Tag Archives: Arkansas

Storms unleash tornadoes in U.S. east, record snow in Midwest

Dark clouds hover above buildings amidst tornadoes in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, the U.S., April 10, 2018 in this still image obtained from a social media video. Emmet Finneran/via REUTERS

By Rich McKay

ATLANTA (Reuters) – Deadly slow-moving storms generated record or near-record snowfall and low temperatures in the U.S. Midwest and tornadoes further east on Sunday, leaving airline travelers stranded and thousands without power.

In Michigan, where snowfall was expected to reach 18 inches in some areas, about 310,000 homes and businesses were without power because of an ice storm, most of them in the southeast of the state.

Large areas of Detroit were without power and customers were not expected to have it back on Sunday night, utility DTE Energy said. It was working to have 90 percent of outages restored by Tuesday, DTE spokeswoman Carly Getz said in a statement.

Cars are seen on a road during a tornado in Mountainburg, Arkansas, U.S., April 13, 2018 in this picture grab obtained from social media video. JOSHUA COLEMAN/via REUTERS

Cars are seen on a road during a tornado in Mountainburg, Arkansas, U.S., April 13, 2018 in this picture grab obtained from social media video. JOSHUA COLEMAN/via REUTERS

The weight of ice on power lines, coupled with high winds, caused more than 1,000 power lines to fall in Detroit and Wayne County, DTE said.

The worst of the snow was focused on the upper Great Lakes, with Green Bay, Wisconsin, seeing its second largest snowstorm ever after 23.2 inches fell as of Sunday afternoon, the National Weather Service said.

For the twin cities of Minneapolis-St. Paul, Minnesota, the April monthly record for snowfall of 21.8 inches (55 cm) was surpassed on Saturday, the National Weather Service said.

Two tornadoes tore up trees and ripped apart homes in Greensboro and Reidsville, North Carolina, killing a motorist who was hit by a tree, according to Greensboro’s city manager, local media reported.

The storms stretched from the Gulf Coast to the Midwest and were moving into the Northeast and New England.

Record low temperatures for the date were expected in Oklahoma City on Monday at 30 degrees F (-1 C), and in Kansas City, Missouri, at 25 F (-4 C), Hurley said.

On Friday, the weather system produced 17 reports of tornadoes in Arkansas, Louisiana, Missouri and Texas, with four people injured and 160 buildings damaged in a possible tornado in northwest Arkansas, local media reported.

The weather was blamed for two traffic deaths in western Nebraska and Wisconsin, according to National Public Radio.

The storms also killed a one-year-old girl when a tree fell on a recreational vehicle where she was sleeping, the sheriff’s office in Bossier Parish, Louisiana, said.

By Sunday night, 1,804 flights had been canceled into or out of U.S. airports, the website flightaware.com reported, including 148 flights in or out of the Minneapolis-St. Paul airport.

(Reporting by Rich McKay in Atlanta; Additional reporting by Bernie Woodall in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. and Andrew Hay in Taos, N.M.; Editing by Adrian Croft and Peter Cooney)

After Parkland shooting, U.S. states shift education funds to school safety despite critics

Adin Chistian (16), student of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, embraces his mother Denyse, next to the crosses and Stars of David placed in front of the fence of the school to commemorate the victims of a shooting, in Parkland, Florida, U.S., February 19, 2018. REUTERS/Carlos Garcia Rawlins

By Hilary Russ and Laila Kearney

NEW YORK (Reuters) – Before the ink could dry on Florida Governor Rick Scott’s signature last month, critics cried foul over the bill he signed into law to spend $400 million boosting security at schools across the state following February’s Parkland mass shooting.

School officials, local sheriffs and Democrats opposed different provisions, including one to provide $67 million to arm teachers. Educators, in particular, voiced concerns that the state will strip money from core education funding to pay for the new school resource officers and beefed up buildings.

“We are a very lean state,” said Florida state Senator Jose Javier Rodriguez, a Democrat who voted against the bill. “If we’re spending money somewhere, we’re taking it from somewhere else.”

In the wake of the high school shooting in Parkland, Florida that killed 17 people, at least 10 U.S. states have introduced measures to increase funding for hardening of school buildings and campuses, add resource officers and increase mental health services, according to Reuters’ tally.

