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MoInd 📰

Some states raise pay for home caregivers as shortage looms

1 week 4 days ago
WILMINGTON, Ohio — From her recliner in her tidy townhouse, Donna Logan offers advice to the first baby boomers to hit the big ‘8-0’ this year: Life can be good, especially with someone like Helen Aponte helping with laundry and housekeeping and the drive to the doctor’s office. “I do most things on my own,” […]
Anne Saker

New challenges to Trump mail-in voting order arrive after US Supreme Court ruling

1 week 5 days ago
Democrat-led states and voting rights groups re-filed lawsuits Wednesday to block the Trump administration from executing a new regulation to restrict mail-in voting, while a federal judge lifted a nationwide pause on the policy in line with this week’s U.S. Supreme Court decision that handed the administration a procedural win. Democratic officials in 24 states […]
Jacob Fischler

Missouri lawmakers press child welfare leaders on foster care deaths, staff turnover

1 week 5 days ago
A bipartisan group of Missouri lawmakers pressed Children’s Division Director Sara Smith on Wednesday to explain how the agency ensures children with elevated medical or behavioral needs get appropriate foster placements. The questions came after what state Sen. Mary Elizabeth Coleman, an Arnold Republican and chair of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Government Accountability who […]
Steph Quinn

Meta to pay 47 states up to $17.1B in landmark child safety settlement

1 week 5 days ago
Meta, the owner of Facebook and Instagram, on Wednesday agreed to pay 47 states, the District of Columbia, and a handful of U.S. territories, up to $17.1 billion in penalties over claims that its social media platforms are addictive and a danger to children. As part of the settlement, Meta also pledged to make changes […]
Anna Claire Vollers

As states tighten oversight, private equity’s healthcare deals decline

1 week 5 days ago
New state oversight laws are pumping the brakes on private equity’s push into healthcare, according to new data. The number of private equity-involved healthcare deals has declined since last year, and the value of those deals in the first half of 2026 is lower than it was for the same time in 2025, according to […]
Anna Claire Vollers

Active court order still blocking Trump effort to restrict vote-by-mail

1 week 5 days ago
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday handed a procedural victory to President Donald Trump on an executive order to curb mail-in voting, but the administration is still fighting a separate ruling that limits a portion of the order and remains in effect — complicating the administration’s temporary win.  In light of the ruling in the nation’s […]
Shauneen Miranda

Group behind whites-only community sues Arkansas, federal agencies

1 week 5 days ago
The founders of a whites-only community in northeast Arkansas have filed a lawsuit against several state and federal agencies claiming their constitutional rights are being violated by investigations into the housing development. Return to the Land, a white nationalist organization that describes itself as a “private membership association” promoting “European heritage communities” and “traditional views,” […]
Andrew DeMillo

The Missouri Independent 100: Tracking the PACs funding state legislative races

1 week 6 days ago
The last campaign finance reports before the Aug. 4 primary showed candidates for the Missouri House and Senate had spent $15.3 million for their races, according to records of the Missouri Ethics Commission. But candidates are only part of the money story. In many of Missouri’s most competitive legislative races, some of the biggest checks […]
Rudi Keller

Sanctuary policies are keeping prisoners in local jails away from ICE

1 week 6 days ago
As more states seek ways to limit immigration enforcement, a Stateline analysis shows one tactic has had an effect: making it more difficult for local law enforcement to hand over people they are holding in city or county jails to federal immigration authorities. The analysis found that states with strict non-cooperation policies — Oregon, Connecticut, […]
Tim Henderson

Cheaper health insurance changed their lives. Then it went away.

1 week 6 days ago
Part 1 of an occasional series on how people are being affected by the expiration of Affordable Care Act subsidies. EDWARDS, Miss. — Every now and then a freight train rumbles through, creaking and groaning on the rusted tracks that run along the edge of the largely deserted downtown. On some days, that train is […]
Shalina Chatlani

Trump, McMahon promote school voucher program as students return to class

2 weeks ago
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump and U.S. Education Secretary Linda McMahon on Monday touted a national private school voucher program set to launch in early 2027. During a White House Rose Garden event celebrating the back-to-school season, Trump and McMahon lauded the incoming federal school choice effort along with many of the education policies the administration […]
Shauneen Miranda

Trump administration plans $100,000 visa fee for high-skill foreign workers

2 weeks ago
WASHINGTON — The Department of Homeland Security is planning to drastically increase the fee for hiring high-skilled foreign workers within the United States to $100,000, according to a preview of a proposed rule published Monday.  The administration noted in the Federal Register that it plans to use the fee to “serve as a dedicated revenue mechanism […]
Ariana Figueroa

US Senate map trending toward Democrats, though GOP retains slim advantage

2 weeks ago
WASHINGTON — Voters throughout much of the country will cast ballots for their U.S. senator this fall, but just nine states hold the power to determine control of the chamber — setting the course for which presidential nominees can secure confirmation and what bills advance during the next two years.  The Senate races, as well […]
Jennifer Shutt

U.S. Supreme Court lifts pause on Trump mail-ballot order

2 weeks ago
WASHINGTON — With just over two months until the November midterms, the U.S. Supreme Court gave way Monday for President Donald Trump to have a hand in regulating mail-in ballots nationwide, a voting method he has falsely claimed is rife with corruption since he lost the 2020 presidential election. In an unsigned emergency docket opinion, the […]
Ashley Murray

Meet the conservative strategist working to upend Missouri Republican politics

2 weeks 1 day ago
CAMDENTON — Polls had been open a few hours on primary day in August 2022 when Sophia Shore called her dad with a problem. She’d spent the summer running a long-shot campaign for Jill Carter, a family friend challenging an incumbent Republican state senator with vastly more money and nearly every advantage Missouri politics could […]
Jason Hancock

Springfield cannabis workers secure Missouri’s second union contract after four-year wait

2 weeks 1 day ago
It’s been nearly a month since Key Cannabis Dispensary employees in Springfield ratified their first collective bargaining agreement that includes wage increases, bonuses and additional time off to workers. And employees are feeling pretty high.  “Now that the contract has been ratified, we’re rocking and rolling already,” said Sally Powell, a retail associate at Key […]
Rebecca Rivas