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This year’s session of Missouri’s legislature has been flooded with measures to control what local public schools must do or cannot do. It represents an erosion of the reverence I regularly heard from lawmakers of both parties about the near sanctity of local control over education by locally elected school district board members. Beyond that, […]

The post Capitol Perspectives: Legislative targeting of education appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s record on China is once again coming under fire, with a political action committee supporting one of his rivals in the GOP Senate primary launching an attack ad during the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. Team PAC, which was formed to support the U.S. Senate candidacy of former Missouri Gov. Eric […]

The post Pro-Greitens PAC hits Schmitt on China in ad airing during Olympics opening ceremony appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The director of Missouri’s transportation department is facing calls for his ouster from Republican lawmakers who contend he’s broken trust with the public with a plan to give worker pay raises just months after a new state gas tax took effect. In December, the Highways and Transportation Commission sued Acting Commissioner of Administration Ken Zellers […]

The post Missouri transportation chief under fire for bucking lawmakers on pay raise plan appeared first on Missouri Independent.

More than 20 FBI field offices around the nation are investigating a series of bomb threats characterized as “hate crimes” against Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and unidentified “houses of worship” but have found no explosives at the sites, the agency announced Wednesday. The statement did not say whether the threatened houses of worship, […]

The post FBI probes bomb threats against HBCUs, campuses reopen after no explosives are found appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A Cole County judge kept intact most of the ballot summary Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft wrote for an initiative petition seeking to bar public funds from going to private schools. On Wednesday, Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem ruled that Ashcroft was correct to say in the summary that the initiative petition would […]

The post Judge approves most of Ashcroft’s summary for Missouri school funding ballot measure appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News.  Jamie Taylor received two letters from the Missouri Department of Social Services Family Support Division that began, “Good news,” before stating that she was denied Medicaid coverage. Her income exceeded the state’s limits for the federal-state public health insurance program for people with low incomes. Missouri […]

The post States like Missouri look to upgrade glitchy, outdated health care technology appeared first on Missouri Independent.

TOPEKA — U.S. Sens. Jerry Moran and Jon Tester say swift action is needed to ensure post-9/11 combat veterans who were exposed to burn pits can receive medical care. Moran, a Kansas Republican, and Tester, a Montana Democrat, in a news conference Tuesday outlined a billion-dollar plan to offer access to VA medical care to […]

The post Kansas, Montana senators unveil plan to provide VA care for burn pit exposure appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Missouri Senate refused to confirm Donald Kauerauf as Gov. Mike Parson’s health director on Tuesday, leaving Kauerauf banned from the position for life. Hours later, Parson named Richard Moore, the Department of Health and Senior Services’ general counsel, as acting director of the agency. He slammed senators who blocked Kauerauf’s nomination and called the […]

The post Gov. Mike Parson’s pick to lead state health department rejected by Missouri Senate appeared first on Missouri Independent.

In July 2020, Gov. Mike Parson signed into law a potentially sweeping change for coroners across the state of Missouri, many of whom lack medical or forensic training. The law, which creates a governor-appointed commission to write new standards and training for coroners, was written in response to the botched investigation into the 2011 death […]

The post Missouri coroner training commission can’t convene due to lack of action by governor appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Public radio’s Midwest Newsroom and The Missouri Independent are launching a six-month project to bring more in-depth local reporting to the audiences of both news organizations. With grant funding from the Kansas City-based Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation, Midwest Newsroom has hired two journalists for a six-month fellowship to work alongside reporters and editors at The […]

The post Public radio’s Midwest Newsroom, Missouri Independent partner to boost local reporting appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Since the start of 2003, Missouri voters have amended the state constitution 26 times. They approved a mix of conservative and liberal ideas that include making English the state’s official language, prohibiting same-sex marriage, legalizing medical marijuana and expanding Medicaid eligibilty. The conservative ideas generally flow from the Republican-led General Assembly; the liberal proposals often […]

The post Missourians will vote this November on whether to hold a state constitutional convention appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The federal government will provide $1.15 billion this year to help states cap defunct oil and gas wells, the White House said Monday, as part of a broad plan to reduce methane emissions. The government-wide methane reduction plan comes about two months after President Joe Biden joined a pledge at the United Nations Climate Conference in Scotland […]

The post White House methane plan funds orphan well cleanup, rewards reduced farm emissions appeared first on Missouri Independent.

State health director Donald Kauerauf adamantly spoke against mandating face masks and COVID-19 vaccines during a hearing Monday, as anti-vaccination demonstrators protested his confirmation in the halls outside. While protesters chanted outside the Capitol hearing room, senators inside grilled Kauerauf for nearly two hours on his views on how best to mitigate the spread of […]

The post Anti-vaccine protesters rally against Senate confirmation of Missouri health director appeared first on Missouri Independent.

State officials last year investigated allegations that a law enforcement officer pointed a handgun at his son’s head while intoxicated.  The same officer was also intoxicated during “multiple incidents of domestic disturbances,” Sandy Karsten, director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, testified last week during a Senate committee hearing.  Karsten wanted to suspend the […]

The post Missouri’s public safety leaders push to tighten accountability for police officers appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Two weeks after a Cole County judge stripped local health agencies of their ability to issue orders to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, a top official in the state health department predicted the impact would be much more far-reaching. “The pending litigation is going to shut down most (local public health agency) activities, and based […]

The post Decision nixing local COVID orders hampering health agencies’ response to other diseases appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Health care professionals had high hopes that rapid vaccination of our entire U.S. population would slow COVID-19 transmission and stem the disproportionately high death count in the United States. We also hoped to avoid more concerning mutations that are inevitable when viruses multiply unchecked. I lost my mother to COVID-19 in November of 2020, less […]

The post Vaccine mandates have always faced resistance and saved lives | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday the collapse of a bridge in Pittsburgh illustrated the necessity of federal investment in the nation’s infrastructure, including more than 1,000 bridges in poor condition in Kansas and twice that total in Missouri. Buttigieg braved winter chill to stand at the rusting Rock Island […]

The post Buttigieg points to Pittsburgh bridge collapse as blunt reminder of infrastructure spending needs appeared first on Missouri Independent.

For six days, Dr. Mohamed Nabeel Kuziez and his team at a small emergency room in southeastern Missouri did everything they could to keep a 67-year-old woman with severe pneumonia alive. The day after Kathie Ganime was admitted on Jan. 12, Kuziez saw that her infection was so critical that she needed to be transferred […]

The post COVID surge forced rural Missouri hospital to build makeshift ICU for dying patient appeared first on Missouri Independent.

There was skepticism about new temporary state employees and the cost of developing the Rock Island railroad corridor into a new trail during the Senate Appropriation Committee’s first look at Gov. Mike Parson’s plan for spending $2.8 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds. But for the most part, the 90 minutes presentation Thursday by Budget […]

The post ‘A lasting impact’: Missouri Senate panel hears pitch for using federal COVID funds appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — With the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer by this summer, President Joe Biden has said he will fulfill a campaign promise of appointing a Black woman to an open seat on the highest court in the land. A top contender, who was even vetted by the Obama administration in 2016 as a […]

The post Ketanji Brown Jackson considered among Biden’s top candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court appeared first on Missouri Independent.