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Federal funding helps to expand virtual health care in rural Missouri

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The U.S. Department of Agriculture is giving more than $500,000 to expand virtual health care services in parts of rural Missouri. The USDA is providing the funding through the Distance Learning and Telemedicine (DLT) grant program.

Photo courtesy of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

Through the grant, Mercy Virtual will install video equipment to provide remote health services in parts of eastern, southern and southwest Missouri. The effort is expected to provide health care to about 210,000 area residents.

The grant will also allow Salem Memorial District Hospital in southern Missouri to put technology connecting rural Missouri schools in Dent, Reynolds, Iron, and Shannon Counties to Phelps Health Hospital in Rolla and SSM Health in St. Louis. The project is said to increase health care access to 2,300 rural Missouri students.

In 2017, President Donald Trump created the Interagency Task Force on Agriculture and Rural Prosperity to identify legislative, regulatory and policy changes that could promote agriculture and prosperity in rural communities. In January 2018, USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue presented the Task Force’s findings to Trump. These findings included 31 recommendations to align the federal government with state, local and tribal governments to take advantage of opportunities that exist in rural America. Increasing investments in rural infrastructure is a key recommendation of the task force.

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Missouri U.S. House members prepare to vote on whether to keep government open

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The U.S. House is scheduled to vote today on a temporary funding bill that would keep the federal government open for business through December 20. East-central Missouri Republican Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer tells Missourinet affiliate KWIX in Moberly otherwise, federal funding is scheduled to run out on Thursday.

Congressman Blaine Luetkemeyer (R-MO) Photo courtesy of US House of Representatives

“I’m fearful we’re going to be stuck here over the Christmas holidays in a situation where we’re going to wind up pushing this can down the road one more time here because right now the whole process and the whole atmosphere here is so toxic that it’s very difficult to get anything done,” says Luetkemeyer.

He hopes Congress can avoid another government shutdown.

“I would love to say no, that’s not going to happen. But, I think it’s a very real possibility this time,” he says.

President Donald Trump has indicated he would sign the temporary funding bill, even though he’s demanding billions of dollars in other funding measures to build additional wall at the U.S.-Mexico border. The move is not going over well with Democrats.

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$400 million steel plant to open in Sedalia in late December

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Missouri’s top economic development official says a massive $400 million steel plant being built in west-central Missouri’s Sedalia is set to open next month.

North Carolina-based Nucor is building a $400 million steel rebar manufacturing plant in west-central Missouri’s Sedalia (August 2019 file photo courtesy of Nucor)

State Department of Economic Development (DED) Director Rob Dixon tells Missourinet the Nucor plant is scheduled to open on December 27 or 28. The steel rebar manufacturing plant is one of the largest projects Missouri has landed in the past decade.

It’s being built near Highway 65, and will be the anchor tenant of Sedalia’s new rail industrial park.

Sedalia-Pettis County economic development executive director Jessica Craig tells Missourinet about 2,500 people have applied for 250 jobs, primarily steelworker positions. She says about 160 have already been hired, and some of them are driving from as far away as Columbia and Kansas City.

The employees have been training at Nucor plants in Texas, Alabama and Mississippi.

The average salary for a Nucor steelworker is about $65,000. Craig says Nucor is still hiring for entry-level production steelworkers, and she encourages anyone interested to apply on the Nucor website.

Craig has said Nucor’s decision is a game changer for Sedalia, which has about 70 other manufacturers.

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U.S. House hearing spotlights Missouri abortion regulations, controversy

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During a hearing Thursday in Washington, D.C., Congressman Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, said “Big Brother has come to Missouri” and Libertarians have suddenly become “the champions of Big Brother”. St. Louis Congressman Lacy Clay, D-Missouri, who sits on the U.S. House Oversight Committee, put together a panel to testify about “State Efforts to Undermine Access to Reproductive Health Care.”

