MoInd 📰

Kansas Citians who buy health insurance through hearthcare.gov can expect to pay much more for monthly premiums next year. According to preliminary rate filings submitted to state insurance regulators in Missouri and Kansas, every insurance company selling individual plans in the region through the Affordable Care Act marketplace wants to raise prices in 2027. Across […]

Lawmakers must stop pretending this Farm Bill works. As Charles Givens once said, “Doing more of what doesn’t work won’t make it work any better.” The U.S. Senate has released its version of the Farm Bill and lawmakers are already calling it “a strong safety net” and “support for producers.” But out here in rural […]

WASHINGTON — Dr. Erica Schwartz will be the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, after the U.S. Senate confirmed her nomination Wednesday. The Senate confirmed, 51-44, President Donald Trump’s pick to lead the national public health agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, which has taken heat over the vaccine-skeptical […]

WASHINGTON — The Department of Health and Human Services plans to award a $150 million contract to a small Texas firm — with no specialty in immigration law and run by a former Trump official — to provide legal services to tens of thousands of unaccompanied immigrant children, according to a Wednesday pre-published notice in […]

Two courts this week dealt blows to the Trump administration’s attempts to withdraw clean energy and climate grants.  A federal appeals court on Tuesday ruled that the Environmental Protection Agency could not terminate $20 billion in clean energy grants awarded to nonprofit groups. And a federal judge on Monday denied the Trump administration’s attempt to […]

WASHINGTON — A federal judge lifted a stay Wednesday on the termination of temporary protections for hundreds of thousands of Haitians in order to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court ruling that cleared the way for the Trump administration to remove their legal status and open them up for deportations.  The order from U.S. District Judge […]

WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump is urging Republican senators to “release their holds” and pass a measure making daylight saving time permanent nationwide.   A bipartisan bill passed the House in July but faces hurdles in the Senate, where members from both parties have pushed back against ending the semiannual clock changes.  “People are sick and tired of […]

The campaign seeking a public vote on Missouri’s gerrymandered congressional map is asking a Cole County judge to do more than put the referendum on the November ballot — it wants the court to prohibit the state from using the map at all this fall. What that would mean for the candidates nominated Tuesday in […]

Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche is one step closer to confirmation after the Republican Judiciary Committee voted to advance his appointment on a party-line vote on Tuesday, and based on promises he made to faith leaders around the country last week, that means national anti-abortion actions may be one step closer as well. In […]

WASHINGTON — The stopgap spending bill supported by an overwhelming majority of U.S. senators does not address tens of billions in expiring transportation funding, leaving states facing a massive effective budget cut starting Oct. 1. The 2021 bipartisan infrastructure law, which authorized highway and transit programs for five years, expires Sept. 30. Roughly $38.6 billion […]

Missourians went to the polls Tuesday, and the results resist a single storyline. Here’s what’s worth noticing. Amendment 5 is the clearest verdict of the night. It lost 83-16. Not close, not regional — a rout. The governor’s top priority, backed by $17.2 million from donors who never had to identify themselves and it couldn’t […]

Missouri Republicans ousted a sitting state senator and split their verdict among insurgents and establishment-backed candidates in a Tuesday primary that reshaped the likely balance inside a GOP caucus already facing significant turnover. Springfield elder law attorney Lori Rook defeated state Sen. Curtis Trent 53% to 47% in southwest Missouri’s 20th Senate District, ending Trent’s […]

Conservative talk radio host Chris Stigall triumphed in a five-way Republican primary for Missouri’s 6th Congressional district on Tuesday. Stigall received 44% of the vote, besting his nearest rival, Kansas City Council member Nathan Willett, by 10 percentage points. “I’m incredibly grateful to the people of North Missouri for placing their trust in me. Tonight’s […]

Missouri State Auditor Scott Fitzpatrick easily won renomination Tuesday as the Republican candidate for a second term, taking more than 80% of the vote against Jerry Wistrand of Oak Grove. The primary was a mostly unseen campaign, with Fitzpatrick spending little and Wistrand having little to spend. Fitzpatrick’s campaign spent just $115,000 from the start […]

A late endorsement from President Donald Trump boosted state Sen. Rick Brattin to the Republican nomination for Congress in Missouri’s 5th District Tuesday against former Boone County Clerk Taylor Burks. Trump was the instigator of Missouri’s gerrymandered redistricting map and issued his endorsement just before 5:30 p.m. Monday, after early voting had ended and too […]

Missouri voters rejected major Republican priorities on Tuesday as proposals to eliminate the income tax and change the way initiative petition majorities are counted lost by large margins across the state.  Amendment 4 lost 80% to 20%, while Amendment 5 fared worse, losing 83% to 16%.  “Amendments 4 and 5 have been buried so deep […]

Incumbent U.S. Rep. Wesley Bell staved off former Congresswoman Cori Bush in the Democratic primary for the 1st Congressional District on Tuesday, ending the most expensive candidate primary in Missouri this year. Bell received 59% of the vote, compared to only 37% for Bush.  He will take on Republican Paul Berry III and Libertarian Tom […]

Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins blocked a public vote on the state’s new congressional map Tuesday, declaring a referendum petition unconstitutional a few hours before polls closed in the primary election. He refused to tell reporters at a Jefferson City press conference whether the petition had enough valid signatures to qualify for the November […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. acting Attorney General Todd Blanche was one step closer to permanently leading the Justice Department Tuesday, after two skeptical Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans voted to advance his nomination given Blanche’s signed promise that President Donald Trump’s nearly $1.8 billion “anti-weaponization” fund is dead. Republican Sens. John Cornyn of Texas and Thom Tillis […]

As millions of acres burn across the western United States, some wildland fire veterans are fearful that aggressive fire suppression tactics ordered by the Trump administration — coupled with extreme, fast-moving blazes — could put firefighters in danger as conditions escalate this month.  Those extreme weather conditions fueled disaster in Eastern Washington Saturday when a […]