MoInd 📰

It might be easy to miss, but the Lee’s Summit R-7 School District is changing. English Language Development Coordinator Melisha Otero is in her sixth year with the district. In that time, she’s seen the number of English language learner (ELL) students increase dramatically. During the 2020-21 school year, the number of ELL students hit […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is bringing back a physical fitness test to public schools after over a decade, but details of the new test, including timing and implementation, remain to be seen. Trump signed an executive order July 31 that reestablished the Presidential Fitness Test — a source of both fear and achievement among youth […]

Victoria Gomez de la Torre doesn’t know when — or if — the migrant children she serves are going to get the education help they’ve come to rely on. Gomez de la Torre oversees the migrant education program for 12 central Florida counties. The federally funded service helps the children of migrant agricultural workers, who […]

The Trump administration has taken its first step toward restricting access to abortions for veterans who are covered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ medical benefits, reversing a 2022 rule. Former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration enacted the rule following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which ended federally protected access to abortion. More than […]

On April 1, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield terminated its contract with University of Missouri Health Care, stripping in-network coverage from more than 90,000 patients. That’s one in every 70 Missourians suddenly cut off from their doctors, clinics and hospitals. Some patients lost access to cancer follow-up care, prenatal visits or stroke rehabilitation mid-treatment. Lawmakers […]

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 […]

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 […]

The economic power of the Latino population in the United States is as massive as it is misunderstood. Latinos contribute more than $3.7 trillion annually to the economy, more than the gross domestic product of all but four countries in the world. Latinos are the nation’s largest minority group with 64 million people. The vast […]

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 […]

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.  Helping them in their efforts is Todd Graves, a prominent Kansas City attorney and chairman of the […]

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.  […]

Momentum is building for a special session of the Missouri Legislature to redraw the state’s eight congressional districts with the aim of gaining a seat for Republicans. Democrats will fight it, but a united Republican majority with more than two-thirds of the seats in both chambers can force it through if they wish. Missouri Senate […]

WASHINGTON — The Corporation for Public Broadcasting announced Friday that it will be shutting down. The announcement came just one day after a major Senate appropriations bill omitted funding for the nonprofit that funds public media and a week after President Donald Trump signed a bill into law that yanked $1.1 billion in previously approved spending for CPB.  […]

An executive order signed by President Donald Trump last week seeks to remove “ideological agendas” 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 […]

Dr. Marvin Singleton, a Republican who spent 13 years as a Missouri state senator, worries about many of the policies he sees coming out of Washington D.C. these days. Of course, the retired ear, nose and throat doctor is concerned about federal cuts to Medicaid spending, which could leave millions of Americans without insurance and […]

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 […]

Recently, Missouri’s senior senator introduced the American Worker Rebate Act which promises “at least” $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 […]

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 […]

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, […]

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 […]