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The first day was a breeze.  Sean Shannon and Danny Foster walked into several marijuana dispensaries around Missouri with their matching “Union For Cannabis Workers” shirts and talked to employees about the possibility of unionizing. “The first day, there were 57 stops amongst the teams,” said Shannon, lead organizer with UFCW Local 655, which actually […]

The post Cannabis workers across Missouri begin push to unionize dispensaries  appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Hundreds of election workers in Washington state’s second-largest county were busy opening mail-in ballots earlier this month when one of them came across a plain white envelope. As she cut it open, white powder leaked out. She carefully took off her gloves, put them down, backed away and called her supervisor. Workers evacuated the building […]

The post In face of threats, election workers vow: ‘You are not disrupting the democratic process’ appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Utilities in Kansas and Missouri would have to pull hundreds of thousands of lead pipes out of the ground within 10 years under a proposed rule the Environmental Protection Agency announced Thursday. The EPA announced a proposed update to the lead and copper rule strengthening President Joe Biden’s earlier goal of eradicating lead pipes. The […]

The post Kansas and Missouri have 256,000 lead pipes. EPA wants them removed within 10 years appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — New York Republican George Santos on Friday became the sixth lawmaker in history and the first member of the GOP to be expelled from the U.S. House of Representatives. The 311-114 bipartisan vote, which required two-thirds support, followed months of scandal that culminated in a federal criminal indictment and a damning report from the […]

The post New York Republican George Santos expelled by U.S. House in bipartisan vote appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The COVID-19 pandemic has been a challenging period for Missouri and the entire nation, with few positive outcomes to highlight. However, one notable exception has been the advancement of telehealth services, especially audio-only telehealth, which emerged as a critical healthcare solution during this crisis. Although the use of telehealth has declined with society returning to […]

The post Promoting telehealth in Missouri is a step to making health care more accessible, cost-effective appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Jody Dorcy has been living with HIV for 20 years. He said the hardest part about having HIV is the stigma surrounding it. Society thinks he’s “contagious,” “dirty” and “infectious.” But, Dorcy said, people with HIV shouldn’t be treated differently. “Just not being part of the HIV-negative world, being that person that’s different … it’s […]

The post HIV prevention, education improve in Missouri. But stigma still stands appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House Thursday passed a bill to bar the use of public lands for temporary housing for migrants applying for asylum. The bill, H.R. 5283, passed with a majority of Republicans in support, 224-203.  Six Democrats voted with Republicans: Reps. Henry Cuellar of Texas, Don Davis of North Carolina, Jared Golden of Maine, Vicente […]

The post U.S. House votes to bar use of public lands for housing migrants appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Ron DeSantis of Florida and Gavin Newsom from California, two of the nation’s most well-known governors who sit on opposite sides of the ideological spectrum, engaged in a fiery 90-minute debate on Thursday night broadcast live on the Fox News Channel. The stakes were undoubtedly higher for DeSantis, 45, who hopes that the primetime platform […]

The post DeSantis and Newsom clash in TV debate, charging each other with lies and bullying appeared first on Missouri Independent.

By the end of the month, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey expects to complete work on the mountain of public records requests submitted to the office last year. That will allow the five-person team working through the Sunshine Law backlog to finally turn its attention to the nearly 300 pending requests filed since Bailey took […]

The post Missouri AG set to finally start work on public records requests submitted this year appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — South Carolina’s Lindsey Graham and Republican colleagues stormed out of a Democratic-led U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee vote on Thursday to authorize subpoenas for two high-profile GOP operatives as part of an ethics probe into undisclosed financial ties to U.S. Supreme Court justices. The panel voted 11-0 to subpoena billionaire Republican donor Harlan Crow […]

The post GOP senators walk out of vote on subpoenas in U.S. Supreme Court ethics inquiry appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Over the past two decades, Greg Gunthorp carved out a niche operating a small meat processing plant in northern Indiana. He sold several kinds of meat to chic Chicago and Indianapolis restaurants and to Chicago O’Hare International Airport, he said. He also sold direct to consumers. But selling in grocery stores was not an option, […]

The post Small meat processors say USDA measures don’t address consolidated industry’s root problems appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Republicans on a U.S. House panel argued Wednesday against aggressive moves to meet carbon reduction goals, saying U.S. fossil fuel companies are working to make their products cleaner. Democrats on the U.S. House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on the Environment, Manufacturing and Critical Minerals countered that to achieve further reductions, federal policies should be continued […]

The post Ahead of climate conference, U.S. House panel tussles over curbs on emissions appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Sometimes, the true outcome of a political campaign isn’t reflected in the final vote count.   Jason Kander’s 2016 Senate race is a prime example. Despite Donald Trump winning Missouri by nearly 19 points, Roy Blunt only squeaked out a win with a margin under 3%, thanks in part to a viral advertisement featuring Kander assembling […]

The post Missouri politics proves that sometimes just entering a race makes you a winner appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Democrats in Congress are divided on whether to set guardrails on additional military aid to Israel as that country responds to the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attacks with airstrikes and a ground war in Gaza. It’s not yet clear what those conditions would be or how they would affect congressional support for aid […]

The post Democrats split on placing conditions on military aid to Israel appeared first on Missouri Independent.

ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. Prosecutors routinely find ways to get key detectives to testify in criminal trials, even when they are retired, sick or otherwise reluctant. Some fly retirees in from Florida or other retirement locales […]

The post A St. Louis cop says he’s too sick to testify. Now murder cases are crumbling appeared first on Missouri Independent.

When Katie Molitor joined the Columbia Center for Urban Agriculture in 2019, she knew Boone County needed to put nutritious, affordable food on more tables. Two years later, she came up with a plan: Give year-long prescriptions to patients for fresh fruits and vegetables to supplement their diet. The idea took root, and the result […]

The post ‘Food is medicine’: Farmers market, food bank dedicated to nourishing Missourians appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee Democrats on Tuesday discussed how to treat gun violence as a public health crisis, in hopes of building upon last year’s federal gun safety legislation. “Across the country, gun violence is a public health epidemic,” Illinois Democrat Dick Durbin, the chairman of the committee, said in his opening remarks. […]

The post Gun violence as a public health crisis explored by U.S. Senate Democrats appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey this week joined with 18 other states to oppose a proposed federal rule that aims to protect LGBTQ youth in foster care and provide them with necessary services. The attorneys general argue in a letter to the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services that the proposed rule — which […]

The post Missouri attorney general opposes proposed federal rule supporting LGBTQ foster kids appeared first on Missouri Independent.

When the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act was signed in late 2021, it included $42.5 billion for broadband internet access as part of the Broadband Equity, Access, and Deployment Program. The program aims to ensure that broadband access is available throughout the country. This effort differs from previous federal broadband programs because it promised to […]

The post Every state is about to dole out federal funds for broadband. Not every state is ready appeared first on Missouri Independent.

PETERSBURG, Ind. — AES Indiana’s Petersburg Generating Station, which towers over the White River here in southwest Indiana, has been burning coal to generate electricity since the late 1960s. That era, though, will come to an end soon. Two of the power plant’s four coal-burning units have already retired and the last is planning to […]

The post New life for old coal: Minelands and power plants are hot renewable development spots appeared first on Missouri Independent.