Featured Articles from KSPR 33

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- Springfield police continued their search Monday for a murder suspect they believe is dangerous. 21-year-old Joshua Kirkland Brown is charged with the murder of 20-year-old Javon Carter. Friends of Carter don't understand the violence. "He was a great kid, he was a cool kid. I went to school with him," said Marcell Hubbard. "I loved Javon. And you know that's so heartbreaking that that stuff had to happen to him. He did not deserve that," Hubbard's mother Gail Harris said.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - The morning drive won't be the same for thousands of people in the Ozarks. Sources inside Clear Channel Radio confirm that a long standing host of the Woody and Janet Show has been fired. Woody P. Snow has been on the air in the Ozarks for decades and has been the morning show captain at KGBX since 1989. Snow's last day on the air was Friday and the show's page on KGBX's website has been taken down. At this point, it's unclear why he was let go. Calls to the Operations Manager at KGBX have not been returned.

On Friday, the Springfield-Greene County Animal Shelter will celebrate six months without having to euthanize a dog that's eligible for adoption. That includes dogs that are healthy and could be treated for worms and fleas; adoptable dogs don't include pit bulls or other potentially vicious breeds. The city pound has more than a dozen rescue partners that take in those dogs and put them up for adoption. Since October 2011, the pound and those groups have worked together to save more than 650 dogs.

Even though school is getting out soon, students are still dealing with an infection causing throat pain.  According to Dr. Clint Strong with Steeplechase Family Physicians Clinic in Springfield, strep throat is going around.  "Right here at the end of the school year we're still seeing quite a bit of strep throat in the elementary school, junior high school age kids," Dr. Strong said. "Fever, headache, sore throat especially pain with swallowing are symptoms.  A lot of moms and dads like to look for the white patches in the throat, but what we really want to look for is a red beefy appearance of the throat.

They became a problem on the coasts, at hubs of international travel. Now, bed bugs are biting in the Ozarks, and becoming a problem for local hotel owners. Pest control has helped a number of Branson hotels get rid of bed bug infestations. We don't know how many, because the hotels are afraid to admit it. While bed bugs don't carry any diseases, and they can be found in even the cleanest places... Branson knows they're bad for business. "We want everyone to understand that there's no way that we, as a business, can prevent this situation from occurring, because they come in with guests.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - While up to 1.5 million people in the U.S. suffer from aortic steno-sis (AS), approximately 500,000 within this group of patients suffer from severe AS which usually occurs in patients older than 75 years of age. The Edwards SAPIEN Trans-catheter Heart Valve is the first and only TAVR therapy to receive FDA approval, which occurred in November of 2011 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA) as a therapy for patients with severe symptomatic native aortic valve steno-sis who have been determined by a cardiac surgeon to be inoperable for open aortic valve replacement and in whom existing co-morbidities would not preclude the expected benefit from correction of the aortic steno-sis.

LEBANON, Mo. - Parents at an Ozarks school district say their kids are being discriminated against because they have disabilities. A few of them say after numerous meetings with school officials, something needs to change. School officials say 14 percent of students at the Lebanon School District have some sort of disability. Under federal law, those students have an individualized education program. But a handful of parents are upset with what's being done. 8-year-old Varonica Abel says her favorite subject in school is reading.

Polk county authorities say a woman accused of stabbing her 4-year-old son in the throat told investigators she planned to kill all nine of her children. 44-year-old Doinita Mitaru of Morrisville, MO is charged with felony assault and armed criminal action. She's jailed on $250,000 bond. Investigators say Mitaru admitted to stabbing the 4-year-old in an attempt to kill him.    She also told them she planned to kill all nine of her children, but could not because some of them woke up and started screaming.

WALNUT GROVE, Mo. - A Greene County man is dead following a wreck just west of Walnut Grove. Missouri State Highway Patrol says 50-year-old Jerry Hicks lost control of his SUV around 5 Saturday morning. Hicks skidded into an embankment and his vehicle overturned. Authorities say Hicks was wearing a seatbelt.

SPRINGFIELD, MO - The Springfield Cardinals are giving away 2,000 2011 St. Louis Cardinals World Series Replica Rings at the Thursday April 19th 7:08 game vs. Tulsa at Hammons Field. You could receive 4 free tickets to the big event by liking our KSPR Sports Facebook Page .  Just click on the Cardinals Tix button beneath the cover photo and sign up. The contest will end on Wednesday at 5:00 pm.  We will announce the winners on the KSPR News at 10 Wednesday night.

One in seven.  According to a Reuters study, that's how many people worldwide who believe the world will end during their lifetime. Those numbers are backed up by a recent proliferation of doomsday websites and TV shows like National Geographic's Doomsday Preppers. They're devoted to those who believe the Mayan calendar supposedly ending this year means the world will end on December 21, 2012. Oother preppers, like Springfield resident Vincent Finelli, laugh at the Mayan apocalypse predictions.

For the second straight week mortgage rates have hit an all-time low, but that doesn't seem to matter for many in the Ozarks because they still can't buy a home.   Mortgage rates have been below 4% every week except one since December, yet home sales dropped in March.  It's not that the dream of owning a home is dying; it's that buying one has become more like a nightmare.   "A lot's gone on in 28 years that we survived. "   Case in point-- housing sales are down and Larry Flatness is still building houses, for Steve Flatness, his son.   "He worked for me for 20 years and now the joke is I'm working for him and will be for the next 20," he tells us, laughing.

People who own 53 properties in Stone County have or will decide if they'll sell to allow the expansion of one of the Table Rock Lake area's busiest corridors. On Tuesday, The Missouri Highways and Transportation Commission started the eminent domain process for one piece of property along the route. A Missouri Department of Transportation spokesman says the department settled with 75% of the properties needed to expand Route 13. He says officials are in negotiations with others and going to court with one. The Smith family is preparing to move out of their first home off Route 13 in Stone County.

SPRINGFIELD, Mo. - More men are choosing kids over career. That's according to the latest Census numbers. Across the country almost one in three dads are taking care of the kids at least one day a week. The increase in the number of stay-at-home dads points to a couple of reasons. More mothers are going to work and more fathers are out of work because of the recession. Also with the cost of child care on the rise, more dads, like Josh Zahn, are choosing to stay home.