State officials have found buried materials left from a former Cameron, Mo., insulation plant.
The underground steel slag and waste rock found this week at the former Rockwool Industries site was 10-feet thick, said Julieann Warren, site assessment unit chief with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
The DNR and the Environmental Protection Agency will run tests on the buried mass and other samples within the next couple of weeks before announcing the results at a Cameron town meeting.

The Buchanan County School District says it needs more tax money to take track athletes off the streets and keep flying basketballs out of band practice.

The St. Joseph City Council put an end to a much-debated museum issue. But the ending could signify the beginning of a new battle.
The council voted 5-4 Monday evening to approve a one-year contract between the city and St. Joseph Museums Inc.
Critics of the contract, including Ellis Cross and the Friends of the Museum Hill Mansion, call the contract “unconstitutional” and have said they’d sue the city if it approved the contract. Following the vote, Mr. Cross wouldn’t comment on his next move.

CAMERON, MO. — Workers pushed what resembled a lawnmower, but one with an antenna, along the ground. They placed an orange flag in the soil every so often, marking where to drill.
Cameron residents, one with two brain tumors and another who lost his wife to brain tumor complications, looked on.
“We need to find out what’s wrong in Cameron,” said Bill Kemper, whose wife, Karen Kemper, died in May.

Donna Wilson looks at the price of apples and cauliflower at the grocery store and sees one thing: the worsening of an already alarming childhood obesity problem.
“Grapes are $7 a pound now. In a community where 54 percent of the children’s families are eligible for free and reduced lunch prices, this is a huge problem,” said Ms. Wilson, youth health coordinator for Heartland Health.
Ms. Wilson and other local health and education leaders fear soaring food prices force some to forgo the healthier, more expensive items and bulk up on the bad-for-you, cheaper products.

We know the history of Joseph Robidoux. He’s the one who had the first trading post in the area that now bears his name — St. Joseph. But who opened the second store? Albe Saxton and Elias H. Perry. Not ringing a bell?

Comedian and social commentator Will Rogers once said that the best job in the United States is that of vice president — “All he has to do is get up every morning and say, ‘How is the president?’” Regardless, it’s at this point in a presidential election year that bets are placed on everyone’s favorite possible “No. 2.” Will John McCain choose Mitt Romney? Is Hillary Clinton going to be Barack Obama’s right-hand woman? Landing the No. 2 spot comes with the potential to be No. 1.

Eleeseea Crail hasn’t run away from home in a while. The 16-year-old also has quit hitting her sister and stealing from her mother.

Cyndee Gardner’s day started out bad. She attended the funeral of a co-worker and friend who died from brain tumor-related complications. Then her day got worse. In the afternoon, she took her soon-to-be third-grade daughter to the doctor.

Officials at George Washington’s former home saw a crisis: Washington, the United States’ first president, was on the road to extinction from schools.
So those at Mount Vernon, near Alexandria, Va., raised $450,000 and put portraits of Washington, along with lesson plans, into 3,000 schools within the past year.
One local school, St. Francis Xavier School in St. Joseph, has made that list. During the school’s trip to Washington, D.C., last month, seventh- and eighth-graders and school staff visited Mount Vernon, where they saw the Washington portrait print and materials they’ll soon receive by mail.