a Better Bubble™

MoInd 📰

Airport chaos: TSA agents skip work, security lines expand, Trump sends in ICE to assist

2 days 23 hours ago
Airport security workers missed work Monday at the highest rate since a partial government shutdown began in mid-February, the Department of Homeland Security said, and the Trump administration sent immigration officials to some airports in an attempt to keep lines moving. Travelers reported hourslong security lines at major airports in Atlanta and Houston, while waits […]
Jacob Fischler

Tax credits for food donations debated by Missouri House committee

2 days 23 hours ago
Missouri residents can receive state income tax credits on donations to food pantries, homeless shelters and soup kitchens. Two bills seeking to make adjustments to those credits were discussed Monday afternoon by a Missouri House committee. One bill, introduced by Republican state Rep. John Voss of Cape Girardeau, would eliminate the Dec. 31 expiration date […]
Hannah McDonough

Supreme Court skeptical of allowing states to count mail ballots that arrive after Election Day

3 days 13 hours ago
The U.S. Supreme Court’s conservative justices on Monday appeared skeptical of the validity of mail-in ballots that arrive after Election Day, in a case that could potentially affect hundreds of thousands of voters during the upcoming midterm elections. The high court heard arguments on whether federal law overrides a Mississippi law that requires mail-in ballots […]
Jonathan Shorman

Missouri referendum campaign says it has enough signatures to challenge gerrymandered map

3 days 16 hours ago
Backers of a proposed referendum on Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional plan believe they have met the minimum number of signatures needed to make the November’s ballot. Updated data, posted Monday morning by People Not Politicians, the political action committee that organized a referendum petition drive, shows that the petition has at least 129% of the required […]
Rudi Keller

Medicaid cuts could add pressure to already-stressed psychiatric units

3 days 16 hours ago
Federal Medicaid cuts could exact a heavy toll on psychiatric units at hospitals across the country, many of which are already struggling to keep their doors open but provide essential mental health care to people who need it. Psychiatric units are costly and, like labor and delivery services, typically lose money for hospitals and tend […]
Nada Hassanein

Trump administration pushes to deport Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia

3 days 16 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration is again trying to send the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia to the west African nation of Liberia and urging a federal judge to dismiss a bar on his removal, according to legal documents filed over the weekend.  Abrego Garcia, of Maryland, has agreed to be deported to Costa Rica, […]
Ariana Figueroa

US Supreme Court to hear case to decide where migrants can apply for asylum

3 days 19 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments Tuesday in a case to determine if a migrant on Mexico’s side of a border crossing with the United States can legally apply for asylum when arriving at a U.S. port of entry. The case, which stems from a policy during President Donald Trump’s first term […]
Ariana Figueroa

5 things to watch as Missouri lawmakers return for the final stretch

3 days 23 hours ago
Legislative spring break is over, and Missouri lawmakers return to the Capitol on Monday with a packed agenda and a May 15 deadline to adjourn. The second half of the session begins with a tighter budget picture, unresolved fights over taxes and public benefits, and a Senate that has already shown it can consume time […]
Jason Hancock

Drop in opioid overdose deaths nears 50% since 2023

3 days 23 hours ago
Since their peak less than three years ago, opioid overdose deaths dropped nearly by half as of October, according to a Stateline analysis. The drop comes as a shrinking fentanyl supply has made the drug weaker and less deadly and volunteer efforts get more people into treatment. The weaker fentanyl tracks to a crackdown on […]
Tim Henderson

In Missouri, tax fight becomes test of broader progressive coalition

4 days 23 hours ago
A coalition of progressive groups in Missouri is using the fight over a proposal to eliminate the state income tax to build a coordinated alliance that organizers hope lasts beyond any single legislative battle. Led by 24 organizations, with more expected to join, the coalition held eight meetings across Missouri this month as labor, reproductive […]
Annelise Hanshaw

Why restructuring could leave Missouri in the cold

5 days 23 hours ago
Missouri lawmakers are weighing whether to restructure the state’s electricity markets. Before moving forward, they should take a hard look at how restructured markets have performed during extreme weather and how they have affected household utility bills. The record is clear: when reliability mattered most, restructured markets repeatedly failed, and over time, families, farmers, and […]
Maddie Milam

The pay gap between women and men widened last year, analysis finds

6 days 18 hours ago
The earnings gap between men and women slightly widened last year, according to a new analysis published Thursday.  The left-leaning Economic Policy Institute calculated women last year earned 18.6% less than men per hour on average. That’s up slightly from 2024, when the wage gap narrowed slightly to 18%.  The wage analysis, which examines several […]
Kevin Hardy

Education Department to transfer management of defaulted student loans to Treasury

6 days 19 hours ago
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Treasury Department will take over the Department of Education’s responsibility for collecting on defaulted federal student loan debt, President Donald Trump’s administration announced Thursday. It’s the first step in a multi-phase process that will end with Treasury taking on the entire federal student loan portfolio. It’s also the latest interagency agreement announced […]
Shauneen Miranda

HHS to investigate 13 states that require insurers to cover abortions

6 days 20 hours ago
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services on Thursday announced an investigation into 13 states that require health insurance plans to cover abortion care.  In a news release, the agency said the investigation is based on allegations that the states are coercing health care entities to provide coverage of abortion “contrary to conscience” and in […]
Sofia Resnick

Nearly $100M in Missouri marijuana tax revenue sits unused despite voter mandate

6 days 21 hours ago
About $95 million in Missouri marijuana-tax revenue that voters set aside for veterans services, public defenders and drug-addiction treatment programs sat unspent at the end of the last fiscal year.  And budget projections show that unused pile of cash would still be more than $60 million over the next two years unless lawmakers authorize the […]
Rebecca Rivas, Rudi Keller

In rural Missouri classrooms, a new approach to reading is taking hold

6 days 22 hours ago
In early 2026, a small group of first-grade students at Lucy Wortham James Elementary School in St. James, Missouri, sat together sounding out words. Kim Williams, the school’s principal, watched as they worked through the lesson. One young boy caught her attention. “This student had struggled significantly the year before and often avoided reading tasks,” […]
William Hehemann

Counties with heaviest pesticide use see higher late-stage lymphoma rates

6 days 23 hours ago
Seventy-one percent of counties that spray the most glyphosate have late-stage non-Hodgkin lymphoma incidence rates above the national average, according to a new data analysis from the advocacy group Food and Water Watch. Last month, Investigate Midwest, in partnership with the Pulitzer Center’s StoryReach U.S. Fellowship, published an investigation that found 60% of the top […]
Ben Felder

Wildly misguided farm policy creates oceans of red ink for taxpayers

6 days 23 hours ago
“Check here if you, or your spouse if filing jointly, want even more of your money to go into the Farm Subsidy Kitty. Taxes might have to increase in the future to pay for it.” Let’s face it: $1.4 trillion dollars is a lot of dough. Adding $20 billion, $10 billion and then $12 billion […]
Greg Frazier