a Better Bubbleā„¢

MoInd šŸ“°

Nonprofit hospitals spend millions on stadium naming rights, raising eyebrows

5 months 1 week ago
Nonprofit hospital systems across the country are spending millions to plaster their names on sports stadiums and arenas, even as federal Medicaid cuts and economic uncertainty cloud their financial futures. Health care systems and hospital groups have bought naming rights at ballparks and arenas in states such as California, Florida, Georgia, Indiana, New York, North […]
Anna Claire Vollers

Justice Department demand for state voter lists underscores their importance

5 months 1 week ago
Alabama resident Roald Hazelhoff treasures his newly won right to vote. When election officials flagged the naturalized U.S. citizen’s voter registration for possible removal last August, the Dutch native fought back. Hazelhoff, then a 67-year-old college instructor, sued to stop Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen, a Republican, from seeking to kick him and more […]
Jonathan Shorman

Former Irish Republican Army soldier in Missouri self deports, afraid he’ll die in ICE cell

5 months 1 week ago
Trump administration officials aim to pressure some noncitizens into self-deporting. It worked on Matthew Morrison. In mid-July, the 69-year-old former psychiatric nurse supervisor quietly fled the United States. Morrison had been threatened by an aggressive government before. When he was a teenager, he fought against what he and others in the Irish Republican Army saw […]
Jesse Bogan

Parents intervene in Missouri voucher lawsuit with help from Herzog Foundation leader

5 months 1 week ago
A trio of parents and a national advocacy group are seeking to intervene in opposition to a lawsuit filed by Missouri’s largest teacher’s union challenging the constitutionality of $51 million in state funding for a private-school voucher program.Ā  Helping them in their efforts is Todd Graves, a prominent Kansas City attorney and chairman of the […]
Jason Hancock

Missouri’s attorney general is on a mission to make the workforce more white and male

5 months 1 week ago
Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey may have a bad track record in court, but he’s winning anyway. This is especially true of his crusade to make the workforce and higher education less diverse. He’s had success using losing lawsuits, investigations that do nothing but burn Missouri taxpayer dollars and threatening letters that misstate the law.Ā  […]
Bridgette Dunlap

Corporation for Public Broadcasting to close its doors after loss of funding

5 months 1 week ago
WASHINGTON — The Corporation for Public BroadcastingĀ announced Friday that it will be shutting down. The announcement came just one day after a majorĀ Senate appropriations bill omitted funding for the nonprofit that funds public media and a week after President Donald TrumpĀ signed a bill into law that yanked $1.1 billion in previously approved spending for CPB.Ā  […]
Shauneen Miranda

Trump’s ā€˜truth seeking’ AI executive order is a complex, expensive policy, experts say

5 months 1 week ago
An executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week seeks to remove ā€œideological agendasā€ from artificial intelligence models sold to the federal government, but it’s not exactly clear how the policy would be enforced, nor how tech companies would test their models for these standards, technologists and policy experts say. The executive order says […]
Paige Gross

All Missouri metro areas saw unemployment increases in June

5 months 1 week ago
All eight of Missouri’s metropolitan areas experienced higher unemployment rates in June than a month before, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics that is not seasonally adjusted. n comparison to a year earlier, the jobless rate also increased in all of those metro areas. St. Joseph had the highest unemployment rate […]
Saurav Rahman

Josh Hawley’s newest populist economic proposal is downright irresponsible

5 months 1 week ago
Recently, Missouri’s senior senator introduced the American Worker Rebate Act which promises ā€œat leastā€ $600 per adult and dependent child funded by revenue from President Donald Trump’s new tariffs. The proposed legislation represents a dangerous fiscal misstep that threatens to worsen inflation while squandering a rare opportunity to address America’s mounting debt crisis. Hawley’s proposal […]
Lynn Schmidt

Federal appeals court skeptical of cases for and against Trump tariff authority

5 months 1 week ago
WASHINGTON — Judges on the U.S. Appeals Court for the Federal Circuit questioned the legality of President Donald Trump’s sweeping emergency tariffs Thursday as the White House pushes on with its Aug. 1 deadline for import taxes at levels not seen since the 1930s. The case originated from consolidated lawsuits brought by a handful of […]
Ashley Murray

Missouri legislators file lawsuit claiming stadium funding for Chiefs, Royals is unconstitutional

5 months 1 week ago
The bill authorizing state support for professional sports stadiums is unconstitutional because it grants public aid to private interests and combines widely different and unrelated subjects, according to a lawsuit filed Thursday by two state lawmakers. State Sen. Mike Moon, a Republican from Ash Grove, and state Rep. Bryant Wolfin, a Republican from Ste. Genevieve, […]
Rudi Keller

Trump’s big proposed cuts to health and education spending rebuffed by US Senate panel

5 months 1 week ago
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate Committee on Appropriations Thursday largely rejected Trump administration proposals to slash funding for education programs, medical research grants, health initiatives and Ukraine security assistance. Instead, senators from both parties agreed to increase spending in the Labor, Health and Human Services and Education spending bill for fiscal year 2026, as well […]
Ariana Figueroa, Shauneen Miranda

State suicide prevention efforts are lacking amid federal cuts

5 months 1 week ago
Only a dozen states have laws establishing suicide prevention offices or coordinators, and just 11 have task forces or committees dedicated to suicide prevention efforts, according to a new report. The report comes amid sweeping cuts at federal agencies that offer mental health support. They include significant slashes in staffing and funding at the nation’s […]
Nada Hassanein

New federal school voucher program poses a quandary for states: Opt in or opt out?

5 months 1 week ago
When President Donald Trump signedĀ the One Big Beautiful Bill Act,Ā heĀ gave state leaders — not federal regulators — the power to decide whether and how to participate in the first-ever national tax credit scholarship program. That decision now looms largest in blue states, where Democratic governors and lawmakers must weigh whether to reject the law outright on […]
Robbie Sequeira

ā€˜Whites-only’ group draws bipartisan rebuke over potential move to MissouriĀ 

5 months 1 week ago
The possibility of a “whites-only” organization from Arkansas expanding into Missouri hasĀ inspired bipartisan outrage from state lawmakers and local officials who decry the group asĀ racist and antisemitic.Ā  The private membership association, called Return to the Land, owns 160 acres in northeast Arkansas, according to its website. Jews and non-whites are explicitly banned from membership.Ā  The […]
Jason Hancock

ā€˜Half-baked’ USDA relocation irritates members of both parties on US Senate Ag panel

5 months 2 weeks ago
Members of both parties on the U.S. Senate Agriculture Committee chastised a U.S. Department of Agriculture official Wednesday for not consulting Congress before proposing to shift thousands of jobs out of the Washington, D.C., area. USDA Deputy Secretary Stephen Alexander Vaden defended the sweeping proposal, which Secretary Brooke RollinsĀ announced with aĀ five-page memo last week, saying […]
Jacob Fischler

Grand jury indicts top Democrat in St. Louis County government on felony charges

5 months 2 weeks ago
The top elected official in Missouri’s largest county was indicted Wednesday on four criminal charges for allegedly misusing public money to oppose passage of an April ballot measure. The indictment, secured by Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office acting as special prosecutor, accuses St. Louis County Executive Sam Page of spending public funds on a flyer […]
Rudi Keller