ROMULUS, Mich. (AP) — Striking General Motors factory workers will put down their picket signs after approving a new contract that will end a 40-day strike that paralyzed the company’s U.S. production.

The United Auto Workers union said in a statement Friday that workers had approved the new four-year deal. But no vote totals were given. The union says it will announce shortly whether it will bargain next with Ford or Fiat Chrysler.

Picket lines were to come down immediately, and skilled trades workers will begin restarting factories that were shuttered when 49,000 workers walked out on Sept. 16. Some production workers could return as early as Friday night.

The deal includes a mix of wage increases and lump-sum payments and an $11,000 signing bonus. But GM will close three U.S. factories that make slow-selling cars and transmissions. Analysts estimate the strike cost GM more than $2 billion.

The five-week walkout was big enough to help push down September U.S. durable goods orders by 1.1%, the largest drop in four months.

Trades workers such as machinists and electricians likely will enter the plants quickly, restarting boilers and preparing paint shops, robots and other equipment to restart production.

On the picket line at a transmission plant in Romulus, Michigan, worker Tricia Pruitt said the wage gains were worth staying off the job for more than five weeks, but she’s ready to return to work.

Pruitt, a 15-year GM employee, was happy that the contract brings workers hired after 2007 up to the same wage as older workers in four years.

She’ll be glad not to be on the picket line if the strike ends. “Look at us now. We’re in coats,” she said on a gray, chilly Friday afternoon near Detroit. “We’d have been out here in the rain.”

Although GM dealers had stocked up on vehicles before the strike and many still have decent supplies, analysts say GM won’t be able to make up for the lost production. Had the strike been shorter, GM could have increased assembly line speeds and worked the plants on overtime to catch up and refill its stock. But many of the plants that make popular SUVs and pickup trucks already were working around the clock to keep up with demand before the strike began.

Also, companies that supply parts to the factories and halted production during the strike will need time to restart, although GM has some parts in stock.

Jeff Schuster, senior vice president of the consulting firm LMC Automotive, estimates that GM has lost production of 300,000 vehicles, and he said maybe only a quarter of it can be made up.

“You can’t add days to the week and you can’t add hours to the day,” he said.

Some production losses will help thin inventory, especially of cars, Schuster said. But in late October and early November, GM will likely run short of colors and models of trucks and SUVs that are in high demand until stocks are replenished, he said. Although truck and SUV buyers generally are loyal to a brand, customers in a hurry for a new vehicle could go elsewhere, Schuster said.

“There are definitely going to be some limitations on choice, and that is a risk,” Schuster said. “Consumers can opt to wait, or they can go down the street to their competitor.”

Now the union will move on to bargain with either Ford or Fiat Chrysler, using the GM deal as a template. A decision on which company is next could come Friday. It’s not clear yet if there will be another strike, but neither Ford nor FCA will be happy about being stuck with the GM terms.

GM traded the ability to close the three factories in Lordstown, Ohio; Warren, Michigan; and near Baltimore for higher labor costs, David Kudla, chief investment strategist for Mainstay Capital Management of Grand Blanc, Michigan, wrote in a note to investors. The contract maintains worker health benefits with low premiums, something that both Ford and FCA wanted to change when negotiations began.

“Ford and FCA didn’t have three factories that they wanted to close, but will have to work around this new framework for higher wages and unchanged health care that the UAW and GM have set,” wrote Kudla, whose firm manages investments for many auto industry workers.

Workers at factories that GM will close have been transferred to plants across the nation, and they campaigned against the deal, which was reached Oct. 16. Workers in Lordstown, for instance, voted 412-61 against it, with 88% of production workers voting “no.”

In the end, economic gains and a $7.7 billion GM investment pledge for U.S. factories were too much to turn down.

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COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) — The University of Missouri athletic department has apologized and taken down a tweet intended to promote the NCAA’s “diversity and inclusion week” after receiving complaints that it was racially insensitive.

The original post, which prompted a quick reaction on social media, showed a graphic with four photos under the words “I am.” At issue is that the white athletes described career aspirations in the graphic, while the black athlete and staff member made statements about race.