Many of the proposals outlined the need for bulletproof windows, panic buttons and armored shelters to be installed in classrooms. Some legislation called for state police or sheriff’s departments to provide officers to patrol public schools.

Altogether, more than 100 legislative bills to address school safety, not all of which have funding components, have been introduced in 27 states since the Feb. 14 shooting at Florida’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, according to data provided by the National Conference of State Legislatures.

But states do not usually have extra money on hand or room to raise taxes. So to pay for the measures, states are mostly shifting money away from other projects, dipping into reserves or contemplating borrowing.

“I would characterize these proposals and the bills that were passed, for example Florida and Wisconsin, as primarily shifting funding from other priorities,” said Kathryn White, senior policy analyst at the National Association of State Budget Officers.

Calls for more gun control and more safety measures have come during peak budget season for nearly all states, whose legislatures spend the spring in debates that shape the coming year’s budget starting July 1.

STATE BY STATE

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker called a special legislative session last month, when lawmakers agreed to create a $100 million school safety grant program.

The money will come out of the state’s general fund. But the spending, coupled with tax cuts and other pending legislation, will leave that fund with reserves of roughly $185 million – enough to run state government for less than four days in the event of a fiscal emergency, according to Jon Peacock, director of the think tank Wisconsin Budget Project.

“That is far less of a cushion than a fiscally responsible state should set aside,” Peacock said.

Funding the safety measures also means that some economic development programs for rural counties did not get funded and a one-time sales tax holiday was scaled back, he said.

In Maine, lawmakers are considering borrowing $20 million by issuing 10-year general obligation bonds to fund loans to school districts for security enhancements.

New Jersey lawmakers are also looking to borrow. On March 26, state senators tacked an extra $250 million for school security onto an existing bill for $500 million of bonds to expand county vocational colleges. The legislature has not yet voted on the measure.

Maryland, Alabama, Arkansas, Tennessee and Indiana are also increasing – or trying to increase – funding for school security measures since Parkland.

In Florida, the legislature passed safety spending while approving an increase of only $0.47 per pupil in funding used to cover teacher pay raises, school bus fuel and other operational expenses for education.

“We see $400-plus million in school safety, which we absolutely applaud, but you can’t do that at the expense of your core education program,” Broward County schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said shortly before Scott signed the budget.

Stoneman Douglas is among the schools Runcie, who also heads the Florida Association of District School Superintendents, oversees.

To be sure, some state and local governments have been adding money for school safety measures for years, particularly after 20 children and six adults were killed in a shooting in Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012.

Some critics, particularly Democrats, say measures that only beef up infrastructure or do not create recurring funds fall short of the mark.

Dan Rossmiller, government relations director of the Wisconsin Association of School Boards, said in a memo to lawmakers in March that individual districts also need money for prevention and intervention, including education services for expelled students and anti-bullying programs, and other purposes.

“Funding for only ‘hardening’ school facilities, while welcome, is likely not going to be sufficient to address the full range of locally identified needs,” he said.

(Reporting by Hilary Russ and Laila Kearney; Editing by Daniel Bases and Chizu Nomiyama)

Monsanto, BASF weed killers strain U.S. states with crop damage complaints

Monsanto's research farm is pictured near Carman, Manitoba, Canada on August 3, 2017.

By Tom Polansek

CHICAGO (Reuters) – U.S. farmers have overwhelmed state governments with thousands of complaints about crop damage linked to new versions of weed killers, threatening future sales by manufacturers Monsanto Co and BASF.

Monsanto is banking on weed killers using a chemical known as dicamba – and seeds engineered to resist it – to dominate soybean production in the United States, the world’s second-largest exporter.

The United States has faced a weed-killer crisis this year caused by the new formulations of dicamba-based herbicides, which farmers and weed experts say have harmed crops because they evaporate and drift away from where they are applied.

Monsanto and BASF say the herbicides are safe when properly applied. They need to convince regulators after the flood of complaints to state agriculture departments.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) last year approved use of the weed killers on dicamba-resistant crops during the summer growing season. Previously, farmers used dicamba to kill weeds before they planted seeds, and not while the crops were growing.

However, the EPA approved such use only until Nov. 9, 2018, because “extraordinary precautions” are needed to prevent dicamba products from tainting vulnerable crops, a spokesman told Reuters in a statement last week. The agency wanted to be able to step in if there were problems, he said.

