Missouri Attorney General reaches settlement with McKinsey & Company for role in opioid epidemic

Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt announced that his Office and a coalition of attorneys general from 47 states, the District of Columbia, and five U.S. territories have reached a $573 million settlement with one of the world’s largest consulting firms, McKinsey & Company. The settlement resolves investigations into the company’s role in working for opioid […]

Dicamba

Public interest groups sue EPA for re-approving controversial herbicide dicamba

Public-interest groups are suing the Environmental Protection Agency over the agency’s re-approval of products containing dicamba, a herbicide controversial for its tendency to drift into neighboring fields and damage farmers’ crops and homeowners’ gardens. Last fall, the EPA green-lighted dicamba use for five years, the third time the agency registered dicamba products. George Kimbrell, legal director at […]

Environmental Protection Agency EPA

EPA takes action to investigate PFAS contamination

As part of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) extensive efforts to address PFAS, the agency is making new information available about EPA testing that shows PFAS contamination from fluorinated containers.   Through a coordinated effort with both the Commonwealth of Massachusetts and a pesticide manufacturer, the agency has determined that fluorinated high-density polyethylene (HDPE) containers that are used to […]

Coronavirus or COVID-19 Scams graphic

Court orders defendants of companies to stop selling vitamin D products as treatments for COVID-19

A federal court entered a permanent injunction barring a Georgia company from selling unapproved vitamin D products touted as treatments for COVID-19. In a civil complaint and accompanying court papers filed Nov. 23, 2020, in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Georgia, the United States alleges that Matthew Ryncarz and his Alpharetta, Georgia, […]

East Locust Creed Reservoir Website

East Locust Creek Reservoir timber harvest announced

The North Central Missouri Regional Water Commission has posted a Request for Qualifications for an Indefinite Delivery/Indefinite Quantity (ID/IQ) contract for Phase 1A for timber harvest.  This will be, likely, the smallest of multiple phases of timber harvest and tree clearing.  It is approximately 90 acres where the future East Locust Creek Reservoir (ELCR) dam […]

Tar Spot on corn leaf public domain version

Tar spot found in northeast Missouri cornfields

Missouri corn growers should scout for an emerging crop disease, tar spot, in 2021, says University of Missouri Extension plant pathologist Kaitlyn Bissonnette. She identified tar spot in four far northeastern Missouri counties: Scotland, Lewis, and Clark in 2019 and Marion in 2020. She expects it to spread in the northern half of Missouri and […]

Farmer spraying with a tractor in a field

EPA proposes registration of Trifludimoxazin, a new herbicide active ingredient

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency proposes registering pesticide products containing the new active ingredient trifludimoxazin, a vital additional tool in managing resistant weeds. Trifludimoxazin is an herbicide intended for pre-and/or post-emergent control of broadleaf and grass weeds. It can be applied by aircraft on citrus fruits, pome fruits, cereal grain (except rice), tree nuts, peanuts, […]

Operation Warp Speed

Director of Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services attends White House task force meeting on Operation Warp Speed

President Donald Trump and the White House Coronavirus Task Force invited a small group of private business, state, and health care leaders to the White House to brief them on Operation Warp Speed, the COVID-19 vaccine production and distribution project started earlier this year. Dr. Randall Williams, director of the Missouri Department of Health and […]

Coronavirus in Prisons

Missouri Department of Corrections implements technology to cut COVID-19 infection rate within prisons

Implementation of three technological innovations in the Missouri Department of Corrections aims to cut COVID-19 infection rates in Missouri state prisons and other facilities. These strategies: Kill the virus in the air Kill the virus on surfaces Detect the virus in wastewater The department now has ionization generators — air purifying devices that destroy 99.4% […]

Marijuana leaf

Audio: Missouri’s U.S. House members vote along party lines to decriminalize marijuana

The Democrat-controlled U.S. House of Representatives has voted largely along party lines in favor of decriminalizing marijuana at the federal level. Missouri’s Democratic members voted in support and Republicans voted against the plan. GOP Congresswoman Ann Wagner did not vote on the measure. The Marijuana Opportunity Reinvestment and Expungement Act, or MORE Act, would remove […]