State News

ST. LOUIS -- The St. Louis Zoo has a new resident, and boy is he cute. The zoo announced Thursday that Teak, a black and white colobus monkey, was born Feb. 3. Colobus monkeys are born white with a pink face. By age 6 months, the little monkey will get his adult coloration -- mostly black hair but with white hair around the face and part of the tail, though adults also have a distinctive mantle of long white hair from their shoulders around the edge of their backs...

ST. LOUIS -- A Missouri man convicted of killing an 81-year-old mobile home park manager nearly three decades ago now faces execution in May. The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday set a May19 execution date for Walter Barton, 64. He would be the first Missouri inmate put to death since Russell Bucklew was executed in October. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A decision on whether Missouri's only abortion clinic can keep its license will be pushed back a little further. The Missouri Administrative Hearing Commission on Tuesday agreed to the state health department's request for an extension until March 16 to file written briefs. The previous deadline was Feb. 28...

FERGUSON, Mo. -- The man suspected of shooting an off-duty police officer at a Walmart store in the St. Louis suburb of Ferguson is now in custody. Shortly after noon Tuesday, St. Louis County investigators saw a black Mercedes Benz in Ferguson matching the description of the vehicle the suspect may have been driving. The 20-year-old suspect was pulled over in nearby Jennings after a short pursuit. Police said he tried to run but was arrested a short time later...

ASHLAND, Mo. -- A central Missouri police chief alleges he was suspended from his job because he refused to remove a woman from a home she shared with the town's mayor. Lyn Woolford filed a petition Monday seeking to be reinstated as police chief in Ashland, a town of about 3,800 residents between Columbia and Jefferson City. He was suspended last week by Mayor Gene Rhorer but the reasons were not publicly explained, The Columbia Missourian reported...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- A former Missouri State Highway Patrol trooper who was driving a boat when a handcuffed Iowa man fell out and drowned in 2014 has dismissed three lawsuits he filed over losing his law enforcement license. Anthony Piercy filed to voluntarily dismiss his lawsuits against the patrol, the Department of Public Safety and the department's director, The Missouri Attorney General's office said Friday...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The State of Missouri no longer would face financial punishment for wrongdoing in some civil lawsuits under legislation debated Tuesday in the state Senate. The proposal would give the state what's called "sovereign immunity," the legal concept that protects government agencies from lawsuits in many cases...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Missouri agriculture officials are asking for funding to hire more staff to address a backlog of nearly 600 complaints from farmers who claim dicamba-based herbicide drift has damaged their crops. The Missouri Department of Agriculture last week asked state lawmakers for money to hire four investigators and two staff members to review the cases, some of which date back to 2016, St. Louis Public Radio reported...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Republican-led Missouri Senate on Monday passed a proposal to once again ask voters to change the state's redistricting rules. Less than two years after voters approved a new redistricting plan, senators voted 22-9 in favor of another constitutional amendment to change how state House and Senate districts are drawn. Only one Republican, Sen. Lincoln Hough of Springfield, joined Democrats in opposing the measure...

ST. LOUIS -- The police chief in St. Louis County announced Monday he is leaving the department, months after his leadership was called into question when a gay officer was awarded $20 million in a discrimination lawsuit. Jon Belmar, 56, has led the department, one of Missouri's largest with 1,362 employees, since January 2014. He will remain on the job through April, when he plans to end his 34-year law enforcement career...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- About 300 small animals were removed from a Kansas City duplex, where they lived in "deplorable" conditions, a city official said Monday. The lab rats, rabbits, guinea pigs, turtles, geckos and other animals that were taken from the home Monday were in cages packed so closely to each other there was little room to move around the house, said John Baccala, a spokesman for the Kansas City Neighborhood and Housing Services...

Kansas City man admits to robbing 2 banks, Subway restaurant KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A Kansas City man has pleaded guilty to robbing two banks and a Subway restaurant during a February 2016 crime spree. The U.S. attorney's office says 27-year-old Mack Davis admitted through his plea Thursday that he stole $647 from the Subway and a total of $4,735 during the two bank heists. ...

Man pleads guilty to federal charge in road rage case SPRINGFIELD, Mo. -- A Missouri man who threatened another driver in a road rage confrontation has pleaded guilty to being a felon in possession of a firearm. The U.S. attorney's office says 29-year-old William J.W. Duval, of Conway, admitted Thursday through his plea that he was in possession of a 9mm semi-automatic pistol during the June 2019 confrontation in Springfield...

Woman seriously injured in police pursuit crash in Missouri KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A woman was seriously injured when she was ejected from a stolen pickup truck during a police pursuit in the Kansas City area, authorities say. Belton police said in a Facebook post that the crash happened around 3 a.m. ...

