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With fewer public defenders, indigent defendants pay the price

1 week ago
AUSTIN, Texas — It was a good day for the defense. Standing in front of a judge in Austin’s Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, attorney Matthew Shrum secured a ruling that spared his client from serious punishment on a shoplifting charge. In the hallway immediately afterward, the defendant thanked Shrum with an appreciative hug. ā€œShe walked […]
David Montgomery

Missouri’s ā€˜constitutional sheriff’ push reaches voters with Amendment 8

1 week ago
When MyPillow founder Mike Lindell visited the Missouri Capitol in January 2023, the conversation was focused on election security. Lindell, a Donald Trump ally who has repeatedly promoted false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, offered a suggestion to lawmakers and activists: Contact your ā€œconstitutional sheriff.ā€ Craig and Linda Rantz, who were there […]
Rebecca Rivas

Commentary: How Missouri almost lost an experienced physician associate

1 week ago
When I considered practicing in Missouri in late 2020, I expected the licensing process to evaluate my education, training, experience and professional credentials. What I did not expect was to be asked to reconstruct more than three decades of my personal preprofessional history. After six months of unemployment due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I was […]
Krista Barnes

2 states, 2 abortion ballot measures, and the effort to win over Gen Z voters

1 week ago
Editor’s Note: This story is part of Gen Z at the Ballot Box, a collaboration between States Newsroom and The 19th. Boise State University senior Cade Syvock opposes abortion. As president of the school’s chapter of the conservative group Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the late activist Charlie Kirk, Syvock helped coordinate anti-abortion […]
Kelcie Moseley-Morris, Anna Spoerre

Democrats aiming for control of Congress vow action on healthcare, cost of living, Iran war

1 week 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — Democrats are touting an ambitious legislative agenda centered on affordability and accountability if they take back the U.S. House or Senate — or both — in November.  A slew of pressing policy debates are on tap for Democrats, including healthcare, immigration, voting rights, the war in Iran, oversight, education and beyond, as they […]
Shauneen Miranda, Ariana Figueroa, Ashley Murray, Jonathan Shorman

Powered by spikes in energy prices, inflation surges to 3.7%

1 week 1 day ago
Inflation grew to a 3.7% annual rate in September, according to an Oct. 14 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 3.4% in August.Ā  In the last consumer price inflation report before midterm elections, with voters already fed up with higher prices, September’s number was the highest since May, when it was […]
Tim Henderson

Trump: Execution of Fort Hood shooter will not be livestreamed

1 week 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump Thursday announced that the execution of a man convicted of the Fort Hood shooting will not be livestreamed, a reversal after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that Nidal Hasan’s death by firing squad would be public.  “I think streaming the execution for all to see might have been a […]
Ariana Figueroa

Nonpartisan government watchdog recommends automated activation of ICE body cameras

1 week 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection need to improve oversight and guidance for federal immigration officers’ use of body-worn cameras, according to a Wednesday report from independent federal investigators. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security, however, resisted a recommendation in the report from the Government Accountability Office that […]
Ariana Figueroa

Trump’s DOJ demands California halt ballots to suspected noncitizens

1 week 1 day ago
The U.S. Department of Justice is demanding California not count ballots from voters it says are suspected noncitizens, a move by the Trump administration to apply last-minute pressure as voting begins in the midterm elections. The Justice Department on Tuesday gave California election officials 48 hours to remove voters on a list contained on a […]
Jonathan Shorman

Social Security benefits increase will hit 3.6% in 2027

1 week 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration announced on Wednesday that recipients will receive a 3.6% increase in benefits in 2027. The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, will begin for 72 million Social Security beneficiaries in January. It will apply for Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, recipients beginning on Dec. 31.  Some individuals receive both types of […]
States Newsroom staff

Missouri Democrats aim to break Republicans’ streak of House supermajorities

1 week 1 day ago
Over five consecutive elections from 1974 through 1982, Missouri Democrats elected supermajorities — more than two-thirds of the 163 members — to the Missouri House. The party drew its strength from rural voters, union households and Black-majority urban districts. The supermajority ended as rural voters, who had developed a habit of voting Republican in national […]
Rudi Keller

Commentary: Missouri’s education board was designed to resist politics. Transparency is essential

1 week 1 day ago
Most Missourians probably could not name a member of the State Board of Education. Most could not explain why board members serve eight-year terms or why Missouri’s Constitution limits the number of members from the same political party. That is understandable. The State Board was never intended to be a political institution that attracted significant […]
Duane Martin

How one unpaid medical bill landed a KC-area patient in court

1 week 2 days ago
In December 2022, a surgeon at NKC Health removed Karrie Krause’s gallbladder. Three years later, a lawyer representing the hospital took her to court over her unpaid bill. The middle school English teacher is far from alone. As the price of getting sick or injured keeps growing and the cost that patients are forced to […]
Suzanne King

Researchers point to community violence programs, pandemic recovery in historic homicide decline

1 week 2 days ago
As candidates debate public safety ahead of the midterm elections, a new assessment of the nation’s historic homicide decline suggests there is no single explanation for the drop — and that some widely discussed enforcement strategies may have played little role. A survey of nearly 50 crime scholars convened by the nonpartisan Council on Criminal […]
Amanda Watford

Trump immigration policies could turn away much-needed foreign doctors, critics say

1 week 2 days ago
As the nation’s physician shortage worsens, some fear the Trump administration’s immigration policies will dissuade or prevent doctors who earned their medical degrees in foreign countries from practicing in the United States. Among all U.S. doctors, an estimated one quarter were educated abroad. But they make up an even larger proportion of physicians in many […]
Shalina Chatlani

Trump administration appeals judge’s order blocking White House ban of 3 news outlets

1 week 2 days ago
WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Tuesday extended a block on a Trump administration ban of press passes for three news organizations, which will allow them to continue to enter the White House grounds while a legal challenge to the ban, including a Wednesday appeal filed by the administration, plays out. U.S. District Judge Timothy Kelly […]
Ashley Murray, Jane Norman

Students to compete in civics bee championship in nation’s capital, carried on C-SPAN

1 week 2 days ago
WASHINGTON — As partisan tensions rise in advance of the fast-approaching midterm elections, students will test their knowledge Wednesday in a field that’s long enjoyed bipartisan support: civics.  Fifty-two middle school students hailing from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and American Samoa, will compete at the third annual National Civics Bee Championship in the nation’s […]
Shauneen Miranda

Amendment 6 would remake balance of power between Missouri voters and lawmakers

1 week 2 days ago
Missouri voters are being asked on Nov. 3 to fundamentally rewrite the balance of power between themselves and the state lawmakers they elect. If Amendment 6 passes, future legislatures could no longer change laws enacted by voters through the initiative process on their own.Ā Instead, at least 80% of both the House and Senate would have […]
Jason Hancock