SPRINGFIELD, Mo. (KY3) – Missouri lawmakers are once again debating restrictions involving transgender students.

A Missouri Senate committee heard testimony on a bill that would allow private schools to enforce bathroom and locker room policies based on gender assigned at birth on Tuesday morning. Senate Bill 1558 would prevent cities, counties, or other local municipalities from adopting ordinances that would force a private school to change its bathroom policy, and defend private schools from lawsuits about bathroom use with state funds.

The bill was introduced following a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that students can use the bathroom that matches their preferred gender. Republican lawmakers want to keep that ruling from applying to private schools in Missouri.

Senate Education Chairman, Republican Sen. Rick Brattin, defended the legislation during the committee hearing.

“I think this is common sense, and it’s unfortunate we have to actually pass legislation like this,” Brattin said. “Now all of a sudden it’s like, we’ve created this social contagion that no one knows what sex they are or that it’s a ‘construct’, but society for all of human history has been male and female.”

Guillermo Villa-Trueba, PhD, a lobbyist for the Missouri Catholic Conference, testified in support of the bill on behalf of religious private schools.

“It’s very helpful for Catholic schools and private religious schools in general so we can enact policies that align with our religious beliefs and with biology,” Villa-Trueba said.

Democratic State Sen. Maggie Nurrenbern said the legislature spends too much time on bathroom-related legislation.

“Here in the education committee, we have spent a tremendous amount of time talking about these issues,” Nurrenbern said. “And I can say in the last six years working in the education committees, both in the House and Senate, I am tired of talking about bathrooms, and I wish we could spend a heck of a lot more time talking about classrooms.”

Samantha Jones, a Missourian who testified against the bill, said the measure is based on incorrect assumptions. Jones drew on her own experiences as an intersex person.

“It is an incorrect assumption that gender is rigidly binary and that sex is as well,” Jones said. “Attacking the transgender and nonbinary and intersex community is an unnecessary waste of time, tax dollars and other state resources.”

The bill is one of 52 measures dealing with transgender issues being considered by Missouri lawmakers. Missouri currently has no statewide regulations on which bathrooms transgender people can use in public. Twenty-one other states, including Kansas, have some kind of regulation in place.

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A tractor-trailer carrying tofu that crashed southwest of Rolla has been stinking up a part of Phelps County for weeks.

The semi crashed March 1 on Interstate 44 near a ravine known as Tater Hollow.

Local authorities say no one was hurt, but the crash scene at the 172-mile marker is still there. One local resident wrote online that the rotting tofu left behind smells similar to catfish bait.

“For those of you who drive by this everyday and wonder to yourself ‘why is this still sitting here three weeks after the crash?’ You are not alone,” wrote officials from the nearby Doolittle Rural Fire Protection District, which responded to the wreck.

Pictures of the site on the fire department’s Facebook page show the semi buckled in a ditch below a low bridge. The front part of the trailer burst open, and dozens of rectangular-shaped boxes, presumably containing tofu, poured out of the truck.

In a social media post, the fire department said cleanup has been slow as the Missouri Department of Transportation works with the truck company’s insurance carrier.

“As we have gathered, it has been a logistical nightmare. We have been given the runaround while attempting to recoup the costs that our department endured during the response and initial cleanup,” the post said.

MoDOT officials said they are working closely with the Department of Natural Resources and the Missouri State Highway Patrol to figure out how to get the truck out of the ditch.

“We are looking at a towing company to coordinate that removal, and it could begin as early as the end of this week,” said MoDOT Central District Communications Manager Marcia Johnson. “But it is going to be a time-consuming removal that could cause some traffic impacts.”

Johnson added that the cleanup could be slightly more complicated than other operations because the wreck involves food products.

For residents nearby, the cleanup can’t come soon enough.

“In case you were wondering, tofu tends to stink pretty bad after sitting out for three weeks!” said the fire department’s post.

RICHMOND, Texas (KTRK) — Former Missouri City police officer Blademir Viveros was convicted of aggravated assault by a public servant on Monday.

After five days of witness testimony, body camera footage, and tears in the courtroom, the jury found Viveros guilty after he was accused of killing three people in a high-speed wreck while responding to an emergency.

PREVIOUS REPORT: Families of victims testify, state and defense rest cases in former MCPD officer manslaughter trial

Arguments closed just after 2:30 p.m. on Monday.

Chief Prosecutor Alison Baimbridge made it clear throughout the trial that no stone was left unturned in the investigation in this case, saying that this crash was avoidable and not an accident.

Defense attorneys tag-teamed their closing argument, with Eric Cagle going first as he told the jury Viveros intended to help the victims of the robbery he was responding to.

Defense attorney Robert McCabe then spoke, adding that Viveros has a servant’s heart. He called the crash an accident and said that Viveros did not drive his car intentionally into the car of Mason and Angela Stewart.

McCabe told the jurors Viveros was negligent and should’ve done better, and mentioned the failures by the police department and his supervisors.

“This case just doesn’t belong here, it just doesn’t in this court…in criminal court…in criminal district court on a felony offense with a weapon, alleged for these facts. For this case, it doesn’t belong here. Justice comes in many forms and shouldn’t be sought in this court. There’s plenty of reasonable doubt.” McCabe said.

“If you think about the facts in this case, they’re not disputed,” Baimbridge said. “Nobody is arguing that this crash did not happen in the way that the officers say it did. No one is arguing the defendant turned off his patrol lights and his sirens. No one is arguing he was going 107 miles per hour when he took lives from our community – he just wants a pass.”

After the closing arguments, the jury was sent out of the courtroom to deliberate. The jury then returned about two and a half hours later, finding Viveros guilty on all three counts of aggravated assault by a public servant.

The punishment phase of the trial begins on Tuesday morning. Viveros now faces five years to life in prison.

For updates on this story, follow Daniela Hurtado on Facebook, X and Instagram.