Free Republic

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s grand plan to spend $1 trillion over the next 10 years on highways and other infrastructure improvements faces a formidable roadblock in Congress and state legislatures. There’s agreement the investment is badly needed to improve the nation’s sagging infrastructure but how to cover the huge expense is the point of tension. Trump would use $200 billion in public funds to generate $800 billion in private money under a partnership program that would finance government bonds and also return a profit to private companies through interstate tolls and other user fees. To do that, Congress would...

In prison for a crime he adamantly denied committing, Richard Anthony Jones repeatedly heard from others that there was another prisoner who looked just like him. Not only were they doppelgangers, but Jones was told that he and the other man shared the same first name. Jones never ran across the man, but the lawyers he passed the information on to began digging into his case and came to the conclusion that Jones was indeed an innocent man. On Wednesday, they made their case to a Johnson County judge, and on Thursday Jones walked free after serving nearly 17 years...

Operation Food Search is launching an expanded summer program this week, providing free meals to children under the age of 18 who would normally eat breakfast and lunch at school. Some of the meals will come from food truck-like vans. Starting Monday and continuing through Aug. 11, program leaders plan to distribute more than 100,000 meals to hungry children in St. Louis and St. Louis County, exceeding last year’s record. The summer program, now in its sixth year, has grown from providing 5,000 meals in 2012, Executive Director Sunny Schaefer said....

A federal grand jury has indicted 35 store owners on federal conspiracy charges for trafficking contraband cigarettes, distributing controlled substances and money laundering..... The list of defendants include: Mohammed Almuttan, aka Abu Ali, 35, St. Louis, MO Rami Almuttan, aka Abu Louay, 33, St. Louis, MO Hisham Mutan, aka Abu Mohamed, 41, St. Louis, MO Saddam Mutan, aka Abu Ali, 24, St. Louis, MO Mazin Abdelsalam, aka Abu Mohammad, 38, St. Louis, MO Najeh Muhana, aka Abu Yazan, 41, Fairview, NJ Fares Muhana, aka Abu Yamama, 40, Cliffside Park, NJ Ayoub Qaiymah, aka Abu Faysal, 23, Richmond, VA Naser Abid,...

The Missouri Department of Economic Development has offered DST Systems Inc. (NYSE: DST) a $1.97 million Missouri Works grant in support of the company's plan to create 415 new jobs in Kansas City. DST, a Kansas City-based company that provides technology, consulting and outsourcing to the financial and health care industries, said it would add the jobs through its ALPS Alternative Investment Services and Argus Health Systems Inc. units. DST Systems Inc is led by CEO Stephen Hooley (third from right). "We are excited to announce plans to hire in Missouri as it fits well into our overall growth objective,"...

Global manufacturer 3M says it's upgrading its current facility in Springfield, and bringing 90 new jobs to town. The company says it's expanding with a $40 million investment to its plant on Chestnut Expressway near Highway 65, which will create the additional jobs over the next several years. Plant Manager Frederick James is calling it a win for both 3M and Springfield. "This investment builds upon our 50 years of successful operations in Springfield and our commitment to the community, James said in a news release. Governor Eric Greitens says he thanks 3M for its decision to invest in Missouri...

FULL TITLE: Outrage as Missouri lawmaker argues there is a 'distinction' between gay people and 'being a human being' A Republican lawmaker in Missouri sparked an outrage after he said there was a 'distinction' between gay people and 'being a human being'. Rep. Rick Brattin (R-Harrisonville) was arguing against an amendment for Senate Bill 43 to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity in matters of employment, housing or public accommodation. Making a case that the amendment would limit religious liberty, Brattin said: 'When you look at the tenets of religion, of the Bible, of the Qur’an, of...

The University of Missouri-Columbia is expecting at least a 14-percent decline in incoming freshmen this fall, resulting in its smallest class in nearly two decades. Administrators project that about 4,000 freshmen will enroll in August. That’s down by about 700 students from 2016 and significantly lower than in 2015, when more than 6,000 enrolled. The shrinking numbers have been tied at least partly to the protests on campus in 2015 that followed reports of racism on and near campus. The school issued a news release Friday afternoon that mentions the enrollment decline only indirectly. “A class of this size gives...

Edward Crawford, an activist known for throwing a tear gas canister back at police officers in a viral photo during the 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri was found dead on Thursday, May 4, from what police officers are describing as a self-inflicted gun wound. Crawford had participated in the protests that followed the death of Michael Brown at the hand of Officer Darren Wilson. According to the St. Louis Police Department, the 27-year-old shot himself in the head after talking with two women about "personal matters." Crawford's father disputes the claims, telling the St. Louis Post Dispatch that his son...