“I am truly amazed that the Missouri Department of Health went along with efforts to shut down the (St. Louis Planned Parenthood) clinic, intimidate patients and threaten providers, and would allegedly and bizarrely track women’s menstrual periods on spreadsheets to determine if they had had an abortion,” says Clay.

The clinic falls within Clay’s district.

The Missouri Administrative Commission is considering the state’s decision in June to reject the license renewal of the St. Louis Planned Parenthood. In an October press release, Missouri Health and Senior Services Director Randall Williams said he did not order state regulators to create a spreadsheet to track the menstrual cycles of Planned Parenthood patients. Williams said the workers took it upon themselves to make a spreadsheet with legally-obtained information to determine if the St. Louis clinic was accurately reporting any failed abortions.

Williams said the first time he saw the spreadsheet was during his October 17 deposition before the state commission. The statement says a rule that took effect decades ago requires providers to submit abortion reports to the state that include the last normal menstrual cycle of each patient who had an abortion at the clinic.

Gov. Mike Parson said in a statement that, regardless of the number of Planned Parenthood facilities in Missouri, every step should be taken to ensure the protection, safety, and well-being of women’s healthcare.

St. Louis Planned Parenthood Dr. Colleen McNicholas testified Thursday on Capitol Hill that the state health department is using what she calls bizarre tactics in trying to regulate her clinic—the only abortion center remaining in Missouri.

“They came to our clinic five times in the first five months of this year, all while they conceded that hospitals and surgery centers providing much riskier procedures went years without a single inspection,” she says. “During this year’s inspection process, the department also admitted to keeping a spreadsheet of my patients’ menstrual cycles. A brazen abuse of power and misuse of data motivated by an agenda to find something, anything that they could use to justify further scrutiny.”

McNicholas testified that abortions are mischaracterized for political reasons.

“It’s healthcare. So yes, unfortunate outcomes will happen for some people. But by and large, it is safer than a colonoscopy, (removing) wisdom teeth, and I will also say safer than carrying a pregnancy to term,” says McNicholas.

North Carolina Republican Congresswoman Virginia Foxx disagreed.

“There are many things we’ve heard that should make us shudder but comparing killing a baby to removing wisdom teeth is absolutely beyond the pale,” she says.

Jennifer Box – a St. Louis mother of three – who terminated her pregnancy after her fetus was to die in delivery or soon after—said politics had no place in her family’s pain.

“Our daughter, if not a stillborn, would be born into a life of immediate and repeated invasive medical intervention. She would essentially have been born onto life support,” said Box. “I never fathomed my governor would weaponize the Health Department in an attempt to end safe, legal abortion in Missouri. I did not anticipate that my state Legislature would enact an eight-week abortion ban – a ban that would have made it impossible for me to make the best decision for my family.”

Republican committee members did not agree, saying any abortion is immoral – and Planned Parenthood is only about abortion. Congresswoman Foxx said doctors cannot predict what happens because they are not God.

Box said the decision she and her husband made was painful.

“With broken hearts, we knew that the greatest act of love that we could undertake as her parents would be to suffer ourselves instead, to end the pregnancy, grant Libby peace and spare her tiny, broken body a short life full of pain,” says Box.

The Missouri Administrative Commission is not expected to issue a ruling on the Planned Parenthood abortion license controversy until at least February. Meanwhile, the clinic is still providing abortion services. It also offers a wide range of other reproductive health care services that the state has said is not part of this particular licensing predicament.

By Ashley Byrd and Alisa Nelson

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69 alleged gang members in St. Louis region arrested; 16 arrests on murder-related warrants

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(This story is written by Missourinet St. Louis contributor Jill Enders)

ST. LOUIS- Nearly 200 fugitives wanted for violent offenses are off the streets of the St. Louis area tonight, as a result of a massive federal special operation. 16 of the arrests are on murder-related warrants.

