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The U.S. Department of Agriculture will send more than $500 million in loans and grants to telecommunications providers to bring high-speed internet to rural areas across 20 states, Secretary Tom Vilsack said Wednesday. The department will spend $360 million in grants and $141 million in loans through its ReConnect Program to benefit sparsely populated communities, including in […]

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WASHINGTON — The U.S. House passed on Wednesday a bill updating a 19th-century law in an attempt to prevent the subversion of future presidential elections. The Presidential Election Reform Act, which passed 229-203, is meant to deter a repeat of the insurrection on Jan. 6, 2021, in which the U.S. Capitol was attacked by a mob of […]

The post U.S. House passes bill reforming Electoral Count Act to stop Jan. 6 repeat appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A Cedar County judge on Wednesday again delayed ruling on the state’s efforts to close Agape Boarding School, the Stockton-based reform school facing mounting abuse allegations — allowing the school to stay open until at least the next hearing, which is scheduled for Monday.

The post Missouri judge once again delays decision on closing Agape Boarding School appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri lawmakers are moving swiftly to complete the special session agenda set by Gov. Mike Parson, with both the House and Senate passing incentives for farms and rural businesses and the Senate finishing work on a tax cut. Only one thing hasn’t gone the way Parson and legislative leaders hoped. While the Missouri House was […]

The post Missouri lawmakers push ahead on tax cuts, rural credits in special session appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Conservative Republicans gathered outside the U.S. Capitol on Tuesday to commit to bringing legislation to the floor that would make it a felony to perform gender-affirming care on transgender youth, should the GOP take control of the U.S. House following the November midterm elections. “How on earth can this be happening in America? […]

The post Republicans in Congress push to criminalize gender-affirming care for transgender youth appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON —   As lawmakers begin envisioning the next farm bill, some U.S. House Republicans are wary of making climate change a priority for farmers and ranchers. The pushback from Republicans at a Tuesday hearing came as the Biden administration has tried to make significant new investments in climate change mitigation on farmland, last week […]

The post Clash over climate change funding emerging in farm bill debate appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Missouri Senate gave first-round approval Tuesday to a $335 million income tax cut over objections from liberal members who saw fiscal problems ahead and conservative members who wanted deeper cuts. The bill, which needs a final vote before it moves to the Missouri House, is a pared-down version of the $700 million tax cut […]

The post Scaled-back income tax cut wins initial approval in Missouri Senate appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Did legislators violate Missouri’s constitution when they overruled counties to clear the way for industrial hog farms across the state? Does new legislation prohibiting local regulation apply to counties that already had their own rules? These are some of the questions before the Missouri Supreme Court in a case challenging the state’s attempt to bar […]

The post Missouri Supreme Court weighs whether counties can regulate CAFOs appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Republicans in state capitals across the country are targeting an investing concept known as environmental, social and corporate governance criteria, or ESG for short. Describing these investment criteria as “woke” and “misguided activism,” GOP officials argue that by taking these factors into account when making investment choices, financial institutions are putting ideology ahead of making […]

The post GOP leaders target ‘woke’ investments through state pension funds appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — More than 1,600 book titles across 32 states were banned from public schools during the 2021-2022 school year, with the bulk of the ban requests coming from a handful of right-wing groups pushing for censorship of books that feature LGBTQ+ characters and characters of color, a new report issued Monday said. “What I […]

The post An ‘unprecedented flood’ of book bans engulfs U.S. school districts, PEN report says appeared first on Missouri Independent.

For the better part of the past century, the American electric power system evolved around large, mostly fossil fuel power plants delivering electricity to residences, businesses and industry through a network of transmission and distribution wires that collectively came to be called the electric grid. But as the threat of climate change driven by carbon […]

The post Amid a massive American clean energy shift, grid operators play catch-up appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Missouri Senate this week will debate an income tax cut that doesn’t immediately lower rates as much as Gov. Mike Parson proposed but would, if passed, promise future reductions. Under a proposal passed on a party-line vote Monday in the Senate Appropriations Committee, the top state income tax rate for next year would be […]

The post Income tax cut plan heads to Missouri Senate floor for debate appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Health insurance giant Centene Corp. has agreed to pay $165.6 million to Texas to resolve claims that it overcharged the state’s Medicaid program for pharmacy services. It’s the biggest known payout by the nation’s largest Medicaid insurer over its drug pricing practices. The deal was signed July 11 but hadn’t been publicly announced until Monday […]

The post Centene to pay $166 million to Texas in Medicaid drug pricing settlement appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s lawsuit against St. Louis’ use of federal funds to support abortion access will be sent back to the state courts to decide — a move both Schmitt and national abortion-rights groups had hoped for. On Monday, U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Missouri Judge Audrey Fleissig sent the […]

The post Missouri AG’s lawsuit against St. Louis abortion access fund sent back to state court appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Eighty open cases of child abuse and neglect sat on Matt Cordova’s desk in 2017 during the height of the “hole I found myself buried in,” he remembers. Twenty open cases would have been a lot to handle; 80 was impossible. An investigator at Missouri’s child welfare department for two years, Cordova was tasked with […]

The post ‘This job is impossible’: High turnover, low morale plague Missouri child welfare agency appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Two Newton County sheriff deputies were dispatched to a trailer park north of Neosho to evict a man and his wife on Nov. 13, 2017. According to the deputies, the man refused to leave, fought off the deputies and stole a patrol car that he would later crash in town. The local prosecutor would go […]

The post Missouri Court of Appeals revives ‘old school’ self-defense law in resisting arrest case appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Editor’s note: The following is a condensed excerpt from “Using My Word Power” by columnist Janice Ellis. The book is now available from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, Apple Books and other major online booksellers. It’s also available at the author’s website, Real Advocacy Journalism. I have been an advocate journalist for nearly four decades, which is nothing […]

The post We all have power within us to do good with our words appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Missouri Independent won 14 awards Saturday — including five first place honors — in the annual Missouri Press Association Better Newspaper Contest.  The awards were presented at the association’s annual convention in Lake Ozark. The Independent competed in the Dailies Class 2 category. A months-long, multi-story collaboration between The Independent and The Documenting COVID-19 […]

The post The Independent wins 14 journalism awards in annual Missouri Press contest appeared first on Missouri Independent.

LAKE OZARK ‐‐ The Republican trying to get the only statewide office currently held by Democrats pledged Friday he would show no partisan favoritism, while his opponents said only they could provide the independence needed in the office. State Treasurer Scott Fitzpatrick, former state Rep. Alan Green and accountant John Hartwig Jr. met in their […]

The post Missouri auditor candidates spar over independence from partisan influence appeared first on Missouri Independent.

LAKE OZARK– Attorney General Eric Schmitt, who last week accused Democrat Trudy Busch Valentine of dodging debates, refused to show up for the first debate of Missouri’s U.S. Senate campaign on Friday.  Organized by the Missouri Press Association as part of its annual convention in Lake Ozark, Valentine, Libertarian Party candidate Jonathan Dine and Constitution […]

The post Schmitt no-shows Missouri Senate debate, Valentine slams Chinese ownership of farmland appeared first on Missouri Independent.