A conservative columnist who was suspended by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch after she defended the National Rifle Association from comparisons to ISIS fired back with her resignation and a series of targeted tweets. The newspaper on Friday suspended Stacy Washington after a column entitled "Guns and the Media" disputed an anti-NRA article that argued since more Americans die from guns than from ISIS, the Second Amendment advocacy group is the greater danger. “[W]hen has a member of the NRA ever decapitated, set on fire, tossed from a rooftop or otherwise terrorized another American? The linkage is not only rife with...

Flood damage is mounting to the south and west of the Cape Girardeau area, with many victims in the hardest-hit areas experiencing loss of phone service, including cellphones, and in some places electricity and tap water. While those areas are seeing raging floods recede, those along the Mississippi are waiting as the big river is expected to crest at stages rivaling some of the highest marks on record. But whether affected by small rivers to the south and west or to the Mississippi River near Cape Girardeau, Missouri flood victims are bracing for another serious rain event forecast in just...

An engineering student at Saint Louis University did too well on a class assignment to build a toy gun, creating a model so realistic that it prompted a campus-wide lockdown and hunt for a possible shooting suspect. The private, Catholic university in Missouri warned all students to shelter in place for hours Wednesday afternoon and evacuated a residence hall after reports of a man with a gun on campus and shots fired. Police and university officials eventually tracked the source of the scare to a toy gun. Students in the Aerospace and Mechanical “Engineering Manufacturing Procedures” class had been assigned...

The University of Missouri School of Medicine is facing the loss of its accreditation because they have too many white students and faculty. The media is acting like this is perfectly reasonable. From KCUR: STAT, a national publication that covers health, medicine and science, came out Wednesday with a lengthy story on the medical school at the University of Missouri-Columbia and it isn’t pretty. The publication says the med school is in danger of losing its accreditation next year because it has so few minority students and faculty. Note, if they lose their accreditation, STAT says their degrees would be...

The University of Missouri has no one to blame for their current crisis but their own leadership. After the campus protests of 2016, they could have corrected course. Instead they did nothing to address the problem and now they’re paying the price. Mizzou enrollment plunge continues: Three more dorms shutting down next year

They know it’s controversial to some, so the organizers of the White Privilege Conference aren’t looking for a lot of advance fanfare as its 18th annual gathering heads for Kansas City for the first time. It can be a volatile subject. Some 2,500 people — including college and high school students, teachers, university faculty, social activists, counselors, clergy and business people — gathered for the 17th annual conference in Philadelphia a year ago. The conference will run from April 27 to 30. Materials for the conference aim to make it clear both what the conference is about — and what...

The largest building permit filed in the city of Joplin since the construction of the new Joplin High School has been issued for the beginning of work on a frozen food manufacturing plant in the Crossroads Center Business and Distribution Park. The permit, issued to Consolidated Construction on March 24, is worth just more than $29 million. That makes it the largest construction project in Joplin since Sept. 14, 2013, when a permit for $103 million was issued for work on the new JHS. Notable developments that DEF’s plant will outpace include the new public library at 20th Street and...

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared ready to break down at least part of the longstanding church-state barrier that has prevented religious schools from receiving public funds. The justices gave a skeptical hearing to a Missouri lawyer who was defending the state’s decision to reject a grant request from a Lutheran preschool seeking to participate in a state program that provides money to schools to rubberize the surface of their playgrounds. Missouri’s constitution, like those in at least 36 other states, bars sending tax money to churches and church schools. But most of the justices signaled they will rule for...

Metro transit’s former headquarters in Laclede’s Landing is slated to be converted into 26 new apartments and offices for hundreds of new workers that a marketing agency next door plans to add. St. Louis Development Corp. approved on Thursday using $5 million in New Markets Tax Credits for the $11 million project led by Brian and Mike Minges of Advantes Development, according to an SLDC report. Advantes plans to put 26 apartments into the rehabbed, century-old warehouse that from 1982 until 2015 housed the offices of the region’s mass transit operator, Metro. Metro is now based in the Metropolitan Square...

A gunman "randomly" opened fire Thursday morning on Laclede Gas employees working in the city's Hamilton Heights neighborhood, killing two before shooting and killing himself, police and a witness said. The shooting was reported about 11:16 a.m. in the 5900 block of Minerva Avenue, on the western edge of the city. Police said two Laclede Gas workers, one in his 20s and the other in his 50s, were fatally injured when the gunman "randomly" fired at them, according to St. Louis Police Capt. Mary Warnecke. The gunman then killed himself, though that appears to have been at a different location.

Dollar Tree Inc. will build a new $110 million, 1.2 million-square-foot distribution facility in Johnson County. Too bad for the Kansas City metro area that it will be in the Johnson County, Mo., city of Warrensburg — not in Johnson County on the Kansas side. The Missouri Department of Economic Development reported Tuesday that Dollar Tree (Nasdaq: DLTR) will create 375 jobs within three years at the new facility, which will support the retailer’s store network in the Midwest. Tim Cowden, CEO of the Kansas City Area Development Council, said Dollar Tree was “only considering rural markets within the KC...