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Depending on how things shake out, Missouri voters could face a bizarro world next fall: A former Democrat running as the Republican nominee for governor against a Democrat who used to be a Republican. Eric Greitens is part of a crowded and growing field of Republican candidates who will face off next August. As he launched a statewide tour earlier this month, the former Democrat attempted to turn what could be a weakness in the crowded Republican primary into a strength. “I am a conservative Republican, but I didn’t start out that way,” Greitens wrote in a Fox News editorial...

Two huge Burmese pythons were caught and killed recently, one by a homeowner in Missouri’s rural Warren County, and the other by a researcher in Florida’s Shark Valley. Burmese pythons are considered to be a highly invasive species across the American Southeast, especially in Everglades National Park, where the slithery creatures have started to colonize. Experts say the snakes threaten native wildlife species like ground-nesting birds, but it seems that the reptiles also have an appetite for domestic animals as well. For days, a massive 14-foot python had stalked a community near Jonesburg, until residents took matters into their own...

The protest was part of a national event held by Women Betrayed, an anti-abortion organization that aims to eliminate public funding for Planned Parenthood. The location on Providence Road is officially called the Columbia Health Center. The rally came two days before the center will begin taking appointments for abortions. Columbia Health Center will be the only abortion provider in mid-Missouri. Because of the 72-hour waiting period, the first day that abortions can be administered will be Aug. 3.

FERGUSON, Mo. (AP) — A silent march and a day of civil disobedience are among the events being planned for next month in Ferguson to mark the first anniversary of the fatal shooting of a black 18-year-old by a white police officer, an event that galvanized the "Black Lives Matter" movement. Organizers are calling it the "Ferguson Uprising Commemoration Weekend." Plans announced Monday include a silent march starting at 11 a.m. Aug. 9 from Canfield Drive, where Michael Brown was killed, to Greater St. Mark Family Church. The agenda from the Ferguson Action Council includes an art event, rap and...

State Sen. Paul LeVota, facing a public investigation for allegedly sexually harassing an intern, announced Friday evening that he would resign his seat in the Missouri Senate effective Aug. 23. In a note addressed “To My Friends” and posted on LeVota’s Facebook page at about 6:30 p.m., LeVota wrote that he needed one month “to finalize all the issues in my office and allow the governor the ability to immediately call a special election to fill my seat.”

FERGUSON • Tiahesia Palmer was checking out some of the free services, but her son wanted a haircut. So the Ferguson resident signed up Isiah, 7, to get his head shaved at the haircut tent at Saturday’s “Day of Hope.” He took off his ballcap and sat silently while a woman with the Elaine Steven Beauty College cleaned up around his ears. Palmer smiled. Wearing an “I-heart-FERG” T-shirt, she was happy that her community had attracted the event. Hundreds attended the festivities at Forestwood Park in Ferguson to receive free goods and services. The city and about 40 local churches,...

Shades of 1968 and the Days of Rage? Black Lives Matter co-founder Patrisse Cullors has announced that "any opportunity we have to shut down a Republican convention, we will." Appearing on today's Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, Cullors also blithely spoke of "the murder of Mike Brown" in Ferguson, MO. Neither of the co-guest hosts sitting in for Harris-Perry, Richard Liu and Janet Mock, challenged Cullors' characterization. This despite the fact that even Eric Holder's Justice Department found no wrongdoing on the part of the police officer who shot Brown. View the video here.

BlackLivesMatter—the activist group that demands a “racial justice agenda” that includes constant criticism and activism against police—invokes the words of convicted cop killer Assata Shakur at “all its events.” At a recent event for female bloggers, BlackLivesMatter leaders had a crowd of thousands repeating lines from a letter written by Shakur that include an explicit reference to the Communist Manifesto. The BlackLivesMatter group, which has met with President Obama and largely been given a free pass by the media, has skyrocketed to national prominence after its involvement with unrest and rioting in Ferguson, Baltimore, and a recent takeover of events...

Full Title: Ferguson, Mo., names black officer from Arizona as interim police chief days before Michael Brown death anniversaryOfficials in Ferguson, Mo., have hired a black police officer from an Arizona department to serve as interim police chief, just days before the first anniversary of Michael Brown’s shooting death at the hands of Officer Darren Wilson. Andre Anderson, 50, will take over as the suburban St. Louis department’s chief after spending 24 years with the Glendale, Ariz., police, where he rose to the rank of commander. In 2013, Anderson was a finalist for the police chief’s job in Casa Grande,...

KANSAS CITY, Mo. —Navy Secretary Ray Mabus announced Monday that a new ship will be named the USS Kansas City. The ship will be the next Independence variant littoral combat ship, a type designed for a variety of missions that include mine warfare, surface warfare and anti-submarine warfare. It will be 419 feet long and can travel up to 40 knots. It will be built in Mobile, Alabama. A similar ship, the USS Independence, is shown above. Mabus made the announcement at Kauffman Stadium before the Royals game against the Pittsburgh Pirates. A Navy replenishment oiler was also named after...

