High winds caused fires to spread across thousands of acres in Missouri on Thursday, turning into flaming whirls of fire tornadoes.

The state pays its small team of executioners in cash to limit the paper trail. The state isn’t sending proper paperwork to the IRS — experts told BuzzFeed News that it could be contributing to tax evasion.

Can greater defenses be erected? Should homes be vaulted on stilts? Or is it time for some communities to pack up and leave? By John Eligon.

Missouri, Illinois, Arkansas and eastern Oklahoma braced for more flooding on Thursday as rain-swollen rivers, some at record heights, overflowed their banks, washing out hundreds of structures, closing major highways and leaving thousands of people displaced from their homes.

A letter from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to Missouri, obtained on Wednesday by The Associated Press, informs the state that its exemption from federal Real ID requirements will come to an end Jan. 10.

In St. Louis, Missouri, an effort to manage enormous caseloads left hundreds of the city's poorest without a lawyer. By Steven Hsieh.

One March day in 2013, Valarie Whitner received a rude welcome when she came home to Pagedale, Missouri: A police officer spotted Valarie, arrested her and threw her in the back of a squad car, before driving her to city hall. Only after Pagedale’s chief of police became involved was Valarie free to go. Incredibly, an unspecified “building code violation” caused Valarie to get handcuffed. For over seven years, Valarie and her partner, Vincent Blount, have been...

On Tuesday, students went to classes as they usually do. Football players intended to take the field in preparation for their game against Brigham Young University on Saturday. But something was very different at the University of Missouri campus. Students on Tuesday woke up to what protesters call a small but important victory: a weeks-long protest movement that ousted both the university president and the school's chancellor.

Residents of Dearborn in Platte County have taken sides after a respected father is accused of decade-long abuse of girl. The split continued even after Darren Paden admitted molesting the girl. On Friday, a Platte County judge sentenced Darren Paden to 50 years in prison for repeatedly sexually abusing the girl. By Glenn E. Rice and Eric Adler.

KANSAS CITY -- What the Foo Fighters did before a concert has gone viral on the internet. The group turned the tables on Westboro Baptist Church members protesting outside the Sprint Center in Kansas City.

A group of University of Missouri-Columbia graduate students has threatened to walk out of class next week if the university doesn’t meet its demands for improved benefits for student workers. The demands come in response to the university’s announcement that graduate assistants would no longer receive subsidies to pay for health insurance.

The mysterious “patriot” group returned to Ferguson, Missouri, on the anniversary of Michael Brown’s death. By Jared Keller.

A picture by the National Parks Service of a mill in Ozarks National Park during winter. The national park is located in my home state of Missouri, and I've been several times; it's always a gorgeous place.

Jhonny Peralta broke an eighth-inning tie with a sacrifice fly, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Diego Padres 2-1 Saturday to stop their longest losing streak of the season at four games.

More than 1,000 people spend their workdays in an industrial park housedin an excavated mine the size of 140 football fields. The underground industrial park, known as SubTropolis, opened for business in 1964 in an excavated mine below Kansas City, MO attracting tenants with the lure of lower energy costs and cheap rents.

A Capitol culture dominated by men in a small city where most lawmakers are far from home has fostered a culture fueled by drinking and a sensibility of sexism. In interviews with the Star, women who work in and with the General Assembly say they’re regularly harassed.

Here, on the streets of Ferguson and St. Louis, you can already feel the rest of the world forgetting. Today, President Obama will hold in Washington a series of Ferguson-related meetings. He will meet with local law enforcement leaders, faith leaders, and focus on working together to “build trust to strengthen neighborhoods across the country.”...

Killer Mike about an hour and a half after the Ferguson Grand Jury decision. Run The Jewels at the Ready Room, St. Louis, Missouri - 11/25/2014.

Many expect that if Wilson is not indicted, the worst situation that could unfold in Ferguson could be similar to the 1992 Los Angeles riots that happened after Los Angeles police officers were acquitted in a trial regarding a videotaped police beating of Rodney King.

A dream beach house in Florida has turned into a nightmare for a Missouri couple. Six months after the custom house was built along the Atlantic Ocean near Palm Coast, Mark and Brenda Voss learned it's on the wrong lot in the gated Ocean Hammock community.