State News

ST. LOUIS -- A man in his mid-40s who died at a St. Louis hospital succumbed to a vaping-related illness, Missouri health officials announced Thursday. The Missouri man is the state's first death related to an outbreak of lung disease linked to e-cigarettes or other vaping-related devices, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services said. Eight vaping-related deaths have been recorded in the U.S...

HERMANN, Mo. -- The Missouri State Highway Patrol has released the names of a 4-year-old boy and a 37-year-old man whose bodies were found this week in rural eastern Missouri. The patrol said Wednesday the child was Bentlee J. Turner and the adult was Monty Jason Barton. Both lived in the small town of Belle...

MIAMI -- Powerful winds from Hurricane Humberto began hitting Bermuda on Wednesday as the government urged people to stay off the streets during the British territory's close brush with the powerful Category 3 storm. And another growing storm threatened tourist resorts along Mexico's Pacific...

HENRIETTA, Mo. -- The mayor of a small western Missouri town has acknowledged reaching for his gun while arguing with a maintenance supervisor but said that's no reason to step down. KMBC-TV reported Henrietta Mayor Jim Lovern said he was upset the supervisor had blocked his driveway with snow while plowing in the town of about 350 residents. He said he called the supervisor "dumb," then unsnapped the weapon "because, man, he was mad."...

ST. LOUIS -- A new Missouri law shielding large farms from local health regulations is now in effect, but opponents say the fight is far from over. Cole County Judge Daniel Green earlier this month set aside a temporary restraining order imposed days earlier. A lawsuit over the law is proceeding, with the next court hearing scheduled for Dec. 9...

MEMPHIS, Tenn. -- A data-gathering sensor attached to the American Queen steamboat will give scientists and cities a better understanding of water quality along the entire length of the Mississippi River, officials said Monday. U.S. Geological Survey and Army Corps of Engineers officials, a group of Mississippi River city mayors and the operators of the American Queen gathered to show off the new equipment on the steam-driven vessel in Memphis. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The percentage of successful disability cases aimed at reversing the denial or re-evaluation of benefits for the aged, blind or disabled has been consistently dropping for years, Legal Aid of Western Missouri said. Data provided by the Missouri Department of Social Services shows the success rate of cases has dropped from 54% in 2017 to 42% in 2018, according to the organization providing free legal services in civil cases. ...

CLAYTON, Mo. -- Police leaders in St. Louis County are considering hiring officers without previous police or military experience as it becomes harder to fill openings. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported chief Jon Belmar told the Police Board of Commissioners it is "broadening" opportunities, "not lowering" standards...

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt on Friday referred 12 former priests for potential criminal prosecution but stopped short of recommending charges against any top church leaders, despite concluding the Roman Catholic Church was involved in "long, sustained and far-reaching cover-up."...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri House approved a bill Wednesday ensuring people and businesses can continue trading in multiple vehicles to get tax breaks on new ones, despite criticism the issue didn't merit urgent action. Lawmakers voted 126-21 to send the legislation to the Senate, where members are expected to take the measure up Thursday...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Missouri taxpayers spent more than $200,000 in the months leading up to former Gov. Eric Greitens' resignation to defend his office's use of a self-deleting text message app, according to a state audit issued Wednesday. In 2017, a lawsuit alleged Greitens' office used the app Confide to avoid being subjected to Missouri's open records laws. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- Missouri lawmakers are backing a bill to ensure people can continue trading in multiple vehicles to get tax breaks on new ones. The House on Wednesday voted 126-21 to pass the measure and send it to the Senate. It would allow multiple vehicle trade-ins to be subtracted from the price of a new car, reducing the sales tax to whatever is owed on the discounted car...

NEW YORK -- People who were too young on 9/11 to even remember their lost loved ones, and others for whom the grief is still raw, paid tribute with wreath-layings and the solemn roll call of the dead Wednesday as America marked the 18th anniversary of the worst terror attack on U.S. soil...

