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1. According to state records, the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education was preparing to thank a Post-Dispatch reporter for uncovering a data vulnerability — before Gov. Mike Parson threatened the reporter with criminal prosecution. Parson later claimed he wasn’t sure where the newspaper’s information came from, even though it came from his office in response to a Sunshine request. Read the story.

2. A former data director for the Missouri Democrats accused the state party of breaking a federal labor law when party leaders fired him. The National Labor Relations Board eventually issued a complaint against the Democrats, and I covered the story until the two sides settled the case, which had implications for political party staffs across the country. Read the story.

3. Lucas Kunce, one Democrat running for U.S. Senate in Missouri, was claiming a homestead tax credit in Washington, D.C. He also signed mortgage paperwork requiring him to live in his Washington home. Kunce said he voted there in 2020, but the D.C. election board had no record of that. Read the story.

4. An environmental calamity unfolded last year in a rural corner of northern Missouri when pig manure overwhelmed lagoons that had been managed by a financially troubled farming company. Environmental watchdogs said the spills, which occurred in two counties, and the prior lack of oversight by the Department of Natural Resources, spotlighted the state’s hands-off approach to smaller concentrated animal feeding operations. Read the story.

5. A marijuana legalization ballot initiative for 2022 gives insiders first dibs on full recreational business licenses. One critic I quoted said this was to protect the industry from competition. Read the story.