Arielle Mack, a black freshman track athlete, was pictured with the statement “I am an African American woman.” Chad Jones-Hicks, a black ticket office assistant, according to MU Athletics’ website, was accompanied by the statement “I value equality.” Meanwhile, the caption for Chelsey Christensen, a white gymnast and junior at MU, read, “I am a future doctor.” Another caption attributed to freshman swimmer CJ Kovac, also white, said, “I am a future corporate financer,” with the word financier spelled wrong in the graphic.

In a separate post, a black male student athlete is pictured with the caption: “I Am a Brother.”

African American writer Angie Thomas, author of the New York Times’ bestselling books “The Hate U Give” and “On the Come Up,” tweeted: “Uhhh” in response to the graphic.

The athletic department said in a statement that the “intent was to provide personal information about our students, but we failed.” The statement said a video it posted better represented the school’s “intent to celebrate our diversity.”

That video contained an extended quote from Mack, who said, “I am an African American woman, a sister, a daughter, a volunteer and a future physical therapist.” She told the Columbia Missourian that she didn’t think too much of the tweet, as MU Athletics used her own language. She also said the department did the right thing by deleting the tweet in light of the controversy.

Former Missouri standout quarterback Corby Jones, a Kansas City attorney who is black, told The Kansas City Star’s editorial board that his first reaction was outrage. He said he was left asking, “Why did we choose those words for those (African American) individuals?

After calls to athletic department administrators, Jones came away with a better understanding of the university’s intent. The post was part of a broader NCAA-led inclusion initiative.

“It was just poorly constructed,” Jones said.

The controversy comes four years after hundreds of students protested the way university leadership handled complaints from black student groups about racial slurs and other slights on the overwhelmingly white flagship campus. More than 30 black football team members said they wouldn’t play until the university’s president was removed. University system President Tim Wolfe ultimately resigned and Columbia campus Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin stepped down to take another job with the university.

SHAWNEE COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities have identified the man who died in an accident while walking on a Kansas highway Friday in Shawnee County.

Just after 4a.m., the Shawnee County Emergency Communications Center received a 911 call reporting that there was a man later identified as Colton L. Griggs, 21, Topeka, walking in the middle of the road on SE Hwy 40 East of K-4 Highway, according to Sgt. Scott Wanamaker.

Deputies were dispatched and while traveling to the scene, the emergency communication center received a second 911 call notifying them that a car had struck a pedestrian.

At that time, medical personnel were dispatched. When the first deputy arrived to the scene he located Griggs and found that he was deceased, according to Wanamaker.

The initial investigation of the scene indicates that Griggs was walking westbound in the middle of the highway when he was struck by the westbound 2017 Hyundai Accent driven by Kevin Dixon of Lawrence.

There is no suspicious activity believed to be involved in this accident and no signs of impairment of the driver of the vehicle, according to Wanamaker. 

Officials shut down SE Highway 40 for an extended time from the Kansas 4 Highway interchange to SE Tecumseh Road. Motorist were advised to use alternate routes of travel until the scene is cleared.

WICHITA, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas police officer who fatally shot an unarmed man while responding to a bogus emergency call is suing over wages.

Justin Rapp alleges in the lawsuit filed Thursday that he wasn’t allowed to resume his usual jobs “in a reasonable amount of time” after fatally shooting 28-year-old Andrew Finch in December 2017. He says that caused him to lose out on $31,000 from his regular police duties in Wichita and a city-approved off-duty security job.

Rapp wasn’t charged. He said he feared Finch was reaching for a firearm when he fired, not knowing that a hoaxer had reported a fake homicide and hostage situation at Finch’s home. A lawsuit filed by Finch’s family is pending.

The city’s attorney declined to comment on Rapp’s allegations.

SEDGWICK COUNTY —Law enforcement authorities are investigating a series of armed robberies and have made an arrest.

Police involved with the investigation identified 20-year-old Darren Green as a suspect involved in the robberies beginning in July on July 8, when employees at Burger King, 3500 S. Meridian, reported an unknown suspect robbed the business at gunpoint, according to officer Charley Davidson.

