Who wants a drumstick? The six-foot-tall phorusrhacos longissimus roamed what is now Argentina during the Middle Miocene.
People often talk as if warming temperatures are the only evidence of human-induced global climate change. But the amount of carbon dioxide in the…
In Sunday’s third installment of a Post-Dispatch series on loopholes in Missouri’s drunk driving laws, we learned that the state law that mandates a one year-suspension of driving privileges for drivers who refuse to take a breathalyzer test often is a joke.
In…
House Democrats unveiled a sweeping health care reform bill last Thursday built on shared responsibility.
Individuals would have to buy health insurance for themselves and their families.
Taxpayers would subsidize coverage for those unable to afford it on their own.
Employers would have…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
Last week, Gov. Jay Nixon whacked another $203.7 million from the state’s budget. He’d already cut $385 million in July, and vetoed another $105 million when he signed the $23 billion budget in June.
The governor really had no choice.…
Water skiing on the Mississippi River
It takes more than 200 pages of dense, legalistic language to detail the intricacies of the federal Clean Water Act. But the bottom line is simple: Federal and state governments must protect lakes, streams and…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
The Doe Run Company has been operating a giant lead smelter in Herculaneum for decades. For just as long, elevated lead levels have been found in people, properties and roads around it.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Missouri Department…
About 60 percent of Americans - 175 million people - now live in communities that restrict smoking in public places.
On Nov. 3, voters in St. Louis County can add the county’s nearly 1 million residents to the list by voting…
House Minority Leader John Boehner, R-Ohio.
Sen. Bob Corker, a Republican from Tennessee, was in a fine fury Tuesday morning. Speaking on the Senate floor, he blasted Democratic lawmakers for a plan to permanently adjust the Medicare formula used to set payment…
If there were a way to save $207.4 million, avoid 30,000 unnecessary hospitalizations and more than 2,000 premature deaths, we’d jump at it, right?
That’s what Missouri would gain if its health system performed as well as the systems in Vermont,…
R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch
Last April 8, the Missouri House passed a measure that would have given voters the right to change the state’s non-partisan judicial selection process and put politics back in the system.
On Sunday, The Kansas City Star looked at that 85-72 vote…
President Barack Obama speaks after last week's historic Senate health reform vote.
Forget all the angry shouting about socialized medicine and government take-overs. Health care reform is really all about markets, competition and choice.
That’s probably not what you’ve heard. But as…
To hear some people tell it, the number of people without health insurance in the United States is vastly overstated.
There are the illegal immigrants, the argument goes, and then there are those who can afford to buy insurance but don’t…
The more you learn about how drunk driving laws are enforced — or more often, not enforced — in the St. Louis area, the more obvious it becomes why drunk driving remains so prevalent.
Unless a drunk driver runs into someone or…
Flu season — or at least the traditional flu season — still is a month away. But four Jefferson County schools are taking an unexpected holiday this week, closed by outbreaks of swine flu.
That’s left doctors and public health officials…
Robin Beaton's insurance company cancelled her breast cancer surgery because she didn't disclose she'd been treated for acne.
Health insurance companies launched an 11th-hour assault Monday on a compromise health care reform bill in the Senate. In a new report and a…
Suppose you were asked for a list of the game-changers in modern medicine — treatments that saved the most lives and had the greatest health impact.
You might name organ transplants or drugs to fight cancer and AIDS. Maybe if you…
For a guy who focused so relentlessly on health care as a candidate, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon has been remarkably quiet of late.
At a time when health care dominates the national debate, Mr. Nixon is one of just six Democratic…
A home destroyed by beach erosion in the Alaskan village of Shishmaref. It was evacuated because of global warming.
When President Barack Obama was in Copenhagen on Oct. 2, he was trying to attract an Olympic Games for Chicago.
Next time, he…
Missouri’s grim revenue picture got even grimmer last month, with tax collections falling 16.3 percent below what they were in September 2008 — and revenue in September 2008 was lousy to begin with.
The only bright spot in Missouri’s revenue picture —…
Alabama Gov. George Wallace in the schoolhouse door, arguing for states' rights, June 11, 1963.
Whatever hopelessly wacky idea is floated in the conservative blogosphere, Missourians can be confident that state Sen. Jane Cunningham, R-Chesterfield, will lasso it and bring it back…
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