Next year, the EPA will determine whether to extend its approval by reviewing damage complaints and consulting with state and industry experts. States are separately considering new restrictions on usage for 2018.

Major soybean-growing states, including Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois, each received roughly four years’ worth of complaints about possible pesticide damage to crops this year due to dicamba use, state regulators said.

Now agriculture officials face long backlogs of cases to investigate, which are driving up costs for lab tests and overtime. Several states had to reassign employees to handle the load.

“We don’t have the staff to be able to handle 400 investigations in a year plus do all the other required work,” said Paul Bailey, director of the Plant Industries division of the Missouri Department of Agriculture.

In Missouri, farmers filed about 310 complaints over suspected dicamba damage, on top of the roughly 80 complaints about pesticides the state receives in a typical year, he said.

Nationwide, states launched 2,708 investigations into dicamba-related plant injury by Oct. 15, according to data compiled by the University of Missouri.

States investigate such complaints to determine whether applicators followed the rules for using chemicals. Those found to have violated regulations can be fined.

Monsanto has said that U.S. farmers spraying this past summer failed to follow detailed instructions of up to 4,550 words printed on labels.

The companies will change usage instructions in hopes of avoiding a repeat of the past summer’s problems.

“With significant adoption and a lot of interest in this new technology, we recognize that many states have received a number of reports of potential off-target application of dicamba in 2017,” Monsanto spokeswoman Charla Lord said last month.

 

PHOTOGRAPHING DAMAGED SOYBEANS

State investigators try to visit fields within days after farmers report possible damage to take photos before signs of injury, such as cupped leaves on soybean plants hit by dicamba, disappear. They question farmers and the people who applied the herbicide, and often gather samples from plants to test.

In Arkansas, farmers filed about 985 complaints associated with dicamba, the most of any state. Investigators are probing about 1,200 total complaints involving pesticide use, which includes weed killers, said Terry Walker, director of the Arkansas State Plant Board.

Arkansas delayed inspections of animal feed and allowed overtime to handle the dicamba cases, which is not normal practice, Walker said. He was unable to provide a cost estimate for dealing with the complaints.

Among the farmers who reported damage was Reed Storey, who said he wanted to ensure state officials knew dicamba caused damage even when users follow the instructions.

“I’m calling strictly to let y’all know that we have an issue with this product,” Storey, who spoke last month, said he told Arkansas regulators.

Illinois received about 421 total pesticide complaints, the most since at least 1989, said Warren Goetsch, acting chief of the Bureau of Environmental Programs at the Illinois Department of Agriculture. That includes at least 245 complaints associated with dicamba, which could take until next year to finish investigating, he said.

“It’s frustrating I think for us that we’re as behind as we are,” Goetsch said.

 

MONSANTO’S BIG BET

Monsanto is betting on dicamba-tolerant soybeans to replace those that withstand glyphosate, an herbicide used for decades but which is becoming less effective as weeds develop resistance. The company aims for its dicamba-resistant seeds to account for half the U.S. soybeans planted by 2019.

Monsanto, which is in the process of being acquired by Bayer AG  for $63.5 billion, said it plans to open a call center to help customers use dicamba next year and is talking with states about the product.

Monsanto’s net sales increased $1.1 billion, or 8 percent, in fiscal year 2017 due partly to increased sales of its dicamba-resistant soybean seeds.

The company and BASF already face several lawsuits from farmers alleging damage to plants from dicamba used by neighbors.

 

ANALYZING PLANT SAMPLES

The EPA provides grants to states that help fund investigations into pesticide damage and this year offered 35 states extra assistance analyzing plant samples for dicamba, according to the agency.

Minnesota and Illinois turned to the EPA for help, with the latter saying the federal agency has better equipment to detect low levels of dicamba.

In Iowa, the state’s laboratory bureau received 515 samples to test this year, up 35 percent, as dicamba use helped drive up the total number of pesticide complaints to 270 from a typical range of 70 to 120, according to the state. Each test costs up to $9.

“We are really anxious to flip the page and look ahead to 2018 and try to figure out the things that can be done to improve the situation,” said Mike Naig, deputy secretary of the Iowa Department of Agriculture and Land Stewardship.