DUPO, Ill. -- A freight train believed to be bearing a flammable liquid used in solvents derailed in an Illinois suburb of St. Louis on Tuesday, causing a fire that sent thick, black smoke into the air and prompted the evacuation of nearby schools and residences...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri lawmakers began a special session Monday to bring back a sales tax break for multi-vehicle trade-ins, a tax credit residents use an estimated 14,000 times a year. Republican Gov. Mike Parson called lawmakers back to work after the Missouri Supreme Court in June ended the sales tax break for multiple vehicle trade-ins...

HUNTSVILLE, Ala. -- The acting chief scientist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said his agency likely violated its scientific integrity rules last week when it publicly chastised a weather office contradicting President Donald Trump's claim Hurricane Dorian threatened Alabama...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Mike Parson is Missouri's unexpected governor, assuming power when his predecessor resigned in scandal. A little more than a year into his mostly uneventful stewardship of the state, the Republican governor announced Sunday he's seeking a full term, and his folksy and low-key approach seems to be playing well following the tumultuous and brief reign of the man he replaced, Eric Greitens...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Day care operators say a loophole in a new law regulating the number of children younger than 5 allowed in unlicensed home-based days cares is forcing operators of some licensed day care facilities to turn away children. Before the law took effect Aug. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Department of Conservation is considering changing state regulations to help landowners combat damage from wildlife and feral hogs. The department said in a news release last week the proposals would allow a conservation agent to authorize such things as thermal imaging to record wildlife causing damage to private property...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- The University of Missouri has received $5 million in federal funds to address a shortage of primary care physicians. The university said it is the largest award for rural medicine in the school's history. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported a federal analysis predicts Missouri will have a shortage of 1,220 primary care doctors by 2025...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Video gaming is getting serious at MU. Adroit Studios Gaming Lab, a game research and development facility at the School of Information Science and Learning Technologies, launched last month. Doctoral candidates Joe Griffin and Justin Sigoloff are co-directors of Adroit Studios. They want to merge video games with instructional learning to create what they call "serious games." In gamer-speak, that's an actual genre: It refers to games used for education...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- The Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Kansas City-St. Joseph on Friday released a list of 19 clerics who Bishop James Johnston Jr. said had substantiated allegations of sexual abuse of children against them. Of the 19 clerics named, 13 have died, two have been removed from ministry and four have been laicized, or removed from the clerical state. ...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- Beer and wine will be sold at home football games of the Missouri Tigers for the first time Saturday. The Columbia Missourian reported the taps are opening after the Southeastern Conference made a policy change this spring giving programs the option to sell alcohol in their stadiums. Such sales had been prohibited by the conference since the early 1970s...

ST. LOUIS -- Gov. Mike Parson on Thursday pledged more resources and help from the Highway Patrol to counteract a rash of gun violence and child killings that have shaken St. Louis, but he remained noncommittal on whether cities should be able to enact their own gun control laws...

NEW YORK -- Walmart says it will stop selling handgun and short-barrel rifle ammunition, while requesting customers not openly carry firearms in its stores, even where state laws allow it. The announcement comes just days after a mass shooting claimed seven lives in Odessa, Texas, and follows back-to-back shootings last month, one of them at a Walmart store...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Gov. Mike Parson should not use the First Amendment to justify refusing to release certain public records, the state attorney general's office said in a letter to the governor's office. Parson's office has cited the First Amendment when denying Sunshine Law requests for information on private citizens who contacted the governor's office. ...

WASHINGTON -- When shots rang out last year at a high school in Parkland, Florida, leaving 17 people dead, President Donald Trump quickly turned his thoughts to creating more mental institutions. When back-to-back mass shootings in Dayton, Ohio, and El Paso, Texas, jolted the nation earlier this month, Trump again spoke of "building new facilities" for the mentally ill as a way to reduce mass shootings...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A University of Missouri-Kansas City associate professor whose complaints led to the eventual ouster of a top pharmacy professor has agreed to a $360,000 settlement of two lawsuits he filed alleging university officials retaliated against him because of his allegations...

