MU Health Care outlines plans for cuts

University of Missouri Health Care outlined a plan to save $25 million over the next three to five years Monday morning.

MU Health Care CEO Jonathan Curtright and Chief Financial Officer Mike Blair announced the plan at a meeting of the UM Board of Curators Health Affairs Committee in January. Monday Curtright and Blair outlined cuts that will be made as part its plan to maintain $100 million in operating income over the next 10 years.

Executives in the health care system identified three levels of cost savings from the easiest items to cut to the hardest. Only items in the top “A” level will be cut, Curtright told the board.

“We believe this has a high probability of success,” Curtright said.

https://www.columbiatribune.com/news/20190401/mu-health-care-outlines-plans-for-cuts

Aw, Shucks: Missouri's One And Only Corn Cob Pipe Factory Turns 150

Phil Morgan delights in showing visitors around the oldest corn cob pipe factory in the world – the 150-year-old Missouri Meerschaum Company in Washington, Missouri.

“I mean, it's a corn cob pipe, so it’s definitely a fun business to be part of,’’ said Morgan, the company’s general manager.

The factory is still housed in its original red-brick hulk of a building sprawled along Front Street, above the Missouri River. It produces about 700,000 corn cob pipes a year — “handcrafted and made in the USA” — and ships them to customers across the United States and 70 countries.

One of the oldest manufacturers in the state, Missouri Meerschaum will mark its sesquicentennial April 12-13 by inviting the public to tour the factory.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/aw-shucks-missouri-s-one-and-only-corn-cob-pipe-factory-turns-150

A campaign of ideas

Columbia teachers, students to benefit from $1.5M grant

A nearly $1.5 million National Science Foundation grant to the University of Missouri will allow 13 Columbia Public Schools teachers and 11 teachers in the Independence School District to become math specialists and earn master’s degrees with a goal of improving elementary STEM education.

STEM stands for science, technology, engineering and math.

The teachers also will share their newfound knowledge in their buildings and classrooms through professional development and leadership activities.

The project is a partnership among MU, the University of Central Missouri and the Missouri Council of Teachers of Mathematics. Corey Webel, associate professor in the MU College of Education, is the lead on the project. He said MU will work with CPS teachers and UCM will work with Independence teachers.

https://www.columbiatribune.com/news/20190329/columbia-teachers-students-to-benefit-from-15m-grant

After Greitens, Missouri Senate votes to limit impeachment

JEFFERSON CITY — Missouri senators on Thursday passed legislation to make it harder to impeach top officials, less than a year after former Gov. Eric Greitens resigned in the face of potential impeachment.

The proposal, sent to the House on a 25-8 vote, would limit criteria for impeachment to “corruption and crime in office.”

Republican Senate Majority Leader Caleb Rowden on Thursday said nothing in the legislation “would have changed the process and how it played out with Gov. Greitens,” adding that Greitens resigned before a House investigatory committee could vote on impeaching him.

But if the proposed constitutional amendment had been in place last year, it would have stopped House members from weighing whether to impeach Greitens over allegations of sexual misconduct and campaign finance violations that occurred before he assumed the governorship in January 2017.

https://www.columbiatribune.com/news/20190328/after-greitens-missouri-senate-votes-to-limit-impeachment

America would run out of avocados in three weeks if Trump shuts down Mexico border

Millennials may need a new superfood to top their toast soon.

President Donald Trump’s threats to shut down the U.S.-Mexico border this week would significantly impact produce availability and pricing in the United States, especially avocados.

“You couldn’t pick a worse time of year because Mexico supplies virtually 100 percent of the avocados in the U.S. right now. California is just starting and they have a very small crop, but they’re not relevant right now and won’t be for another month or so,” Mission Produce president and CEO Steve Barnard said to Reuters.

He estimates that the United States would run out of avocados in three weeks if imports from Mexico were halted.

https://www.therolladailynews.com/zz/news/20190401/america-would-run-out-of-avocados-in-three-weeks-if-trump-shuts-down-mexico-border

HUMAN-CENTERED CAPITALISM

Capitalism as an economic system has led to unparalleled innovation and improvement in the human condition. Many consider it to have “won” the war of ideas against socialism, but that simplistic view ignores that there is no such thing as a pure Capitalist system. And our current version of institutional capitalism and corporatism is a relatively recent development.

Our current emphasis on corporate profits isn’t working for the vast majority of Americans. This will only be made worse by the development of automation technology and AI.

We need to move to a new form of capitalism – Human Capitalism – that’s geared towards maximizing human well-being and fulfillment. The central tenets of Human Capitalism are:

Humans are more important than money
The unit of a Human Capitalism economy is each person, not each dollar
Markets exist to serve our common goals and values

https://www.yang2020.com/policies/human-capitalism/

Greetings

A howdy to the Yang supporters!

Missouri S&T to celebrate Philanthropy Month in April

Missouri University of Science and Technology students, faculty and staff are celebrating more than the coming of spring in April. They’re also spotlighting the spirit of giving by celebrating Philanthropy Month.

Members of Students Today Alumni Tomorrow (STAT) and Blue Key will be raising awareness of the importance of philanthropy all month long and raising money for “finish line” scholarships, which help Missouri S&T students close to earning a degree by helping with tuition, rent or other expenses.

A crowdfunding campaign for the scholarship fund will launch April 1 and continue throughout the month at crowdfunding.mst.edu. All donations will be matched by the University of Missouri System and Missouri S&T. Donors can also give by texting FinishStrong to 91999.

Giving Day will take place Wednesday, April 24, and will be a 24-hour celebration of Miner pride and giving. Tables will be set up at the Curtis Laws Wilson Library and the Havener Center from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. with giveaways, free snacks and drinks.

https://www.therolladailynews.com/news/20190401/missouri-st-to-celebrate-philanthropy-month-in-april

Governor Parson: Basin States Need to Speak With Unified Voice on Missouri River Management

(JEFFERSON CITY, MO) – The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers manages the Missouri River through the Master Manual, a 432-page document that lays out eight congressionally authorized purposes: flood control, river navigation, hydroelectric power, irrigation, water supply, water quality, recreation, and fish and wildlife (including preservation of endangered species).

Congress authorized flood control and navigation as the dominant project purposes for the Missouri River system. However, during a 2004 update of the Master Manual, the Corps shifted the prioritization of these purposes to hold water higher in the reservoir system to benefit fisheries – an action that effectively reduced flood control.

For decades, the State of Missouri has strongly argued flood control must be the Corps’ top priority and that reducing flood impacts is the dominant project purpose that Congress authorized to guide the Corps’ management of the Missouri River. The Midwest is now bearing witness to the devastating results when those eight purposes are not appropriately prioritized.

The Corps maintains one of the nation’s largest flood control systems on the Missouri river main-stem, but the devastating flooding we are experiencing and the previous record 2011 flooding have demonstrated the current system is insufficient to protect us. The majority of the runoff causing the flooding in the Missouri River basin this week came either from unregulated tributaries to the Missouri River without a Corps reservoir or in tributaries to the Corps’ most downstream reservoir, Lewis and Clark Reservoir above Gavins Point Dam – a reservoir with very little flood storage. The Corps should be considering expanding Lewis and Clark Reservoir, adding more flood control reservoirs on the tributaries in the lower Missouri River, or implementing other strategies to expand flood storage, instead of being distracted by protracted debates about endangered species.

https://www.therolladailynews.com/news/20190328/governor-parson-basin-states-need-to-speak-with-unified-voice-on-missouri-river-management