Ruling comes on same day Missouri judge rules similar law can take effect, prohibiting doctors giving crucial care to trans youth
A Texas judge on Friday blocked the state’s upcoming ban on gender-affirming medical care for minors, the latest in a legal fight over efforts by conservatives to restrict such care around the country.
The decision came on the same day a Missouri judge ruled that a similar law can take effect.
Continue reading...At least 15 people shot dead across the country in mass shootings so far on the holiday weekend celebrating the US’s independence
A long holiday weekend of bloodshed has intensified after a heavily armed gunman in a bulletproof vest opened fire on the streets of Philadelphia on the eve of Fourth of July celebrations, in yet another mass shooting in the US, killing five people and wounding two boys before surrendering to the police.
Across the country, Texas was entering the holiday to news that another shooting had killed three people, in Fort Worth, occurring just before midnight amid a gathering in a parking lot that also wounded eight.
Continue reading...There have been more than 305 mass shootings in the US so far this year as of Sunday morning
At least 38 people were shot – including two fatally – in three different mass shootings reported Saturday and Sunday in separate parts of the US, according to officials.
One minor was killed and nine others were wounded in a shooting in a building in downtown St Louis, Missouri, about 1.45am Sunday, the local television station KMOV reported. The name of the slain victim wasn’t immediately available, and information on the conditions of the wounded wasn’t released right away either.
Associated Press contributed reporting
Continue reading...Michael Tisius, 42, received a lethal injection for killing Leon Egley and Jason Acton at the small Randolph county jail in 2000
A man who shot and killed two rural Missouri jailers nearly 23 years ago during a failed attempt to help an inmate escape was executed on Tuesday evening.
Michael Tisius, 42, received a lethal injection of pentobarbital at the state prison in Bonne Terre and was pronounced dead at 6.10 pm . He was convicted of the 22 June 2000 killing of Leon Egley and Jason Acton at the small Randolph county jail.
Continue reading...Homeowner, 84, already faces two felonies for shooting Black teen who knocked on wrong door to pick up siblings
A lawyer for the family of Ralph Yarl, the Black 16-year-old who was shot by a white man in Kansas City, Missouri, after ringing his doorbell by mistake, said the case should qualify as a hate crime.
“Ralph Yarl was shot because he was armed with nothing but other than his Black skin,” Lee Merritt told the Associated Press.
Continue reading...Cleo Nagbe speaks out after white man charged with Missouri’s equivalent for attempted murder for shooting Ralph Yarl
The mother of Ralph Yarl, a Black teenager who was shot by a white man after ringing the man’s doorbell, says that her son has been mentally replaying the shooting “over and over”.
Cleo Nagbe says that her son is still facing physical challenges from last week’s attack, when Andrew Lester, a white Kansas City resident, shot Yarl twice, once in the head and once in the arm, after the 16-year-old went to a mistaken address to pick up his siblings.
Continue reading...Ralph Yarl, 16, in stable condition in Kansas City as lawyer says ‘It is inescapable not to acknowledge the racial dynamics at play’
The shooting of a Black teenager who went to the wrong house to pick up his younger twin brothers from a play date is under investigation by authorities in Missouri, amid growing outrage that the homeowner who wounded him was released by police.
Ralph Yarl, 16, was in a stable condition in hospital in Kansas City on Monday. Reports said he was shot at least twice on Thursday night, first through the front door of the house and a second time when he lay wounded on the ground.
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Continue reading...Twister is part of a system of extreme storms and severe weather that has already battered areas of Michigan, Illinois and Iowa
A tornado that tore through south-eastern Missouri overnight has caused widespread destruction and killed at least five people.
The twister that struck overnight is part of a system of extreme storms that is spawning tornadoes and threatening more death and destruction across the central US.
Continue reading...Fatalities from tornado the worst in 50 years, with more severe storms expected in the region on Sunday
Devastating storms and at least one large tornado which ripped through rural Mississippi on Friday night left 25 people dead in the state, dozens injured and rescue workers hauling people from rubble throughout Saturday, as the state reeled from its highest tornado-related death toll in decades.
Severe weather pounded several southern states overnight as the centers of destruction emerged on Saturday morning as the small, majority Black towns of Rolling Fork and Silver City in the Mississippi delta.
Continue reading...Directive sidesteps Republican-controlled state legislature, which wasn’t able to pass similar legislation before recess
Missouri’s Republican attorney general on Monday said he will limit access to gender-affirming care for minors, sidestepping the GOP-led state senate as it struggles to pass a law banning the practice for children completely.
As hundreds of activists rallied at the state capitol to pressure lawmakers to act on the bill, Andrew Bailey announced plans to file an emergency rule.