U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen and U.S. Marshal John Jordan brief reporters about “Operation Triple Beam” on November 14, 2019 at the Eagleton Courthouse in downtown St. Louis (Jill Enders photo)

During a Thursday morning press conference at the Thomas Eagleton Courthouse in downtown St. Louis, federal prosecutors announced that 162 fugitives have been arrested in the St. Louis region as part of “Operation Triple Beam.” State and local law enforcement officers joined U.S. Attorney Jeff Jensen at the press conference.

“This joint operation had the added effect of strengthening the relationship among our local, state and federal law enforcement counterparts,” U.S. Marshal of Missouri’s Eastern District John Jordan tells reporters. “The U.S. Marshals provided multiple resources to include manpower, funds and essential equipment to assist local, state and federal partners in this operation.”

Jordan emphasizes that 16 of the St. Louis-area arrests were connected to homicides. 69 suspected gang members have been arrested. Jordan also says 40 firearms and three vehicles have been seized, and nearly ten pounds of illegal drugs have been confiscated.

The special operation spanned three months.

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Blunt says trade dispute has hurt China’s economy more than America’s

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U.S. Senator Roy Blunt, R-Missouri, believes the trade dispute with China will be resolved, but says the belief that trade would change China will likely never materialize. Blunt says both the U.S. and China have reasons to sign a new trade agreement.

Blunt says trade dispute has hurt China’s economy more than America’s

“I don’t think we’re ever going to get back to where we were with China a decade ago when there was a sense that this was going to be smooth-sailing and the Chinese economy and their view of individual freedom was developing so rapidly that, before you knew it, we’d all be functioning the same way,” Blunt says in an interview with St. Joseph affiliate KFEQ. “I think we now see that’s not likely to happen. President Xi is president for life.”

Blunt insists the trade dispute has hurt the Chinese economy more than the American economy. He says China, because of its communist form of government, can better weather economic hardships than the United States.

“They can tolerate more unhappiness in their system, but nobody likes to tolerate unhappiness,” Blunt says. “So, President Xi should want to do this. President Trump should want to do this. I think we will see some things happen there, but not everything that probably we need to see happen and would eventually want to see happen.”

Blunt says the optimistic outlook many U.S. leaders had that open trade would create an open China just hasn’t happened and likely won’t happen.

One trade agreement has been reached, but is pending Congressional approval.

Blunt is optimistic Congress will approve the United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement, which is touted as vital to Missouri agriculture as well as business.
Blunt says it might seem odd, but the move by House Democrats to investigate and possibly impeach President Donald Trump could well pave the way for approval of the USMCA.

“The impeachment votes in the House make it even more likely that the Speaker’s going to decide that the 30 or 40 members that are going to have the hardest time casting that vote are the same 30 or 40 members that have the most need to have a vote on USMCA,” according to Blunt. “I think we have a real chance to get that done.”

Blunt holds out hope Congress will take up and pass the trade agreement before the end of the year.

Meanwhile, public impeachment hearings involving President Trump begin today.

By Brent Martin of Missourinet affiliate KFEQ in St. Joseph

U.S. Agriculture Secretary heading to Kansas City on Friday; Graves praises relocation plan (AUDIO)

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A congressman who represents 36 northern Missouri counties is praising USDA’s selection of Kansas City as the site for two major USDA facilities.

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, farms in northwest Missouri’s Atchison County in October 2019 (photo courtesy of Congressman Graves’ office)

U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, a sixth-generation family farmer, says 90 percent of USDA employees are already outside of Washington. Graves’ sprawling district includes the northern Kansas City suburbs.

“The closer we can get USDA’s core or headquarter staff to agriculture, the better,” Graves says.

USDA will relocate its Economic Research Service (ERS) and its National Institute of Food and Agriculture Policy (NIFA) agencies to Pennsylvania Avenue in Kansas City.

U.S. Agriculture Secretary Sonny Perdue will travel to the location on Friday morning to hold an event with Missouri Governor Mike Parson, Senator Roy Blunt, state Department of Agriculture (MDA) Director Chris Chinn, state Department of Economic Development Director Rob Dixon and others.

