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The mugshot says it all. A babysitter accused of molesting a 1-year-old girl was tackled, hit with a dresser, and punched several times by the child’s father before his arrest in Kansas City, Missouri, last week, according to police.

A babysitter accused of molesting a 1-year-old girl was tackled, hit with a dresser, and punched several times by the child’s father before his arrest in Kansas City, Missouri, last week, according to police. The child's relatives forgot something they left at home after leaving her with a family friend, court documents showed. When they returned home, they found Jayson Newlun, 26, with the girl in her bedroom. After the girl’s mom caught Newlun allegedly sexually assaulting the child, she alerted the girl’s father, who then attacked him, according to investigators.

Why down? Although Missouri’s minimum wage is $7.70 per hour statewide, St. Louis already raised its minimum wage in 2015, with another increase to $11 per hour planned for January. After a two-year legal fight with local business groups, a bill was ultimately passed by the state legislature this spring that bars cities and counties from setting their own minimum wages above the state’s minimum. The bill takes effect on Aug. 28.

A new government audit finds more than a third of enrollees of the "Obamaphone" program may not be qualified -- among other fraudulent findings -- prompting a Senate Democrat to roundly criticize the program's "complete lack of oversight." A report released Thursday by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) claims the program, which gives cell phones to poor people, stashed $9 billion in private bank accounts, the Washington Times reported. The 90-page report was requested by Sen. Claire McCaskill, a Missouri Democrat who serves as ranking Democrat on the Senate’s chief oversight committee and who is a former state auditor in...

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The controversial “Obamaphone” program, which pays for cellphones for the poor, is rife with fraud, according to a new government report released Thursday that found more than a third of enrollees may not even be qualified. Known officially as the Lifeline Program, the phone giveaway became a symbol of government waste in the previous administration. Now a new report from the Government Accountability Office bears out those concerns. The report, requested by Sen. Claire McCaskill, Missouri Democrat, also says the program has stashed some $9 billion in assets in private bank accounts rather than with the federal treasury, further increasing...

Street workers were gathered at the parking space, a tipoff that something was amiss. That's when Westerberg, 25, found the vehicle in the gaping hole — about 20 feet (6 meters) deep and 8 to 10 feet (2.5 to 3 meters) across — that took up the entire southbound lane of the street, next to a vacant building expected to feature apartments, office space and retail. No injuries were reported.

Missouri Democrat didn't disclose role in foundation to Senate until June 2017 ...she told the Washington Post she never had a "call or meeting" with Kislyak even though she had publicly announced both a call and meeting with him. This week, CNN reported that McCaskill also attended a black-tie reception at Kislyak's D.C. residence in November 2015.

While there are many threats to religious liberty, few are more consequential over the long term than the state’s ever-expanding role in private life. If the government is able to vacuum up tax dollars, create programs large and small for public benefit, and then exclude religious individuals or institutions from those programs, it has functionally created two tiers of citizenship. Secular individuals and institutions enjoy full access to the government they fund, while religious individuals and institutions find themselves funding a government that overtly discriminates against them. That’s the issue the Supreme Court addressed today in Trinity Lutheran Church...

Dive Brief: The Arizona Department of Transportation has reported that the public-private partnership (P3) constructing the $1.9 billion Phoenix-area Loop 202 South Mountain Freeway will deliver the project in late 2019, three years ahead of schedule, according to Equipment World.The P3's private component, Connect 202 Partners — which is made up of Fluor Enterprises, Granite Construction, Ames Construction and WSP — restructured the 22-mile project so that the last section could be built all at once instead of as nine separate projects as the state originally planned.This is the first time a P3 as been used for a highway project...

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A judge has issued an injunction that will temporarily prevent the city of St. Louis from removing a Confederate monument from Forest Park. St. Louis Circuit Court Judge Robert Dierker on Monday issued the injunction and set a July 6 hearing for arguments over whether the city or the Missouri Civil War Museum owns the monument. The museum filed a lawsuit Friday against the city, contending the United Daughters of the Confederacy signed over the ownership rights to the monument last week. The city contends it controls the monument and wants to remove it soon. Dierker's...

Whenever the mainstream media awards a participation trophy to the loser of an election, it is sure bet they are awarding it to a Democrat. Such was the case with the June 17 Politico which awarded a participation trophy to Jason Kander who lost the 2016 U.S. Senate race from Missouri. No matter. As far as Politico is concerned he was really a winner as you can see from their title, How Jason Kander Won by Losing. What makes this article particularly amusing is how far overboard Politico writer Edward-Isaac Dovere goes in hyping the future political career of Kander....

In a video posted to Facebook, a Missouri lawmaker cuts off the head of a chicken while announcing he wants to stop abortions in the state. State Rep. Mike Moon, an Ash Grove Republican, posted the video Monday afternoon. In it, he segues from saying that God entrusted humans to protect and care for animals into making a plea to Missourians to support his bill stopping abortion. “We’ve been called back for this special session for the primary purpose of supporting life, protecting the unborn specifically,” Moon said in the video. As he pulled something from the chicken’s innards, he...

The Truth: Federal ICE agents took part in a raid on more than a dozen of convenience stores in the St. Louis area, and 35 men were arrested on charges related to selling illegal cigarettes and synthetic drugs. Reports about the arrests surfaced in local St. Louis-area media reports immediately after ICE convenience store raids in May 2017, and those reports filtered into fringe publications after a Department of Justice (DOJ) press release a list of 35 people with Arabic names who were indicted.Sources with knowledge of the investigation said the raids were also tied to the illegal sale of...

New questions are being raised over whether red light cameras in Pueblo are more about revenue and less about safety... the city is giving drivers less time to get through those intersections which potentially increases your chance of getting a ticket. ... Almost from the start, installing red light cameras has been a controversial topic, and now the focus has shifted to how they are timed. ... According to the National Motorists Association Foundation, the yellow light at that intersection should last a minimum of 5.5 seconds. News 5 Investigates discovered the yellow light is set to last a second...

So-called "microaggressions" are becoming so integral to our Zeitgeist that university researchers are now tracking them scientifically, or at least pseudo-scientifically. "Female athletes long have experienced microaggressions from the media and the public, such as racism, sexism, the belittling of athletic accomplishments and being the brunt of sexual jokes," the University of Missouri News Bureau claims. "Now, researchers at the University of Missouri School of Journalism have found that microaggressions against female athletes in the media increased by nearly 40 percent from the 2012 Summer Olympic Games to the 2016 Summer Olympic Games." "Cynthia Frisby, an associate professor of strategic...

"According to police, around 11:40 p.m. Tuesday, the suspect entered the Shell gas station at 1828 Arsenal, showed a handgun and demanded money. After hearing the suspect announce the robbery, the off-duty officer made himself known to the suspect."

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...

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