 

(Reporting by Tom Polansek; Editing by Jo Winterbottom and Matthew Lewis)

 

U.S. court rules Arkansas can block Planned Parenthood funding

U.S. court rules Arkansas can block Planned Parenthood funding

By Nate Raymond

(Reuters) – A U.S. appeals court on Wednesday reversed a ruling that prevented Arkansas from cutting off Medicaid funding to Planned Parenthood following the release of controversial videos secretly recorded by an anti-abortion group.

The 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis reversed a ruling forbidding Arkansas from carrying through with Republican Governor Asa Hutchinson’s directive to suspend Medicaid reimbursements to a Planned Parenthood affiliate.

U.S. District Judge Kristine Baker in Little Rock had ruled in favor of three women who claimed Arkansas violated their rights under the federal Medicaid law to choose any qualified provider offering services they were seeking.

But by a 2-1 vote, a 8th Circuit said the provision of the Medicaid law the women relied on does not unambiguously create a federal right for individual patients that they could enforce in court.

U.S. Circuit Judge Steven Colloton wrote that the lack of such a right does not mean state officials have unlimited authority to terminate Medicaid providers.

“We conclude only that Congress did not unambiguously confer the particular right asserted by the patients in this case,” he wrote.

U.S. Circuit Judge Michael Melloy dissented, saying four other appeals courts have reached the opposite conclusion and found a private right of enforcement existed.

Raegan McDonald-Mosley, chief medical officer of Planned Parenthood Federation of America, in a statement said the fight “is not over.”

“We will do everything in our power to protect our patients’ access to birth control cancer screenings, and other lifesaving care,” McDonald-Mosley said.

Arkansas cut off funds for Planned Parenthood after the anti-abortion activist group Center for Medical Progress released videos in 2015 it claimed showed the group’s officials negotiating the sale of fetal body parts for profit.

Planned Parenthood has denied the allegation and says 13 states that investigated those claims have cleared it of wrongdoing.

Hutchinson, who was among Republican governors nationally who targeted the organization following those videos, welcomed Wednesday’s ruling.

“This is a substantial legal victory for the right of the state to determine whether Medicaid providers are acting in accordance with best practices and affirms the prerogative of the state to make reasoned judgments on the Medicaid program,” he said in a statement.

Planned Parenthood does not perform surgical abortions in Arkansas, which forbids public funding of abortions except in cases of rape or incest. But it provides other gynecological services as well as birth control and breast examinations.

(Reporting by Nate Raymond in Boston; Editing by David Gregorio)

Shooting injures 17 people at Little Rock nightclub

(Reuters) – At least 17 people were wounded after gunfire erupted at a concert in Little Rock, Arkansas, early on Saturday, police said on social media.

At least one person injured in the shooting at a venue called the Power Ultra Lounge was initially listed in critical condition and has since been upgraded to stable, Little Rock police said on Twitter.

It was not immediately clear if anyone was arrested in connection with the shooting.

“We do not believe this incident was an active-shooter or terror-related incident,” police said on Twitter. “It appears to have been a dispute at a concert.”

A police spokesman did not immediately return calls or emails.

None of the 17 shooting victims has died, police added.

The shooting broke out at about 2:30 a.m. local time on Saturday, according to local media, which is about thirty minutes after the club closes.

Some of the victims are juveniles, according to a Twitter post by a reporter for local television station KATV.

(Reporting by Alex Dobuzinskis in Los Angeles Editing by Jeremy Gaunt)

Man smashes Arkansas Capitol’s new Ten Commandments monument

A statue of the Ten Commandments is seen after it was installed on the grounds of the state Capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Steve Barnes

By Steve Barnes

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) – A newly installed Ten Commandments monument on Arkansas state Capitol grounds was destroyed on Wednesday by a man police said drove his vehicle into the granite slab and posted the incident on Facebook.

“It was shattered into a lot of pieces,” Chris Powell, a spokesman for the Secretary of State and Capitol Police, said in an interview.

The suspect, identified as Michael Reed, 32, was arrested on three charges, including defacing an object of public interest. Police did not release Reed’s motive for toppling the monument installed in Little Rock on Tuesday.

Republican state Senator Jason Rapert, the main backer of the monument, said a replacement has been ordered.

