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By ninh pham  ¦   A new temporary cellphone tower will be installed off Providence Road to help boost reception during football and basketball games.

By Evan Townsend  ¦   Delta Air Lines discontinued service to Columbia Regional Airport on Wednesday. American Eagle Airlines began flying to and from the airport the next day. Here is a look back at some steps that led to the decision.

By Malory Ensor  ¦   The Joint Committee on Education released the new draft model for funding higher education based on performance Feb. 4. The model, similar to the formula used for funding public school districts, is broken down into six core operational costs for each school. All four schools in the University of Missouri System were grouped together.

As part of the draft, the formula listed the target operational costs for 2013, with a total cost listed as $1.97 billion. The simulation did not include expenses related to residence halls, hospital services, bookstores and other revenue-generating operations.

By Yu Yan  ¦   Missouri’s Medicaid expansion plan seeks to lower the number of uninsured Missourians. Projected new covered non-elderly adults could increase by 5 percentage points to nearly 7 percentage points in each region, according to the prediction from the Missouri Budget Project, conducted in conjunction with Washington University in St. Louis.

By Hany Hawasly  ¦   Van William Hawxby of DogMaster Distillery, LLC, asked the Columbia Board of Adjustment to allow him to operate a distillery in the North Central Columbia neighborhood. City planners had told him that would be prohibited because his property is zoned C-2 and a distillery would be considered an industrial use.

By Aaron Cooper  ¦   This timeline shows the highlights Tim Wolfe's first year as the University of Missouri System president.

By Courtney Lindbeck, Jennifer Bailey, Amartya Bagchi  ¦   The graphs show the total electricity production capacity breakdown by fuel type in 2011 for three of Missouri’s biggest energy providers: Empire District Electric Co., Kansas City Power & Light and Ameren Missouri. Utilities do not always produce energy at full capacity. If each company was generating and purchasing electricity at full capacity in 2011, the following percentages of energy would come from each type of fuel. The maps show the areas each of the companies service in Missouri.

By Colleen Maag  ¦   The population of Japanese beetles in Columbia has declined from the record high in 2010. Despite the drop in population, the numbers might rise again due to several different factors, including an increase in rainfall since last year. This chart displays the approximate number of adult beetles found in the trap each year at the A.L. Gustin Golf Course over the course of the season. Trapping begins the last week of May and continues through the end of August each year.

By Libby Burns  ¦   An MU engineering team has developed a new type of radiation source that could lead to the creation of portable X-ray machines. The device uses a crystal the size of a piece of gum to amplify electrical currents and create X-rays.

By Shelly Yang  ¦   The Columbia Police Department reported 66 burglaries over the winter break, an 11 percent drop from last season. The department said the burglaries were scattered all over town.

By Jon McClure  ¦   The Missouri Department of Transportation announced plans Tuesday to reconfigure the interchange at Stadium Boulevard and Interstate 70. Construction on a new diverging diamond interchange will begin in mid-March along with other projects designed to alleviate traffic along Stadium Boulevard.

By Julie Fine  ¦   Wednesday marked National Signing Day. This list shows 20 football players that have signed letters of intent to play for the Missouri Tigers, coming from across the country.

By ninh pham  ¦   Legislators in Missouri are looking into a bill that will ban the use of unmanned aircraft to gather information on individuals or property. Missouri is one of the 11 states that are considering the ban.

By Veneta Rizvic  ¦   The Columbia City Council approved an ordinance appropriating $25,000 for playground upgrades. The projects are a continuation of an existing program that started in the late 1990s. It is funded by the city’s parks sales tax.

By Elizabeth Scheltens  ¦   In states with collective bargaining laws, it’s illegal for a group of unionized workers to negotiate a contract that requires all employees to pay union dues. Members of the state House Workforce Development committee are debating the merits of such a law in Missouri. If the bill passes, it would go to voters for approval in November.

By Evan Townsend  ¦   The Columbia City Council and Mayor Bob McDavid accepted a proposal Monday to install 117 new parking meters. The Downtown Parking Task Force recommended the meters for the entire length of Ninth Street and on Broadway between Ninth and Tenth streets. The meters from IPS Group Inc. accept three payment types but not EZ Park cards.

By Malory Ensor  ¦   The Missouri State Highway Patrol Crime Lab has received more DNA samples as a result of state laws requiring the submission of DNA from felony offenders. The chart represents the percentage of successful matches compared with total samples. Less than one percent of all samples successfully match records in the database.

By Rachel Stinebring  ¦   Only 55 votes separated Laura Nauser from her closest opponent, Susan “Tootie” Burns, in a special election Tuesday to replace former Councilwoman Helen Anthony. Nauser won 992 votes, Burns captured 937 votes, and Mark Jones got 365 votes.

By Miranda Zhang  ¦   Starting salaries for 2012 college graduates rose 3.4 percent to more than $44,000 from 2011, according to the National Association of Colleges and Employers’ new salary survey released in January.

Among the categories of majors included in the survey, engineering degrees made the highest starting salary of about $62,000 a year, followed by computer and information sciences majors earning about $59,000.
Despite being in the lower range of entry salaries, education students enjoyed the biggest increase: Their pay climbed 5.4 percent from 2011.

By Christina Trester  ¦   The special election for the Fifth Ward council seat is Tuesday.