Congressman Graves praises the relocation plan, saying it will decentralize USDA.

“When you put too many bureaucrats for an agency inside the Beltway, inside Washington D.C. where they’re not out there interacting with the very people that they are supposed to be serving, then you get into some serious problems,” says Graves.

He says USDA’s decision puts the agencies closer to constituencies.

Graves also predicts the decision will have a “ripple effect” two to three counties deep. He says the average wages for the approximately 550 positions are between $80,000 and $100,000.

“Buying homes, renting apartments, buying gas, buying groceries, buying new televisions, whatever the case may be,” Graves says.

He also emphasizes that the issue has been bipartisan, noting that he’s been working closely with U.S. Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, D-Kansas City.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas (D) has also praised the plan and the bipartisan regional efforts to land the jobs. Mayor Lucas notes Kansas City is an essential part of the animal health corridor.

Click here to listen to the full interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and U.S. Rep. Sam Graves, R-Tarkio, which was recorded on November 1, 2019:

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Winter storm briefly closes interstate in western Missouri (AUDIO)

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Winter weather briefly closed heavily-traveled southbound I-49 in western Missouri’s Belton on Monday morning, because of numerous slide offs and unsafe driving conditions.

The National Weather Service (NWS) in St. Louis is warning about deteriorating conditions on bridges and overpasses (November 11, 2019 map courtesy of NWS St. Louis Twitter)

National Weather Service (NWS) Pleasant Hill meteorologist Jonathan Kurtz notes it’s rare for a storm to close an interstate.

“It happens from time to time when you get these pretty strong intense bursts of snow,” Kurtz says. “And we have had two rounds here in the Kansas City metro, and two pretty strong lines have come through.”

I-49, which has re-opened, is a major route for truckers, and runs in Missouri from just south of Kansas City to southwest Missouri’s McDonald County.

Missouri Department of Transportation (MoDOT) spokeswoman Sally Oxenhandler tells Missourinet that southbound I-49 at 163rd Street in Cass County was closed for about 20 minutes today.

Kurtz says conditions on the interstate quickly deteriorated.

“I-49 was only closed for a little bit of time there due to some slick roads there,” says Kurtz. “And snow started to accumulate pretty fast. Once it started hitting the ground, it only took about 20 to 30 minutes for the road to start to get snow-covered.”

Missouri state troopers responded to several slide-offs on Highway 50 in western Missouri’s Knob Noster on November 11, 2019 (photo from Missourinet’s Ashley Byrd)

The National Weather Service is warning Missourians that the snow and falling temperatures will lead to deteriorating conditions on bridges and overpasses for your evening commute. Mr. Kurtz is urging motorists to slow down.

“My drive in was pretty slick as well, and you just have to give yourself plenty of time. And we can kind of be thrown off, especially when the day before we had highs in the 50’s,” Kurtz says.

Snow is expected to end in Jefferson City by 4 p.m. Monday and in southeast Missouri’s Farmington by 6 p.m. The NWS is urging motorists and anyone heading outside to dress in layers.

Northwest Missouri’s St. Joseph has received about an inch of snow, while mid-Missouri’s Columbia has seen about an inch as well. There’s an inch-and-a-half on the ground in northeast Missouri’s Foley.

Several schools in mid-Missouri and in the Ozarks have dismissed early because of the storm. Westminster College in mid-Missouri’s Fulton has also dismissed classes early.

Click here to listen to the full interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and National Weather Service (NWS) Pleasant Hill meteorologist Jonathan Kurtz, which was recorded on November 11, 2019:

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Fifty years later, two Missouri soldiers surprisingly reunite on an honor flight

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Two northern Missouri men who fought side by side in the Vietnam War reunited decades later during a veterans trip to visit the nation’s war memorials. Steve Paulsell, the flight director for Central Missouri Honor Flight, says the Kirksville war heroes did not recognize each other on the trip, but they still remembered a promise they made to each other all those years ago.