Planned Parenthood will soon perform abortions at their Columbia, Missouri location, Life News reports, joining Planned Parenthood of St. Louis to become the abortion giant’s second facility in the state to offer the procedure on-site. “We are proud to support women making their own health care decisions by expanding reproductive health services in an area where women have faced extreme barriers for too long,” Planned Parenthood of Kansas & Mid-Missouri President and CEO Laura McQuade said. The Columbia location had performed abortions in the past, but had to stop in 2012 when its only licensed abortionist resigned. “It took time...

JEFFERSON CITY • Two Republican state lawmakers from Missouri announced plans Friday to investigate the state's only abortion facility after anti-abortion activists released an undercover video showing Planned Parenthood's national medical director discussing the disposition of parts from aborted fetuses. The video, which shows Dr. Deborah Nucatola, Planned Parenthood's senior director of medical services, discussing procedures for providing fetal body parts to researchers, has spurred outrage from a number of Republican elected officials nationwide. While the commercial sale of fetal tissue is outlawed, Planned Parenthood, which provides abortions and other reproductive health services, said in response to the video that...

Complete Headline: Mizzou Says Years-Old Confederate Flag Twitpic Not a ‘Threat,’ Retracts Statement Officials at the University of Missouri said they will not take action against people photographed three years ago with a Confederate flag in a picture that recently appeared online, because they are not MU students. [Snip] The photo, which was posted Sunday by Twitter user @fratscenery, appeared to show five young men, one of whom was holding a Confederate flag, standing near an MU fraternity house. On Monday, MU Chancellor R. Bowen Loftin posted an official statement on the university’s website, in which he said that...

Dent County is a place in southeast Missouri where about 15,000 people live. Today, the County Commission there voted unanimously — unanimously! — to fly the flags at the courthouse and judicial building below half-mast on the 26th day of every single month between now and June 2016.

St. Louis County prosecutors will soon decide whether to bring trespassing charges against two journalists arrested while covering demonstrations last summer in Ferguson, Missouri. The Huffington Post’s Ryan Reilly and The Washington Post’s Wesley Lowery recently learned that there are open investigations related to their Aug. 13, 2014, arrests. The Police Department filed incident reports in late April of this year describing the reporters as trespassing when they were seized at a McDonald's restaurant. A conviction on trespassing in St. Louis County can result in a jail sentence of up to one year, a fine up to $1,000, or both....

Dhoruba Shakur held up a sign that read “How does it feel” while standing very close to where a St. Louis officer was shot in Central West End. Shakur said the goal of the sign was to produce a strong reaction and start a conversation about the issues that have surfaced since Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson shot Michael Brown.

Michael Brown Sr., father of Michael Brown Jr., whose death sparked riots in Ferguson, Mo., said he was disturbed and disgusted by the display of his son’s body in a Chicago exhibit designed to shame white privilege that opened last Friday.“I would really really like them to take it down. I think it’s really disturbing and disgusting,” said Brown Sr. in a tearful interview with Fox 2 St. Louis.The exhibit is called “Confronting Truth: Wake Up” and opened July 10th. According the interview, Brown Sr. had never even been contacted about the exhibit until it opened.“Confronting Truth” was put together...

ST. CHARLES • A former Lindenwood University wrestler was sentenced Monday to 30 years in prison for recklessly infecting one sex partner with HIV and risking the infection of four others. Jurors in May had found Michael L. Johnson, 23, guilty of five felony charges after testimony that included experts in infectious diseases and the men who had unprotected sex with him. One of the men contracted HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.

The Missouri Democratic Party is changing the name of its annual “Jefferson-Jackson” fundraising dinner, deleting the names of slave-owning party heroes Thomas Jefferson and Andrew Jackson. The party will instead honor avowed racist Harry Truman.Though the state party denied that the name change was due to racial issues, Democratic state Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, who has called for the name to be changed, said that it was probably due to race. Every state Democratic party holds an early-summer Jefferson-Jackson fundraising dinner. Presidential candidate Hillary Clinton recently attended the dinners in Arkansas and Virginia.But the Missouri party’s decision to instead name the...

Here’s the understatement of the year. This is certainly not your grandparents’ Democratic Party. Jim Webb: Democrats Have Moved ‘Way FAR TO THE LEFT.’ That’s Not My Party (VIDEO) Jim Hoft Jul 12th, 2015 5:52 pm 26 Comments Here’s the understatement of the year. This is certainly not your grandparents’ Democratic Party. jim webb Democratic presidential candidate Jim Webb told FOX News today that the liberal party has moved way too far to the left. Webb said he would walk away from Obama’s sham nuclear talks with Iran. Webb went on to equate Trump’s remarks on immigration to liberal racist...