Missouri News

Missouri has been ordered to cough up nearly $138,000 in legal fees and expenses after a judge ruled last year that it “knowingly and purposefully” violated the state Sunshine Law.

The Missouri Court of Appeals upheld a Cole County judge’s finding that the state ran afoul of the law when the Missouri Department of Health and Human Services sought to charge a genealogy research group nearly $1.5 million for state birth and death records.

As Muslims prepare for the holy month of Ramadan, religious leaders in the St. Louis region are encouraging Muslims to get the COVID-19 vaccine.

Many mosques also are planning limited celebrations during Ramadan — a month of fasting, prayer and reflection — to slow the spread of the coronavirus. They are offering virtual sermons, shorter nightly Quran readings and prepackaged meals to break the fast during an evening meal called iftar.

Updated at 1:30 p.m. with comments from the school board president

Students at one of St. Louis Public Schools’ top high schools are feeling blindsided by a plan to relocate their school to another building in the city.

Mary Ann Steiner drove 2½ hours from her home in the St. Louis suburb of University City to the tiny Ozark town of Centerville, Missouri, to get vaccinated against COVID-19. After pulling into the drive-thru line in a church parking lot, she noticed that the others waiting for shots had something in common with her.

“Everyone in the very short line was a woman,” said Steiner, 70.

ROLLA — Syscia sumnichti, an ant no bigger than a grain of rice that lives in the mountains of Guatemala, Honduras and Nicarauga has been named after a biologist who now resides and works closer to the Ozark Hills.

Theo Sumnicht is the caretaker and outreach teacher at Missouri University of Science and Technology’s Ozark Field Station.

St. Louis health officials say more children and teens are now getting sick from the coronavirus than in previous months.

In the past week, children and teens 19 and younger have made up 22% of the city’s new coronavirus cases, said Dr. Fred Echols, acting director of the St. Louis Department of Health. That’s up more than 10 percentage points from what health officials have seen throughout the coronavirus pandemic.

Jenna Rae and her partner Martin Farrell Jr., are well aware that band practice can bother the neighbors. Rae owns Lost Cowgirl Records and is also a wound care nurse at the University of Kansas Medical Center, so she’s familiar with how downtown living and music are only a great fit at certain times of the day.

All Missourians 16 years and older are now eligible to receive a COVID-19 vaccine.

Starting Friday, an estimated 4.5 million residents became eligible.

U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin visited Centreville on Friday to acknowledge the flooding and sewage issues in the area and pledge his support for fixing them.

But a group of residents who have been at the forefront of advocating for solutions said they weren’t informed of the senator’s visit.

University of Missouri Chess Team won the world championship in the Blitz Cup team competition and also took home second place in the Rapid Cup team competition. This global virtual tournament featured more than 1,300 players from 84 different countries and represented more than 200 universities.

EAST ST. LOUIS — A social worker will help Gateway Pet Guardians strengthen its connections with other community-based services in the city.

The organization’s new community support manager is intended to help keep pets and their families together, while aiding those who are facing hardship, said Jill Henke, director of Gateway Pet Guardians community programming.

This story has been updated.

TOPEKA, Kansas — Republicans in the Kansas Senate weathered the initial arrest of their majority leader for drunken driving, but they booted him from leadership Friday after details of his arrest painted a picture of dangerous belligerence.

Senate Republicans met after finishing their work and voted in a closed-door meeting to remove Majority Leader Gene Suellentrop of Wichita from the job. Suellentrop did not attend the meeting or issue a statement. He will keep his seat in the Senate.

St. Louis Public Radio is pleased to announce the promotions of Melody Freeman to Director of Business Administration, and of Jade Harrell to Director of On-Demand & Content Partnerships, who combined offer decades of valuable experience to their respective positions, and who will serve on the station’s senior leadership team.

The Municipal Art Commission on Friday approved the first four artworks for the largest public art project in Kansas City history at the new Kansas City International Airport. The City Council will make the final endorsement at a later date.

COVID-19 is not slowing entrepreneurial activity for at least one organization in the St. Louis region.