Photos courtesy of Central Missouri Honor Flight’s Facebook page

“He said, ‘Before he and I parted, we took a dollar bill and tore it in half and agreed that we would both carry that half a dollar bill for the rest of our lives in memory of our third buddy that was killed in action and our service together in Vietnam,’” says Paulsell.

He says that veteran still had his half of a dollar bill with him on the trip to Washington, D.C. The soldier then found out the other half of the same dollar bill was also aboard.

“They had not spoken since they had departed 50 years ago at an airport in California, never to speak to each other or know where each other were. At 3 ‘o clock in the morning on a bus going to St. Louis for an honor flight, they reconnected,” he says.

Paulsell says the veterans reconnected with each other and their fallen comrade.

“We’ve got a photograph of them putting that dollar bill back together underneath the name of their buddy on the Vietnam War wall,” he says.

Paulsell, who has been part of the organization since its inception in 2009, has many stories about the power these journeys have had on some of America’s brave.

“It’s much more than seeing the granite, the marble and the memorials,” he says. “We learned early on this is about healing. All these veterans, at least for the most part, are carrying around a lot of regrets, demons, sadness, frustration and so on. We hear so many of these veterans recount from their return and talking to their families later, what a difference it made, what a change it made in the veterans. We see them now out in the community wearing their veteran caps proudly as they should have been for a long, long time,” says Paulsell.

The organization’s last honor flight of the year lifts off tomorrow for Washington, D.C. A group of 108 veterans from World War Two and the Korean and Vietnam Wars will be going.

Central Missouri Honor Flight is accepting applications for its 2020 trips. Paulsell says Missouri has hundreds, if not thousands, of Vietnam War veterans who should fill out applications to get on an honor flight.

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Marine Corps League says new members are crucial for lobbying on Capitol Hill (AUDIO)

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The Marine Corps League is working to recruit new members in Missouri on this Veterans Day weekend, noting numbers are crucial for lobbying efforts on key issues like Agent Orange and PTSD.

This logo is on the wall at the Samuel Gearhart Detachment of the Marine Corps League in Jefferson City/Apache Flats (October 2019 photo from Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth)

Alan Sanning is the activities chairman at the Samuel Gearhart Detachment of the Marine Corps League in Jefferson City.

“Whenever the American Legion, the Marine Corps League, VFW, whenever their reps go up on Capitol Hill and they start jumping up and down on congressman’s desks to make sure that those benefits are there for our veterans that lost limbs, that have PTSD,” Sanning says.

Sanning’s concern is similar to one raised by American Legion National Commander Brett Reistad, who visited Jefferson City last November. Commander Reistad told Missourinet that day that the American Legion’s membership has decreased from 3.2 million in 1992 to about 2 million today.

Sanning tells Missourinet the Marine Corps League has also lost members from World War II and the Korean War, who’ve passed away.

He says the Marine Corps League is putting up booths in some locations, emphasizing the importance of issues like veterans health care.

“We understand, especially these young guys and gals in the War on Terror, they’ve got kids at home,” says Sanning. “By the time they get home and do homework and all this stuff, we know they may not be active members right now.”

Sanning says some members can only participate in one event a year, which he says is fine.

He notes the League also helps groups like the Special Learning Center and the Rape and Abuse Crisis Center, both located in Jefferson City. The Marine Corps League also barbecues for the Cole County Sheriff’s barbecue.

“We do a lot of charity work, both locally and nationally. We have a lot of local activities. It’s a wonderful organization, we do a lot of good things,” Sanning says.

The Marine Corps League is the only Congressionally-chartered U.S. Marine Corps-related veterans organization in the country. President Franklin Roosevelt signed the Marine Corps League’s Congressional Charter in 1937.

Click here to listen to the full interview between Missourinet’s Brian Hauswirth and Alan Sanning of the Samuel Gearhart Detachment of the Marine Corps League in Jefferson City, which was recorded on November 1, 2019:

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