Missouri bill would expand death penalty to certain sex crimes against children
A bill that would add child sex trafficking and statutory rape to the crimes eligible for the death penalty was debated Monday in a Missouri Senate committee -…
Stories by The Missouri Independent
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Speaker draws new scrutiny over series of Capitol meetings with out-of-state vendor
Missouri House Speaker Dean Plocher arranged a series of meetings in the state Capitol last month between GOP legislators and an out-of-state technology vendor…
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Missouri House gives initial approval to bill banning political deepfakes
A bill to protect politicians from "deepfake" images and recordings received broad bipartisan support Wednesday in the Missouri House.
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Restrictions on drag performances debated by Missouri House committee
For the second year in a row, a Missouri House committee debated GOP-backed legislation that would place the same limits on drag performances as govern "sexual…
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Ethics chair decries ‘theatrics’ after Dean Plocher’s lawyer seeks to attend closed meeting
Speaker Dean Plocher's attorney sought to attend a closed-door hearing of the Missouri House Ethics Committee on Wednesday night, arguing he should be allowed …
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Missouri House sends bill funding border deployment to the Senate
The Missouri House overwhelmingly supported Gov. Mike Parson's plan to send soldiers and state troopers to the Mexican border by voting 122-12 on Thursday for …
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Hearing reveals behind-the-scenes details of Missouri marijuana recall
Jack Maritz was working at Delta Extraction, a marijuana manufacturing facility in Robertsville, in February 2023 when the company's regular state compliance o…
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Missouri bill would slash state regulations over small streams, major aquifers
Missouri's leading agriculture groups are pushing legislation environmentalists and state regulators warn could jeopardize thousands of miles of streams and dr…
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Lawmakers consider bill to raise training standards for Missouri coroners
The Missouri legislature is looking at setting minimum training standards for coroners following allegations that the Cape Girardeau County coroner stole money…
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Troy-based Toyota plant workers launch campaign to unionize
More than 30 percent of workers at a Troy, Missouri-based Toyota manufacturing plant have signed union cards, prompting them to go public with their campaign W…
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Critical race theory once again debated by Missouri Senators
A Missouri Senate committee Tuesday morning debated a bill that would ban school districts from discussing any topic or curriculum "similar to critical race th…
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Appeals court tosses suit challenging Missouri House rule hiding constituent information
A St. Louis County attorney challenging Missouri House rules hiding the names of constituents who communicate with lawmakers lost an appeal Tuesday -- but not …
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Florissant homes built on Coldwater Creek may sit on radioactive contamination
Federal officials are investigating whether residents of a small subdivision in the St. Louis suburbs are living on top of contamination dating back to World W…
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No timetable exists for completion of ethics investigation
Leaders of a bipartisan Missouri House committee investigating Speaker Dean Plocher over allegations of misconduct said Monday there is no timetable for when t…
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Gov. Parson faces bipartisan scorn for reducing DWI sentence of ex-Chiefs coach
Missouri Gov. Mike Parson drew condemnation from across the political spectrum over the weekend after he reduced the sentence of former Kansas City Chiefs assi…
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GOP contenders vie for attention at Boone County Lincoln Days
As Republican strength in Missouri has grown – no non-incumbent Democrat has won election statewide since 2008 – Republicans increasingly view a primary nomina…
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MOHELA faces accusations it mismanaged federal student loan forgiveness program
A quasi-governmental organization based in Missouri that services student loans is facing lawsuits and a scathing report from a pair of education organizations…
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Man wrongly accused in KC shooting weighs defamation suit, demands Missouri senators apologize
Right-wing politicians who won't apologize for labeling Denton Loudermill as the shooter responsible for a death and almost two dozen injuries at the Kansas Ci…
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Parson seeks $2.2M to send Missouri troopers, soldiers to Texas for border duty
Sending Missouri state troopers and National Guard soldiers to Texas's border with Mexico will cost more than $2.2 million, state officials told the House Budg…
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Lawmakers grill Missouri state treasurer over ads on unregulated slot machines
State Treasurer Vivek Malek endured a bipartisan beatdown Tuesday as members of a House subcommittee spent two hours telling him it was a big mistake to put de…
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Ethics investigation of Dean Plocher continues to hang over Missouri House
Dean Plocher's last year as speaker of the Missouri House wasn't supposed to go this way.
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90,000 Missouri kids are eligible for food aid they haven’t claimed that’s about to expire
Missouri families who haven't claimed food benefits in a program launched during the height of the pandemic could lose out in the coming weeks unless they act …
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Missouri auditor declares victory after plaintiffs drop suit over cost of abortion petition
A lawsuit challenging the estimated cost of an initiative petition that sought to add rape and incest exceptions to Missouri's abortion ban has been dismissed,…
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Missouri meatpacker that sought to dump wastewater into river will shut down
A southwest Missouri meatpacking plant that sought to dump treated wastewater into an impaired river will halt operations -- at least temporarily.
