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State health director Donald Kauerauf adamantly spoke against mandating face masks and COVID-19 vaccines during a hearing Monday, as anti-vaccination demonstrators protested his confirmation in the halls outside. While protesters chanted outside the Capitol hearing room, senators inside grilled Kauerauf for nearly two hours on his views on how best to mitigate the spread of […]

The post Anti-vaccine protesters rally against Senate confirmation of Missouri health director appeared first on Missouri Independent.

State officials last year investigated allegations that a law enforcement officer pointed a handgun at his son’s head while intoxicated.  The same officer was also intoxicated during “multiple incidents of domestic disturbances,” Sandy Karsten, director of the Missouri Department of Public Safety, testified last week during a Senate committee hearing.  Karsten wanted to suspend the […]

The post Missouri’s public safety leaders push to tighten accountability for police officers appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Two weeks after a Cole County judge stripped local health agencies of their ability to issue orders to mitigate the spread of COVID-19, a top official in the state health department predicted the impact would be much more far-reaching. “The pending litigation is going to shut down most (local public health agency) activities, and based […]

The post Decision nixing local COVID orders hampering health agencies’ response to other diseases appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Health care professionals had high hopes that rapid vaccination of our entire U.S. population would slow COVID-19 transmission and stem the disproportionately high death count in the United States. We also hoped to avoid more concerning mutations that are inevitable when viruses multiply unchecked. I lost my mother to COVID-19 in November of 2020, less […]

The post Vaccine mandates have always faced resistance and saved lives | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

KANSAS CITY, Kan. — U.S. Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg said Friday the collapse of a bridge in Pittsburgh illustrated the necessity of federal investment in the nation’s infrastructure, including more than 1,000 bridges in poor condition in Kansas and twice that total in Missouri. Buttigieg braved winter chill to stand at the rusting Rock Island […]

The post Buttigieg points to Pittsburgh bridge collapse as blunt reminder of infrastructure spending needs appeared first on Missouri Independent.

For six days, Dr. Mohamed Nabeel Kuziez and his team at a small emergency room in southeastern Missouri did everything they could to keep a 67-year-old woman with severe pneumonia alive. The day after Kathie Ganime was admitted on Jan. 12, Kuziez saw that her infection was so critical that she needed to be transferred […]

The post COVID surge forced rural Missouri hospital to build makeshift ICU for dying patient appeared first on Missouri Independent.

There was skepticism about new temporary state employees and the cost of developing the Rock Island railroad corridor into a new trail during the Senate Appropriation Committee’s first look at Gov. Mike Parson’s plan for spending $2.8 billion in federal coronavirus relief funds. But for the most part, the 90 minutes presentation Thursday by Budget […]

The post ‘A lasting impact’: Missouri Senate panel hears pitch for using federal COVID funds appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — With the retirement of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer by this summer, President Joe Biden has said he will fulfill a campaign promise of appointing a Black woman to an open seat on the highest court in the land. A top contender, who was even vetted by the Obama administration in 2016 as a […]

The post Ketanji Brown Jackson considered among Biden’s top candidates for the U.S. Supreme Court appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Differences over a new map for Missouri’s eight congressional districts have narrowed to how to design three districts in the St. Louis area, Republican leaders of the Missouri Senate said Thursday. During a news conference that capped a week of continuing rancor in GOP ranks, Senate President Pro Tem Dave Schatz and Majority Leader Caleb […]

The post Missouri congressional redistricting battle shifts focus to bolstering GOP seat in St. Louis area appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer formally announced his retirement Thursday, giving President Joe Biden his first, and possibly only, opportunity to make a nomination for the lifetime appointment. At the White House, Biden said he will make his decision by the end of February and recommitted to nominating the court’s first Black female […]

The post Biden vows to nominate first Black woman to Supreme Court by end of February appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A pair of Missouri counties is asking the state Supreme Court to overturn a 2019 law that stripped them of their ability to set their own rules for concentrated animal feeding operations.   Under the law, county commissioners are prohibited from setting policies that are “inconsistent with or more stringent than” state rules for CAFOs. The […]

The post Counties ask Missouri Supreme Court to strike down law restricting local CAFO rules appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri’s initiative petition system has been in place for 115 years. It allows citizens to put an issue on the ballot for a statewide vote. This critical tool, used through the years by citizens from all political persuasions is now under attack by lawmakers who want to curtail the people’s power. Thirty years ago, when […]

The post The initiative petition is a Missouri treasure | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

In a rare move, a Missouri commission granted a medical marijuana license to an applicant after discovering irregularities with how state regulators evaluated applications. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) decided to forgo appealing the ruling, announcing Tuesday that it had reached a settlement with the jilted applicant to end the litigation.   […]

The post Reversing state’s decision, Missouri panel awards marijuana license to jilted applicant appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This column is prompted by a question from a long-time statehouse observer as to why Missouri’s legislature has become so divided. My answer involved the number of changes in the statehouse over the decades. A major cause has been the deep and growing ideological divide for the public and elected public officials. Years ago, a […]

The post Capitol Perspectives: The profound change in Missouri’s legislature appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A new Congressional map won the approval of a Missouri Senate committee on Tuesday, setting the stage for a debate that promises to be among the most contentious of the 2022 legislative session. After two hours of public testimony, a pair of Democrats joined with seven Republicans Tuesday to advance a map that keeps the […]

The post Senate committee advances ‘6-2’ Missouri Congressional map appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This story was originally published by Kaiser Health News. ST. CHARLES, Mo. — Jamie Smith, a staffing agency nurse who loves end-of-life care, said she has been warmly welcomed by staffers and residents at Frontier Health & Rehabilitation in this conservative St. Louis suburb. That’s even though she has not been vaccinated against covid-19. But […]

The post With a vaccine mandate looming, Missouri nursing homes face more staffing problems appeared first on Missouri Independent.

On Friday, I had to work from home because my son’s school district canceled classes due to a COVID-related staff shortage. While working between interruptions from him, I saw the news that Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt sued our school district — and nearly three dozen others — for having the audacity to reimplement a […]

The post Eric Schmitt fails a moral test on school masks | Opinion appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Missouri state employees counting on seeing a big raise in their February paychecks may be disappointed, as lawmakers fiddle with a $5.4 billion spending bill pushed by Gov. Mike Parson. When the Republican governor in December proposed a 5.5 percent pay raise for all state workers, he said he wanted it in effect by Feb. […]

The post Parson pay raise plan in limbo as $5.4 billion spending bill awaits vote appeared first on Missouri Independent.

This story was originally published by the Kansas City Beacon. A wide expanse of plastic netting sits partially buried by dirt and vegetation in Parkville’s Platte Landing Park. Intended as the base of an ongoing wetlands restoration project, the netting has instead become an expensive — and dangerous — nuisance. The City of Parkville in […]

The post Dry ground and unmet promises: Platte County wetlands project is dead in the water appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The push to legalize recreational marijuana use in Missouri is coming from multiple directions, with a handful of proposed initiative petitions and at least one bill, and potentially more, backed by Republican lawmakers.  Each hopes to place the issue on the 2022 ballot for voter approval. And each proposal also includes a provision that, while […]

The post As Missouri looks to legalize recreational marijuana, expungement gets renewed attention appeared first on Missouri Independent.