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A bipartisan commission drawing a map for 163 Missouri House districts that will be used in the coming decade is “more than 50 percent” in agreement, members said Monday as they worked toward a Dec. 23 deadline. The 20-member House Independent Bipartisan Citizens Commission met for more than three hours Monday, but most of that […]

The post Bipartisan commission moving toward plan for new Missouri House districts appeared first on Missouri Independent.

In Randolph County in central Missouri, there are places where a person can take two steps and move through three state House districts. The county, with 24,716 people, doesn’t have enough population for a single House district, yet after the 2010 census, it was split among four.  The same is true for Miller County, with […]

The post New redistricting rules reduce county splits in Missouri House map appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Jackson and St. Louis counties requested Monday that they be permitted to intervene and appeal a recent court ruling that they argue has “upended the longstanding public health framework” in Missouri. In a filing submitted Monday afternoon and obtained by The Independent, the two counties asked Cole County Circuit Court Judge Daniel Green to stay […]

The post Missouri’s largest counties seek to appeal ruling overturning local health orders appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The recent personal and racially tinged partisan attacks by a couple of U.S. House members, and the absence of swift discipline, stands in stark contrast to how legislators treat one another in Missouri’s General Assembly. This contrast reminded me of a speech by the late Sen. Richard Webster made on the night of his final […]

The post Capitol Perspectives: Personal attacks in Congress versus Missouri  appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This story was originally published by the Riverfront Times. It is not available for republication.  A few months ago, Kevin FitzGerald was driving along Interstate 44 toward St. Louis when his iPhone buzzed. FitzGerald picked it up. The voice on the other end: A man in his early twenties in Ontario, Canada, who had just […]

The post The war on drugs failed. Will ‘radical compassion’ work? appeared first on Missouri Independent.

While lawmakers are considering whether to approve big building projects for college campuses and awaiting more of Gov. Mike Parson’s plans for using an unprecedented budget surplus, a fight is brewing over a smaller pot of funds used to combat domestic violence and child abuse. Each year, the Department of Social Services distributes grants from […]

The post Social Services department, local agencies at odds over use of Missouri crime victims’ funding appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Whether driven to hang on to power, have access to money, or intoxicated by fame—when politicians say and do things that hurt and harm the people for their personal gain, it is greed of the most grievous kind. Greed? Yes, greed. Greed has many faces and is manifested in many ways. Whatever form of greed […]

The post Some politicians deliberately sacrifice public health and safety for personal greed | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Paying down debt. Taking a family vacation. Defraying child care costs. These are a few of the ways Kansas City families have used extra income they received this year from monthly federal child tax credits. Since 1997, most working families have been eligible for an income tax credit based on the number of children in a […]

The post Kansas City families prepare for the end of the expanded federal child tax credits appeared first on Missouri Independent.

For the past 20 years, I have been engaged in efforts to end the opioid epidemic, as a public health official, researcher and clinician. And for every one of those years I have looked on as the number of deaths from drug overdoses has set a new record high. Yet even knowing that trend I was […]

The post How the pandemic helped spread fentanyl, drive opioid overdose deaths to a new high | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The death Sunday of Bob Dole was a potent reminder of what we have lost as a nation. Another member of the Greatest Generation has left us — another of those Depression-era kids who came together to save democracy in the dark days of World War II. The career of the 98-year-old Kansas Republican reminds […]

The post Our political system has withered since Bob Dole’s days | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Former U.S. Sen. Robert J. Dole arrived at the U.S. Capitol for the final time on Thursday, for a Rotunda ceremony in which former colleagues and congressional leaders from both parties honored the life and career of the late Kansas political icon.  President Joe Biden and others remembered Dole — who died Sunday at […]

The post Kansas’ Bob Dole remembered at U.S. Capitol ceremony for public service, sense of humor appeared first on Missouri Independent.

St. Louis County abandoned its effort to maintain a mask mandate Thursday as Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s crusade to crush out all such orders statewide continued. Some school districts said they would not comply with “cease and desist” letters from Schmitt after his office began soliciting complaints about mask rules, citing their legal authority. But […]

The post St. Louis County ends mask rule as school districts resist pressure from Schmitt appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A bipartisan pair of senators on Wednesday called for Congress to approve billions in new funding for states to manage wildlife recovery work.  At a hearing of the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, Sens. Martin Heinrich, D-N.M., and Roy Blunt, R-Mo., said a bill they introduced this year would help protect 1,600 threatened species, […]

The post Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt leads push to target billions to state wildlife conservation appeared first on Missouri Independent.

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — President Joe Biden on Wednesday visited the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority to tout the $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill he signed into law last month, expected to bring billions in spending on roads and bridges, clean water, public transportation, high speed internet and more to Kansas and Missouri. The president said […]

The post ‘Americans always rebuild’: Biden promotes infrastructure investments in Kansas City speech appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A Missouri state lawmaker frustrated by delays receiving records from the Department of Social Services filed a complaint Monday with Attorney General Eric Schmitt. In a Monday letter to the attorney general’s office, Rep. Sarah Unsicker, D-Shrewsbury, detailed a series of Sunshine Law requests she sent to the Department of Social Services, with the oldest […]

The post Lawmaker seeks help from Missouri Attorney General on open records requests appeared first on Missouri Independent.

St. Louis-based Centene, the nation’s largest Medicaid managed care provider, has settled fraud allegations with a fifth state, Kansas Attorney General Derek Schmidt announced Monday. The $27.6 million Kansas settlement comes after Mississippi, Illinois and Arkansas announced settlements totaling $154 million. All of those follow a settlement with Ohio — the only state to sue […]

The post St. Louis-based Medicaid giant Centene settles fraud allegations with Kansas for $27.6M appeared first on Missouri Independent.

“Pacific Ablaze” read Australian papers on December 8 1941, as the world learned about the monumental events that unfolded only hours before. Japan had simultaneously declared war against the United States and Great Britain, then immediately launched stunning attacks spanning 6,400 kilometers (and the international date line) from Singapore to Hong Kong, Malaya, Bangkok, Guam […]

The post 80 years on, the attack on Pearl Harbor offers lessons for today | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Attorney General Eric Schmitt instructed school districts and local public health departments to immediately stop enforcing health orders a judge ruled unconstitutional last month, and warned Tuesday they may face legal action if they fail to do so. In separate letters sent Tuesday to school districts and health departments across the state, Schmitt pointed to […]

The post Missouri Attorney General tells schools, health departments to end COVID orders appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The cheers and ringing bells were deafening at Wesley Bell’s watch party for the August 2018 Democratic primary election in St. Louis County. Shocking the country, Bell had handed a stunning defeat to then-incumbent St. Louis County Prosecutor Robert McCulloch ― the longtime prosecutor who had been sharply criticized by the Black community for his […]

The post Black Dems say nonpartisan elections in St. Louis County would dilute Black political power appeared first on Missouri Independent.

I begin this column with a confession. We journalists are reluctant to report about ourselves because under journalism ethics, a reporter should avoid covering something in which the reporter has a conflict of interest. But Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s continuing attacks against news organizations and specific reporters are so unprecedented that I feel compelled to […]

The post Capitol Perspectives: Missouri Gov. Parson’s unprecedented attacks on journalists appeared first on Missouri Independent.