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For nearly two decades, Tona Henderson collected newspaper articles, letters and photographs documenting who in the small town of Emmett, Idaho, was diagnosed with cancer, including her own family. The result is a wall in her home covered in pictures and pages displaying the names of community members who may have been exposed to lethal […]

The post ‘The fight isn’t over’: Idaho downwinders persist after Congress cuts compensation for them appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Americans are typically told the story of the scientists who built the atomic bomb as an intellectual race for the world’s most powerful weapon during wartime.  More than 100 atmospheric weapons tests were conducted in the U.S. and its territories between 1945 and 1962. It resulted in widespread radioactive fallout across much of the U.S., […]

The post Radius: The legacy of America’s nuclear weapons testing program appeared first on Missouri Independent.

When he appointed Andrew Bailey as attorney general in late 2022, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson vowed he’d have “the full resources of the governor of the State of Missouri” to ensure his success in the new job.  “On the political side,” Parson added, “I’ll do everything I can.” During Bailey’s transition into office, Parson dispatched […]

The post ‘Stinks quite a bit’: Mike Parson accused of illegally using office to meddle in primaries appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Nine-year-old Macie Thomas loves living in Raymore. She said she spends the summers playing outside, golfing and swimming. Her best friend and her grandmother both live nearby.  But Thomas told Missouri senators Tuesday that she fears a landfill proposed just over the city limits in Kansas City will change everything. Thomas said her father suffers […]

The post Kansas City-area residents plead with Missouri lawmakers to stop landfill appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The presidential nominating process kicked off Monday in Iowa, with a decisive victory for former President Donald Trump in the Republican caucuses.  Missouri’s turn will come in March, when Republicans meet for caucuses on March 2 and Democrats participate in a party-run primary on March 23. From 2000 to 2020, Missouri had a state-run presidential […]

The post Missouri political parties prepare for life after the presidential primary appeared first on Missouri Independent.

When Jane Thompson moved away from Uravan in western Colorado decades ago, it was still a quiet company town of about 1,000 residents, all of whom had some connection to the uranium mill owned by Union Carbide. “It was a great place to grow up,” said Thompson, who helps keep the town’s legacy alive as […]

The post ‘It lives in geologic time’: Nuclear contamination and health risks remain throughout Colorado appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A coalition of parents and community members in St. Louis Public Schools is demanding more transparency at local school board meetings and in-school reading tutors as part of an effort to deal with standardized test scores that show a huge chunk of the district’s students struggling to read at grade level. The district’s current enrollment […]

The post Coalition pushing to improve literacy rates for St. Louis Public Schools appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Marti Gerdes remembers living in Prescott as a kid and, every winter, she and her family would make snow ice cream, mixing milk and sugar with snow. It was a treat she recalls having any time it snowed — except for one year when her mother told them they couldn’t have snow ice cream because […]

The post ‘We’re running out of time’: Program for Arizonans exposed to radiation set to expire in June appeared first on Missouri Independent.

MARYLAND HEIGHTS — Covered in white protective clothing, Wendy Bronfein stepped into a long, sterile hallway of closed doors. She calls it the “Willy Wonka-esque” corridor.  “This is the Mike Teavee part of the tour,” said Bronfein, co-founder of the Maryland-based marijuana company Curio Wellness, referencing the character from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.”  Everything […]

The post Sprawling new cannabis manufacturing, cultivation facility set to open in St. Louis County appeared first on Missouri Independent.

As we remember and reflect on the life and work of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., there are valuable lessons that should give us hope that we can overcome what we face today in a divided and teetering America.  If we, like King, truly believe that the words of the Constitution and Declaration of Independence […]

The post The lessons of Martin Luther King Jr.’s life should give us hope today  appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Frustrated with legislative inaction on sports wagering, Missouri’s major sports franchises are going directly to voters. On Friday, a coalition that includes six major sports teams and is backed by major donations from two sports betting platforms announced an initiative campaign to put sports gambling on this year’s ballot. In a news release, St. Louis […]

The post St. Louis Cardinals lead Missouri’s major teams to launch initiative on sports betting appeared first on Missouri Independent.

People like Mary Dickson aren’t legally considered downwinders, the term used to describe those exposed to radiation during Cold War-era nuclear weapons testing in Nevada and New Mexico.  “Every time I say I’m a downwinder, I get ‘Oh, you grew up in St. George?’” said Dickson, of Salt Lake City, who was diagnosed with thyroid […]

The post ‘How much money are our lives worth?’: Utah downwinders call RECA expansion failure a betrayal appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Republican U.S. House lawmakers, led by Rep. Glenn Grothman of Wisconsin, conducted a hearing Thursday to examine the possibility that “wokeness” hurts U.S. military readiness and effectiveness. The winding, over two-hour hearing by a subpanel of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability broached topics including, but not limited to, recruitment, benefits for military families, […]

The post U.S. House Republicans probe DEI policies in the military appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Last year, a sign on Interstate 44 near Kirkwood in St. Louis County told motorists they were driving on a highway where litter cleanup was done to honor Kevin “Rockhead” Johnson. The sign was up until a motorist recognized the name as a man executed by the state in November 2022 for the killing of […]

The post Missouri ‘Adopt-a-Highway’ program in limbo over sign honoring convicted murderer appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A Missouri law passed in 2022 deletes the names of victims and witnesses in court documents, which experts say has made Missouri courts the least transparent in the nation. Among the witness names deleted are police officers. Eugene Volokh, a nationally known libertarian legal commentator, called the law “a very serious problem” under the headline “Missouri ‘Stealth […]

The post Missouri hides more court information from the public than other states appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Meetings on Thursday between U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson and conservative lawmakers led to speculation he was about to walk away from the bipartisan spending agreement he signed off on just this past weekend — a decision that would greatly increase the chances of a partial government shutdown next week. Also Thursday, Biden […]

The post New turmoil over possible shutdown in D.C. amid warnings of a WIC food program shortfall appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The first pill for postpartum depression approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration is now available, but experts worry that minority and low-income women, who are disproportionately affected by the condition, won’t have easy access to the new medication. About 1 in 8 women experience symptoms of postpartum depression, federal data shows. Suicide and drug […]

The post There’s a new pill for postpartum depression, but many at-risk women face hurdles appeared first on Missouri Independent.

At a desk wedged between a hallway vent and a classroom door, Marge Mangelsdorf coaxed Harlan to write down what he remembered.  The two had just finished reading Hi! Fly Guy, a popular children’s book about a boy and his pet bug. Now it was time for Harlan, a first grader at Bayless Elementary School […]

The post At Oasis, St. Louis tutors reach across generations to foster learning appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Those living nearest to the first nuclear blast in history have suffered for generations.  In New Mexico, Trinity Test site neighbors weren’t warned or evacuated before the U.S. government detonated the atomic bomb in 1945. The light was so bright it could be seen hundreds of miles away. Nearly half a million people resided within […]

The post ‘They scrapped us’: The Trinity downwinders and New Mexico mine workers who remain unrecognized appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri law won’t allow Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft to unilaterally disqualify President Joe Biden from the ballot, as he has threatened to do if Donald Trump is kept off the ballot in other states, according to  participants in a decade-old case that set limits on the authority of the office. Only a court can […]

The post Can Ashcroft boot Biden from Missouri’s ballot? A 2014 appeals court ruling says ‘no’ appeared first on Missouri Independent.