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By ninh pham  ¦   The number of people who applied for conceal and carry permits through law enforcement agencies in Boone County, Hallsville and Ashland increased from 2011 to 2012.

By Colleen Maag  ¦   Chief Financial Officer Linda Quinley and Superintendent Chris Belcher of Columbia Public Schools presented a budget increase to the Board of Education on April 8. Roughly $3.9 million will be pulled from reserves to cover the 2013-14 budget, which increased $9.5 million from the previous year. This chart displays year-to-year changes in the CPS budget from the past six fiscal years.

By Yu Yan  ¦   Since 1986, the Missouri Lottery has contributed more than $4.5 billion to public elementary, secondary and higher education in Missouri. More than $288 million from the lottery proceeds have been appropriated to Missouri’s public education programs this year.

By Amartya Bagchi  ¦   In the mid-1990s, Marcel Muller and Robert Indeck, two professors at Washington University in St. Louis, discovered that magnetic strips on the back of credit cards carried electronic signatures unique to each card. Today, those signatures could be recorded and put into a database to prevent the fraudulent use of cloned credit cards. St. Louis-based Schnuck Markets Inc. was recently targeted by hackers who came away with the credit and debit card information of many of its customers.

By Samantha Kubota  ¦   A Break Time convenience store is proposed for the corner of Grindstone Parkway and Rock Quary Road. Residents of the Sun Court neighborhood originally voiced concerns over the construction. However, in letters submitted to the city between March 12 and March 18, some residents have reversed their opinion on the issue.

By Courtney Lindbeck  ¦   Adam Scott won the 77th annual Masters Golf Tournament on Sunday at Augusta National after a two-hole playoff, beating Angel Cabrera. Scott is the first Australian to win the Masters. Scott’s winning share is worth $1.44 million. With a total purse of $8 million, the Masters payout is one of the largest in golf. The graph below shows the most victories in the Masters for Jack Nicklaus, Arnold Palmer and Tiger Woods. The graph also shows the distribution of the purse money for the 2013 Masters Golf Tournament.

By Kearston Winrow  ¦   Missouri, along with 20 other states and the District of Columbia, offers the State Free File program. This agreement allows qualified taxpayers to file their federal and Missouri income tax returns for free using state-approved software.

Right now, Missouri has agreements with eight tax online service providers. Each has their own eligiblity requirements. Taxes are due to the federal government April 15. The map below shows the states
that participate in the program.

The table shows the tax services that offer assistance to Missouri residents as well as a breakdown of adjusted gross income requirements.

By Evan Townsend  ¦   Columbia has been experiencing a colder spring than usual this year. Since the vernal equinox, 17 days have had lows below the historic average. Only seven days have been above the average.

By Jennifer Bailey  ¦   Since 2006, Missouri’s minimum wage rate has been equal to or more than the federal rate. Currently, Missouri, Washington, D.C., and 18 other states have minimum wage rates higher than the federal rate, which has been $7.25 since 2009. The Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2013, introduced to Congress on March 5, seeks to raise the federal minimum wage rate to $10.10 by 2015.

By Elizabeth Scheltens  ¦   The percentage of Missouri’s wage and salary workers who are members of a union fell by double digits between 1983 and 2012.

Nationwide, the membership rate fell from 20 to 11 percent during the same time period.

By Kearston Winrow  ¦   One of the university’s goals is to increase the diversity among students to have a campus that reflects the demographic of the state and the nation. This graph shows the minority enrollment rate of students since 2002. The university has seen a drastic increase in African American and Hispanic student enrollment in the past 11 years.

By Veneta Rizvic  ¦   Alzheimer’s, a form of dementia, is the most expensive disease in the U.S. Around 4.1 million Americans have dementia. It costs families and society between $157 billion to $215 billion a year.

By Elizabeth Scheltens  ¦  

By Jon McClure  ¦   The Ash Street Place Apartments on north Stadium Boulevard is one of 55 apartment buildings in Columbia lacking manual fire alarms. The Columbia Fire Department is working with apartment complexes to install these alarms, mandatory under a firecode adopted May 9, 2011. On Tuesday, firefighters responded to a fire at Ash Street Place, which caused an estimated $450,000 in damage.

By Kearston Winrow  ¦   For the seventh year in a row, Missouri’s teen birth rate of females ages 15 to 19 has decreased. Boone County was one of the nine counties in the state to have a birth rate under 20.0 at 16.1. The graph below shows
the teen birth rate per 1,000 teen girls ages 15 to 19 since 2001.

By Julie Fine  ¦   Phil Pressey, who announced Thursday he’s leaving MU early for the NBA draft, holds the title for most career assists and ties the record for most career steals at Missouri. These charts show how Pressey’s stats measure up to Anthony Peeler.

By Colleen Maag  ¦   While tuition makes up the foundation of the 2013 MU budget, more than half of the funding sources are enterprise operations such as University Hospital and Clinics, residential life, athletics and KOMU.

By Amartya Bagchi  ¦   CrowdIt, a new Springfield-based crowdsourcing company, is looking to expand the traditional model of Web-based crowdsourcing. Founder Jason Graf says that allowing the Internet community to provide their expertise as well as their money will help keep inexperienced project managers from failing as easily. The flow chart below illustrates the different models of crowdfunding.

By Libby Burns  ¦   A new trail that connects the MU Recreational Trail to Greenbriar Drive is now open for public use. The multi-purpose trail is open to a variety of activities including biking, walking and running. It allows residents on Greenbriar Drive to have direct access to the MU Recreational Trail.

By Evan Townsend  ¦   More than 1,600 volunteers will participate Saturday in the 17th annual Cleanup Columbia, a citywide trash pickup event. As early as 8 a.m., volunteers will pick up trash along the roads marked here. For the safety of the volunteers, the city encourages drivers to use caution while traveling these roads.