MoInd 📰

Former Missouri House Speaker John Diehl, who pleaded guilty last year  to wire fraud, is asking a federal judge for leniency as he faces the possibility of years behind bars. Diehl admitted in September to defrauding the U.S. Small Business Administration out of $379,900 by obtaining a pandemic loan intended to help struggling small businesses […]

The push to allow Waymo driverless taxis to operate in Missouri cleared its first hurdle Tuesday evening.  The House Emerging Issues committee voted 7-4 Tuesday, along partisan lines, to advance two identical bills sponsored by Republican state Reps. Don Mayhew of Crocker and Brandon Phelps of Warrensburg. The bills had received strong support from advocates […]

A sponsor of legislation to make Missouri’s restrictions on cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers for minors permanent argued Tuesday night that the ban has “no detriments.” But for six hours, transgender people, their loved ones and physicians told the House Emerging Issues Committee about the hardships they’ve experienced because of the law. Those in opposition […]

KANSAS CITY — The first slate of witnesses from the Missouri Attorney General’s office in the fight to uphold statewide abortion regulations offered testimony that professionals and scientific studies have long disputed, including claims about mental health outcomes and abortion medication.  It’s the second week of a 10-day bench trial that will be decided by […]

Missouri is moving toward higher-stakes “performance funding” for higher education, where appropriations rise or fall with completion rates, job outcomes, and other measurable outputs—while also pressing an aggressive workforce agenda built on “job-ready” credentials. That combination creates a threshold integrity problem Missouri has not yet confronted: if the state is going to pay for “outcomes,” […]

Missouri’s budget picture brightened slightly this week with the discovery of a $250 million error in state projections, though lawmakers were warned Tuesday the change isn’t enough to take tight controls off state spending. State Budget Director Dan Haug told the House Budget Committee that more than $100 million in disaster relief appropriations were mistakenly […]

WASHINGTON — The first year of President Donald Trump’s return to the White House was defined by clashes with the judiciary branch, as the president and his administration pushed forward with an aggressive immigration agenda. In the past year, the Trump administration has aimed to drastically change immigration policy in the United States, including by stripping […]

In a win for President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown, a recent court ruling has cleared the way for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement to resume using states’ Medicaid data to find people who are in the country illegally. The case is ongoing. But for now, immigrants — including those who are in the country legally […]

WASHINGTON — A Department of Homeland Security policy that barred unannounced visits for lawmakers seeking to conduct oversight at facilities that hold immigrants will remain in place, as ordered by a federal judge Monday. District of Columbia federal Judge Jia Cobb issued an order that denied a request from a dozen Democratic lawmakers, on the […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump showed no signs Tuesday of backing off his goal to acquire Greenland, after saying over the weekend he would place a 10% tariff on eight European countries that object to his plans and posting several times on social media. Trump’s insistence that the United States gain control of the Arctic […]

Missouri lawmakers are considering a package of bills they hope will curb child sex trafficking, train first responders to recognize signs of sex trafficking and shift punishment away from survivors. The bills would also establish the crime of “grooming a minor,” defined in the legislation as a pattern of behavior by an adult intended to […]

Missouri lawmakers are considering expanding the state’s private school voucher program with proposals to open eligibility and remove demands on private schools who accept voucher funds. But the program, which has spent a majority of the $50 million it received in state funding this fiscal year, may lack room to grow with Gov. Mike Kehoe […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump promised during his bid for another White House term that he would be a dictator only on “day one.” Before a town hall audience in Iowa in December 2023, Fox News host Sean Hannity asked Trump, “Under no circumstances, you are promising America tonight, you would never abuse power as […]

Gov. Mike Kehoe’s State of the State address rested on a tension he never resolved. Missouri, he warned, is falling behind. Its population is “stagnant.” Economic growth over the past decade has been “average at best.” When competing with states like Texas and Tennessee, Missouri too often loses before the conversation even begins. Yet in […]

KANSAS CITY — Roughly 1% of the more than 53,000 Missourians who received abortions over the last 10 years in Illinois and Kansas experienced complications, ranging from infection to incomplete abortions to hemorrhaging.  Lawyers for Planned Parenthood and the Missouri Attorney General’s Office are dissecting dozens of Missouri’s Targeted Regulation of Abortion, or TRAP laws, […]

A Missouri House candidate’s history of domestic violence. A Highway Patrol trooper’s sexual abuse of a fellow officer at a work conference. A lawsuit between prominent St. Louis attorneys. All of these cases were removed from Missouri’s public court database. Searching for them online, it appeared as if they never existed. Cases assigned a high […]

If left up to the Trump administration, Martin Luther King Jr. Day would likely be nullified as a federal holiday. Trump used his executive powers to change the observance of MLK Day by cancelling it as a free-admission day for those who wish to visit our national parks during federal holidays. The order also applies […]

I sure wish that ABC’s NFL football anchor, the late Howard Cosell, was alive today to reflect about how Missouri will not have an NFL team in the state after the Chiefs’ departure from Missouri. I’m sure Cosell would have some strong words about the financial factors and threats that have left Missouri without an […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump outlined his health care proposals to Congress on Thursday, asking lawmakers to approve several broad policy changes “without delay” — but left out any mention of enhanced tax credits whose expiration has left some Americans with skyrocketing costs.  Health care costs, especially the rising price of health insurance, have become […]

Nationwide, the number of people buying health plans on Obamacare insurance marketplaces is down by about 833,000 compared with a year ago, according to federal data released this week. Many states are reporting fewer new enrollees, more people dropping their coverage, and more people choosing cheaper and less generous health insurance plans with higher deductibles. […]