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Missouri health department rejects Planned Parenthood plan to start medication abortions

2 days 3 hours ago
Missouri Planned Parenthood clinics remain unable to offer medication abortions after the state rejected their complication plans this week.  Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, which operates clinics in the St. Louis region, Rolla and Springfield, and Planned Parenthood Great Plains, which operates clinics in Kansas City and Columbia, received a letter from the Missouri Department of […]
Anna Spoerre

Data privacy experts call DOGE actions ‘alarming’

2 days 4 hours ago
While the role and actions of the Elon Musk-headed Department of Government Efficiency remain somewhat murky, data privacy experts have been tracking the group’s moves and documenting potential violations of federal privacy protections. Before President Donald Trump took office in January, he characterized DOGE as an advisory body, saying it would “provide advice and guidance from […]
Paige Gross

States try to rein in health insurers’ claim denials, with mixed results

2 days 4 hours ago
Health insurance companies are under increasing scrutiny for allegedly using artificial intelligence bots and algorithms to swiftly deny patients routine or lifesaving care — without a human actually reviewing their claims. The high-profile killing late last year of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson has focused even more attention on so-called prior authorization, the process by which […]
Shalina Chatlani

For people with higher body weights, abortions can be more costly or out of reach

2 days 8 hours ago
Lexis Dotson-Dufault’s second pregnancy, like her first, was marked by incessant vomiting. She suffered from the pregnancy-related condition hyperemesis gravidarum, and she wasn’t prepared to parent. So in late summer of 2022, after deciding to terminate at a California reproductive health clinic where she was already a patient, she was surprised when the doctor refused […]
Sofia Resnick

Trump’s ‘school choice’ push adds to momentum in statehouses

2 days 9 hours ago
More than a dozen states in the past two years have launched or expanded programs that allow families to use taxpayer dollars to send their students to private schools. Now, President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress want to supercharge those efforts. Trump in January issued an executive order directing several federal agencies to allow […]
Robbie Sequeira

Missouri lawmakers hold back on public defender plans for marijuana money

2 days 9 hours ago
As Missouri lawmakers debate the $47.9 billion state budget, they are also deciding how to spend an unexpectedly large chunk of cash from sales taxes collected from marijuana dispensaries. The nearly $86 million paid by recreational cannabis users is constitutionally required to be divided up evenly between funds benefiting veterans, public defenders and programs that […]
Rebecca Rivas

Federal cuts squeeze already-struggling food banks, school lunch programs

2 days 13 hours ago
For the Day Eagle Hope Project, federal money has helped volunteers deliver fresh produce and meat to families in need across the remote Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern Montana — while putting cash into the hands of farmers, ranchers and meat processors. The nonprofit generally has less than $300,000 to spend per year. So […]
Kevin Hardy

The AP and Trump administration renew court fight over White House press access

2 days 15 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The Associated Press and the Trump administration delivered arguments in federal court Thursday in a case that could alter decades of established press access in the White House. U.S. District Judge Trevor McFadden for the District of Columbia heard details from the AP’s White House reporter and photographer about their exclusion for the […]
Ashley Murray

Don’t abridge First Amendment rights in Missouri schools, universities

2 days 16 hours ago
Missouri lawmakers are considering a proposal that would significantly limit free speech rights at Missouri universities and high schools. House Bill 937 would force schools to create speech codes based on a widely criticized definition of antisemitism. Bill supporters talk about Jewish safety, but their real goal is to shield Israel from criticism as it […]
Michael Berg

Chairman, top Dem on U.S. Senate Armed Services ask for probe into Signalgate

3 days 5 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The chairman and ranking member on the U.S. Senate Armed Services Committee sent a letter to the Defense Department inspector general on Thursday asking the independent watchdog to open an investigation into top officials’ use of the Signal chat app to discuss plans for bombing Yemen. Mississippi Republican Sen. Roger Wicker and Rhode […]
Jennifer Shutt

Appropriators in Congress issue warning to White House budget office

3 days 5 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The top Republican and top Democrat on the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee sent the Trump administration a joint letter on Thursday, telling the Office of Management and Budget it’s on thin ice with the panel. The dispute has to do with how the White House is implementing the stopgap spending law that Congress approved […]
Jennifer Shutt

Missouri House approves bill to regulate kratom products

3 days 8 hours ago
The Missouri House on Wednesday advanced a bill that would enact new regulations on kratom products, which the National Institute on Drug Abuse defines as “an herbal substance that can produce opioid- and stimulant-like effects.” Kratom products are currently legal both federally and in Missouri, and the legislation that received initial approval Wednesday would put […]
Rebecca Rivas

Trump adds 25% tariff on foreign-made autos, light trucks

3 days 13 hours ago
President Donald Trump signed an executive order Wednesday to impose a 25% tariff on imported cars and light trucks. Trump, who campaigned on bringing down consumer costs, said during an Oval Office signing event the additional tax on foreign goods would spur U.S. production. Asked if, like other tariffs Trump’s threatened, trade partners could do […]
Jacob Fischler

Missouri state senator says a ‘sexual predator’ works in the Capitol Building

3 days 15 hours ago
Accusations that a sexual predator is working in the Missouri Capitol Building with protection from “powerful people” abruptly ended state Senate debate Wednesday on a bill adding physician assistants and emergency medical personnel to medical providers covered by a peer review process. The Senate had just defeated an amendment to the bill offered by state […]
Rudi Keller