Ex-wife convicted of Missouri husband's 2007 murder PARKVILLE, Mo. -- Twelve years after a man was found shot to death at his Riverside home, his ex-wife has been convicted of first-degree murder in his death. A Platte County jury on Thursday found Letti Strait, 59, of Parkville, guilty for her role in the death of Charles Cammisano on Sept. 1, 2007, Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd said...

PINEVILLE, Mo. --A Missouri man was charged Friday with fatally shooting an Arkansas man while getting a ride home from a party and then forcing two other people in the vehicle to dump the body along a rural road. Twenty-five-year-old Henry Bridgeford, of Noel, is jailed without bond on a first-degree murder charge in the death of Christian Zigmunt, 22, of Bella Vista, Arkansas. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley made campaign stops while traveling in a state vehicle during his time as Missouri's attorney general, an audit released Thursday found. The review by the office of state Auditor Nicole Galloway, a Democrat who is trying to unseat Republican Gov. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri lawmakers on Tuesday voted to make grants available for potential builders of an ultrafast Hyperloop test track in the state. House members in a voice vote gave initial approval to a bill that would make a 10 to 15 mile test track eligible for public-private partnership grants...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Authorities said a suspect has been arrested in a hit-and-run crash that killed two people. The suspect was behind the wheel of a speeding sport utility vehicle that sailed through a stop sign and struck a Chevrolet, pushing it into a third vehicle. Both people inside the Chevrolet were killed...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri lawmakers this session are trying to make it easier for military spouses and out-of-state doctors, teachers, pharmacists and other licensed professionals to get jobs in the state. Legislation approved by the Missouri state House this past week would allow those professionals to work in the state without going through the state's licensing process. ...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Missouri's Republican senators put forth a new plan Wednesday that would scrap "partisan fairness" and "competitiveness" from the criteria used to draw state House and Senate districts -- reversing a key part of a ballot initiative approved by voters just two years ago...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A federal judge refused approval of a deal to reduce Missouri public defenders' case workloads, saying the proposed agreement is essentially unworkable. The consent decree submitted to the court in May would have limited public defenders to no more than 174 hours of casework a month, according to KCUR-FM...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- The Missouri Attorney General's Office has begun to send for analysis some of the state's backlog of untested rape kits. KCUR reported the state completed a full inventory of the untested kits in the fall and now has sent about 100 of the 7,019 to an out-of-state private forensic lab for testing...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. — Parents who no longer qualify for government health care but fail to sign up their children separately are partly to blame for the drop in children’s Medicaid coverage, a top legislative budget official said Tuesday, much to the chagrin of some lawmakers who blame the agency itself...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. — A woman has admitted to detectives she was a willing participant in the killing of a man whose body was found outside a Missouri bar 18 years ago, officials said. Tabatha Carter, 53, is jailed without bond in Miller County on charges of being an accessory to first-degree murder and an accessory to armed criminal action in the July 2001 shooting death of Jerry Jeffries, the county sheriff’s office said in a news release...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Several would-be marijuana business owners in Missouri who failed in their bids for licenses are raising questions about how the state selected winners and losers. The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services has been announcing licenses as the state prepares for the expected start of medical marijuana sales this summer. Last week, the state announced 192 licenses for dispensaries, awarded from 1,163 applicants...

CREVE COEUR, Mo. -- The St. Louis Holocaust Museum & Learning Center will triple in size with an $18 million expansion as officials seek to reach even deeper into issues of bias, bigotry and hate. Details about the expansion were announced Monday, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported. Officials hope to make the building more visible and accessible...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Candidates running for the Missouri Legislature will be able to accept a few more dollars from their donors. The Missouri Ethics Commission said the campaign contribution limit for state Senate candidates is rising from $2,500 per election to $2,559, and the limit for House candidates is rising from $2,000 per election to $2,046...

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Abortion is expected to play a key role in Missouri's 2020 governor's race, when voters will decide whether to stick with a Republican who signed one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the U.S. or go with the only Democrat who holds statewide office...

COLUMBIA, Mo. -- In July 2002, a drought settled over Missouri that lasted 99 weeks and finally ended in May 2004. Eight years later during the week of Aug. 21, Missouri suffered the most intense drought in its history. The dry spell affected 35.72% of land in the state, according to the U.S. Drought Monitor...

FENTON, Mo. -- A St. Louis County man is accused of shooting his wife and killing her father when the older man tried to intervene. Prosecutors on Friday charged James Kempf, 45, with second-degree murder, assault and two counts of armed criminal action. Police also identified the man killed as John Colter, 66, who remains on the loose...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A snowplow struck and killed two pedestrians in Kansas before sunrise Friday after a winter storm coated parts of the Midwest with snow. The collision involving a Riley County plow truck happened shortly after 5 a.m., after the National Weather Service issued winter weather advisories across parts of Kansas, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Iowa, Indiana, Wisconsin and a large swath of Missouri...