a Better Bubble™

MoInd 📰

Former DOJ lawyer blames Missouri senators for inciting death threats against her

1 week 5 days ago
WASHINGTON — Former Justice Department lawyer Elizabeth Oyer has posted a video to YouTube blaming Missouri Republican Sens. Eric Schmitt and Josh Hawley for an onslaught of hate messages and death threats she has received. “Hey everybody,” Oyer said in the video. “I started getting death threats after I testified against Todd Blanche last week.” […]
Kennedy Voss

The weird world of Missouri campaign B-roll

1 week 5 days ago
It’s one of my favorite times of the election year: B-roll season. Across Missouri, candidates are posting B-roll — the wordless, context-free footage ad-makers layer under narration — so the political action committees they’re legally barred from coordinating with can stumble upon it and cut it into ads. All of it perfectly legal, thanks to […]
Jason Hancock

‘E pluribus unum’ is not a slogan. It’s a choice

2 weeks ago
Like two sides of a coin imprinted with the nation’s motto, “e pluribus unum” — out of many, one — America’s political factions are cast in opposition, but they are intrinsically bound together as parts of a larger whole. From the beginning, the United States has aspired to build a more perfect union. When our founders […]
Tim Storey, Sue Urahn

Measles cases have reached a 35-year high

2 weeks ago
Measles cases this year have surpassed all of 2025 to become the worst since the disease was declared eliminated in 2000, with cases now in 44 states and the District of Columbia, according to a federal report released Friday.  There were 2,318 confirmed cases as of July 23, compared with 2,289 in all of 2025, […]
Tim Henderson

Trump imposes new host of tariffs on trading partners, alleging they use forced labor

2 weeks ago
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump reignited his tariff agenda Friday by imposing new import taxes on products from dozens of top U.S. trading partners, immediately replacing temporary global tariffs he levied after the U.S. Supreme Court delivered a major blow to his sweeping “Liberation Day” duties. As of Friday morning, American importers will now pay […]
Ashley Murray

Democratic panel recommends South Carolina lead 2028 presidential nominating calendar

2 weeks ago
WASHINGTON — The Democratic National Committee’s Rules and Bylaws Committee voted Friday that South Carolina should hold the party’s first primary in the 2028 presidential election cycle.  The recommendation came after a competitive 26-19-4 vote in South Carolina’s favor over Nevada and New Hampshire. The decision is now pending final confirmation from a full vote […]
Sam Gauntt

Missouri congressional incumbents flush with cash heading into primary election

2 weeks 1 day ago
Missouri congressional incumbents seeking reelection hold a huge cash advantage over their leading challengers, final preprimary campaign finance reports show. The seven incumbents seeking reelection held $13.6 million in their campaign accounts on July 15, filings with the Federal Election Commission show. Challengers held $1.9 million. Republicans hold six of Missouri’s eight seats in the […]
Rudi Keller

Landmark federal housing law tries new ways to boost local building

2 weeks 1 day ago
Championed as one of the most consequential and bipartisan federal housing laws in decades, the 21st Century ROAD to Housing Act enacted this month makes significant changes across federal housing policy. Included in the 139-page law are a host of provisions that will restrict some institutional investors from buying homes, ease rules for manufactured housing […]
Robbie Sequeira

States move to limit classroom screen time

2 weeks 1 day ago
After school cellphone bans passed many statehouses with bipartisan support in recent legislative sessions, state lawmakers are turning to legislation governing how long students should spend looking at screens. This year, four states passed laws restricting or regulating screen time for students from childcare through fifth grade. Iowa capped digital instruction at 60 minutes per […]
Robbie Sequeira

Missouri drops out of lawsuit challenging federal disability rights protections

2 weeks 1 day ago
Missouri withdrew this week from a multi-state lawsuit seeking to strike down a part of federal law requiring states to provide services to allow people with disabilities to live in their communities instead of institutions. The lawsuit began in September 2024 when 17 Republican-led states challenged a Biden administration rule updating decades-old regulations of the […]
Steph Quinn

US House and Senate split on ending Trump’s war in Iran, as gas prices rise

2 weeks 1 day ago
WASHINGTON — One day after President Donald Trump attended the dignified transfer of the remains of four U.S. service members killed as a result of the Iran conflict, the two chambers of Congress were at odds over whether to rein in the president’s military powers in the monthslong war. While members of the U.S. House […]
Ashley Murray

As national death rate dips, some states did better than others

2 weeks 1 day ago
The nation’s death rate may have fallen to a historic low last year as many of the killers of young people such as drug overdoses, gun homicides and traffic accidents continued receding in 2025, according to new federal statistics.   States have not shared equally in the success, though, according to a Stateline analysis of provisional […]
Tim Henderson

Feds have a new teen pregnancy prevention plan: Fertility and ‘reproductive goals’

2 weeks 1 day ago
The Trump administration has a new plan for teenagers learning about pregnancy: Beginning this summer, it will steer millions of dollars toward organizations that focus on anatomy, fertility tracking, hormonal production and “reproductive goals counseling.” The plan will also emphasize abstinence from sex and the importance of marriage.  In doing so, it will pivot away […]
Kelcie Moseley-Morris

Our safety net was already full of holes. They’re only getting bigger

2 weeks 1 day ago
Back when I was growing up, it seemed a bit easier to get by on next to nothing. People could afford food and shelter on a working-class wage and get a little help from safety net programs when needed. But since the 1990s, the cost of housing and healthcare has increasingly exceeded wage growth. We’re […]
Jessie Sicley

US Senate Judiciary holds over vote on Blanche nomination for AG as Grassley slams Dems

2 weeks 2 days ago
WASHINGTON — Members of the U.S. Senate tasked with advancing acting Attorney General Todd Blanche’s nomination to be the nation’s top law enforcer on Thursday pushed the vote one week. The Senate Judiciary Committee’s delayed vote to send the controversial nominee to the full Senate is “per standard committee practice,” according to a spokesperson for […]
Ashley Murray

Leading Dem on US House education panel, advocates blast student loan changes

2 weeks 2 days ago
WASHINGTON — Education experts and advocates warned Wednesday that the recent federal student loan system overhaul stemming from the GOP’s mega tax and spending cut law will drive borrowers to private lenders and could derail their higher education plans.  U.S. Rep. Bobby Scott of Virginia, the top Democrat on the House Committee on Education and […]
Shauneen Miranda

Cyclosporiasis outbreak surges to over 4.1K confirmed cases

2 weeks 2 days ago
The number of cases of cyclosporiasis — a parasitic infection linked to contaminated water or food that causes severe intestinal issues — has more than doubled to over 4,173 cases across 41 states this week, up from the 1,645 confirmed cases in 34 states reported last week by the federal Centers for Disease Control and […]
Shalina Chatlani

State AGs join legal fight against Trump’s wind farm freeze

2 weeks 2 days ago
A coalition of Democratic state attorneys general has joined a lawsuit seeking to end the Trump administration’s halt of onshore wind projects in the United States. Last week, 18 states and the District of Columbia moved to intervene in a lawsuit filed by wind industry companies against the Department of Defense.  The companies and state […]
Alex Brown

Missouri maternal deaths remain mostly preventable, sixth state report finds

2 weeks 2 days ago
From 2019 to 2023, 340 Missourians died while pregnant or within a year after pregnancy. Of those, 108 deaths were classified as pregnancy-related — meaning caused or aggravated by the pregnancy itself — and nearly 80% of them were preventable. The findings were part of the sixth annual Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review, published this month by […]
Anna Spoerre