On August 28, an employee at Meridian Grocery, 2719 S. Meridian, reported an unknown suspect robbed the business at gunpoint. The next day, an employee at Domino’s Pizza, 2047 W. 21^st Street North, reported an unknown suspect robbed the business at gunpoint.

On October 20, employees at the Money Center inside of Walmart, 3030 N. Rock Rd., reported an unknown suspect robbed the business at gunpoint. The following day, an employee at Check into Cash, 2424 S. Seneca, reported an unknown suspect attempting to rob the business at gunpoint. Later that day, employees at Advance America, 601 N. Ridge Road, reported an unknown suspect robbed the business at gunpoint.

No injuries were reported in these incidents.

On Wednesday evening police arrested Green at his home without incident.

The investigations are ongoing, and they will be presented to the Sedgwick County District Attorney’s Office.

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A judge has denied a new trial for a Kansas home day care worker who was convicted in the death of a 9-month-old baby.

The sentencing for 44-year-old Carrody Buchhorn is now set for Nov. 18. She faces nine to 10 years in prison.

Her sentencing had been delayed while she argued that she deserved a new trial. She got new attorneys after she was convicted last year of unintentionally but recklessly causing the death of Oliver Ortiz in 2016 in Eudora.

Her new attorneys challenged the work of her trial attorneys and how they handled the testimony of the coroner, who ruled that the baby’s death was a homicide. A judge ruled last week that her trial attorneys “were not ineffective.”

LAWRENCE, Kan. (AP) — A Kansas prosecutor is retiring amid calls for her to step down after a Missouri judge overturned the double murder conviction of a man whom she helped send to prison more than two decades ago.

The Douglas County, Kansas, district attorney’s office said in a statement this week that Chief Assistant District Attorney Amy McGowan is transitioning her cases to other attorneys in preparation for her Nov. 1 retirement. The statement provided no other explanation.

McGowan didn’t immediately return a message from The Associated Press left for her through the prosecutor’s office.

McGowan had been the subject of recent protests by the KC Freedom Project after a judge found that, while working in the Jackson County, Missouri, prosecutor’s office, she failed to disclose exculpatory evidence in Ricky Kidd’s case. He was freed from prison in August after a judge found clear and convincing evidence that he was wrongfully convicted of the February 1996 deaths of George Bryant and Oscar Bridges in Kansas City, Missouri. Prosecutors subsequently decided not to retry him.

“She should be disbarred,” Kidd told The Kansas City Star’s Editorial Board in September.

McGowan also was accused of withholding evidence in the case against Richard Buchli II, a Kansas City attorney who spent about five years in prison in the 2000 death of his law partner before his conviction was overturned. Charges later were dismissed. And in 2013, the Kansas Supreme Court found McGowan made improper comments during closing arguments in five cases between 2007 and 2009. In one instance, the court vacated a sentence in a child-exploitation case.

After Kidd was freed, protesters held signs and chanted in Douglas County and in downtown Topeka in front of the state agency tasked with investigating complaints against attorneys.

Cheryl Wright Kunard, a spokesman for the Douglas County district attorney’s office, told the Lawrence Journal-World it would be inappropriate to respond to questions about whether the protests influenced McGowan’s decision to retire.

The Douglas County prosecutor’s office previously defended McGowan in a statement, saying that while she did make errors in Kidd’s case, the verdict was overturned primarily because the main witness recanted.

“False and grossly misleading rumors are being spread that Ms. McGowan was ‘found guilty,’ ‘convicted,’ and ‘disciplined,'” the statement said. “Ms. McGowan has never been convicted nor disciplined by the Missouri Court System or the Kansas Supreme Court.”

GOODLAND, Kan. (AP) — A disease that causes blister-like sores on the mouths of horses and other livestock has spread to Kansas, marking the eighth state where it has been detected.

The Kansas Department of Agriculture announced Thursday in a news release that the vesicular stomatitis virus has been confirmed in horses at a private residence in Sherman County, along the state’s western border with Colorado. The animals have been quarantined.

The virus primarily sickens horses, but can also affect cattle, sheep, goats, swine, llamas and alpacas. Symptoms include excessive salivation, lesions, lack of appetite and lameness. The most common method of transmission is insect bites.

