Over the past year and a half, a dozen states have embraced a new vision for solar power: small, cheap panels that can be hung from a balcony or porch, be plugged into a standard wall outlet and take a dent out of residents’ utility bills. These systems, known as balcony solar or plug-in solar, […]
Nearly 100 community-based organizations have lost their federal HIV-prevention grants this week as the Trump administration redirects dollars to state and local health departments. The funding change represents a departure from the decades-old national HIV prevention strategy favored by most public health organizations. President Donald Trump launched the Ending the HIV/AIDS Epidemic Initiative during his first […]
In December 2023, a woman living in a small community near Austin, Texas, made a $78.08 contribution through WinRed. A few weeks later, she made another. Then came four more contributions in January 2024. Those were the first six entries under her name in Federal Election Commission records stretching back decades. Since then, her name […]
As Missouri prepares to vote on whether to reinstate an abortion ban, a new information campaign by a local nonprofit is setting out to remind Missourians that regardless of what happens in November, some abortion options will remain available. The campaign launched last week and will run through Election Day, when Missourians will decide whether […]
The U.S. Department of the Treasury released new guidance Thursday for participating states, scholarship-granting organizations and taxpayers as the federal scholarship tax credit program prepares to take effect in January. Created through President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending law in 2025, the Education Freedom Tax Credit program allows individuals to claim a dollar-for-dollar federal […]
Missouri drew its final round of marijuana microbusiness applicants on Sept. 9. The state received 888 applications and expects to issue approximately 77 licenses beginning in December. I want to write about the months in between, because I work in the trade that operates in them. I am a consultant. I run licensing, compliance and […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. senators departed Capitol Hill on Wednesday night for their campaign break, leaving numerous policy disputes unresolved. The chamber won’t return until Nov. 9 for the five-week lame-duck session, when party leaders will have to decide which bills they want to negotiate during what could be the final days of unified Republican control. […]
WASHINGTON — A D.C. Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors cannot, for a second time, charge former Olympic canoeist David Hearn with damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Judge Todd E. Edelman wrote in his ruling that “the observed damage to the Reflecting Pool was due to a contractor’s ‘rushed and botched’ installation of […]
The U.S. Senate passed legislation Tuesday to make America’s National Churchill Museum a National Historic Landmark, sending the bill to President Donald Trump for his signature. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a corresponding bill in March after the legislation had been stalled in Congress for at least two years. If Trump signs the bill, […]
President Donald Trump is scheduled to kick off a month-long blitz of campaign stops with a Thursday rally in deep-red Oklahoma before heading to other states with strong Republican leanings. The first events in the closing stretch of the midterm election campaign suggest his strength with swing voters is limited, as even some Republican candidates […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans did not gain any support Wednesday from Democrats as they attempted to advance a bill that mashed together two hot-button midterm issues: requiring voter ID in federal elections and limiting stock trading for members of Congress. The Republican-led bill, titled the Stop Insider Trading Act, failed 53-47 when lawmakers stayed solidly […]
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and the attorneys general in Arkansas and Alabama filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court, suing California, Massachusetts and New York to invalidate the so-called “shield laws” that have allowed providers in those states to send abortion medication to people in states with abortion […]
Since receiving a letter from the Missouri Department of Social Services Sept. 1 containing “an important notice” about his federal food assistance, Andrew Dallas has struggled to ease his mind. Dallas, 63, of Arnold, who was diagnosed with epilepsy after a childhood head injury, can’t work or drive, and he depends on disability benefits and […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer indicated Wednesday that should Democrats regain control of the chamber following the elections, they plan to block judicial nominees sent up by President Donald Trump, including for any possible vacancies on the Supreme Court. “Look, the bottom line is, one of the reasons that we want to […]
I was baffled when I saw that Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, represented by Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, had asked a federal district court for an injunction against the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri. Why would they risk infuriating the court that they regularly appear before with a weird gambit in federal […]
A federal grand jury indicted 10 noncitizens for unlawfully voting in Minnesota, U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche said Wednesday, highlighting the administration’s effort to keep election security a top issue, in line with President Donald Trump’s longstanding unsubstantiated claims of voter fraud. The indictments, which include nine counts of unlawful voting and nine counts of […]
Missouri can continue using a federal database to review voter eligibility after the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily cleared the way for states to use an expanded version of the system to check the citizenship status of registered voters. The court’s 6-3 emergency order on Friday stayed a federal judge’s ruling that had blocked the expanded […]
WASHINGTON — Most judges on a federal appeals court seemed inclined during oral arguments Tuesday to allow a federal judge to continue investigating Trump officials for possible criminal contempt-of-court charges for defying a judicial order by sending more than 100 Venezuelan men to a brutal Salvadoran prison last year. The administration is challenging if U.S. […]
President Donald Trump is tapping $20 million in Homeland Security funding to pay for TV ads that heavily feature him ahead of the midterm elections, Democrats said Tuesday as the promos critics call propaganda come under bipartisan attack. The Trump administration recently moved the funds into a U.S. Customs and Border Protection budget line intended […]
WASHINGTON — The Trump administration must spend the $810 million that it said last week it planned to cancel, according to a report released Tuesday by the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office. The congressional watchdog’s decision contends the White House budget office doesn’t hold the ability to claw back that funding without approval from Congress. “Any […]