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EL PASO, Texas — Seventeen-year-old Karina Parababire gently rocked her three-month-old daughter as they waited in a migrant shelter before a Friday night bus ride to Chicago. “I want my daughter to have everything that I didn’t have,” Parababire, who traveled up the extremely dangerous route of the Darien Gap while pregnant, said in Spanish. The Venezuelan, […]

The post On the U.S.-Mexico border, hopes and fears after Biden’s order limiting asylum appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri will enter the new fiscal year July 1 with a near-record cash surplus as state spending falls short of budgeted amounts and revenues meet expectations. Meeting revenue expectations won’t, however, be enough to trigger an income tax cut dependent on revenue growth, said Jim Moody, a former state budget director.  “My view is, best […]

The post Missouri budget surplus remains close to record levels as fiscal year nears end appeared first on Missouri Independent.

In March 2018, a heartbroken mother named Donnita Stunson mailed a letter to the mayor of St. Louis asking for help. “I was born and raised in the city of St. Louis,” she wrote. “I was once proud of my city, until Dec. 22, 2017.” On that date, around 3 a.m., an unknown number of […]

The post Why 1,000 homicides in St. Louis remain unsolved appeared first on Missouri Independent.

IRONTON — Sammye White balanced carefully on a stepladder as she pulled a hefty box marked “1993” off the top shelf. White, the elected circuit clerk for Iron County in southeast Missouri, was searching for an old marijuana case.  The small storage room near her office is packed with faded ledgers indexing criminal cases by […]

The post Slow process of Missouri marijuana expungement drags on months after constitutional deadlines appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Out of the $7 million Missouri lawmakers approved last year to help courts expunge decades of marijuana cases, state records show less than 10% of it was spent as of mid-May. Across the state, nearly 123,000 marijuana cases have been expunged, according to numbers compiled by the Missouri Supreme Court. But court officials have said […]

The post Money isn’t enough to speed up Missouri’s marijuana expungements appeared first on Missouri Independent.

CBD Kratom employees have become the first Missouri workers in the industry to unionize, following a Friday election. The election spanned across 17 stores in eastern Missouri and Illinois operated by the St. Louis-based CBD Kratom, which sells largely kratom and hemp-derived THC products. Employees voted 23 to 6 to unionize, with 75% of the […]

The post Kratom workers across eastern Missouri vote to unionize appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A federal program to apologize and acknowledge the harms of radiation exposure is out of time, and for those looking for justice from the federal government, the window for inclusion is getting smaller. The Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act begins to expire Friday, with the U.S. Department of Justice accepting applications postmarked June 10. The […]

The post Time’s run out for the Radiation Exposure and Compensation Act appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A company that makes tests for lead poisoning has agreed to resolve criminal charges that it concealed for years a malfunction that resulted in inaccurately low results. It’s the latest in a long-running saga involving Massachusetts-based Magellan Diagnostics, which will pay $42 million in penalties, according to the Department of Justice. While many of the […]

The post Thousands of children got tested for lead with faulty devices: What parents should know appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden, speaking from the site of the D-Day invasion in Normandy, France, said Friday that those who support democracy must remember what World War II soldiers sacrificed and live up to those ideals. Biden’s remarks came during commemoration of the 80th anniversary of D-Day and sought to tie the threats to […]

The post ‘Democracy begins with each of us,’ Biden says at site of D-Day invasion in Normandy appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Attempts to get kids off of their phones are ramping up in Congress, despite intense lobbying by social media giants and pushback by those worried about violations of First Amendment speech rights. Lawmakers are seeking to set a minimum age to access social media and put more of the onus on social media […]

The post Prodded by fed up parents, some in Congress try to curb kids’ use of social media appeared first on Missouri Independent.

State Sen. Bill Eigel’s campaign for governor accepted too much in anonymous donations and too much from some individual donors, complaints filed Thursday with the Missouri Ethics Commission allege. St. Louis attorney John Maupin, a Republican who in the 1990s was chairman of the Missouri Ethics Commission, filed the two complaints, which also accuse Eigel […]

The post Ethics complaints allege Eigel exceeds limit on anonymous donors to campaign for governor appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Gov. Mike Parson on Wednesday appointed a fourth person to serve on the six-member Missouri Ethics Commission, providing the board with a quorum for the first time since March.  But because one member has been unable to attend meetings since last fall, the commission is still one person short of being able to hold a […]

The post Missouri Ethics Commission finally has a quorum — but still can’t meet or take action appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Academy Award-winning screenwriter Kevin Willmott’s latest documentary film captures the life of civil rights leader Alvin Brooks, who was one of the first Black police officers in Kansas City and served as the city’s first Black department director. Brooks also was founder of the Ad Hoc Group Against Crime, elected to the city council in […]

The post New documentary chronicles life of Kansas City civil rights leader Alvin Brooks appeared first on Missouri Independent.

GRANBY — About a year after Blair Powell built his dream home in the southwest Missouri Ozarks, a noxious smell wafting from the farm next door ruined his son’s wedding reception in their backyard. “It just was ungodly,” Powell said. “Just the worst, horrible, horrible smell. Eyes were burning, some were just nauseous, and some […]

The post Missouri communities divided over spreading meatpacking sludge appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — “They were brave, they were resolute, they were ready,” President Joe Biden said Thursday at the Normandy American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach, one of five along France’s northern coast where Allied troops invaded in 1944 and turned the tide in World War II. Biden and dozens of U.S. lawmakers traveled to Normandy to […]

The post On 80th anniversary of D-Day invasion, Biden and Macron honor WWII veterans at Normandy appeared first on Missouri Independent.

In the coming years, climate change could force Americans from their homes, not just by raising sea levels, worsening wildfires and causing floods — but also by putting insurance coverage out of reach. In places including California, Florida and Louisiana, some homeowners are finding it nearly impossible to find an insurance company that will cover […]

The post States beg insurers not to drop climate-threatened homes appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Meat industry groups and major meat companies spent more than $10 million on political contributions and lobbying efforts in 2023. For some, last year’s spending was an all-time high. The federal government has been rolling out changes to the protections given to livestock and poultry producers, as well as how these farmers operate. In turn, […]

The post Meat industry increases political spending, lobbying as USDA updates crucial regulations appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — An attempt to reinforce Americans’ access to contraception failed Wednesday when U.S. Senate Republicans blocked a bill from advancing toward final passage. The 51-39 procedural vote required at least 60 senators to move forward, but fell short after GOP lawmakers said the measure was too broad as well as unnecessary. Alaska Sen. Lisa […]

The post U.S. Senate GOP prevents contraception access bill from moving ahead appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Progressive lawmakers and organizers on Wednesday urged U.S. Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito to recuse himself from cases related to the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, and to testify before Congress about two flags sympathetic to insurrectionists that were displayed outside his two homes. With the Supreme Court as their backdrop, […]

The post Progressives urge Alito recusal from Jan. 6 cases before the U.S. Supreme Court appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The leading candidates to be Missouri’s next governor disagree on whether the state should offer incentives to keep the Kansas City Chiefs from relocating to Kansas.  On Tuesday, the top Republican lawmakers in Kansas announced that they had reached out to the Chiefs organization to urge the team to consider moving across the state line. […]

The post Candidates for Missouri governor split on offering incentives to keep Chiefs from moving appeared first on Missouri Independent.