Basketball-sized world-record grapefruit grown in Louisiana BATON ROUGE, La. -- A basketball-sized grapefruit has brought two world records to a Louisiana couple. The giant citrus grew in the yard of Mary Beth and Doug Meyer of Slidell. The Guinness Book of World Records says it's the world's heaviest and largest in circumference. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Many of the laws enacted by Missouri legislators this year went into effect Wednesday, but some of the most notable are tied up in legal disputes delaying their implementation or killing them altogether. A federal judge Tuesday temporarily blocked a law meant to ban abortions at or after eight weeks of pregnancy, saying Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri are likely to succeed in their effort to have the law ruled unconstitutional. ...

LACONA, Iowa -- When President Donald Trump levied tariffs on China that scrambled global markets, farmer Randy Miller was willing to absorb the financial hit. Even as the soybeans in his fields about an hour south of Des Moines became less valuable, Miller saw long-term promise in Trump's efforts to rebalance America's trade relationship with Beijing...

SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico -- Dorian became a Category 1 hurricane on Wednesday as it struck the U.S. Virgin Islands, with forecasters saying it could grow to Category 3 status as it nears the U.S. mainland as early as the weekend. The British Virgin Islands and the Puerto Rican islands of Vieques and Culebra were also in Dorian's path, the first major test of emergency preparedness for the U.S. ...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A new Missouri ban on abortions at or after eight weeks of pregnancy won't take effect today after a federal judge temporarily blocked it from being implemented. U.S. District Judge Howard Sachs put a pause on the law as a legal challenge against it plays out in court, which could take months. He added Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union of Missouri likely will succeed in their lawsuit alleging the law is unconstitutional...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- After a year of devastating flooding, several Midwestern states are joining together to try to identify bottlenecks along the Missouri River that can cause waters to back up and worsen flooding in certain areas. Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and Nebraska submitted a study proposal Tuesday to the U.S. ...

SUNRISE BEACH, Mo. -- Authorities say an Illinois man has drowned while watching a popular boat race at the Lake of the Ozarks in Missouri. The Missouri State Highway Patrol identified the victim as 23-year-old Sean Burgess of Peoria, Illinois. The patrol says he was last seen on a large floating mat watching a racing event, called the Lake of the Ozarks Shootout...

JOPLIN, Mo. -- Authorities are defending the decision to euthanize a black bear captured last month in Joplin. The Joplin Globe reported the Missouri Department of Conservation conducted a review amid a deluge of complaints and determined the case was handled according to policy...

ST. LOUIS -- Missouri health officials have signed a contract designed to boost the rate of people vaccinated against hepatitis A as the number of cases of the liver disease increases. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services awarded a no-bid contract to the Missouri Primary Care Association...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's attorney general believes federal law doesn't protect LGBTQ people from discrimination. Attorney General Eric Schmitt was among GOP attorneys general nationwide who signed a U.S. Supreme Court brief outlining the position Friday...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A federal judge said he will issue a ruling today to determine whether Missouri's new law banning abortions at or after eight weeks of pregnancy will take effect as scheduled this week. During a court hearing Monday, Planned Parenthood and the American Civil Liberties Union asked U.S. ...

ST. LOUIS -- From huge rewards to calls for allowing Missouri cities to enact their own gun laws, leaders in St. Louis and Kansas City are grappling with a troubling rise in shooting deaths, especially those involving children. This past weekend was especially violent. ...

PHILADELPHIA -- Hundreds of bicyclists have been caught with their pants down -- and their shirts and underwear off, too. The cyclists gathered Saturday to disrobe before saddling up and setting off on the annual Philly Naked Bike Ride. About 3,000 riders pedal a 10-mile course around the City of Brotherly Love. The ride is to promote positive body image, advocate for the safety of cyclists and protest dependence on fossil fuels. --Associated Press...

ST. LOUIS -- Industry experts say low wages and the burden of student debt have led to a critical shortage of large-animal veterinarians in Missouri. John de Jong, former president of the American Veterinary Medical Association, said the scarcity of vets imperils not just the health of farm animals but also the safety of food distributed for human consumption nationwide...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A Missouri man accused of identifying himself as "Your Next Mass Shooter" on social media has been charged with a felony. Twenty-six-year-old Brian Groner of Jefferson City is jailed without bond after he was charged Thursday with one count of making a terroristic threat...