The Innovation Technology and Entrepreneur Network’s 2020 Impact Study shows many member companies managed to move forward despite the uncertain economy, finding:

Update, Saturday, 9:45 a.m

Johnson County District Judge Robert Wonnell on Friday granted the Blue Valley School District’s motion to dismiss Johnson County Commissioner Charlotte O’Hara’s lawsuit.

Wonnell agreed with the district’s contention that O’Hara had no standing to sue.

Original story continues below:

A large mob of white Kansas Citians seized Levi Harrington from Kansas City police custody on April 3, 1882, and took him to a bridge overlooking the West Bottoms, hung him and shot him. Hundreds gathered to watch the gruesome killing unfold.

On Saturday community members and leaders will gather where Harrington died, and honor him by collecting a bit of soil from the area where he was lynched.

This isn’t the first stimulus rodeo for St. Louis County Councilwoman Rita Days.

During Days’ last couple of years in the Missouri General Assembly, she was part of a legislative battle over how to spend a flood of money that came to the state from then-President Barack Obama’s federal stimulus bill. Some GOP lawmakers wanted to use that money to backfill tax cuts, but ultimately the legislature spent the funds on a host of projects — and to shore up Missouri’s budget.

After a months-long occupation of the lawn outside City Hall, the Kansas City Council on Thursday agreed to put up as many as 500 people in hotel rooms for three months.

A unanimous vote by the council told the city manager to come up with a stop-gap plan for offering housing to the homeless with hopes of finding federal tax dollars to cover the bill.

“If you are somebody who is experiencing homelessness and you’re on the streets, we have a place for you to go,” Mayor Quinton Lucas said.

St. Louisans planning to drive hours away to get a second Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination can now find one closer to home.

A federally run clinic at the Dome at America’s Center downtown is offering second doses of the Pfizer vaccine to Missouri residents, with no appointment needed. People seeking shots need to bring their vaccination cards at least 21 days after their first Pfizer dose.

This interview will be on “St. Louis on the Air” over the noon hour Tuesday. This story will be updated after the show. You can listen live.

Every evening, just as many people are shutting down their computers for the day and starting to think about supper, Dan Martin is gearing up to complete his daily drawing for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch: a fresh depiction of the newspaper’s Weatherbird.

There’s good news for film fans in the St. Louis region: The historic Tivoli Theatre in the Delmar Loop will reopen later this year under new ownership.

Developer Joe Edwards agreed this week to sell the theater to One Family Church, which for 10 years has rented space there for weekly services. He’ll sell the building’s third and fourth floors to Integrity Web Consulting, a firm that has used the office space there for a similar length of time.

Host

Stephen Steigman

Guests

Trilla Ray-Carter, Artistic Director & cello

Anthony Maglione, Conductor & Composer

Program

O Ye Tender Babe

by Thomas Tallis

Performed by Charles Metz on a 1590 Virginal

Sonata Sopra “La Monica” for two violins and basso continuo

by Biagio Marini

William Bauer, Monty Carter, violins

Trilla Ray-Carter, cello,

Rebecca Bell, Harpsichord

Live performance, July 2018

Te Deum Laudamus, K. 141

Students will return to the quads and lecture halls of college campuses throughout St. Louis in the fall.

Colleges and universities are planning for relative normalcy in August after several semesters of remote learning, strict socializing rules and minimal on-campus living or events.

“Today we are optimistic that we can return more fully to our campuses in the summer and fall and offer curricular and co-curricular experiences that bring us much closer to pre-pandemic operations,” said Julian Schuster, president of Webster University, last month.

The government has seized nearly $300,000 from the bank account for a medical clinic owned by Missouri State Rep. Patricia Derges, who is facing multiple felony charges for defrauding customers and the government.

The seizure was disclosed Wednesday after court documents related to the seizure were unsealed at the request of federal prosecutors. The documents included a sworn affidavit by an FBI special agent in support of the seizure.

KCUR health reporter Alex Smith has garnered a second-place award for beat reporting from the Association of Health Care Journalists, one of the premier health reporting organizations in the country.