The U.S. Department of Agriculture finalized a third regulatory reform under the Packers and Stockyards Act, with the latest regulation giving greater stability and fairness to chicken farmers working for major meat companies, according to an announcement Tuesday. Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said in a press conference Monday the regulation came from “the ground up” […]
Deaths in Missouri prisons hit a new high in 2024. The preliminary total, 139, is two more than the 137 recorded by the Department of Corrections in each of the previous two years and represents the fourth year in the past five where deaths behind bars have averaged 10 or more a month. There were […]
When I think about Mike Parson’s tenure as Missouri governor, which came to an end Monday after six years, two moments jump out to me. The first came at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Parson steadfastly refused to issue stringent statewide public health orders, instead leaving those decisions in the hands of local officials. […]
Task forces to arrest people with outstanding warrants and immigration enforcement training for the Missouri State Highway Patrol are among the actions Gov. Mike Kehoe ordered Monday as part of a program to combat crime in Missouri. Kehoe made controlling crime a centerpiece of his campaign for governor, and he signed the executive orders just […]
Controlling crime, expanding education options and cutting taxes will be the top priorities for Missouri, new Gov. Mike Kehoe said in his inauguration speech. The brief speech, delivered before a crowd gathered on a cold, sunny day outside the Missouri Capitol, also traced the Republican’s journey from a north St. Louis home led by a […]
Karen Grant and fellow school librarians throughout New Jersey have heard an increasingly loud chorus of parents and conservative activists demanding that certain books — often about race, gender and sexuality — be removed from the shelves. In the past year, Grant and her colleagues in the Ewing Public Schools just north of Trenton updated […]
An infectious disease expert says the relatively mild cases of avian influenza detected so far among dairy workers don’t warrant making a vaccine available to them, even as they work to contain and prevent spread of the contagious virus among herds. Dr. Shira Doron, an epidemiologist and chief infection control officer for Tufts Medicine in […]
More Missouri educators are staying in their jobs following efforts to raise teachers’ base pay and provide alternative measures for certification, the State Board of Education learned last week. The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education predicts schools will have fewer vacancies in the future, speaking positively about small gains and outlining a path […]
The press, so critical to our democratic process, is facing threats on multiple fronts — from the growing influence of social media to the frontal and legal attacks coming from elected officials and others with power. Facebook, the largest social media platform, has decided to end its fact-checking processes, apparently bowing to political pressure and […]
U.S. Supreme Court justices on Friday questioned why they should intervene to block a law forcing the sale of TikTok in nine days, saying the short-form video platform’s Chinese parent company does not enjoy First Amendment rights. Lawyers for TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, and a group of the platform’s users faced sharp questions from justices […]
Over her three-decade career, weight management physician Dr. Sarah Ro has seen hundreds of patients. Many of them are on Medicaid and have become yo-yo dieters who, despite their best efforts at changing their eating habits and lifestyles, cannot seem to shed the pounds hurting their health. “They have a tremendous amount of disease burden,” […]
The minimum wage will increase in nearly half the states this year even as the federal wage floor remains stuck at $7.25 per hour. In many states, the minimum wage is automatically adjusted upward as inflation rises. But voters in several states, including deeply red ones such as Alaska and Missouri, chose in November to […]
WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump was sentenced Friday in his New York hush money case just days before his inauguration, making him the only past and future U.S. president with a criminal record. Trump has faced four criminal prosecutions but the New York state case was the sole one that went to trial. A jury convicted […]
As the Kansas City Royals scour the region for a new stadium site, and as the Chiefs weigh whether to renovate Arrowhead or move, a familiar story unfolds. The two states are at it again. Soon after Jackson County voters soundly rejected a â…ś-cent sales to fund a downtown Royals ballpark and similar subsidies to […]
Seven years ago, Missouri banned the shackling of pregnant women in state prisons. State Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, a Republican from Arnold, is hoping to expand the law this year to include city and county jails. “Now we have seven years of data that this is a fairly small number of inmates and it is […]
The warden and a top supervisor at the South Central Correctional Center in Licking have been replaced amid allegations contraband was entering the prison through a poorly screened gate. Michele Buckner, a 25-year employee of the Department of Corrections, officially ended her employment with the department on Tuesday, spokeswoman Karen Pojmann wrote in an email […]
A committee dedicated to the security of the Missouri Capitol convened Thursday to raise concerns ahead of Monday’s inauguration of Gov.-elect Mike Kehoe. Lawmakers are not only worried about the inauguration ceremony and governor’s ball but also the everyday operations of the Capitol Police. President Pro Tem of the Missouri Senate Cindy O’Laughlin read a […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans gained more than enough Democratic support Thursday to advance a bill that would greatly expand immigration detention, following a presidential election in which border security was a main theme for President-elect Donald Trump. In an 84-9 procedural vote, 32 Senate Democrats and one independent backed the bill, S. 5, sponsored by Alabama’s […]
WASHINGTON — On a wintry Thursday morning, mourners and dignitaries gathered at Washington National Cathedral to honor the life of former President Jimmy Carter. Speakers at Carter’s state funeral, including President Joe Biden and the sons of Carter’s political contemporaries delivering eulogies written by their fathers, described the Georgia native and U.S. Navy veteran as a […]
Missouri lawmakers are proposing bigger scholarships for students with financial need, allowing more universities to grant engineering and medical degrees, and supporting aid to victims of hazing. Ahead of the 2025 legislative session’s launch on Wednesday, members of the Missouri General Assembly filed more than two dozen bills affecting higher education. To be signed into […]
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