WASHINGTON — The U.S. Customs and Border Protection tariff refund system went live Monday, marking what small business advocates call a “complex” first step for entrepreneurs to recoup $166 billion in import taxes accrued under President Donald Trump’s emergency tariffs, which the U.S. Supreme Court struck down in February. Importers and brokers can now upload […]
Eviction filings fell in 2025 for the second straight year in the cities and states tracked in a new report — areas home to roughly a third of the country’s renters — though some of those places saw increases. Landlords filed more than 1.23 million eviction cases in the 10 states and 38 cities where […]
A controversial rule enacted last year that denies federal Medicaid funding to abortion providers is likely to expire this summer, despite anti-abortion pressure on Republicans to renew it. Leaders in Congress in recent days have insisted that a new federal spending bill needs to be as stripped down as possible and focused on funding related […]
A bipartisan push to end a Missouri law allowing judges to impose the death penalty when jurors can’t agree has moved further through the legislature this year than at any point in at least a decade. But opposition from Senate leaders makes it unlikely to pass. Missouri and Indiana are the only states that allow […]
HUTCHINSON — Stare into the open hatch of Odyssey, the scarred Apollo 13 command module in which three American astronauts made their improbable return to Earth from a seemingly jinxed lunar mission, and ponder the fragility and strength of humanity. Recently I did just that, and whispered thanks to the universe for bringing back another […]
WASHINGTON — Emanuel Cleaver isn’t a stranger to a standard reelection run. Someone with his level of time spent in office might even call it a speed-walk. He’s been elected 11 times to the U.S. House of Representatives and two times as mayor of Kansas City — the first African American to hold that post. […]
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway has ordered 33 stores to stop selling intoxicating hemp products, but many shop owners say the products remain legal under federal law and plan to keep selling them until new federal restrictions take effect Nov. 12. They also question the basis for Hanaway’s crackdown, which relies heavily on lab results […]
Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe signed a bill earlier this month passed unanimously by the legislature. It was intended to make the divorce process better for pregnant women. It might in some ways. But it will make things worse in others. Multiple lawmakers acknowledged to me or others that they understood the bill’s problems and said […]
The National Guard’s top general told Congress on Friday that it would follow the Constitution and the law when he was asked about the possibility President Donald Trump would order troops to polling places for the midterm elections. The remarks at a U.S. House Appropriations subcommittee hearing came as Democratic lawmakers also voiced unease over […]
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump on Thursday said he will nominate Erica Schwartz, who served in the president’s first administration, to lead the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, a seat left vacant for months after his last director said she was ousted in a rift over childhood vaccines. Trump announced his new pick on his […]
Some of the Trump administration’s controversial new warehouse immigration detention centers are getting scaled back and postponed as states and cities fight back and new Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin reviews actions taken by his ousted predecessor, Kristi Noem. Some states and cities have seen more communication and compromise as Mullin takes over and the […]
A bill aimed at preventing foreign and religious laws from being enforced in Missouri was debated Thursday by the state House Government Efficiency Committee. The “No Foreign Laws Act” was voted through the Senate unanimously earlier this month. The legislation prevents state courts and administrative agencies from applying foreign and religious laws that contradict federal […]
More than a third of state ballot measures that voters will be asked to consider this year relate to democracy, with questions on voting rights, election processes, redistricting and similar issues. “It’s the redistricting fights that are really getting heated after the Trump administration began pressuring Republican-led states to shore up the GOP majority in […]
The Trump administration is taking aim at what it calls rampant fraud in state Medicaid programs. But by focusing almost exclusively on Democratic-led states, it has handed ammunition to critics who say it mainly wants to embarrass its political enemies, not save taxpayer dollars. In announcing earlier this month that Vice President JD Vance would […]
This story was originally published by The Trace, a nonprofit newsroom covering gun violence in America. On May 18, 2018, a teenager at Santa Fe High School in Texas walked into the school armed with his father’s guns and opened fire, killing eight students and two teachers. Evidence later showed the teen had been experiencing […]
As the midterms approach, Republican and Democratic election officials are split over a powerful federal computer program at the center of President Donald Trump’s quest to expose noncitizen voters and compile lists of voting-age Americans. A U.S. House Administration Committee hearing Thursday underscored the partisan divide over the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE program. The […]
Kansas City leaders are bidding to retain the Royals at a new downtown stadium two years after Jackson County voters overwhelmingly rejected a sales-tax-funded ballpark in the Crossroads. Not surprisingly, a familiar fight about taxpayer-subsidized stadiums has roared back to life. Kansas City’s Finance Department presented the plan on Tuesday to the Finance, Governance and […]
An intraparty schism opened Thursday among legislative Democrats as the party’s leader in the Missouri House blasted state Senate Democrats for their silence during a 70-minute debate on a proposal to replace the state income tax with increased sales taxes. Speaking to reporters at a news conference, House Minority Leader Ashley Aune of Kansas City […]
Missouri has hastily passed a sweeping crime bill that moves the state in the wrong direction. The law — signed by Gov. Mike Kehoe — bundles together expanded pathways for certifying adolescents ages 14 to 18 as adults and the expansion and standardization of mandatory minimum sentences. This legislation will push more teenagers into the […]
WASHINGTON — The U.S. House on Thursday passed a measure that would extend Temporary Protected Status for Haiti for three years, in a rare rebuke by the GOP-led Congress to President Donald Trump’s mass deportation campaign. Ten Republicans defected, including Reps. Maria Salazar, Mario Díaz-Balart and Carlos Giménez of Florida, Rich McCormick of Georgia, Don Bacon […]
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