State News

The bill is intended to ensure there is no drop in funding for the First Steps program, which serves developmentally disabled children, nor for several other initiatives.

Members of the public are invited to hear attorneys argue eight appeals from the trial court in Cape Girardeau County.

State lawmakers gave final approval to a resolution directing the State Historical Society of Missouri to develop proposals to commemorate the 200th anniversary of Missouri's birth as a state.

Legislative supporters said the new building could house offices for several state agencies. Governor says no one wants a new building, except "bureaucrats."

One of the biggest, most divisive issues for lawmakers this week will be familiar from years past — whether to scale back several existing tax breaks as part of a plan to create new incentives for certain businesses.

Jon Stouffer donated his late mother's collection of Precious Moments figurines to the Breast Cancer Foundation of the Ozarks, The Joplin Globe reported. Shirley Stouffer, who was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1992, died of heart problems in 2007 at age 67, he said.

Rail supporters want to close the 185-mile service gap between Oklahoma City and Wichita.

The Democratic governor criticized the tax cut plan just a day after it won final approval from a Republican-led legislature that touted it as a means of remaining economically competitive in a battle for businesses with Kansas and other bordering states.

Twenty-one-year-old Spc. Charles P. McClure, of New Bloomfield, died May 2 in Camp Buehring in Kuwait.

Under the legislation, students would have to be continuously enrolled for a certain number of credit hours per semester to continue receiving state aid.

In addition to a nearly $25 billion budget, lawmakers have already sent Gov. Jay Nixon a potential $700 million income tax cut.

Blunt and his Democratic colleague from Missouri, Claire McCaskill, want resolution of the long-delayed project that would build a quarter-mile levee and install infrastructure to protect farmland and small towns from the Mississippi River.

The budget could force Gov. Jay Nixon to choose between aiding developmentally disabled children and low-income seniors.

The tax cut could reduce state revenues by about $700 million annually when fully phased in.

The typical fast food worker in St. Louis is 28 and makes about $8 an hour. Workers on strike are asking for $15 an hour to properly take care of their families.

The measure takes aim at "Agenda 21," a nonbinding UN agreement signed by 178 nations that encourages sustainable development.

The corps is predicting the amount of runoff flowing into the river basin this spring to be about 79 percent of normal.

The measure would only have imposed the new evaluation metrics on principals and administrators.

Improved soil moisture is good news for Midwestern corn growers, who have been forced to delay planting corn because of rainstorms.

With only one week remaining in the legislative session, the proposed constitutional amendment appears unlikely to win final approval.