MoInd 📰

At 11:30 a.m. on the first Monday of the new year, the parking lot of Aging Best in Jefferson City is full, a temporary red canvas sign flapping in the breeze to identify the senior center’s new location since February. People are trickling in for lunch, served every weekday to Missourians 60 and older for […]

Missouri’s largest state employee pension fund can’t recover losses from investments in Ontario-based capital funds, a Cole County judge ruled last month as he closed out a five-year court battle. The Missouri State Employees Retirement System, or MOSERS, spent at least $21 million pursuing the case accusing Catalyst Capital Group Inc. of mismanaging $175 million […]

The deal to lure the Kansas City Chiefs across the state line to Kansas, announced by Gov. Laura Kelly with glee just a few days before Christmas, may represent the largest public subsidy in the history of American professional sports. Is it a wise investment? No, but it follows a recent Kansas trend of abandoning […]

WASHINGTON — The Defense Department will attempt to downgrade Arizona Democratic Sen. Mark Kelly’s retirement rank and pay, seeking to punish him for making a video along with other Democrats in Congress, who told members of the military they didn’t need to follow illegal orders.  Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth originally threatened to recall Kelly from […]

Nearly $7 million that supports nursing education and research in Missouri is at risk under federal proposals to eliminate key Title VIII workforce programs. The U.S. House Appropriations committee, responsible for regulating government expenditures, proposed in September to eliminate the National Institute of Nursing Research and all Nursing Workforce Development programs, except the Nurse Corps. […]

Dr. Heather Skanes opened Alabama’s first freestanding birth center in 2022 in her hometown of Birmingham. Skanes, an OB-GYN, wanted to improve access to maternal health care in a state that’s long had one of the nation’s highest rates of maternal and infant mortality. Those rates are especially high among Black women and infants. Skanes’ […]

Missouri Republicans played power politics in 2025, crushing Democratic opposition in the Legislature on major issues from abortion to congressional redistricting. The consequences of those moves will be felt this year. Voters in November will ultimately determine if Republicans went too far as they steamrolled measures to passage. Missouri GOP senator slams party leaders for […]

We face a new year with the likelihood that the same divisive and hate-filled words and actions will intrude and dominate much of the public square. Some political leaders observing and adopting behavior from the lesser-civilized among us will prove useful. Little else seems to be working. We have all heard the saying, “They fight […]

State and federal officials are gearing up to stop the advance of a parasitic fly that is less than 70 miles from the United States border with Mexico. Since Nov. 25, at least 10 new cases of incidents involving the New World screwworm fly have been confirmed within 400 miles of the border. The flies […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States will “run the country” of Venezuela until “a proper transition can take place,” following the capture of Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro in a strike against the South American nation, a stunning move conducted without congressional notice or approval. Trump in a press conference from […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump announced Wednesday that he will back off his plans to use National Guard troops in the Democratic-led cities of Chicago, Los Angeles and Portland, Oregon.  The move follows the Supreme Court’s decision last week that found Trump could not deploy guard members to Chicago, ruling that the president did not […]

TOPEKA — Moving the Chiefs to Kansas will spur economic development, but the complexity and lack of details about the deal make it difficult to determine what taxpayers will ultimately pay. The announcement that the Chiefs and state of Kansas will spend an estimated $4 billion to build a domed stadium in Wyandotte County surrounded […]

WASHINGTON — States must now provide “justification” that federal child care funds they receive are spent on “legitimate” providers in order to get those dollars, President Donald Trump’s administration announced.  The Tuesday shift in policy came following allegations of fraud in Minnesota’s child care programs, which prompted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services […]

WASHINGTON — A federal judge in California Wednesday found the Trump administration unlawfully terminated temporary protections for more than 60,000 nationals from Honduras, Nepal and Nicaragua.  In a scathing 52-page order, Northern District of California Judge Trina Thompson found that Department of Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem did not go through the proper federal procedures to […]

Missouri has some of the worst rates for maternal and infant mortality in the country. This isn’t old news. Nor are the solutions that lawmakers like state Rep. LaKeySha Bosley, a St. Louis Democrat, continue to propose in the hopes of finally getting more people to pay attention. The numbers should raise alarms for Missouriians […]

The Kansas Chiefs are dead to me. After Kansas jayhawked Missouri’s last NFL team last week, I vowed I would never again watch them. I cursed the day the team formed and Clark Hunt’s performance in Topeka reminded of Mark Twain’s quote about gratitude:  “If you pick up a starving dog and make him prosperous, […]

During the upcoming spring semester, University of Missouri sophomore Cade Carman will spend a lot of his time in the state Capitol Building as a student intern. Over summer break, Carman will head to Washington, D.C., on a scholarship to enhance his study of political science. And while he’s there, he’ll get to spend time […]

The Trump administration will review frozen grants to universities without using its controversial standards that discouraged gender, race and sexual orientation initiatives and vaccine research. In a settlement agreement filed in Massachusetts federal court Monday, the National Institutes of Health and a group of Democratic attorneys general who’d challenged the new criteria for grant funding said […]

The economy has developed a split personality. Stock prices are near record levels. Some tech companies, particularly in the AI space, are being valued at staggering numbers, fueling a rush to develop data centers. Meanwhile, half of workers are struggling to get by and lines for food assistance block traffic. The mixed signals can get […]

The U.S. Postal Service has adopted a new rule that could create doubt about whether some ballots mailed by voters by Election Day will receive postmarks in time to be counted. A USPS rule that took effect on Dec. 24 says mail might not receive a postmark on the same day the agency takes possession […]