Humans can become infected while handling sick animals and develop flu-like symptoms, but that’s rare. The virus also has been detected in areas of Colorado, Nebraska, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Texas, Utah and Wyoming.

SEDGWICK COUNTY — Law enforcement authorities are investigating a Kansas man on child sex charges and have made an arrest.

Just before 6p.m. Tuesday, a police officer was attempting to contact 50-year-old Larry F. Brannan at a residence in the 11600 block of E. 71st Street South in Wichita, regarding an outstanding warrant for aggravated indecent liberties with a child, according officer Charley Davidson.

The officer located Brannon and attempted to take him into custody.  Brannon resisted, battered the officer and nearly struck the officer with his vehicle.

The officer eventually arrested Brannon with the assistance of the his K9.

Brannon was treated at a local hospital for minor injuries from a dog bite and then booked into jail on requested charges of aggravated assault on a law enforcement officer, simple battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting arrest and the outstanding Sedgwick County Warrant.

He was held on a bond of $100,000, according to online jail records and is no longer in custody.

 

 

 

KANSAS CITY– A Kansas City man pleaded guilty in federal court Wednesday to participating in a romance fraud scheme that bilked victims across the United States and overseas of nearly $900,000, according to the United State Attorney.

Ronayerin K. Ogolor, 50, a naturalized U.S. citizen from Nigeria, pleaded guilty before U.S. Chief District Judge Beth Phillips to one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud.

Ogolor, who was arrested at Kansas City International Airport on Oct. 19, 2018, before he boarded a plane to Frankfurt, Germany, remains in federal custody.

By pleading guilty, Ogolor admitted that he participated in a conspiracy since 2013 that targeted people, some of them elderly, in search of companionship or romance through online websites such as Facebook, ChristianMingle.com, or Hangout.com. Ogolor defrauded his victims of $878,489 in total. Under the terms of today’s plea agreement, Ogolor must forfeit that amount in a money judgment to the government.

The perpetrators of the romance scams created several profiles on online dating sites. Conspirators then contacted men and women throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe, with whom they cultivated a sense of affection and often romance. Having established relationships with the victims, the perpetrators of the romance scams ultimately requested money for hospital fees, travel fees, “customs expenses,” “gold import taxes,” or investment opportunities. Conspirators directed the victims to wire transfer or deposit money into various bank accounts, including accounts established and maintained by Ogolor. Often after the victims transferred money into the specified accounts, conspirators claimed more money was needed, “to release the package” or “to pay customs expenses” on money or gold.

On other occasions, conspirators fraudulently obtained checks through business email compromise, and had the victims deposit the checks into their accounts and wire and deposit money into various accounts, including accounts established and maintained by Ogolor. In a business email compromise, the conspirators hack into a business email account, and then send an email from what appears to be an employee with authority to approve payments, instructing that a check be disbursed in the victim’s name and sent to the victim. By using victims to deposit the checks and distribute the money, the conspirators distanced themselves from the business email hacking and fraud.

In furtherance of the scheme, Ogolor opened several bank accounts in his name and in the names of sham businesses. The romance fraud victims wired and deposited their money and money from counterfeit or fraudulently obtained checks into Ogolor’s accounts. Soon after receiving the fraudulently obtained wires or deposits, Ogolor wired money to co-conspirators and/or withdrew the money in cash.

Court documents refer to 13 victims (in Alabama, Ohio, Washington, Arizona, Florida, Illinois, California, and Italy) who each sent tens of thousands of dollars to Ogolor. One victim (a widow in Indiana who received a friend request on Facebook) believed a co-conspirator was a widower working on an oil rig off the coast of Louisiana; she lost a total of $450,000 to Ogolor and others. Another victim in Texas, who believed a co-conspirator was a widower and U.S. Army general deployed in Afghanistan, lost at least $300,000.

Under federal statutes, Ogolor is subject to a sentence of up to 20 years in federal prison without parole. The maximum statutory sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes, as the sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court based on the advisory sentencing guidelines and other statutory factors. A sentencing hearing will be scheduled after the completion of a presentence investigation by the United States Probation Office.