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A report released on Friday by the Missouri auditor's office says the state continued to overspend on its elk restoration project, even after a 2011 audit found it was way over budget.

The current audit found the Missouri Department of Conservation spent close to $3.4 million to bring 129 elk into the state. Only an estimated 115 elk have survived.

But conservation department Deputy Director Tom Ripperger says those figures are misleading.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is continuing to check the progress of a wetland constructed in Columbia this past summer. The city funded part of the 3M Flat Branch-Hinkson Creek Wetlands, which is located off of the MKT trail behind Katy Place Apartments, with $45,000 from the city’s park sales tax. 3M Company provided the initial seed money of $40,000.

Protestors took the sidewalk on Thursday demanding higher wages and the ability to form a union for the 2300 Fast-food workers in Columbia.

In more than 100 cities across the country, protests brought together various industry workers asking for a higher, more livable wage and the ability to form unions.

Passersby honk as a group of protestors chant "We cannot survive on $7.35" in front of the Burger King on Business Loop-70 in Columbia. Standing in 20 degree weather, the protestors demand higher wages and the ability to form a union.

Some Missouri drivers are changing the way they get around their communities, that’s according to a report released by the Missouri Public Interest Research Group on Wednesday. That report said that the rate of cars commuting in Missouri’s urbanized areas has declined. At the same time, the report also shows that the use of alternative transportation has increased over the years. 

Alec Sprague, Midwest advocate of MoPIRG, said the report could bring changes to policy making.

The loss of a pet can be difficult for some to go through.

The MU College of Veterinary Medicine implemented a new program that helps pet owners and veterinary students go through losing a pet. TIGER, or Together In Grief Easing Recovery, was developed as a collaboration between the Research Center for Human Animal Interaction and the Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital.

Columbia’s new Short Street parking garage opened this Tuesday, but workers are still constructing nearby buildings.

Missouri lawmakers are poised to give final approval to a package of incentives for a potential Boeing assembly plant.

This is the latest installment of Harvest Public Media’s Field Notes, in which we talk about important issues related to food production.

Thanks to tight competition, hog farmers all over the country are feeling a push to expand or get out of the business. That means indoor confined animal feeding operations – or CAFOs – are growing even in the most environmentally sensitive areas.

Thanks to tight competition, hog farmers are feeling a push to expand or get out of the business. That means indoor confined animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, are growing, even in the most environmentally sensitive areas.

The hog industry’s impact on the water supply is worrying many residents of northeast Iowa’s Winneshiek County, near Decorah.

China has dramatically increased its economic influence in Latin America. The United States is still the region’s largest investor, but China is now in second place and gaining a larger market share. In 2009, for example, China loaned a Brazilian oil company $10 billion and built a cellphone factory in Venezuela. The next year, China signed a $10 billion deal for the construction of railroads in Argentina. And in March, Ecuador agreed to auction off one-third of the country's Amazonian rainforest to Chinese oil companies.