Missouri

The students streamed into the Marbles Yoga studio -- shoulders rolling and minds calming -- as they prepared to spend an hour with their instructor inside the sun-dappled room. For many students, the class is as much about the spirit as it is about exercise. But for the Missouri Department of Revenue, it's strictly recreation, and the state informed yogis that studio owners and instructors must charge a 4% sales tax on class fees. The tax, which took effect last month, has roiled the normally serene yoga world, whose supporters maintain that their pastime should be exempt from sales tax as a spiritual pursuit.

Six Flags unveiled its 2013 lineup of new roller coasters, thrill rides, water slides and live shows at the amusement park chain's 13 locations. > Photos: New attractions coming to Six Flags parks in 2013 Six Flags' 2013 attractions include three roller coasters, two swing tower rides, four water slide complexes and two shows.   Among the highlights:   Six Flags Fiesta Texas (San Antonio) - The 1992 Rattler wooden coaster will be reborn as the Iron Rattler hybrid coaster with a steel track on wood supports.

A Missouri judge will allow a case over Marlboro Lights against Altria Group Inc.'s Philip Morris USA to proceed as a class action, but has placed limitations on those who can participate in the case. Circuit Court Judge Michael David in St. Louis limited those eligible to join to Missouri residents who purchased and smoked Marlboro Lights cigarettes from Nov. 9, 1995, five years before the original filing of the suit, through Dec. 31, 2003.

You say "Missou-rah," I say "Missou-ree"--and so does most of the state, it seems. "Missou-ree" beat "Missou-rah" by a 3-1 ratio--3,921 to 1,390--in a mock election at the Missouri State Fair. "This long-standing debate can be put to rest, at least for those who say 'Missou-ree,' " Secretary of State Matt Blunt said.

Running back Tony VanZant of Hazelwood High School, citing the pressure of recruiters from all of the major colleges in the country, announced Thursday night that he will attend the University of Missouri. VanZant led his high school to a Class 5A championship last season and was honored as Player of the Year by Parade magazine.

Tailback Barry Sanders rushed for 86 yards and a touchdown Thursday night as Oklahoma State defeated Missouri, 10-6, in the final Big Eight football game of the season. Sanders, a freshman, carried 22 times as he shared duties with sophomore Mitch Nash. Thurman Thomas, the Cowboys' banged-up All-Big Eight tailback, carried only one time and fumbled after a 15-yard gain.

She's a battlewagon from World War II still carrying shells made in 1937. Most of her men were a decade too young for Vietnam. Yet that's the chosen team: the modernized and still Mighty Mo and an untapped but tuned crew--recently ordered to the Gulf of Oman near the neck of the Persian Gulf. There has been no formal announcement of the Missouri's move to volatile seas where 37 Americans were killed aboard the USS Stark in May as the frigate monitored a Middle East war between others. But . . .

Receivers throwing touchdown passes. Offensive linemen scoring. A blocked punt. Troy State used gadgets and luck to rally from a 14-0 deficit and upset No. 19 Missouri, 24-14, Thursday night at Troy, Ala. "We don't have to beat them 365 days," Trojan Coach Larry Blakeney said. "We just have to beat them for one 60-minute segment of history. For that one 60 minutes, Troy was better than Missouri."

The nation's largest teachers' union issued a report calling for a gradual end to the controversial practice of grouping students according to past performance. Robert Chase, vice president of the National Education Assn., said it would be "foolhardy and unrealistic to expect that tracking can be eliminated overnight," but said the union will offer strategies to better arrange class groupings.

As floodwaters slowly receded from much of Iowa on Wednesday, authorities focused their attention on a swollen Mississippi River that punched through at least two levees in western Illinois and increasingly threatened hamlets in Missouri. Federal officials said as many as 30 levees were in peril, mostly in rural stretches of northern Missouri and western Illinois. No large population centers were threatened. "The concern now is the Mississippi River between the Quad Cities and St.