(Missouri Independent) – Politicians are fighting over masks. Public health officials are begging people to get vaccinated. And meanwhile, the Delta variant continues to spread almost unchecked in the state. St. Louis County Executive Sam Page and St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones defended their mask mandates during separate appearances Wednesday. Page held a press conference […]
First-ever federal approval has been given to a drug to help delay decline and slow Alzheimer’s disease among patients in the early stage of the disease. Stacy Tew-Lovasz, president of the Missouri Chapter of the Alzheimer’s Association, says the next step is to make the drug affordable. The pharmaceutical company plans to price the medication […]
The Texas Department of State Health Services confirmed on July 15 a case of human monkeypox in a U.S. resident who recently traveled from Nigeria to the United States. The person is currently hospitalized in Dallas. CDC is working with the airline and state and local health officials to contact airline passengers and others who […]
(Missouri Independent) – The U.S. House voted Tuesday to remove from the Capitol a bust of the late Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney, who in 1857 wrote the Dred Scott decision (Dred Scott pictured above article) that stripped all Black Americans, free or slave, of their citizenship. The legislation passed on a vote of 285-120 with only 67 […]
(Missouri Independent) – Former Trump administration officials and conservative and libertarian nonprofits have launched lawsuits to block federal relief funds aimed at Black and minority farmers—a development that House Agriculture Committee Chairman David Scott of Georgia calls “an evil system at work here.” Suits have been filed in Florida, Wisconsin, and Texas that says it’s […]
(Missouri Independent) – President Joe Biden on Thursday signed into law legislation declaring a legal public holiday annually on June 19, the date of the end of slavery in the U.S. known as Juneteenth. “Throughout history, Juneteenth has been known by many names—Jubilee Day, Freedom Day, Liberation Day,” Vice President Kamala Harris said at the […]
The Livingston County Library will hold a virtual tour of the Grand River Museum’s Bicentennial exhibits as part of its adult summer reading program. Museum Curator Pam Clingerman will lead the tour, which will include the Bethel African Methodist Episcopal Church and other exhibits in the main building of the museum. The tour will be […]
An Iowa woman pleaded guilty yesterday in federal court to hate crime charges for attempting to kill two children because of their race and national origin. According to admissions Nicole Poole Franklin, 42, made during the hearing, on the afternoon of December 9, 2019, Poole Franklin was driving her Jeep Grand Cherokee on Creston Avenue […]
The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is reporting the first identification in a Missouri resident of the COVID-19 variant, B.1.351, which was first identified in South Africa in December 2020 and began being reported in the United States in late January. The B.1.351 variant was identified in a sample from an adult living […]
A former state representative is making history in St. Louis. St. Louis is making history after voters elected the city’s first African-American female mayor. City Treasurer Tishaura Jones beat out her opponent Alderwoman Cara Spencer in yesterday’s election. (AUDIO) Jones will be sworn in on April 20th.
The death of a Kansas man whose body was found in a creek in La Cygne, Kansas, in 2004 was a homicide, according to a new report by a federal forensic examiner. As part of a continuing federal investigation of Alonzo Brooks’ death, his body was exhumed and transported to Dover Air Force Base for […]
Black residents of Evanston, who lived in the city between 1919 and 1969 or are direct descendants of someone who did, can start receiving what the City Council calls reparations in early to mid-summer, in the form of housing grants. The plan is to provide $25,000 grants for home repairs, mortgage assistance, or down payments, to […]
(Missouri Independent) – Roy Blunt’s announcement that he won’t seek a third term certainly shook up Republican politics in Missouri, sparking nearly every GOP elected official in the state to publicly mull jumping into the campaign. Democrats aren’t immune from the speculation. While any Democrat would face an uphill fight, the chance of a messy […]
The newly elected president of the National Pork Producers Council outlined the organization’s priorities following the conclusion of their meeting at the National Pork Industry Forum. Jen Sorenson, an Iowa pork producer, says the expansion of export markets is at the top of their list. “Ultimately we see joining CPTPP as a major opportunity under […]
Juneteenth is the oldest nationally celebrated commemoration of the ending of slavery in the United States. From its Galveston, Texas origin in 1865, the observance of June 19th as the African American Emancipation Day has spread across the United States and beyond. St. Louis County has made Juneteenth a holiday. The observance on June 19th marks […]
(Missouri Independent) – The White House on Wednesday indicated that President Joe Biden would support studying reparations for slavery, the same day that House Democrats held a hearing on legislation that would set up a reparations commission. But White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki stopped short of saying Biden would sign the bill under consideration […]
Black and brown communities have been hit hard by COVID-19, but polls say many are also hesitant to get a coronavirus vaccination. Dr. Mati Hlatshwayo Davis, an infectious disease specialist at Washington University in St. Louis, is African American and understands why her community is timid. Dr. says there has been a bad […]
The Justice Department announced that a federal grand jury in Kansas City, Kansas, returned an indictment charging Colton Donner, 25, with threatening an African-American male juvenile, because of the victim’s race and because the victim was living in a home in Paola, Kansas, in violation of Title 42, U.S. Code, Section 3631. For a separate […]
The FBI released Hate Crime Statistics, 2019, the Uniform Crime Reporting (UCR) Program’s latest compilation about bias-motivated incidents throughout the nation. The 2019 data, submitted by 15,588 law enforcement agencies, provide information about the offenses, victims, offenders, and locations of hate crimes. Law enforcement agencies submitted incident reports involving 7,314 criminal incidents and 8,559 related […]
The FBI continues to seek information regarding the 2004 suspicious death of Alonzo Brooks in La Cygne, Kansas. The investigation into this cold case was initiated in 2019 and a reward of up to $100,000 for information was announced at a press conference on June 11, 2020. During this investigation, new information has come to […]