“Frankly this guy was in a state of mind that he could very well have hurt somebody,” he said at a news conference.

A Facebook Live video posted to the account of a person named Michael Reed appears to show the slab’s destruction.

In the vehicle, a person can be heard saying: “Oh my goodness. Freedom,” and driving more than 20 mph (32 kph) until a smashing noise is heard.

“He actually was videoing it and broadcasting it live on Facebook as it happened,” police spokesman Powell said, adding an officer patrolling nearby arrested Reed.

No lawyer was listed for the suspect in online jail records.

In 2014, a person with the same name and age as the suspect used a vehicle to smash a Ten Commandments monument on Oklahoma Capitol grounds, law enforcement in Oklahoma said.

Reed then fled the scene and went into a federal building. He made threats against then President Barack Obama, they said. News reports in Oklahoma said he was never formally charged.

Arkansas has not officially confirmed whether the same Reed was involved in Wednesday’s incident, Powell said.

The 6-foot (1.8-meter) monument in Little Rock was funded with $26,000 in private donations. Legislation permitting it on the Capitol grounds was enacted in 2015, and whether that was appropriate has been debated ever since.

Courts have ordered the removal of similar religious monuments erected in Alabama and Oklahoma, which had rebuilt its monument after it was destroyed.

A civil liberties group has pledged a court challenge in Arkansas, saying the monument showed an unconstitutional government preference for a certain religion.

Since Arkansas’ Ten Commandments monument act was proposed, satanists and other groups have sought state permission to place markers on Capitol grounds, but their requests were rejected.

(Reporting by Steve Barnes in Little Rock and Jon Herskovitz in Austin, Texas; Editing by Taylor Harris and Grant McCool)

Ten Commandments monument installed in Arkansas; ACLU vows court fight

A statue of the Ten Commandments is seen after it was installed on the grounds of the state Capitol in Little Rock, Arkansas, U.S. June 27, 2017. REUTERS/Steve Barnes

By Steve Barnes

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. (Reuters) – Arkansas installed a Ten Commandments monument on the state’s Capitol grounds on Tuesday, and a civil liberties group pledged a court challenge, saying it showed an unconstitutional government preference for a certain religion.

Legislators approved the act for the monument in 2015, and whether it was appropriate for the public grounds has been debated since. Similar monuments erected in Oklahoma and Alabama were ordered removed by courts.

At the installation ceremony for the some 3,000-pound (1,360 kg) granite slab in Little Rock, state Senator Jason Rapert noted that the Ten Commandments were chiseled into the portals of the U.S. Supreme Court.

“If it’s good enough for the U.S. Capitol, it’s good enough for the state of Arkansas,” said Rapert, an evangelist who sponsored the legislation permitting the new monument.

But Rita Sklar, executive director of the Arkansas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, said the group is preparing to file a lawsuit over the monument’s placement.

“It’s a visible symbol of government endorsement of one particular religious belief over others, or over no belief,” Sklar said.

Since Arkansas’ Ten Commandments monument act was proposed about two years ago, Satanists and other groups have also sought state permission to place monuments on capitol grounds but were rejected.

Rapert and other supporters of the monument noted that the U.S. Supreme Court in 2005 had ruled in favor of a similar memorial on the Texas state capitol grounds. They said they were confident the Arkansas version would withstand a legal challenge.

But Sklar said the Supreme Court had noted the Texas monument had been in place for decades, giving it historical value.

In 2015, the Oklahoma Supreme Court ordered a Ten Commandments monument to be removed from capitol grounds there because the state’s constitution bans the use of state property for the benefit of a religion.

(Reporting by Steve Barnes; Additional reporting by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Leslie Adler)

Powerful storm front that killed 16 threatens eastern United States

Homeowners clean up debris after a tornado hit the town of Emory, Texas.

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – A powerful storm system bore down on the eastern United States on Monday after spawning tornadoes and torrential rains that killed at least 16 people and shut down hundreds of roads over the weekend, forecasters said.

The storm that tore through the central United States from Texas to Illinois could spawn damaging winds, hail and  tornadoes as it heads into parts of the Middle Atlantic and Northeast, the National Weather Service said.

The front, described as a “powerhouse of an upper level system,” could pack downpours of more than an inch (2.5 cm) an hour as it hammers Pennsylvania and New York state, the weather agency said.

