(Missouri Independent) – Rejecting calls from lawmakers, advocates, and even the Pope for him to stop the execution of Ernest Johnson, an intellectually disabled man convicted of murder in 1995, Missouri Gov. Mike Parson announced Monday that the state will carry out the death sentence as planned at 6 p.m. Tuesday. “The state is prepared […]
The Grundy County Nursing Home District Board of Directors on September 28, 2021, approved a wage increase for nurse aids at Sunnyview Nursing Home in Trenton. Administrator Jerry Doerhoff reports the pay was raised to $14.00 per hour for certified nursing assistants and $15.00 per hour for certified nursing technicians. Different nurse aids made different […]
(Missouri Independent) – School districts are not subject to the law Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt is using to challenge masks mandates in classrooms, attorneys for Columbia Public Schools wrote in a court filing seeking dismissal of a lawsuit initiated last month. The district also challenges Schmitt’s standing to file the lawsuit, argues that he is […]
(Missouri Independent) – Booster shots soon will begin rolling out to some Americans who received the two-shot vaccine made by Pfizer—after a contentious and confusing federal approval process that isn’t over yet. Determining who exactly should be rolling up their sleeves for an additional dose was tricky. The Biden administration had leapfrogged federal regulatory panels […]
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt filed an amicus brief in support of Rae’s Café in their lawsuit against Jackson County. The brief, which was filed earlier in the case Jackson County v. Rae’s Café, argues that Rae’s Café, now Rae’s Private Club, is in compliance with the mask mandate and that Jackson County has violated […]
(Missouri Independent) – The U.S. House transportation panel early Wednesday passed along party lines the panel’s $60 billion slice of Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget plan, adding nearly $20 billion for a new transit program and high-speed rail development in the states. Chairman Peter A. DeFazio of Oregon had considered these and other items underfunded in […]
Missouri’s U-S Senator Josh Hawley spoke on the Senate floor Tuesday to honor the life of a Missouri Marine who was killed in Afghanistan last month during the U-S evacuation. Hawley also supported pulling out of the country but criticizes how the Biden administration handled it. Hawley introduced a resolution to […]
Registration is open for the 2021 Great Central U. S. “ShakeOut” earthquake drill on October 21, 2021. More than 320,000 people are already registered for this year’s ShakeOut drill, which is designed to remind people how to protect themselves during an earthquake. Missouri is one of 14 participating central U.S. states that could be impacted […]
(Missouri Independent) – In the first test of a 2020 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, drug middlemen last week argued that federal law gives them a right to limit which pharmacies patients with health insurance can use — or at least make it more expensive if patients get their medicine at a shop that isn’t preferred […]
(Missouri Independent) – Under a new state law that went into effect late last month, Missouri will become the final state to enforce a federal law designed to ensure mental health care is covered by insurance providers the same as treatments for physical ailments. The provisions were included in House Bill 604, an omnibus insurance bill […]
(Missouri Independent) -The U.S. Supreme Court’s rejection of the Biden administration’s last-ditch effort to extend a federal ban on evictions has put hundreds of thousands of American renters at risk of losing their housing — and is increasing pressure on states and localities to get rental assistance dollars distributed faster. In an eight-page majority opinion […]
Temporary health care workers are in high demand across Missouri and are commanding quite the price for their services. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports hospitals across the state need the extra staff to deal with surges of COVID-19 patients. That’s led to hourly rates that have risen to $200 an hour in some […]
(Missouri Independent) – The first U.S. stop for the nearly 2,000 Afghan interpreters and other refugees evacuated so far amid the collapse of the Afghan government has been central Virginia’s Fort Lee military base. Tapped for its East Coast location and its ability to quickly ramp up to serve as a temporary host installation, the Army […]
Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced that John L. Cazzell, 72, was sentenced last month for felony charges of defrauding customers in connection with his business, Four Seasons Lawn & Landscape. Cazzell promised extensive landscaping services in exchange for large advance payments. After taking money from several consumers, including elderly Missourians, Cazzell never followed through […]
(Missouri Indepentent) – With cases on the rise among both residents and staff, the nation’s leading advocacy group for retirees is calling on nursing homes to mandate COVID-19 vaccines. The number of COVID-19 cases reported each week in Kansas and Missouri nursing homes is rising again for the first time in months. Missouri, where weekly […]
(Missouri Independent) – Legislative leaders of both parties said Tuesday that a special session is likely not needed to appropriate additional funds following a court order to begin covering Missourians who are eligible under voter-approved Medicaid expansion. Senate Appropriations Committee Chairman Dan Hegeman, R-Cosby, Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, and Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis and […]
(Missouri Independent) – The Missouri Department of Social Services must allow newly eligible residents that qualify for benefits under voter-approved Medicaid expansion to enroll and cannot impose greater restrictions on them, a Cole County judge ruled Tuesday. Cole County Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem sided with the plaintiffs who urged him to allow Medicaid expansion to take […]
(Missouri Independent) – Prizes awarded through a vaccine incentive program offered by local public health departments in Missouri may get boosted to $100-per-person under a new federal allowance. After previously rejecting Missouri’s proposal to exceed a $25 limit on prizes paid for with federal funding to incentivize immunizations, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently […]
(Missouri Independent) – Many of the staff and residents in Shunda Whitfield’s St. Louis County nursing home were sick before they even realized what was going on. It was April 2020, and masks weren’t yet standard practice. Little was known about COVID before it swept through nursing homes, and as a certified nursing assistant, Whitfield […]
(Missouri Independent) – Unlicensed youth residential facilities across Missouri are expected to submit materials notifying the state of their existence by mid-October, but background checks for facility staff required under a new law likely won’t be completed by that time. That’s because the Department of Social Services (DSS) is still working to make hires in […]
