News

The Columbia Police Department has announced the appointment of Officer Clint Sinclair to serve a liaison officer to the city’s LGBT community. In the department’s announcement, Sinclair says Columbia has a large LGBT community, which for law enforcement can present new and unique challenges. Officials say creating this new position is an effort to bridge

A man convicted of killing a sheriff’s deputy and two other people in 2002 is scheduled to be put to death in what could be Missouri’s last execution for some time. Earl Forrest was convicted of killing Harriett Smith and Michael Wells in a drug dispute and Dent County Sheriff’s Deputy Joann Barnes in a

South 5th Street between Elm and Locust is expected to be closed for at least four weeks. The closure should start around 8 a.m. Wednesday and go through June 8th. Bengals and Casablancas are expected to be demolished during the closure. The contractors are also expected to install new sewer and water connections. There will

Hanover Blvd residents are seeing some positive changes in their neighborhood after a WWII veteran was beaten in broad daylight. The neighbors believed restoring a broken fence could help lessen the amount of troublemakers passing thru. As of May 10th, the fence was restored. When we originally aired the story on May 4th, 2016 residents

Mid-Missouri contractor Ken Jinson pleaded not guilty to defrauding customers in Cole County Court Tuesday. Jinson is accused of stealing a total of $22,000 from four customers in Cole County. Tuesday, another one of those customers in the case spoke to ABC 17 News. Jefferson City resident Casey Allen said he and his wife Anita

A bipartisan group of state lawmakers is calling on Governor Jay Nixon to grant clemency for Earnest Leap, a man registered as a sex offender amid accusations he molested his son. Representative Jim Neely, R-Cameron, led a media conference Tuesday morning, during which he and his colleagues presented a letter to be delivered to Nixon’s

The Columbia Hospitality Association, which represents a majority of Columbia’s 36 hotels, motels and bed and breakfast venues in the city, announced Tuesday it will not support a 1 percent lodging tax increase unless the city comes forward with a specific financial plan on how it will use the money for business operations. They said

A child is recovering after getting hurt on a fence surrounding the Governor’s mansion in Jefferson City. She was on a school tour at the time. Shortly before 2 p.m. Tuesday, firefighters and medics responded to the mansion and found the child impaled on the fence. After making sure the child was stable, rescuers cut

COLUMBIA, Mo-University of Missouri graduate assistant students plan to sue the University over a union vote. They decided to unionize three weeks ago, but MU administrators are refusing to recognize the vote. In the letter that lawyers for the university sent denying the union, pointed out they consider the grad assistants students and not employees.

A former clerk in Boone County has pleaded guilty to federal charges related to her leaking information about a drug-trafficking investigation. Christin Sledd pleaded guilty to using a telephone to facilitate a drug-trafficking conspiracy. Ryan Kee, the father of Sledd’s child, pleaded guilty today to the same charge. According to prosecutors, while Sledd worked in

Starting next year, baseball and tennis will no longer be offered to student athletes at Lincoln University. The decision to cut the programs comes following a 10-month study of the university’s athletic offerings. It was based on factors like the school’s athletics budget, student-athletes’ experiences, facility needs, and expectations for success. The elimination will affect

Developers gave the Jefferson City Public Schools Board of Education a presentation of what the district would reportedly gain from the proposed tax increment financing (TIF) district Monday. At the school board meeting, Dr. Raman Puri with Puri Group of Enterprises said the school district could gain millions of dollars as a result. In Phase

The Columbia Public School Board voted to approve pay raises for employees Monday night. This marks the first time in eight years teachers have gotten a raise in base pay.It has been one of the big collective bargaining parts between teachers and CPS. The Board of Education also got a breakdown of how CPS wants

The ABC 17 News staff has selected the top 5 most-important and most-controversial issues that came to the table in the 2015/2016 legislative session. Follow the links to see how our locally-elected state lawmakers voted on each of those issues. University of Missouri Funding – After the landmark protests and administrative shake-up at Missouri’s largest

During the 2015-2016 Missouri legislative session, the country witnessed multiple mass shootings including the deadly massacre in San Bernardinoand on a college campus in Oregon. Here in Missouri, several bills were filed and voted upon that loosen restrictions on concealed carry firearms. One of the major bills along those lines is House Bill 1468, which

Near the end of the 2014-2015 legislative session, multiple lawmakers, including former Missouri speaker of the house John Diehl, resigned from their positions amid allegations of various inappropriate behaviors. It led to a big push for ethics reform in the state capitol during the 2015-2016 session. While dozens of bills were filed and considered, three

In 2015, videos from California appeared to show planned parenthood employees discussing the sale of post-abortion body parts. The videos led many republican lawmakers in Missouri to launch an investigation into the state’s Planned Parenthood facilities. Missouri’s Attorney General also investigated the videos and found they did not prove any wrong-doing in the state of

In November 2015, the University of Missouri’s Columbia campus was host to the largest student protest in decades. The uprising led to months of turmoil both on campus and within the system’s administration. Many Lawmakers were unsatisfied with the response by UM system leadership and called for millions to be cut from its budget. The

State senator Bob Onder, Lake St. Louis, filed a bill that would allow certain business owners in the wedding industry to refuse service to same-sex couples on the ground of religion. The measure, SJR 39, was so controversial, that it led to a 40-hour-long filibuster during debate in the Missouri senate. While the senate did

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo- Representative Courtney Curtis of Ferguson held a hearing Monday afternoon to discuss racial profiling at traffic stops. The president of the St. Louis Branch of the NAACP, Adolphus Pruitt, was the first to testify. He brought records dating back to 2012. He first showed that the documented traffic stops were fairly even