Articles

Giving new meaning to the phrase “life of the party,” a Columbia couple will throw the city’s first-ever CPR party tonight.

A Red Cross instructor will show partygoers how to resuscitate an infant and child at the home of Elizabeth Kraatz, an MU nursing professor, and her husband, Jim Kraatz, director of the MU burn center.

The Department of Public Safety has new directors for two of its divisions, pending confirmation from the Senate.

Gov. Matt Blunt appointed Dale Roberts to serve as supervisor of the Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control on Monday, a position filled by Steve Shimmens on an interim basis after the firings of former supervisor Keith Fuller and his deputy, Lori Baskins, on April 19. Blunt appointed Michael Schler to the position of deputy director.

Citizens concerned about the future of the Union Pacific Railroad Bridge in Boonville are taking all the necessary measures to save it.

On April 22, Gov. Matt Blunt informed the city of Boonville that the Missouri Department of Natural Resources would turn the rights of the bridge back over to Union Pacific. Advocates for preserving the bridge responded by saying they were not done fighting.

A fire in a central Columbia apartment complex caused an estimated $500,000 in damage to the building Sunday morning.

Unattended candles were the cause of the blaze that spread from a central apartment and through the walls into adjoining apartments, Columbia Fire Marshall Steve Sapp said in a news release.

Columbia activists and St. Francis House directors Steve and Lana Jacobs staged an Iraq war protest at MU on Monday morning.

Jacobs and his wife went to Crowder Hall where detachments of Navy, Army, Marine Corps and Air Force ROTC programs are housed. There, they attempted to bury black coffins draped in U.S. and Iraqi flags.

Missourians who need background checks will be able to bypass messy ink, intimidating booking rooms and, most importantly, lengthy delays thanks to a new electronic fingerprinting service.

The state awarded a contract for the service to a Minnesota-based company April 20. The aim is to decrease the turnaround time for fingerprint checks by reducing the number of paper fingerprint cards, which are less accurate and require manual entry into the Missouri State Highway Patrol’s database. The contract requires the services be available within 90 days of its signing, but the Division of Purchasing and Materials Management would not confirm a specific starting date.

As the ball moves down the field toward the opponent’s goal, the crowd begins to cheer. One section in particular is the loudest.

“Go Columbia” the group yells out.

ATLANTA — John Smoltz wasn’t going to give in to the St. Louis Cardinals. If he had to keep pitching his way out of trouble, so be it.

Smoltz scattered nine hits and four walks, both season highs, for his second straight win, outdueling Jeff Suppan to lead the Atlanta Braves past the Cardinals 2-1 on Sunday.

CLEVELAND — Jose Lima didn’t get his no-hitter, but Mike Sweeney continued his success at Jacobs Field.

Lima took a no-hit bid into the sixth inning before Cleveland rallied, and Sweeney hit his second home run of the game to break a tie in the eighth, leading the Kansas City Royals to a 6-5 win against the Indians on Sunday.

Sarah Stringer shifted into trot mode as she rounded second base.

Missouri’s sophomore second baseman had just hit the ball over the left center-field fence for what should have been her first collegiate home run.

It is only a vacant aging house on the south side of developer Billy Sapp’s property, but traces of a small community’s rich history are embedded in the land that surrounds it.

In front of the red-brick bungalow once owned by her family, Columbia resident Laura Crane sits on a stone fence built by her father, Paul Lindell Pace. She recalls memories of the farm and stories about a place called Harg. Her father lived in the house on 193 acres called Walnut Home Dairy Farm until it sold in 1928.

Oprah Winfrey, watch out. Another Chicagoan has her eye on your job.

Tyra Hughley, originally from Naperville, Ill., a suburb of the Windy City, believes she has what it takes to be the next media queen.

People in swimsuits ran around barefoot in the parking lot of Wilson’s Total Fitness Center on a chilly Sunday morning eager to register for the Merrill Lynch Race for Sight Triathlon. Sign-ins completed, they stormed the gym and hopped in the pool for the first event, a 300-yard swim. They followed that with a 17.5-mile bicycle ride and a 3.4-mile run.

More than 550 people participated in the event, now in its seventh year. Proceeds benefited the Amblyopia Prevention Program of the Missouri Lions Eye Research Foundation. Amblyopia, or lazy eye, can cause learning and behavioral difficulties in school and can potentially lead to permanent blindness. The condition usually can be cured if detected and treated early.

MU’s School of Medicine plans to renovate its anatomy morgue, spending $1.5 million to add about 1,000 square feet to the 1,700-square-foot facility.

The Boone County medical examiner’s office on St. Charles Road and the school’s anatomy morgue on campus each have two autopsy tables. The newly renovated space would have six autopsy tables.

For Jane Bush, a pre-medical student at the University of Washington, the Future of Birth Conference was about more than lectures and networking. It was an opportunity to be inspired.

As a birth assistant or doula, she came to the Columbia conference hoping to find some direction in her life.

Although parking enforcement can be a thankless job, somebody has to do it.

Steve Bartel, a sophomore photojournalism major at MU, spends about 25 hours a week walking around, checking parking passes and meters and doing other small jobs related to campus parking.

Missouri River Relief will stay busy this summer doing its part to clean up the Missouri River. The Columbia nonprofit organization has already finished the first of four summer cleanup operations this weekend at Columbia Bottom Conservation Area, near St. Louis.

But the big adventure for the “river rats,” as Jim Karpowicz fondly refers to the group he founded, will be three consecutive three-day weekends in July, when the group will conduct a “mega-scout” of trash along the river.

What happened: Dean Hainsworth, an MU ophthalmologist, has found a nonsurgical approach to treat wet age-related macular degeneration, a progressive eye condition that occurs when vessels form under the retinal tissue in the eye. The condition could reduce the sharpness of vision and lead to legal blindness.

How it works: Hainsworth, a physician at University Hospital’s Mason Eye Institute, injects Macugen, a type of ophthalmic drug, into the eye every six weeks. The drug then sets off a protein called the vascular endothelial growth factor that controls abnormal blood-vessel growth and leakage. By doing so, the treatment prevents advanced degeneration.

Irene Wolf is an active woman. When she’s not performing her duties as the administrative assistant at the Student Success Center reception desk, she occupies her time with one of her many hobbies and interests. Reading, enjoying eclectic and foreign cinema and researching and decorating different types of architecture are all things she enjoys.

Wolf lives on a 40-acre farm called Misty Hollow Farm, which has small nurseries where she tends to flowers and herbs and grows vegetables she uses for her creative vegetarian cooking.

The Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education is holding 10 regional forums starting today to get feedback on proposed changes to high school graduation requirements that would put greater emphasis on math, social studies and science instead of electives.

The High School Task Force, a 25-member committee consisting of education, business and labor representatives, recommended that graduation requirements increase from 22 to 24 credits, according to a press release from task force chairman Jerry Valentine. One unit equals one yearlong class.