TOPEKA — Kansas has been quietly building a pot of more than $26 million that can be used for attracting professional sports teams to the state, giving the state an edge in its “border war” with Missouri. Totaling more than $26.2 million and counting, those funds are for the Attracting Professional Sports to Kansas Fund, […]
Former President Jimmy Carter’s 77-year marriage with former first lady Rosalynn Carter was a defining feature of his life, spanning Carter’s career from a south Georgia peanut farmer to state senator, governor and president, as well as his post-presidency humanitarian work. But, those who knew him say, there was another relationship that was just as […]
Gov. Mike Kehoe’s decision to deploy Missouri National Guard soldiers to support immigration enforcement “makes no sense” because they will not get paid until the federal government shutdown is resolved, the state Senate’s Democratic leader said Thursday. On Tuesday, Kehoe announced that soldiers from the Guard would, on a volunteer basis, be assigned to provide […]
WASHINGTON — The first federal government shutdown in seven years has left hundreds of thousands of workers furloughed and members of the public struggling to understand what’s open, what’s closed and what might be delayed. States Newsroom’s Washington, D.C. Bureau scoured agency plans published by the Trump administration and the courts, and produced this guide to […]
Ariana Figueroa, Jennifer Shutt, Ashley Murray, Shauneen Miranda
Louisiana’s Liz Murrill has joined attorneys general from 13 other states in asking the Trump administration to challenge a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that placed the death penalty off limits for persons who rape children. The case in question involves a Louisiana man who was sentenced to death for sexually assaulting his 8-year-old stepdaughter. […]
One morning earlier this year, as Deb Capistrano came on duty for her shift as a nurse in her hospital’s stroke unit, her colleagues from the night shift warned her that one of her patients for the day was a man who’d been threatening to harm them. Capistrano has been a registered nurse for 17 […]
For a local Alaska resident who didn’t qualify for Medicaid because she made a few dollars over the income threshold, Title X family planning funding would have been an option for care at Planned Parenthood in Anchorage. The federal money is used by many clinics to provide low-cost or free services such as birth control […]
A federal case challenging the safety of mifepristone, used to treat miscarriages and to induce abortions early in pregnancy, is being transferred out of Texas to a federal court in Missouri. The lawsuit demands the federal government restore its previous restrictions on mifepristone by requiring three in-person doctor visits, reducing the gestational period during which […]
WASHINGTON — Vice President JD Vance said Wednesday the administration is looking for ways to get a handful of additional U.S. Senate Democrats to vote for Republicans’ stopgap spending bill to reopen government. But, in the meantime, White House officials plan to lay off federal workers en masse, a dramatic and unsettling step that’s not […]
Joshua Arnold bounced his young daughter on his shoulders, as he and a crowd of Boeing Defense workers yelled, “Stand together, fight together, win together” at a union rally Wednesday in St. Louis. Arnold and about 3,200 Boeing machinists in the St. Louis area have now been on strike for more than eight weeks, demanding […]
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Democrats and Republicans remained at a stalemate Wednesday as government offices closed and hundreds of thousands of federal workers faced furloughs on the first day of a government shutdown that showed no sign of ending. Proposals from each side of the aisle to fund and reopen the government failed again during […]
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Supreme Court will take up in January the question of President Donald Trump’s firing of Federal Reserve Board governor Lisa Cook, according to an order filed by the court Wednesday. The unsigned order states Trump’s application to stay a lower court’s decision to keep Cook on board while the case plays […]
Home sales closings dropped in August and remain well below pre-pandemic levels as high prices and interest rates weighed on the market, according to an analysis this week by the Calculated Risk blog. Home sales are on track for the worst year in decades, matching the 4 million annual sales in 1995, according to a […]
Nearly half of U.S. Department of Agriculture employees will be furloughed during the federal government shutdown, though key programs that support nutrition, forest preservation and wildfire prevention, the most pressing plant and animal diseases and agricultural commodity assessments will continue. Many offices, including county USDA service centers, will be closed or operating with minimal staff […]
Louisiana has issued an arrest warrant for a California doctor for allegedly mailing abortion pills to a Louisiana woman — the latest legal volley in an ongoing fight between states with abortion bans and those that have enacted protections for abortion providers who use telemedicine to send abortion medication over state lines. The existence of […]
WASHINGTON — The chairwoman of the U.S. Senate Appropriations Committee said Tuesday the Government Accountability Office should sue the Trump administration over its efforts to freeze or unilaterally cancel spending approved by Congress. “I believe that GAO, which is empowered under the Impoundment and Budget Control Act of 1974 to sue in cases, should do […]
A large majority of Jackson County voters have cast ballots to recall County Executive Frank White Jr. Preliminary results from Sept. 30 reveal 85% of voters supported the recall. The open question is whether those results will stand up against ongoing legal challenges. As soon as the vote is certified, White’s position will be considered immediately […]
WASHINGTON — A large crowd gathered on Capitol Hill Tuesday hours before a federal government shutdown to protest rising health care costs — the crux of Democrats’ stand against approving a temporary Republican funding bill. More than a dozen Democratic lawmakers joined activists and people who shared stories of rising health insurance premium costs at […]
Third in a five-part series. It had been a decade since Jess Deis’ last women’s wellness exam when Kentucky expanded Medicaid and she finally qualified for the state insurance program. Physicians recommend a cervical cancer screening — also referred to as a Pap smear, which is a swab of the cervix — as part of […]
As a middle-school student in 1980s Philadelphia, Shelley Hunter remembers getting to and from school pretty easily thanks to the city’s public transit service, SEPTA, which had bus and train routes near her home and her school. Sometimes, she even felt comfortable enough to take a city cab. Now, Hunter is a single mother of […]