Missouri News

MASS MoCA curator Denise Markonish first approached artist Nick Cave about seven years ago to see if he’d be willing to take on the Massachusetts art museum’s largest exhibition space. The size of a football field.

Things have improved for Vanessa Radford, 34, since she was hit by COVID-19 three months ago. She feels better, at least physically.

"Mentally, I have PTSD," she said. "I’m scared to go back to work. (I wonder if) they are they taking precautions. Are they going to be taking tempareatures? Is the person next to me going to be sick. It’s caused me trauma."

When I first talked to Radford in July, she was worried about finances. She had left her job because someone tested positive for the virus. Then she got it herself.

The biggest challenge so far for employees of the Gene Slay’s Girls and Boys Club is getting the Wi-Fi to reach every nook and cranny where students are spread out doing lessons on their school-issued devices.

“Our building is basically a cinder block, so getting Wi-Fi through some of those hardy 1950s walls has been an interesting adventure,” said Jeremy Kane, a development officer for the club in the Soulard neighborhood.

Thousands of people in the St. Louis region are facing evictions because of unemployment or a considerable loss of income from the ongoing effects of the coronavirus pandemic.

To mitigate the spread of coronavirus through mass evictions, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued a three-month national ban on evictions for renters in early September.

St. Louis County has announced plans to look at whether it can reduce the amount of building space it owns or leases — a move prompted in part by the coronavirus pandemic.

The county council earlier this month transferred $300,000 within the budget of Department of Transportation and Public Works to cover the cost of the study. Firms interested in doing the work must submit their qualifications by Tuesday.

Metro East organizations working to get their communities counted by the 2020 census are watching a California lawsuit that may push the national headcount back to its original end date in October.

Having a baby is the ultimate leap of faith, an act of hope for the future in defiance of every logical argument in the other direction. Which is just one of the many reasons why giving birth in a pandemic is so disorienting. Particularly in a hospital, where unusual and hard-to-understand safety protocols serve as constant reminders that all is not right in the world.

Family, friends and fans of baseball legend Lou Brock gathered Saturday to remember and celebrate his life and storied career with the Cardinals.

Brock’s family hosted a private funeral in Ferguson that was livestreamed to the public and later visited his statue outside Busch Stadium. He was 81 when he died last Sunday, after suffering from many health ailments, including bone marrow cancer and diabetes.

The Missouri Department of Social Services has submitted an application to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services that would use federal funds to pay for a program providing family planning, contraception and disease testing for low-income, postpartum women.

A Jackson County judge denied the Blue Springs School District’s request for an order to block Jackson County’s limit of outdoor crowds to 100 people because of the coronavirus.

Following a brief hearing, Judge Cory Lee Atkins rejected the school district’s argument that it would suffer “irreparable damage” if more than 100 people could not attend Blue Springs High School’s football game this evening.

Before the pandemic, Wichita State University didn’t have a federally certified lab capable of handling coronavirus testing.

Now it does. And the new nonprofit outfit is gearing up to churn out hundreds of thousands of tests by the end of the year.

“I know that sounds like a lot,” said Tonya Witherspoon, Wichita State’s vice president of industry engagement, “but we think several labs in the state need to be able to do that much — or more.”

An outbreak of COVID-19 cases at one Missouri prison has made inmates such as Kenneth Clayton fearful.

“It's been tumultuous,” Clayton said. “I'm at a point where … I'm wondering will I really make it home to be with my family.”

Amid the coronavirus pandemic, Johnson County residents are finding new ways to remember those who served and died in the attacks on 9/11.

In previous years, residents headed to the 9/11 memorial at the Fire Department Training Center in Overland Park for an in-person ceremony.

Overland Park Fire Chief Bryan Dehner said the department made the difficult decision this year to switch to an online ceremony with just first responders.

TOPEKA, Kansas — Republican lawmakers agreed to extend Kansas’ coronavirus disaster declaration Friday by a month after demanding assurances that Democratic Gov. Laura Kelly won’t shutter businesses across the state a second time.

The contentious approval by the State Finance Council is just the beginning of a cycle: By law, the declaration can be extended only up to 30 days at a time.

