News

The future of crop insurance and conservation programs for the Midwest is up for debate in Washington, as the farm bill reaches the floor of the Senate. The agriculture committees of both the Senate and the House passed new five-year bills last week and legislation is expected to make its way to the House floor soon.

The overarching theme this year is spending cuts—as with most federal programs. But how the two bodies trim down the farm bill differs. Nutrition programs will lose the most, with the House cutting more than the Senate.

Missouri's legislative session is over, but the work may continue for some lawmakers.

Senate President Pro Tem Tom Dempsey says he is considering appointing at least three committees to study issues before the 2014 session.

A joint panel of Senate and House members could look into potential changes to the Medicaid health care program for the poor.

Another committee could study potential projects to be included in a bonding proposal that would be put before voters.

Columbia’s Frederick H. Douglass High School celebrated its largest graduating class since the building reopened as a desegregated high school in the 1980s.  

“This day, we celebrate the triumph and determination and hope of, hear this number, people, 72 graduates,” Douglass principal Eryca Neville announced to a roaring auditorium, packed full of proud family and friends. 

There are enough former Catholics in the United States to make up a large Christian denomination of their own.

According to the Religious Landscape Survey conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life in 2008, one in 10 American adults identifies as an ex-Catholic. And of the 25 percent of American adults who are still Catholic, only one in four attend mass regularly.

Missouri lawmakers have passed legislation consolidating four of the state's business incentives.

The newly created Missouri Works program would be modeled after the current Quality Jobs program, which would come to an end.

One in five Americans now report having no religious affiliation. This number is increasing rapidly. And church attendance in America and Europe is increasing.

But our communities are filled with instances of people finding meaning outside of religion. The Boone County Veterans of Foreign Wars post, for example, offers veterans a place to unite around their experiences of serving in war. While people find meaning in all sorts of places, the VFW in many ways resembles a church.

A proposed 1-cent sales tax for transportation has stalled in the Missouri Legislature.

The sales tax proposal was projected to generate nearly $8 billion over a decade for state highways, local roads and other modes of transportation such as railroads, airports, mass transit and river ports. Cities and counties would each get 5 percent of the revenues, with the rest going to state projects. Voters would have had to approve the tax in 2014 to enact the proposal.

Missouri lawmakers have approved legislation that would require education officials to seek grants and donations to help children with special needs such as autism.

Financial resources could be devoted to scholarships or clinical trials for behavioral interventions. Scholarships could be used to help students attend a public school outside the student's home district or a private school.

Missouri senators have given up their attempt to pass an overhaul of the some of the state's tax credit programs for businesses and developers.

Supporters of the bill set it aside Friday after Republican Sen. Brad Lager, of Savannah, spoke against it for an hour in a filibuster that could have otherwise continued until the session's mandatory end at 6 p.m. The legislation would have created tax incentives for international air cargo exports, computer data centers and investors in startup technology companies.

Missouri lawmakers have passed legislation that could patch a hole in the state budget for early childhood programs and health care for the blind.

A bill given final approval Friday would transfer $55 million from general revenues into a new fund to finance the programs. The move was necessary because the 2014 budget passed last week by lawmakers called for funding the programs with savings from the repeal of a tax break for low-income seniors and disabled residents who live in rental housing.