This is the time of year when the state division of alcohol and tobacco control steps up its training sessions for people who wait on tables or tend bars. Division trainers have increased their sessions in college towns—because students are coming back and thousands of new students are moving in. Trainers teach servers of alcoholic beverages how to spot with customers who’ve had too much to drink and how to deal with them without getting hurt. [Read more...]
Is your post office on the hit list?
July 27, 2011 By
167 Missouri post offices are on the United States Postal Service’s hit list as targets for possible closing. They’re part of a postal service plan to possibly shut down almost 3700 small post offices nationwide.
The postal service says the closings are not done deals; the list is only of “possible” closings.
The service is considering closing about ten percent of its offices nationwide, saying the increase use of e-mail and the recession-caused decline in advertising mail produced a 58-million dollar financial loss last year.
List of possible closings after the jump:
Maintaining services in tight times (AUDIO)
July 6, 2011 By
The outgoing director of the state social services department says his agency has managed to keep serving its core constituency despite declining resources.
Social Services director Ronald Levy leaves at the end of the month after more than two-and-a-half years in charge of the state agency that gobbles up about one-third of the state budget. But he has served at a time when state finances have remained less than they were four years ago.
Levy says the department has cut employees, has changed its internal processes, and has streamlined operations to cut internal costs so core services aren’t affected. He says many states have made drastic cuts in the safety net programs and in Medicaid, but Missouri has takena different approach that has protected core services and programs.
Levy will be taking his experience as head of social services to the graduate school at St. Louis University where he hopes to contribute real world experiiences to the academic information students will be getting.
Listen to Bob Priddy’s story. :58 mp3
McCaskill asks, “Who’s in charge?” (AUDIO)
July 5, 2011 By
Senator McCaskill vows to continue hearings of her subcommittee until she learns who is responsible for the billions of dollars the government is spending on building things in
Afghanistan.
The government has relied heavily on private contractors for security and construction projects in Iraq and in Afghanistan. Senator McCaskill has headed a Homeland Security subcommittee almost from the start of her senate career looking into cost overruns, shoddy work, and lack of accountability by contractors.
She has turned her attention o Afghanistan now, saying the country must get every dime’s worth of work out of the contractors, especially when federal budget reductions are essential. She note’s the president proposes 17 billion dollars in contracting for reconstruction work in Afghanistan..
“That’s a big number if our roads weren’t crumbling because we don’t have the money to fix them,” she says. She says the number is “enormous” in the face of the nation’s financial problems.
McCaskill speaks during hearing. :24 mp3
She says it’s urgent that Congress consider whether these projects are essential to the United States mission. And she says it’s time some from the defense department or the agency for international development admit being in charge of planning for the projects.
She hopes for better luck in a later hearing.\
Missourian is tops in B’way musical (Video, audio links)
June 13, 2011 By
St. Louis-born actor Norbert Leo Butz has won Broadway’s equivalent of an Oscar for his performance in the musical version of “Catch Me If You Can.” It’s the second time Butz has won a Tony Award for best actor in a musical. He also won a Tony in 2005.
Butz plays FBI agent Carl Hanratty, who chases con man Frank Abegnale Junior in a musical play based on the 2002 movie of the same name. The role in the movie was played by Tom Hanks.
