MoInd 📰

WASHINGTON — White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt on Monday urged Senate Democrats to advance the government funding package that must become law before the weekend to avoid a partial shutdown, rejecting their proposal to remove the Homeland Security funding bill. Democrats in the upper chamber say they are ready to help pass five of […]

Last spring, Illinois county judge Jeffrey Goffinet noticed something startling: A legal brief filed in his courtroom cited a case that did not exist. Goffinet, an associate judge in Williamson County, looked through two legal research systems and then headed to the courthouse library — a place he hadn’t visited in years — to consult […]

WASHINGTON — Several U.S. Senate Democrats launched an investigation into how the Trump administration’s child care funding cuts and policy changes are affecting rural families, in a Sunday letter provided exclusively to States Newsroom. Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts and Raphael Warnock of Georgia led four of their colleagues in urging the respective heads of Rural […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. border czar Tom Homan is expected in Minneapolis by Monday evening, President Donald Trump said, amid increasing criticism of the administration’s immigration enforcement methods following the second fatal shooting of a U.S. citizen by immigration officers in Minneapolis already this year. The move was part of an apparent toning down of the […]

While the Kansas City Chiefs are leaving Missouri and won’t use the incentives lawmakers created for them last summer, the question of whether other tax credits and property tax caps included in the legislation will be used by anyone remains undecided. Cole County Circuit Judge Christopher Limbaugh after a hearing on Wednesday promised he would […]

Let’s talk about how the first three weeks of Missouri’s legislative session are going. In short: Gridlock in the Senate. Scandal in the House. Senate Democrats entered the year divided after a contentious leadership fight. But the 10-member caucus appears to have coalesced around a simple two-pronged strategy: absolute opposition to increasing the sales tax […]

Missouri’s child welfare agency has for years struggled with high turnover rates among staff who work most closely with children and families. Children’s Division, the section of the state’s social services department responsible for foster care and investigating child abuse and neglect, has also had seven directors since 2018 — and during that time faced […]

A Missouri House bill aims to increase the physical education requirements for K-12 students. Introduced by Rep. Bishop Davidson, a Republican from Republic, the legislation would require all students to participate in a minimum of 60 minutes of physical activity each school day. PE classes, additional recesses and other supervised physical activities could fulfill the […]

KANSAS CITY — A trial focused on the constitutionality of abortion access in Missouri included testimony from a range of witnesses, but only four who had undergone abortions. All four said they regretted ending their pregnancies. The state rested its case Friday after bringing to the stand a panel of witnesses who argued abortion is harmful […]

January is National Mentoring Month, a time often marked by good intentions and well-meaning reminders to “give back.” But mentoring is not a box to check or a seasonal act of generosity. In Missouri—at a time when leadership pipelines are strained, women continue to exit the workforce, and civic trust feels fragile—mentoring is essential infrastructure. […]

WASHINGTON — The Trump administration plans to expand a policy that blocks foreign aid dollars from going to organizations that discuss, refer or perform abortions to also include groups that address transgender health care or have policies on diversity, equity and inclusion, Vice President JD Vance said Friday. “We’re expanding this policy to protect life, […]

The Missouri Supreme Court on Friday threw out a law passed last year that was designed to keep politicians in control of writing ballot summaries and give the attorney general extraordinary appeal power. The bill was changed too much during its path through the General Assembly, Chief Justice W. Brent Powell wrote in the unanimous […]

As a growing number of encounters between civilians and Department of Homeland Security agents — including the widely scrutinized fatal shooting of Renee Good in Minneapolis — are scrutinized in court records and on social media, federal officials are returning to a familiar response: self-defense. In more than a handful of recent encounters, the Department […]

At least seven marijuana cultivation facilities in Missouri have been fined over the last year for breaking what’s known in the industry as the “immaculate conception rule.”  Marijuana can’t pass over state lines because it’s still federally illegal, and state law mandates that all marijuana must be grown within the state.  However, there is one […]

The latest version of a proposal meant to implement the governor’s income tax cut could also trigger a first for Missouri: sales taxes on gasoline and diesel, a result the bill’s sponsor says was accidental. Under the terms of the proposed constitutional amendment sponsored by House Speaker Jon Patterson, sales tax could be imposed “on […]

KANSAS CITY — A longtime Missouri health regulator testified Thursday that abortion clinics were subjected to heightened scrutiny that had little to do with health or safety concerns, acknowledging under questioning that the extra attention was not tied to a greater risk of noncompliance. John Langston has worked for the Missouri Department of Health and […]

Republicans on the U.S. House Judiciary Committee sought to poke holes Thursday in former Justice Department special counsel Jack Smith’s investigations into President Donald Trump, while Democrats on the panel commended him and Smith restated his finding that Trump sought to overturn the 2020 election results. Republicans on the panel accused Smith, a longtime prosecutor […]

WASHINGTON — The U.S. House failed Thursday to back a resolution curbing President Donald Trump’s military operations abroad, following U.S. intervention to remove Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro. Thursday’s resolution tied at 215-215. If passed, it would have directed “the President to remove United States Armed Forces from Venezuela, unless explicitly authorized by a declaration of war […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump’s ban on transgender troops came under scrutiny again in federal court Thursday — this time before a three-judge appeals panel considering the merits of the president’s executive order. The policy has been challenged in two major federal cases, one of which the administration appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court’s emergency […]

WASHINGTON — The House Thursday passed four appropriations bills to fund the government and avert a partial shutdown, but Democrats largely objected to spending on the Department of Homeland Security amid aggressive immigration enforcement in communities across the country.  Democrats have pushed for tougher oversight of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency. In addition, members of […]