Continue reading...Lamar Johnson’s long fight to prove his innocence paid off and helped change state law: ‘I can’t say I knew it would happen’
As he languished in a Missouri prison for nearly three decades, Lamar Johnson never stopped fighting to prove his innocence, even when it meant doing much of the legal work himself.
This week, a St Louis judge overturned Johnson’s murder conviction and ordered him freed. Johnson closed his eyes and shook his head, overcome with emotion. Shouts of joy rang out from the packed courtroom, and several people – relatives, civil rights activists and others – stood to cheer. Johnson’s lawyers hugged each other and him.
Continue reading...Lamar Johnson, convicted to life for the killing, was released after judge found ‘reliable evidence of actual innocence’
A Missouri judge on Tuesday overturned the conviction of a man who has served nearly 28 years of a life sentence for a killing that he has always said he didn’t commit.
Lamar Johnson, 50, closed his eyes and shook his head slightly as a member of his legal team patted him on the back when Judge David Mason issued his ruling. In coming to his decision, Mason explained that there had to be “reliable evidence of actual innocence – evidence so reliable that it actually passes the standard of clear and convincing”.
Continue reading...Two members of Congress campaigned for Amber McLaughlin’s sentence to be commuted over alleged shortcomings in trial
A Missouri inmate has been put to death for a 2003 killing, becoming what is believed to be the first transgender woman executed in the US.
Amber McLaughlin was put to death on Tuesday night, hours after the Republican governor of Missouri, Mike Parson, declined a clemency request. McLaughlin was convicted in 2006 of killing a former girlfriend in suburban St Louis in 2003.
Continue reading...Judge upholds Missouri law that bars anyone under 21 from witnessing an execution
A federal judge in the US has denied a request from a 19-year-old woman to allow her to watch her father’s death by injection, upholding a Missouri law that bars anyone under 21 from witnessing an execution.
Kevin Johnson is set to be executed Tuesday for killing Kirkwood police officer William McEntee in 2005. Johnson’s lawyers have appeals pending that seek to spare his life.
Continue reading...The ‘green wave’ expanded to Maryland with voters opting for recreational cannabis while California voted to enshrine abortion
Voters across the US weighed in on a variety of ballot measures during the US midterms on Tuesday, passing judgement on everything from recreational drugs to abortion rights, to sports betting and the climate crisis.
Multiple states voted on whether or not to legalize recreational marijuana, part of a growing “green wave” that has already seen many relax their laws on cannabis use.
Continue reading...Report finds levels of the radioactive isotype lead-210 as much as 22 times the expected levels at Missouri school serving mostly Black students
The US army corps of engineers is testing for radioactivity in the kindergarten play yard, sports fields and classrooms of a Missouri school serving mostly Black students, after an independent report revealed the school may have been contaminated by nuclear bomb-making waste dumped from the second world war’s Manhattan Project.
Children from Jana elementary school in the Northern St Louis area were sent home to do online learning last week, following an independent report that found levels of the radioactive isotype lead-210 as much as 22 times the expected levels in the school’s play yards and some indoor spaces.
Continue reading...Gunman, 20, shot and killed two people at Central Visual and Performing Arts high school before police shot him dead
A gunman broke into a St Louis high school on Monday and killed two people before police shot him dead.
Several other people were wounded in a deadly intrusion that is certain to reignite debate about gun control in the US, even after Congress passed a bill earlier this year that tightened restrictions on access to firearms for some people who are considered to be at risk of carrying out violence.
Continue reading...Program has been paused as the court considers a motion filed by six Republican-led states
Joe Biden’s plan to cancel billions of dollars in federal student loans has been temporarily halted by a federal appeals court as it considers a motion from six Republican-led states to block the program.
The eighth circuit court of appeals issued the temporary stay on Friday, ordering the Biden administration not to act on the program while it considers the appeal.
Continue reading...Missouri woman, 22, escapes less than a month after police dismissed concerns about a serial killer as ‘completely unfounded’
A 22-year-old Black woman in Missouri who escaped after a white man abducted, tortured and held her captive for weeks in a basement has said several other Black women were killed by her captor – less than a month after police dismissed community concerns about a serial killer as “completely unfounded”.
The woman, who has not been named, escaped on 7 October after about a month in captivity, still wearing a metal collar locked with a padlock that authorities had to remove.
Continue reading...Divers discovered Abby about 500ft below while exploring the Berome Moore cave system
Cave divers in Missouri recently rescued a dog stranded hundreds of feet underground almost two months after the animal disappeared from its family’s home.
A small group of divers discovered Abby, a 13-year-old pet, while exploring the passages of the 18-mile Berome Moore cave system in Perry county on 6 August. They alerted the local fire department and members of the Cave Research Foundation at the surface of their discovery about 500ft below.
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