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The Columbia smoking debate heated up Thursday night at the Board of Health subcommittee meeting, when business owners and residents argued over the change in the proposed smoking ordinance.

The Board of Health has been discussing changing Columbia’s smoking ordinance to ban indoor smoking in public places, including bars and restaurants.

Dan Burden went from photographing Argentinean mountains to taking pictures of Columbia’s busiest intersections.

A former National Geographic photographer from Florida, Burden is now one of the nation’s top pedestrian consultants. He walks more than 1,500 miles and spends 300 days a year on the road advising communities and business leaders across the country on how to design for people, not cars.

The $950,000 in block grants doled out Wednesday by a city panel charged with distributing federal funds are far from final.

Officials say they fear Columbia’s share of federal dollars could shrink if cuts pending in the federal budgetary process become a reality.

With the Missouri River running high enough for boaters to venture a little ways up Bonne Femme Creek, Steve Mellis and several friends in two motorboats made their way through woody debris and downed trees last weekend in search of some shade to escape the insufferable heat.

Mellis had seen silver carp break the surface of the Missouri River and its tributaries in the past, typically in response to the sounds of boat motors. But this experience was more dramatic — and potentially dangerous — than previous displays.

YouZeum supporters, with their backs against an $800,000 wall and facing the possibility of losing a sizeable grant, said Thursday they believe they have met their capital campaign goal of raising $1.2 million.

Last year, the Mabee Foundation of Tulsa, Okla., said it would give YouZeum a $500,000 grant, contingent upon YouZeum raising the balance of the money needed to meet the project’s total cost of $5.2 million by June 30. YouZeum had previously raised $4 million for the project. YouZeum launched the campaign in May, when the deadline already loomed. This week, however, the dollars came rushing in.

Law enforcement officers in Columbia and Boone County are preparing for a full plate on the Fourth of July and will concentrate on responding to calls about people shooting fireworks at each other or at property.

While it is illegal to shoot fireworks in Columbia without a special permit, it’s OK to do so in unincorporated Boone County or in some smaller towns.

Give a sister city 120,000 boxes of iodized salt, children will be healthy for a year. Help the city provide salt for its children on its own, good health could be insured indefinitely.

In the past, Columbians have been asked to contribute salt and money as part of the yearly salt campaign coordinated by “A Call to Serve,” a nonprofit international humanitarian aid organization, to buy salt for Columbia’s sister city Kutaisi, Georgia. This year, Columbians are asked to make financial contributions to help purchase equipment that would be used to repackage iodized salt.

Blake Ingram was expecting a calming weekend visit to his native St. Joseph two weeks ago. His relaxation ended when his friends from high school called him to fill in on their wooden bat summer league team.

“I’d take the chance to swing a wooden bat any day,” Ingram, a 20-year-old MU sophomore said.

Yellow wristbands with the slogan Livestrong on them will be popular accessories this weekend with Lance Armstrong starting his bid for his seventh straight Tour de France title. They should be more popular than normal in Columbia, though, with hundreds of cycling enthusiasts in town for the 20th Columbia Cup.

A set of four United States Cycling Federation events spanning Saturday and Sunday, the Columbia Cup begins the same day as the Tour de France.

ST. LOUIS — Rookie Jeff Francis pitched three-hit ball for six innings, and Garrett Atkins and Danny Ardoin hit home runs Thursday night to lead the Colorado Rockies against the St. Louis Cardinals 7-0 for only their sixth road victory of the season.

Francis (7-5) contributed two hits and scored twice for the Rockies, a major league-worst 6-31 on the road. The start was the most feeble since the 1982 Twins went 5-32, and they had dropped five straight and 11 of 12 away from Coors Field while getting outscored 77-32. The Rockies were 12-15 in June, their fifth straight losing month.

The Mid-Missouri Mavericks dropped their fifth consecutive game, losing 9-8 to the River City Rascals on Thursday in O’Fallon.

The Rascals (18-15) beat the Mavericks (11-22) on an RBI single from Mike Madrid in the bottom of the ninth inning. The Rascals were down as many as five runs in the game before mounting their comeback.

The Boone County Prosecutor's Office upgraded charges against Shawan Daniels from first-degree assault to second-degree murder after Columbia police were notified that Earlene Bradshaw's died at 2:30 p.m. Friday.