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This story is a collaboration between ProPublica and APM Reports. When the final numbers showed that St. Louis had reduced its murders last year while other big cities were hitting records, city officials said their success was due to smart use of crime data and effective anti-violence programs. But over the past two years, St. Louis […]

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Some of the biggest items in Gov. Mike Parson’s $47.3 billion budget proposal won’t be in the plan House Budget Committee Chairman Cody Smith will bring up for discussion on Thursday. On Tuesday, Smith distributed a 52-page list of changes he would like to see, including major cuts to how federal stimulus funds are used […]

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Missouri will officially transition from treating COVID-19 as a public health crisis to treating it as endemic, much like the seasonal flu, Gov. Mike Parson announced Wednesday.  That shift will be complete on April 1, Parson said. The change, which was first reported by the Documenting COVID-19 project and The Independent in February, comes as […]

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WASHINGTON — A U.S. Supreme Court dominated by conservative justices could fundamentally reshape the college admissions process later this year when it takes up two landmark cases challenging affirmative action in higher education. The court recently agreed to hear two cases that challenge race-conscious admissions programs at Harvard University and the University of North Carolina, the nation’s oldest private and […]

The post Upcoming U.S. Supreme Court cases could curb colleges’ use of affirmative action appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Members of the Missouri Senate’s conservative caucus on Wednesday made it clear they would once again derail the chamber with procedural maneuvers in order to block negotiations with the House over a new congressional map. Republican Sens. Bob Onder of Lake St. Louis, Bill Eigel of Weldon Spring and Denny Hoskins of Warrensburg stalled routine […]

The post Conservative caucus demands Missouri Senate reject talks with House on congressional maps appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Candidate filing closed Tuesday with a flurry of last-minute action but no movement in the General Assembly on a new map for Missouri’s eight congressional districts. The Missouri House closed off the last chance for a new congressional district map before filing closed when it rejected the plan approved last week in the state Senate […]

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Two dozen congressional Democrats are calling for U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas to recuse himself from cases involving the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol, following revelations his wife communicated with the Trump White House about overturning the election. In addition, it appears likely that the U.S. House committee probing the attack will […]

The post U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas pressed to recuse himself from Jan. 6 cases appeared first on Missouri Independent.

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 […]

The post Missouri House bill would cut down on poisonous lead in school drinking water appeared first on Missouri Independent.

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 […]

The post Beer heiress joins Missouri Democratic primary for U.S. Senate appeared first on Missouri Independent.

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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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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 […]

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