In September 1992, as I performed one of the perfunctory duties of my job as assistant city editor of the Columbia Daily Tribune — watching the nightly local news to keep up with our competitors — a startling story came on KMIZ. Stephen Gaither, a spokesman for Harry S Truman Memorial Veterans Hospital, described to […]
Bridget Bolder sent her daughter, Mia, to kindergarten at a neighborhood public school. After all, it seemed the “normal, regular thing to do.” But Bolder started to worry that some of her daughter’s classmates were exposing her to inappropriate topics. Early in the school year, Mia had to tell a teacher about a boy groping […]
Missouri regulators issued another cannabis recall on Friday, the third this month, this time for about 37,000 marijuana products. That brings the total number of marijuana products recalled in August to up nearly 175,000 — almost triple Missouri’s first massive cannabis product recall a year ago. The focus of the recall is products made by […]
Families flock to McDonald County in southwest Missouri each summer to float down the Elk River, visit the caves where Jesse James took refuge and stay in a rustic cabin. The county is a vestige of old, wild Missouri charm — and a place where restaurants and bars still ask, “Smoking or non?” People in […]
A proposal to allow a new casino to be licensed on the Osage River near the Lake of the Ozarks will be on the November ballot, a Cole County judge ruled Friday. The initiative, which was initially found to be 2,031 signatures short in the 2nd Congressional District, actually did have enough valid signatures, Secretary […]
Idaho’s state government was facing a problem. In 2018, its 86 state agencies were operating with a mix of outdated, mismatched business systems that ran internal processes like payroll and human resources. Some of the programs dated back to the 1980s, and many were written in programming languages they don’t teach in engineering schools anymore. […]
WASHINGTON — Vice President Kamala Harris on Thursday defended her values and vowed, if elected, to appoint a Republican to her cabinet in her first major sit-down interview since her presidential campaign began just over a month ago. Harris, who rose to the top of the Democratic ticket after President Joe Biden dropped his bid […]
The Missouri Hemp Trade Association filed a lawsuit Friday in Cole County Circuit Court to stop the governor’s ban on all intoxicating hemp food and drinks from taking effect Sunday. The action comes in response to a memo the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services sent to food retailers on Thursday detailing how the […]
Much has been written about the conservative crusade to stop President Biden’s student loan cancellation efforts, including Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s recent victory in the 8th Circuit Court of Appeals, which blocked the Department of Education from implementing its new income-driven repayment plan, Saving on a Valuable Education (SAVE). Less noticed was how this […]
A summer COVID wave fueled by a highly contagious variant, increased travel and hot days that crowded people indoors may be starting to ebb in the Kansas City area. Health officials said they hope that surge prompts far more people to sign up for the new COVID vaccine, which could reach area pharmacies next week. […]
The pay gap between corporate leaders and workers at low-wage companies narrowed a little between 2022 and 2023, but it’s still huge, according to a report that was released Thursday. In addition, those leaders invested far more heavily in a strategy that boosts their already-lavish pay than they did in employee retirement benefits. Nearly half […]
ORLANDO, Fla. — Florida is the hottest state in the contiguous United States, and its residents suffer the most heat-related illness. Older people are most susceptible to the heat, and nearly 4.7 million Floridians — 1 in 5 residents — are older than 65. The peninsula has 8,436 miles of coastline, and three-quarters of state […]
A St. Louis judge this week set a trial date of next March 10 for the defamation lawsuit against the owners of the far-right conspiracy site Gateway Pundit over false allegations of election fraud against two Georgia poll workers. Although trial schedules can always be amended, the Aug. 26 order by Judge Elizabeth Hogan appears […]
Missourians seem poised to legalize abortion and increase the minimum wage in November but are unlikely to embrace the Democratic statewide candidates who are among the ballot measures’ most ardent supporters, a new poll shows. The proposal to enshrine the right to abortion up until the point of fetal viability in the Missouri Constitution drew […]
If one change could profoundly elevate American politics, it is how campaigns are funded. The relentless need for fundraising incentivizes candidates to exhaust the generosity of small-dollar donors and, at the risk of diminishing their values and policy objectives, rely heavily on a limited number of wealthy contributors. After all, for politicians who have gotten […]
A vast majority of Americans feel negatively about artificial intelligence and how it will impact their futures, though they also report they don’t fully understand how and why the technology is currently being used. The sentiments came from a survey conducted this summer by think tank Heartland Forward, which used Aaru, an AI-powered polling group that […]
WASHINGTON — With the U.S. Department of Education using a staggered approach in opening up the 2025-26 application period for federal financial student aid, the agency said Tuesday it will partner with a small number of community-based organizations to participate in the first testing period beginning Oct. 1. Earlier in August, the department said it would use […]
Missouri lawmakers from both sides of the aisle are calling for emergency interim committees to investigate the state’s monthslong child care subsidy backlog.
On July 23, State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick released an audit detailing how a former mayor of Excelsior Estates improperly paid himself more than $37,000 and funneled more than $200,000 to a business he owned. During the course of their work, auditors found that the records for the village of 209 people on the border of […]
For the nation’s chicken farmers, the last nine months have been breathtaking. Poultry producers have been gamed, we might as well say plucked, for decades by chicken companies. Ever since the 1948 Chicken of Tomorrow contest, Big Poultry has found ways to increase its profitability at the hands of many individual farmers. In July of […]
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