News

Good morning! Here are some of today's starting headlines:

• A State Senate committee spent several hours last night (Wednesday) discussing legislation that would allow utility companies in Missouri to charge customers for a site permit for a proposed nuclear power plant.  The reactor would be built by St. Louis-based Ameren Missouri and would be located next to the company’s reactor near Fulton.  The price tag for the site permit is around $40 million.  Opponents included Jean Blackwood of the Sierra Club:

Transportation officials are making changes to Interstate 270 and Interstate 255’s controversial variable speed limits.

MoDOT says a new study finds that they have helped traffic flow slightly since they were instituted in 2008, and accidents are down on the busy highway. So MoDOT engineer Tom Blair says they’ll make the variable speed limits simply "advisory" by this summer.

Sen. Claire McCaskill says two new federal reports out about health care at the John Cochran veteran's hospital in St. Louis are only part of the picture she wants to get on that facility.

The inspector general on Monday released reports on problems with sterilization at the hospital's dental clinic, and on complaints from employees that they did not have the equipment they needed to do their jobs.

Those reports are important because they outline existing problems, McCaskill says, but the specifics on dealing with those problems have to come from veterans. And that's where her new customer satisfaction survey comes in.

"I really want to see this through the eyes of veterans. I want to know how they feel on an individual basis about the services they’re receiving, and I think that's going to be a very good measure of the work we have to do, she says."

St. Louis has been named as one of 24 cities worldwide to be awarded a "Smarter Cities" grant by IBM, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Tim Logan reports. 

What does the grant entail? And how will it be used in St. Louis?

The Missouri House has given first-round approval to legislation that would require driver’s license tests to be given in English only.

Supporters say doing so would help immigrants assimilate easier into American culture and promote safety, since road signs in Missouri are in English.