MoInd 📰

In the nearly two decades Sara Smith spent working at Missouri’s Department of Social Services, she remembers nine different people running the agency in charge of investigating child abuse and neglect.  In March, Smith took the helm herself.  She hopes to provide more stability in leading the agency which has seen growing scrutiny over the […]

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley is presenting himself as the rare Republican willing to fight for low-income Americans who will lose their health care or food assistance if his party makes massive cuts to Medicaid and SNAP. He has been rewarded with much credulous reporting suggesting he is sincere about that.     But as Missouri’s senior U.S. […]

A Rhode Island federal judge blocked an order that would have yanked billions of federal dollars for roads, bridges and airport projects in states that don’t aid in the Trump administration’s immigration crackdown. U.S. District Judge John James McConnell Jr. granted a preliminary injunction late Thursday to the 20 Democratic-led states that brought the case […]

WASHINGTON — The next hurdle for Republican leaders in the U.S. Senate and the “big, beautiful bill”: Democrats — and possibly a few of their own members — in a marathon voting session will make last-ditch attempts to change the tax and spending cut measure. The vote-a-rama, as it’s known, is expected to begin sometime […]

The clock is ticking. In less than a year, hundreds of thousands of tourists are expected to descend on Kansas City for the FIFA World Cup. Local leaders tout it as a once-in-a-generation event, which FIFA estimates will bring $650 million to the region. It is touted as the largest sports event ever, with matches […]

The Trump administration is pushing to reshape the federal housing safety net by slashing spending and shifting the burden of housing millions of people to states, which may be ill-equipped to handle the mission. President Donald Trump’s recent budget request to Congress for fiscal year 2026, a preliminary plan released in early May and known […]

A year into her first term in office, New Jersey Assemblywoman Sadaf Jaffer decided not to run for reelection. The political world saw her as a rising star in 2023; Jaffer, a Democrat, previously served as the nation’s first female Muslim mayor. But rampant harassment from online commenters and other politicians about her religion, as […]

When the state announced the Caruthersville license office was going to close, residents needing to renew registrations or driver license were directed to the closest open offices in Kennett, New Madrid and Malden.  Those communities are all at least an hour, round-trip, from Caruthersville. The inconvenience would be compounded if, after waiting in line, the […]

Missouri students majoring in business, biology, elementary education, psychology and nursing may soon be able to transfer more college credits between the state’s public universities. State lawmakers negotiated a plan to make 60-credit-hour blocks in five degree programs universally transferable among public universities and community colleges in Missouri as part of a bill awaiting the […]

Cannabis advocacy organizations are sounding the alarm about guidance from state regulators limiting how much medical marijuana patients can purchase from licensed dispensaries.  By law, dispensaries are required to track how much medical marijuana patients buy so they don’t exceed their limit.  According to a FAQ that was added earlier this year to the website […]

If you live in a small town, you probably have fewer grocery stores than you did 30 years ago — and fewer choices inside them. Independent grocers have disappeared, replaced by big national chains that now decide what’s on the shelves, how much it costs, and who gets to profit. In 1990, the top four […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sens. Amy Klobuchar and Tina Smith honored Minnesota House Speaker Emerita Melissa Hortman and her husband, Mark, during remarks on the Senate floor. The Minnesota Democratic senators on Tuesday reflected on Melissa’s leadership, devotion to her community and many contributions to her state. The Hortmans were killed over the weekend in what […]

A Rhode Island federal judge seemed likely Wednesday to block the U.S. Department of Transportation’s move to yank billions in congressional funding for bridges, roads and airport projects if Democrat-led states do not partake in federal immigration enforcement. U.S. District Judge John James McConnell Jr. during a hearing pressed acting U.S. Attorney Sara Miron Bloom […]

A Missouri man serving life without parole on Monday lost a bid to reopen his criminal case for an in-person resentencing he claims he was unconstitutionally denied. Deandra Buchanan, convicted in Boone County of three counts of first-degree in 2002, was originally sentenced to death. The Missouri Supreme Court reduced the sentence to life without […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republican leaders expressed confidence Tuesday they’ll be able to tamp down opposition to various elements of the party’s “big, beautiful bill” in time to approve the measure before the Fourth of July, though they acknowledged there’s considerable work left to do.  GOP senators from across the political spectrum have debated the […]

A Missouri Senate committee will hold a public hearing at the end of the month focused on failed negotiations between MU Health Care and Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield that has impacted the coverage of 90,000 people. The Missouri Senate Insurance and Banking Committee will convene for the hearing at 1 p.m. June 30. Senate […]

Missouri has among the highest rates of antipsychotic drug use in nursing home residents, contributing to the state’s health care system ranking near the bottom nationally in a report released Wednesday.  The report, published by The Commonwealth Fund, a private foundation focused on health care issues, used data from 2023 to measure every state’s health […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla, a California Democrat who was forcibly removed from a press conference with the secretary of Homeland Security, said Tuesday that his home state is the testing ground for President Donald Trump’s push to deploy the military within the United States. Trump is using immigrants in the country without legal […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. senators emerged from a briefing with federal law enforcement officials Tuesday saying they’ll likely boost funding on safety and security for members and their families in an upcoming government funding bill. The hour-long briefing by U.S. Capitol Police and the Senate sergeant-at-arms followed the weekend assassination of a Minnesota state lawmaker and her […]

TOPEKA, Kansas — Freedom’s Frontier, a coalition of more than 200 historically significant sites on both sides of the Kansas-Missouri border, will “cease to exist” if Congress approves proposed legislation to defund National Heritage Areas, the organization’s spokesman says. Johnny Szlauderbach, director of communications and strategic projects at Freedom’s Frontier, said on the Kansas Reflector […]