Updated at 3 p.m. Sept. 11 with clarification of Howard’s status and comment from Page

Leadership at the St. Louis County Department of Justice Services is seeing more upheaval.

Darby Howard, who has been the interim director of the jail in Clayton for less than a month, announced Friday that he would step down “with regret” from that role, but remain on until a new interim director is appointed, possibly next week.

The sound of power tools is roaring in neighborhoods across the United States.

In the Brookside neighborhood in central Kansas City, Mo., John Buhr has do-it-yourself projects going from top of the garage to the basement.

"As soon as COVID hit, we needed someplace the kids could play," Buhr says, noting that neighborhood parks were closed. "So we put a playhouse down [in the basement] first and then found the kids liked it so much that we went ahead and built a living room. And then my wife needed the space to work."

A Lee’s Summit blood testing company that received a warning letter from the Food and Drug Administration about its at-home COVID-19 antibody test says it is fully compliant with the law.

CoreMedica Laboratories received the warning in July stating it was offering unauthorized COVID-19 testing services.

The letter directed the company to take action within 48 hours. But CoreMedica’s website continues to advertise its antibody test.

Typically the fall is a busy time for college fairs, but not this year.

Dozens of high schools canceled in-person college fairs this semester to prevent spreading the coronavirus. In response, the Missouri Association for College Admission Counseling is hosting a virtual fair.

Melda Beaty spent about six weeks in her birthplace of Jackson, Mississippi, before her family moved north to Chicago on the tail end of the Great Migration. But the stories told to her by her elders stuck with her and continue to inspire her work.

“I find the experiences of the older Black generation fascinating. They are full of perseverance, they’re full of determination, triumph. They’re also full of a lot of hardship,” Beaty said.

The season opener for the hometown Super Bowl champs Thursday night against a contender from Texas marked one of the biggest public gatherings in Kansas City since the onset of a pandemic.

It also came after months of national conflict over the resulting COVID-19 quarantines, race, policing and the Chiefs’ use of American Indian imagery.

The game swirled them all together. Gestures by the players, teams and the league in solidarity with a push for racial justice also prompted boos from fans loud enough to be heard on the national telecast of the game.

The Kansas City Streetcar Authority has announced a second major federal grant in recent weeks, this time for a northbound extension of the downtown line.

In a notification to congressional offices, the U.S. Department of Transportation announced a $14.2 million award under a program called 'The Better Utilizing Investment to Leverage Development (BUILD) Grant' to extend the streetcar line a little more than half a mile to the Berkley Riverfront.

The first time legendary World Chess Champion Garry Kasparov and current World Chess Champion Magnus Carlsen faced off was in the Reykjavik Rapid tournament in 2004. Kasparov was only a year away from retirement, while his fresh-faced opponent was only 13 years old. Sixteen years later, the two heavyweights will face off once again, this time playing online in the upcoming Champions Showdown: Chess 9LX.

A group guiding development in Downtown St. Louis released a draft Thursday of a plan to improve Downtown and Downtown West neighborhoods over the next decade.

The big goals center around upgrading street infrastructure and improving walkability to make the city’s core more inviting to residents and visitors.

The notion that there is a proper way to speak adds to racist views in modern society. Sarah Hercula, a Missouri University of Science and Technology English professor, has written a book on that topic. St. Louis Public Radio’s Jonathan Ahl sat down with her to talk about her ideas to fix the problem.

Sarah Hercula: Language is one of the most essential ways that we use to situate ourselves as humans. It’s a true factor in our identities.

People tend to view language differently than race or gender, because they claim that it can be changed.

The City of St. Louis will begin spending roughly $6 million per year for the next seven years on revitalizing vacant buildings.

At her weekly press briefing Wednesday, Mayor Lyda Krewson announced that Proposition Neighborhood Stabilization will go into effect after waiting on funding for nearly two years.

To pay for the project, city residents’ property taxes will increase annually by about 1 cent for every $100 in property value.

With less than three weeks left until the national deadline to complete the 2020 U.S. Census, volunteers and advocates are scrambling to get Kansas City-area residents to complete the form.

Door-to-door efforts are helping boost responses. According to the Census Bureau, Kansas is now in the top five states in total responses with a rate of 95.6%. And Missouri’s rate is 92.7%.