News

Cottonwood Residential Treatment Center is expected to close its doors on December 31st, but people are fighting against it.

Governor Jay Nixon, a Democrat, plans to close the facility to balance the state's budget. He blames tax cuts in the Republican-led legislature for the decision. Nixon vetoed the tax cut legislation.

However, the fight to save Cottonwood is not over as people show their support for the residential care center.

Sixty-two-year-old Joan Sisco of Springfield is doing her best to get comfortable on a donated couch.   But her attempt is futile: her upper body is mostly purple and brown from her boyfriend’s July 4 attack. That’s the night she received multiple blows because she served another man a cup of coffee.

We’re at the Respite Care shelter for homeless women with medical needs, which operates under the umbrella of The Kitchen, Inc. Most nights, Joan’s either at Safe to Sleep, an overnight shelter for homeless women, or sleeping in her car behind a storage shed.

The agriculture industry is a cornerstone of the Midwest economy. In some states, it may even become a right.

In Missouri, the so-called “right to farm” is on the ballot in the form of an amendment to the state Constitution. And the controversial provision could be a model for Constitutional additions on other ag-heavy states.

Though the “right to farm” provision is focused on agriculture, it has pitted farmer against farmer with some worried that the results could change the face of farming in the Midwest.

Accountability concerns

A new study suggests that bed-sharing is the predominant cause of death among young infants.

The majority of sleep related deaths among infants younger than one year is due to bed-sharing, as a research published in the journal of the American Academy of Pediatrics revealed earlier this month.

A female referee will officiate Southeast Missouri State University’s non-conference football game with the University of Kansas in September. Catherine "Cat" Conti will be the first woman to referee a game with a Big 12 Conference team.

The Big 12’s commissioner calls Conti “a darn good official” and she’ll have a chance to show her skills on September 6 in Lawrence, Kansas.

Southeast athletic director Mark Alnutt said Conti earned the opportunity to referee the game.