Flooding that could be record breaking in eastern Oklahoma, northern Arkansas, Missouri and Illinois was expected to take several days to recede, it said.

 

Water overtaking a Bridge located on Table Rock lake Picture by Austin Metcalf

Water overtaking a Bridge located on Table Rock lake Picture by Austin Metcalf

High water in Missouri on Monday forced about 330 roads to close, including a stretch of Interstate 44 near Rolla, the state transportation department said on its website. More than 100 highways also were shut in neighboring Arkansas, state officials said.

In North Carolina, Governor Roy Cooper urged residents to remain on their guard, especially in areas already hit by flooding. Almost 30 roads were closed from high water and washouts, his office said in a statement.

Tornadoes from the storm system killed four people on Saturday in Canton, Texas, about 60 miles (95 km) east of Dallas. The National Weather Service said Canton was hit by four tornadoes, with two packing winds of 136 miles to 165 miles (219 km to 265 km) per hour.

Five people died in Arkansas, with two still missing, said state emergency management spokeswoman Melody Daniels. She could not confirm news reports that the missing were children who were in a car swept off a bridge.

A business damaged by tornadoes is seen in Canton, Texas.

A business damaged by tornadoes is seen in Canton, Texas. REUTERS/Brandon Wade

In Mississippi, one man was killed when a tree fell on his home, and a 7-year-old boy was electrocuted when he unplugged an electric golf cart in standing water, said Greg Flynn, a spokesman for the state’s emergency agency.

Two people were killed in Tennessee in storm-related incidents, authorities said. They included a Florence, Alabama, woman struck by a falling tree on Sunday, the Lincoln County Sheriff’s Department said in a statement.

In Missouri, a 72-year-old Billings woman was swept away by high waters on Saturday, and two men ages 18 and 77 drowned in  separate incidents on Sunday, emergency management spokesman Mike O’Connell said.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Colleen Jenkins and Andrew Hay)

Tornadoes, storms kill 11 in U.S. South

A business damaged by tornadoes is seen in Canton, Texas

(Reuters) – Tornadoes ripped through an East Texas county on Saturday evening, killing at least four people and injuring dozens, while high winds, falling trees and floods killed five in neighboring states, according to news reports.

Three tornadoes were confirmed by the U.S. National Weather Service in Canton, a city about 60 miles (95 km) east of Dallas in Van Zandt County.

The winds flipped over cars, snapped trees, destroyed houses and left roads strewn with debris and fallen power lines, according to photographs and video published by the Dallas Morning News.

“We have at least four fatalities,” Canton Mayor Lou Ann Everett said at a news conference on Sunday, adding that number could rise. “The damage was extensive in the affected area. It is heartbreaking and upsetting.” Forty-nine people had been treated for injuries, she said.

Earlier a Canton fire department captain said he believed five people had been killed.

The mayor urged people to stay away from a sprawling flea market known as First Monday Trade Days, as crews tried to clean up debris.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott sent a search and rescue team to the area.

The storms caused floods in neighboring states, killing a 72-year-old woman in southwestern Missouri who was washed away in her car, according to local media reports.

In Arkansas, a woman was killed when a tree fell on her mobile home in DeWitt, and a 10-year-old girl was killed after flood waters swept her away in Springdale, ABC News reported. A fire chief responding to the storm was killed on Sunday in Cleburne County, the county sheriff said

At least two other people reportedly died in storm-related incidents, while two children were missing after their mother’s car was swept from a road by floodwaters in Madison County. As many as 100,000 homes and businesses lost power, and Gov. Asa Hutchinson declared a state of emergency on Sunday night.

In Mississippi, a person was killed after a tree fell on their house in Durant, ABC reported. The governors of Missouri and Oklahoma declared states of emergency.

In the St. Louis area, severe thunderstorms were forecast through Sunday. Some people were told to evacuate and 33 rescues were conducted, mostly in the state’s central and southwestern regions, Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens said.

