MoInd 📰

When Mark Ludwig lost shared custody of his son more than a decade ago, his life fell apart.  “The devastation of losing my son who was my sole purpose in life, I couldn’t function,” Ludwig, who lives in the St. Louis area, told the Missouri House Children and Families Committee in late January. “I lost […]

The Missouri Senate on Tuesday stripped money for furnishing new space for the attorney general’s office and sending a tourism team to Washington, D.C., from a spending bill funding state agencies through June 30. The changes cut about $1.1 million in general revenue spending from the supplemental appropriation bill that had already been cut by […]

WASHINGTON — Republicans on the U.S. Senate Judiciary Committee mounted unusually blunt criticisms of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem during a tense five-hour hearing Tuesday, with North Carolina’s Thom Tillis threatening to obstruct the chamber’s business if Noem did not answer questions from his office about immigration enforcement.  Tillis even revisited a book written by […]

When state Rep. Elizabeth Fuchs first arrived in Jefferson City as a lobbyist in 2015, a woman who had been around the Capitol longer pulled her aside and offered advice that sounded, at first, absurd for a statehouse job.  Don’t drink from the “special refrigerator” in someone’s office. Don’t go for one-on-one drinks after hours. […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Tuesday he “might have forced Israel’s hand” in launching the war on Iran that has already cost the lives of six American troops.  Trump’s statement came less than a day after Secretary of State Marco Rubio told reporters the United States joined the campaign to protect American troops after […]

The national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline topped $3 Tuesday for the first time this year, and is expected to keep going up. The average price Tuesday was $3.11, up about 11 cents from Monday, according to AAA. “The pump reaction is not only underway — it’s accelerating,” said Patrick De Haan, […]

With blonde hair flowing over her shoulders and spilling onto a blousy blue mini dress, Landon Patterson sat in front of the Missouri House Emerging Issues Committee Monday. The committee was debating bills that sought to separate public restrooms and changing rooms by sex as assigned at birth, rather than gender identity. The bills varied […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley said Monday that President Donald Trump acted within executive powers when he launched an attack with Israel on Iran over the weekend. Several Democratic senators indicated Monday that they will force a vote on a war powers resolution to bar Trump from taking further military action in the region […]

Wes Groggins didn’t mince words when he testified to a Missouri Senate committee Monday in support of legislation expanding legal protections for embryos.  The executive director of Abolish Abortion Missouri invoked the Bible’s Old Testament in his justification that anyone who has an abortion or assists someone in accessing an abortion should be charged with […]

Perceiving and treating women and underaged girls as sex objects is evidence of a prevalent and pernicious problem perpetuated by a sense of entitlement on the part of the abuser who relies on intimidation and fear. Even worse, it is exacerbated by our continued acceptance. As we begin commemorating another Women’s History Month, will an […]

Hoping to grow the next generation of farmers, the Missouri House unanimously approved a bill Monday to create an optional agriculture education program for elementary schools. “We need to educate and encourage growth in agriculture and spark that interest, both in rural and in urban areas,” the bill’s sponsor, state Rep. John Martin, a Republican […]

A Missouri state accounting system that was supposed to integrate all state financial operations on one platform is late and over budget — and the program’s top executive can’t say when it will be working or how much more it will cost. The Missouri Vital Enterprise Resource System, or MOVERS, has been criticized heavily by […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Monday he expects war with Iran will continue however long it takes to achieve his objectives, which include eliminating the country’s missile program, preventing its leaders from building a nuclear weapon and ensuring it cannot fund terrorism. “Right from the beginning, we projected four to five weeks,” he said […]

WASHINGTON — A federal circuit court announced Monday it will hold oral arguments in May to determine whether a lower court erred when it blocked the Pentagon from downgrading Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s retirement rank and pay for appearing in the “Don’t Give Up The Ship” video.  The U.S. Court of Appeals for the […]

Nearly two decades ago, progressives fought to include a so-called public option — a government-run health plan — in the broad health care overhaul known as Obamacare. That effort failed, defeated by heavy lobbying from the insurance industry and opponents who decried it as a government takeover of health care. But the final Affordable Care […]

Missouri cannabis regulators want more power to penalize bad actors in the marijuana industry, according to drafts of proposed rules released last week. The sweeping revisions to Division of Cannabis Regulation rules also aim to streamline the process for ownership changes, allow publicly traded companies to own cannabis licenses, and establish recall procedures of marijuana […]

For Scarlett Loomas of Sikeston, the logistics of obtaining day care for her children were half the battle. She would drive southeast for 30 minutes each morning to East Prairie in Mississippi County to drop her kids off at child care. Then she would drive another 40 minutes farther south to work in Portageville in […]

In rapid succession this year, the Washington Post laid off half its newsroom, the Atlanta Journal-Constitution cut 15% of its staff and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette announced it would close in May. What’s perhaps most alarming is that the collapse of major newspapers no longer arrives as a civic emergency. It’s become routine. Journalism is the […]

In Johnson County, Iowa, the number of tuberculosis cases has increased in recent years — and so has the cost of containing it. The cost of contact tracing and surveillance, traveling each day to patients’ homes to ensure they take their meds or booking hotel rooms to quarantine patients, has surged from $17,000 in 2020 to […]

Nearly a quarter of pregnant women aren’t getting prenatal care in the early stages of pregnancy, according to a new analysis from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The share of pregnant women getting prenatal care had been improving: It rose between 2016 and 2021 to a high of more than 78%, but […]