MoInd 📰

Like many people with disabilities, I am living in fear as President Joe Biden, Speaker Kevin McCarthy and other Congressional leaders meet behind closed doors to discuss possible cuts to safety net programs on which I depend. Unfortunately, these politicians do not honor a principle that has long been affirmed by disability rights advocates: “Not […]

The post Congress should pass a clean debt ceiling without putting more holes in the social safety net appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Missouri Supreme Court heard arguments Wednesday over whether two single mothers should have been sentenced to jail time because their children missed more days of school than the local district allowed. The case centers on Missouri’s compulsory school attendance law, which states that a parent must ensure their child attends “the academic program on […]

The post Missouri Supreme Court to decide whether school districts can jail parents for absent students appeared first on Missouri Independent.

MANHATTAN, Kansas — National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility researcher Lisa Hensley’s career took her from laboratory to laboratory and country to country to study the alphabet soup of ghastly pathogens such as SARs, monkeypox, MERs and Marburg. But she said an Ebola outbreak in the West Africa country of Liberia brought home what it meant […]

The post Celebration marks completion of $1.2 billion NBAF lab for studying animal-to-human pathogens appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A bill awaiting action on Gov. Mike Parson’s desk would allow more state inmates released after being proven innocent to receive compensation — with a larger payment — but they would have to give up the right to sue the people who put them behind bars. The bill, passed a day before the Senate descended […]

The post Missouri bill allows payments to wrongly convicted — as long as they promise not to sue appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Progressives are pushing hard for President Joe Biden to take the unprecedented step of invoking the 14th Amendment as a way to avoid financial calamity if the White House and House Speaker Kevin McCarthy do not strike a deal on the debt ceiling in the coming days. The lawmakers and legal scholars argue […]

The post Progressives try to persuade Biden to use the 14th Amendment to resolve debt crisis  appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A former Missouri House speaker who was forced to resign in disgrace in 2015 has been fined $47,000 by the Missouri Ethics Commission for allegedly misusing campaign funds. John Diehl, a Republican from Town and Country, signed a consent decree with the ethics commission released Tuesday acknowledging probable cause that he violated state campaign finance […]

The post Former Missouri House Speaker John Diehl fined $47K by state ethics commission appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — A bipartisan group of six U.S. House lawmakers on Tuesday described details of proposed legislation that would create a legal pathway for citizenship for undocumented people through work requirements, and would also fund border security measures.  The two Latinas who spearheaded the bill, Reps. Veronica Escobar, a Texas Democrat, and María Elvira Salazar, […]

The post New bipartisan immigration legislation proposed in U.S. House  appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Teachers and staff at Genesis School in Kansas City have tried to maintain a normal school year despite an unusual situation: They don’t know whether students will return in the fall. That’s because the K-8 charter school’s sponsor, the Missouri Charter Public School Commission, wants to shut it down over its academic performance. The State […]

The post What schools closing in Kansas City means for children, families and neighborhoods appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Federal police arrested a Missouri man on Monday night after he crashed a vehicle into security barriers in Lafayette Park, across the street from the White House. Sai Varshith Kandula, 19, of Chesterfield, has been charged with assault with a dangerous weapon, reckless operation of a motor vehicle, threatening to kill, kidnap or inflict harm […]

The post Missouri man arrested for crashing truck, making threats near White House appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Deaf and hard-of-hearing Missourians are hoping the governor signs a bill that, among other education-related provisions, would provide parents of deaf children with resources to prepare their kids for kindergarten. The problem the bill seeks to address is a tendency for some deaf and hard-of-hearing kids to have delayed language acquisition. Advocates for the legislation […]

The post Over 20 states have set developmental standards for deaf kids. Will Missouri be next? appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Center for Developmentally Disabled is building four-bedroom family houses across Kansas City that are designed to help people with disabilities live with greater independence. The new homes will include automatic doors. The ceilings will be outfitted with lift and track systems to make it easier for a caretaker to get someone with limited mobility […]

The post A new solution will address Kansas City’s lack of disability-accessible housing appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Eight Republican-led states this year left an interstate cooperative that seeks to maintain accurate voter registration rolls, and three more may join them — a move that election security experts say is fueled by conspiracy theories. Earlier this month, Virginia’s top election official said the state would become the latest to stop participating in the […]

The post Why Republican-led states keep leaving a group that verifies voter rolls appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A Cole County judge set June 7 to hear arguments in a lawsuit demanding the state finalize its work on an abortion-rights initiative petition so proponents can begin collecting signatures. Circuit Court Judge Jon Beetem scheduled a bench trial in the case during a hearing last week. The ACLU of Missouri filed its lawsuit earlier […]

The post Lawsuit over Missouri AG push to inflate cost of abortion IP heads to trial next month appeared first on Missouri Independent.

In recent years, community gardens have gained popularity as alternatives to address the growing crisis of food deserts, particularly in central cities. But community gardens offer opportunities for much more. The personal, communal and environmental benefits are many. In addition to being a fresh and healthy food source, a community garden can also help close […]

The post Community gardens are good for more than fresh food appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — A U.S. default on its debt would have a significantly broader impact on federal operations, financial markets and the global economy than recent government shutdowns that have left ordinary Americans largely untouched. While the two have been confused frequently during debate over the debt limit, the federal government has had considerable practice with […]

The post A default on the U.S. debt would be far worse than a government shutdown. Here’s how appeared first on Missouri Independent.

America’s major medical institutions and drug policy scholars have roundly denounced as “pseudoscience” many of the claims brought by anti-abortion groups in a high-profile federal lawsuit asking the Food and Drug Administration to revoke its 23-year-old approval of mifepristone, one half of a two-drug regimen that has become the most common form of pregnancy termination […]

The post Appeals court judges embrace anti-abortion speculation appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A legislative fix to a donor privacy law blamed for impeding public access to state contract information is sitting on Gov. Mike Parson’s desk.  The Personal Privacy Protection Act received bipartisan support on its way to being signed into law last year. The aim was to shield nonprofits from having to disclose their donors to […]

The post Changes to Missouri donor privacy law would restore access to state contracts appeared first on Missouri Independent.

When then-state Rep. Tricia Derges was indicted in 2021 for selling fake stem cell treatments at her southwest Missouri clinics, it put a spotlight on the licensing process that allowed her to set up shop as an M.D. with a degree from an unaccredited offshore medical school. In February Derges began serving a six-year federal […]

The post Missouri bill tightens licensing rules in wake of GOP lawmaker’s medical fraud conviction appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Congressional leaders negotiating a deal to avoid a catastrophic default on the nation’s debt are talking about including an overhaul of how the federal government reviews projects for their environmental impact. There is bipartisan support for changes to the lengthy environmental approval process among climate-minded Democrats eager to speed construction of renewable energy projects, as […]

The post Overhaul federal permitting as part of the debt limit deal? Not as easy as it sounds appeared first on Missouri Independent.

WASHINGTON — Republicans at a U.S. House hearing aired frustration with the Department of Justice this week for what they contended is a lack of enforcement of a Clinton-era law that protects access to reproductive health care at anti-abortion pregnancy centers and abortion clinics. GOP lawmakers on the House Judiciary Committee expressed anger the Federal […]

The post Lawmakers debate violence against abortion clinics, anti-abortion pregnancy centers appeared first on Missouri Independent.