(Editing by Chris Michaud)

For families of radicalizing U.S. youth, a help line

Program coordinator David Phillippi (L) and Executive Director Myrian Nadri with "Parents For Peace", a support group founded by parents whose children were involved in extremist violence and which is starting a telephone helpline for people who fear their loved ones are being recruited into extremist organizations, speak to Reuters in Brookline, Massachusetts, U.S., March 23, 2017. Picture taken March 23, 2017. REUTERS/Brian Snyder

By Scott Malone

BOSTON (Reuters) – Melvin Bledsoe felt helpless as he watched his son transform – becoming distant, converting to Islam and changing his name from Carlos Bledsoe to Abdulhakim Mujahid Muhammad.

The Baptist father of two wishes there was someone who could have offered him guidance before the 22-year-old attacked a U.S. Army recruiting center in Little Rock, Arkansas, killing a soldier and wounding another in 2009.

“I didn’t have any help. I didn’t have no one to turn to, no one to lean on but my other family members,” Bledsoe, 61, who runs a tour company in his native Memphis, Tennessee, recalled in a recent phone interview.

Bledsoe, hoping to give parents in similar situations and fearful of calling the police more options than he had, founded the nonprofit Parents for Peace and launched what it bills as the first citizen-run U.S. telephone help line to counter the ideologies that lead to violent extremism.

The help line, which quietly began tests of operations in December but only now is making itself known widely, is aimed at filling a void in the United States and perhaps avert violence by offering parents and others a way to better communicate with loved ones flirting with extremism, according to people who study it.

“It could be a powerful thing. People don’t have anywhere to go if they have a concern about their kids and they don’t want to go to law enforcement,” said Heidi Beirich, director of the Intelligence Project at the Montgomery, Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups.

Another group, called Life After Hate and based in Chicago, offers assistance to people personally involved in white supremacist organizations who are looking to break away. And some Muslim leaders across the country offer counseling to those tempted to turn to violence.

The Parents for Peace help line – +1-844-49-PEACE (+1-844-487-3223) – models itself on suicide help lines and other groups addressing such issues, and is open not only to those dealing with militant Islamist ideologies but also white supremacist and other radicalizations.

The United States has seen dozens of extremist attacks since the Little Rock incident, from the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing and the 2016 Orlando nightclub massacre carried out by militant Islamists, to the 2015 mass shooting at a historically black Charleston, South Carolina, church by a white man who wanted to start a race war.

DIFFERENT BELIEFS, SIMILAR PATHS

Although very different ideologies motivated the attackers, many followed similar paths to violence, immersing themselves in angry online communities.

“Former neo-Nazis and former jihadists report similar things,” said Myriam Nadri, a therapist of French-Moroccan heritage with an office in Boston who is the group’s executive director. “They talk about experiences with humiliation, they talk about extreme rage and anger.”

Calls to the help line are answered by two staffers, who work out of a tiny office in Boston. They begin calls by taking time to hear out callers’ concerns.

The counselors then advise callers on techniques to persuade their loved ones to open up about their activities, in order to counter the secrecy that militant and criminal groups usually urge on their members.

So far, the line has received just a couple of calls, but Nadri said she expects the volume to pick up as the group does more to publicize its existence.

In some cases, callers may be put in contact with Bledsoe or other members of his group who have lost loved ones to extremism. Bledsoe’s son survived his attack and is serving a life sentence, while other members of Parents for Peace have seen relatives killed.

Their number includes Carole Mansfield of Burton, Michigan, whose granddaughter, Nicole, traveled to Syria to join its civil war and died in the fighting in 2013.

“I’m battling cancer and I just hope and pray that I can live long enough to help at least one family save their loved one,” Mansfield said in a recent phone interview. “That’s the mission that I have in my life.”

The help line makes clear that callers who fear an attack is imminent should call authorities. The group otherwise has avoided working directly with law enforcement, and has not sought any funding from the U.S. government’s “countering violent extremism” program.

That Justice Department program, established during Democratic President Barack Obama’s administration, aimed to address the factors that drive some to violence by providing grants and other resources to community groups to develop prevention efforts.

Obama’s successor, Republican President Donald Trump, now wants the program to focus solely on Islamist militancy, rather than also addressing white supremacist groups. That move has drawn criticism from Democrats in Congress.

The proposed policy shift makes Parents for Peace’s neutrality all the more important, Bledsoe said.

“It should be about any extremist,” he said. “Parents for Peace is willing to talk to anyone who feels there is a threat.”

(Reporting by Scott Malone; Editing by Jonathan Oatis)