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Eric Schmitt pays $75,000 for ad during Chiefs game to close out Missouri Senate race
On Sunday evening, the Kansas City Chiefs will host the Tennessee Titans in a game essential to both teams’ hopes to enter the NFL playoffs with the best record in their conference. With Election Day approaching on Tuesday, Republican U.S. Senate candidate Eric Schmitt is targeting the enormous hometown audience expected to tune in with […]
Missouri ballot measures put state investments, National Guard before voters
In the first four months of Missouri’s fiscal year, the state earned $42.8 million in interest for the general revenue fund, more than in the past two full years combined. The enormous increase is due to two factors — a record surplus in the fund and the rapid rise in interest rates. On Tuesday, voters […]
Missouri hospital the first confirmed federal investigation of denied emergency abortion
President Joe Biden’s administration told hospitals in July they must provide emergency abortions when necessary even in states with strict bans in place. And here in Missouri, a Joplin hospital is apparently the first in the nation to be investigated for possibly violating federal law by telling a woman experiencing an emergency that she needed […]
State says feds initiated investigation of Missouri hospital that denied emergency abortion
The federal government, not state political leaders, initiated an investigation of the care Freeman Health Services in Joplin provided after a denying a woman an emergency abortion, a Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services spokeswoman said Monday. On Aug. 2, Mylissa Farmer came to the emergency room at Freeman Health after her water broke […]
Democrat alleges Missouri investigating hospital in retaliation for ad critical of Eric Schmitt
Missouri House Democratic leader Crystal Quade on Friday demanded to know why a state agency is investigating a southwest Missouri hospital that treated a woman featured in an ad attacking Attorney General Eric Schmitt over state abortion laws. Investigators from the Department of Health and Senior Services visited Freeman Health System in Joplin this week, […]
Missouri Senate race spending slows after heated primary contests
Outside groups poured money into Missouri in the weeks leading up to the Aug. 2 U.S. Senate primary, with political action committees spending nearly $20 million on television ads boosting or tearing down candidates. Since then, they’ve all gone silent. Fall ad spending in the Senate showdown between Republican Eric Schmitt and Democratic nominee Trudy […]
Jay Ashcroft can delay review for 2024 initiative petitions until after election, Missouri judge rules
There is no way under Missouri law to save time on initiative petitions by submitting them early, Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ruled Wednesday. In the decision, Beetem wrote he found “unpersuasive” the arguments of Jeff Basinger, a Columbia attorney, that the law requires Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft to conduct a required review […]
Missouri judge hears lawsuit challenging Biden student debt relief plan
Whether student debtors will get the loan relief promised by President Joe Biden is now in the hands of a Missouri federal judge. For nearly two hours Wednesday, attorneys for the six states challenging the plan to forgive almost $500 billion in student debt argued with Department of Justice lawyers over which laws should govern […]
‘Winter is here’: Chess champion Kasparov warns that Ukraine war is a test for democracies
FULTON – The invasion of Ukraine awakened free countries to the threat posed by Russia and Vladimir Putin, but whether they will sustain that resistance to dictators is an open question, former world chess champion Garry Kasparov said Friday during a speech at Westminster College. On the Missouri campus where Winston Churchill warned in 1946 […]
Missouri Supreme Court upholds law stripping state workers of merit system protections
Most Missouri state employees are “at-will” workers not entitled to seniority protections or grievance rights when they are fired, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday. In an opinion that overturned a Cole County Circuit Court decision, the high court declared that a 2018 law repealing the merit system for most state workers is constitutional. Three […]
Missouri lawmakers pass rural incentives bill as special session draws to a close
Missouri lawmakers wrapped up their special session Tuesday when the state Senate overwhelmingly approved a $40 million package of incentives targeting rural economic projects. The bill, passed 26-3, creates tax credits for fuel retailers to sell gas and diesel with higher blends of biofuels and to establish urban farms. It extends the life of incentives […]
Missouri judge to decide when Jay Ashcroft must begin review of 2024 initiative petitions
It is settled law in Missouri that those seeking to amend the state constitution or law through the initiative petition process must wait a day after the general election to begin collecting signatures. What is uncertain, and what Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem will decide soon, is whether the secretary of state must conduct […]