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Missouri treasurer fires back at critic of ads on unregulated slot machines
State Treasurer Vivek Malek on Friday accused a southwest Missouri lawmaker of making claims without facts about advertisements for the state Unclaimed Propert…
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Washington University prioritizes need-based aid after years of low socioeconomic diversity
Washington University in St. Louis -- criticized a decade ago for rock-bottom low-income enrollment -- says it has carved out spaces for economically disadvant…
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Democrat filibuster forces removal of ‘ballot candy’ from Senate initiative petition bill
A Democratic filibuster that stretched more than 20 hours ended Tuesday when Senate Republicans stripped provisions critics derided as "ballot candy" from a pr…
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Missouri Treasurer faces scrutiny over state advertising on unregulated slot machines
A southwest Missouri lawmaker blasted state Treasurer Vivek Malek on Wednesday for refusing to answer questions about new ads for the state Unclaimed Property …
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Missouri House bill would allow further testing for St. Louis radioactive waste
Local governments in the St. Louis area could request radioactive waste testing from the state under a Missouri House bill that would appropriate money to a lo…
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Hartsburg Republican joins race for 3rd District congressional seat
A Boone County Republican said Monday he will emphasize national security experience, avoiding intra-party fights and that he actually lives in the district he…
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‘Uncharted territory’: How would abortion-rights amendment impact Missouri TRAP laws?
In the months before the Planned Parenthood clinic in Columbia was forced to stop providing abortions in 2018, Emily Wales spent long nights calling patients t…
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Missouri Supreme Court again says state can’t deny Medicaid funds to Planned Parenthood
Missouri's highest court for the second time in four years rebuked lawmakers's efforts to ban abortion providers and their affiliates from receiving Medicaid r…
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After Kansas City mass shooting, Missouri Dems demand stricter gun laws
Before state Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern left home Wednesday for the Kansas City Chiefs' Super Bowl victory celebration, she took a marker and wrote her husband's t…
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Missouri Senate Democrats stall GOP push to change initiative petition process
Missouri Senate Democrats are blocking a vote on setting a higher threshold for passing constitutional amendments, filibustering a bill they see as a pure Repu…
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Records show rising call center wait times for Missouri Medicaid, food assistance
Missourians in need of help accessing public benefits saw wait times for the state's long-overloaded call center increase in the final months of 2023.
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Company continues to argue Missouri cannabis workers can’t unionize
Ahmad Haynes and a handful of employees at BeLeaf Medical's Sinse Cannabis site in St. Louis anxiously waited for the clock to hit 5 p.m.
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Missouri bill would jeopardize millions to fight water pollution
Legislation backed by Missouri agriculture groups could slash the state's clean water enforcement, jeopardizing millions of dollars in grants and raising the s…
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Expansion of tax-credit scholarships faces criticism of Missouri homeschoolers
Organizations representing homeschool families raised concerns about state legislation debated Monday seeking to expand a tax credit program that helps pay for…
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Push for restrictions on intoxicating hemp products spurs clash over regulation
Missouri lawmakers have heard hours of heated testimony at two hearings in the last week over bills aiming to regulate intoxicating hemp products that get peop…
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Missouri appeals court fines litigant after finding fake, AI-generated cases cited in filings
An O'Fallon man who used artificial intelligence to generate almost two dozen fake citations in a legal brief must pay $10,000 in sanctions for wasting the tim…
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Missouri House speaker accused of retaliating against GOP critics
So far this year, state Rep. Mazzie Christensen has filed 11 bills, ranging from changes to statewide education and public health policy to narrow legislation …
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Missouri lawmakers debate blocking University of Kansas deal with Liberty hospital
Liberty Hospital would be at risk of falling into the hands of a for-profit chain and losing important services if Missouri lawmakers block a proposed takeover…
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One abortion-rights initiative petitions is ending in Missouri as another kicks into gear
One of two campaigns hoping to amend the state constitution to roll back Missouri's abortion ban is giving up its push to reach the 2024 ballot.
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Republicans block attempt to add rape, incest exemptions to Missouri’s abortion ban
Republicans thwarted an effort to add rape and incest exceptions to Missouri's near-total abortion ban on Wednesday, but were unable to push a bill to bar Plan…
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Missouri lawmakers want to raise teacher pay but anticipate Senate resistance
Legislation boosting teacher recruitment and retention in Missouri is once again a priority of the Missouri House, with a hearing Wednesday morning on a pair o…
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Missouri lawmaker hopes to shield cryptocurrency mining from state and local regulation
Mining cryptocurrency requires enormous amounts of computing power and electricity, both to keep the digital calculations going and to cool the machines doing …
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Missouri attorney general expects to end Sunshine Law backlog by May
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey told lawmakers Tuesday that his office completed work on the 224 pending records requests that were left unfinished by …
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Missouri bill would give custody of disputed embryos to person likeliest to create child
When Jalesia Kuenzel's twin sons turned 16 last year, she was also thinking of the children that could have been.
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State hasn’t implemented law to help Missourians transition off public benefits
A law enacted last year aimed at helping individuals transition out of public assistance programs remains in limbo, with Missouri's social services agency sayi…
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Missouri lawmakers grill treasurer over interest earned on I-70 funds
Gov. Mike Parson's plan to study improvements on Interstate 44 using interest earned on funds set aside for rebuilding Interstate 70 faced bipartisan questioni…
