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A bill that would make it a felony to donate fetal tissue from abortions for research or therapies won first-round approval in the Missouri House Tuesday, but lawmakers blocked an effort to make it illegal to help a women obtain an abortion outside the state. The bill sponsored by Rep. Hannah Kelly, R-Mountain Grove, grew […]

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Missouri children would be better protected from lead poisoning under a state legislative bill to  require schools to nearly rid their drinking water of the dangerous toxin. The bill, heard Monday by the House Conservation and Natural Resources Committee, would require schools to test drinking water, remove old coolers and filter water where lead is […]

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Beer heiress Trudy Busch Valentine entered the Democratic primary race for U.S. Senate on Monday, giving the party a candidate who could potentially match Republican spending this year out of her own pocket. In a three-minute video announcing her campaign, Valentine says she is entering the race to bridge divisive politics but provides no specifics […]

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With mental health issues on the rise nationwide, Missouri lawmakers are weighing bills that would provide pharmacists and teachers with more training to recognize the signs of suicide. A bill sponsored by Rep. Adam Schwadron, R-St. Charles, heard Monday in the House Health and Mental Health Policy Committee, would allow suicide awareness and prevention to […]

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The U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee reopened partisan disagreements Monday as members scheduled a vote for April 4 on Ketanji Brown Jackson’s nomination to the Supreme Court. Chairman Dick Durbin, D-Ill., said Republicans’ criticisms of Jackson’s record and responses were either untrue or disingenuous. Meanwhile, ranking Republican Chuck Grassley of Iowa again raised process concerns. Jackson […]

The post U.S. Senate panel bickers over Supreme Court nomination but sets vote next week appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri House members are not ready to accept the congressional redistricting map approved by the state Senate. The House met Monday without voting on the Senate plan, approved Thursday at the end of a Senate session that lasted almost 24 hours.  State Rep. Dan Shaul, R-Imperial and chairman of the House Redistricting Committee, said after […]

The post Missouri Senate congressional redistricting plan stalls on return to the House appeared first on Missouri Independent.

For seven weeks, factional fights among Republicans stalled a Missouri Senate vote on a new map for the state’s eight congressional districts. And when the deadlock was finally broken Thursday, was over, no one was predicting the final seven weeks of the session would see an end to the intra-party strife. The conservative caucus, which […]

The post Missouri Senate leaders expect no let up in chamber’s factional fights appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Just 30 minutes apart in central Missouri, Lincoln University and University of Missouri have long been close partners in agricultural research and instruction.  Lincoln runs the state’s largest organic research farm in Jefferson City, and MU researchers often participate in studies there. For 50 years, the two university systems have had a “unified extension program,” where […]

The post Lincoln University to see a bipartisan push for equitable land-grant funding in state budget appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Taylor Burks, the former Boone County Clerk running in the Republican primary for the 4th Congressional District, said Friday he’s in the race to stay even if state lawmakers draw his residence out of the district. Burks, like another of his six primary opponents, state Rep. Sara Walsh, lives in the southern part of the […]

The post Missouri candidate filing deadline comes amid uncertainty on congressional districts appeared first on Missouri Independent.

When they’re not busy accusing her of being too lenient on pedophiles and too hard on white people, Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee holding hearings on Supreme Court nominee Ketanji Brown Jackson purport to worship an originalist judicial philosophy. That means they like judges who promise, all Antonin Scalia-like, to base judicial rulings on […]

The post RINO | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This story was originally published by ProPublica. After learning from a ProPublica analysis that his southwest Missouri city is a hot spot of toxic air pollution, Verona Mayor Joseph Heck demanded that government officials look into the local cancer rate. Three months later, the state health department confirmed his fears: The rate of Non-Hodgkin lymphoma […]

The post Missouri launches cancer study after ProPublica identifies toxic air pollution hot spot appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Casey’s General Store is denying allegations that the company’s pizza-delivery drivers are being shortchanged on their wages. The company, which operates roughly 2,300 stores in 16 states including Missouri, allegedly pays its drivers a flat rate of $2 per delivery, but doesn’t track drivers’ actual vehicle expenses or make any attempt to reimburse drivers for […]

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The last thing people want to hear right now is that the coronavirus might have mutated yet again into yet another deadly variant, extending the pain, death and inconvenience of a pandemic that we long hoped would be over. However, whether the subvariant of omicron known as BA.2 will hit the United States as hard […]

The post Expert: Hard to know if COVID variant will surge in U.S. or how badly appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This story was originally published by The Beacon.  It wasn’t long after Russia invaded Ukraine on Feb. 24, sending more than a million civilians scrambling for safety, that resettlement organizations around the Kansas City area began receiving offers of refugee support. The messages were almost universally well-meaning. People offered financial donations and even volunteered to […]

The post Goodwill for Ukrainian refugees is abundant in KC. But what about other refugees? appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON – Representatives of the American Bar Association reiterated their finding that Judge Ketanji Brown Jackson is well qualified to sit on the U.S. Supreme Court, and law enforcement groups rebutted GOP accusations Jackson is soft on child pornographers during the final day of Jackson’s confirmation hearings Thursday. Republicans, however, called in witnesses to continue […]

The post Senate winds up grueling Supreme Court hearings on Ketanji Brown Jackson nomination appeared first on Missouri Independent.

An impasse on lines for Missouri’s eight congressional districts broke Thursday when the Missouri Senate approved a proposal that is likely to produce no changes in the partisan makeup of the state’s delegation. The issue stymied the Senate for weeks as the seven-member conservative caucus sought to win support for a map likely to give […]

The post Missouri Senate breaks deadlock on congressional redistricting appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Congressman Billy Long, trailing several of his major rivals in this year’s Republican Senate primary, received a boost – but not an endorsement – Wednesday from former President Donald Trump. The statement, issued Wednesday afternoon, came after a Tuesday evening call that was initiated by Trump to ask Long about allegations of child and spousal […]

The post Trump gives boost, but not endorsement, to Billy Long in U.S. Senate primary appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — In the third day of hearings Wednesday on the nomination of Ketanji Brown Jackson to the U.S. Supreme Court, several Republicans on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee interrogated her about sentences she handed down for child pornography offenses, disagreeing vehemently with her judicial decisions. Republicans grilled her with questions she had already answered […]

The post GOP senators attack and interrupt in final day of questioning U.S. Supreme Court nominee appeared first on Missouri Independent.

An ex-FBI agent who conducted the criminal investigation of former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens in 2018 pleaded guilty Wednesday to evidence tampering and was sentenced to a year of probation. William Tisaby, 69, was hired by St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner to assist in the investigation of allegations that Greitens threatened to release a […]

The post Investigator in Greitens’ case pleads guilty to evidence tampering appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Bills that would bar government entities from requiring COVID-19 vaccinations and require private employers to grant religious exemptions continued to face pushback from business associations Wednesday. But the business groups and healthcare associations who testified against the bills during a hearing of the Senate Committee on Commerce, Consumer Protection, Energy and the Environment, said they’re […]

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