinois, 40-34, as the Illini nearly rallied from 24 points down.

LOS ANGELES -- A federal grand jury indicted a woman yesterday on charges of fraudulently using a MySpace account to "cyber-bully" a Missouri teenager who later hanged herself because she believed she was being rejected by a 16-year-old boy she met on the social networking Web site. Lori Drew, 49, of O'Fallon, Mo., faces three counts of accessing protected computers without authorization to obtain information to inflict emotional distress and one count of conspiracy. The case set off a furor when it was revealed that Megan Meier, 13, was the victim of a hoax perpetrated by Drew, who was the mother of one of the girl's former friends.

Moves Baseball METS -- Acquired P Johan Santana from Twins for OF Carlos Gomez, P Philip Humber, P Kevin Mulvey and P Deolis Guerra. Agreed to six-year contract with Santana . NATIONALS -- Agreed to two-year contract with P Jon Rauch . College MISSOURI -- Reinstated F Leo Lyons and F Marshall Brown to men's basketball team.

Gary Pinkel helped lead long-suffering Missouri into college football's elite this year. Now he has the contract to match that lofty perch. Missouri athletic director Mike Alden announced yesterday that Pinkel will receive a $550,000 annual raise, boosting his guaranteed compensation to $1.85 million a year. Pinkel also gets a one-year extension through 2012. Late last season, he was given a $225,000 raise and three-year extension. The announcement comes as No. 7 Missouri (11-2) prepares to face No. 25 Arkansas (8-4)

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Tigers stated their case for No. 1 on Saturday night, and only the clueless left Arrowhead Stadium unimpressed. Oh, fans of the Ohio State Buckeyes and West Virginia Mountaineers might contend that the mother of all border wars exposed previously undefeated Kansas as a fraud, and there might be a teeny kernel of truth in that sentiment. But that reality doesn't eliminate what Saturday's showdown told us about the Tigers: They're worthy of college football's No. 1 ranking.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- On the surface, nothing about last month's picture-perfect delivery of Linda Kerr seemed amiss. Her mother needed no pain medication. The labor was quick. Excited family members gathered nearby to welcome the newborn into the world. But in Missouri, where the Kerr baby was born in a carefully planned home birth, the experienced midwife hired to oversee the delivery was committing a Class C felony. "Can you imagine that?" asked Jessica Kerr, the mother of the healthy newborn.

WASHINGTON -- Former Missouri Sen. Thomas F. Eagleton, whose star-crossed nomination as vice presidential candidate on the disastrous 1972 Democratic ticket sealed his place in American political history, died yesterday morning of heart and respiratory ailments. He was 77. Mr. Eagleton spent four decades in public life, yet will be forever remembered as the brief and ill-fated running mate of South Dakota Sen. George McGovern. But when he ran for re-election to the Senate two years later, Missourians rallied around him. He won by a quarter-million-vote margin.

Nicole Baldwin first felt something amiss in her Riverdale neighborhood when her neighbor turned down a chance to borrow a Halloween costume for his little boy. Then Christmas came and went with no sign of celebration. She didn't see little Abraham Felipe Monroy outside for weeks, then months. "I didn't understand why they would leave the child ... inside," said Baldwin, 29. "They were keeping the child hidden. And I kept wondering, `Where's his mother?'" Baldwin's curiosity led her to the Internet, where she discovered the child was listed as missing from his mother's home in Missouri.