a Better Bubble™

MoInd 📰

Missouri AG launches investigation into manufacturers of kratom, 7-OH

1 month ago
Missouri Attorney General Catherine Hanaway on Thursday joined a growing number of government agencies investigating the makers and sellers of a product called 7-OH for engaging in what she called “unlawful” practices. The name, 7-OH, is short for 7-hydroxymitragynine, and it’s made by chemically converting the main opioid-inducing element in kratom. 7-OH is sold as […]
Rebecca Rivas

New federal student debt rule seen as tool to enforce Trump agenda

1 month ago
WASHINGTON — A new U.S. Department of Education regulation to narrow eligibility for a key student debt relief program for public service workers has drawn strong opposition from advocates who argue the regulation is an attempt to target organizations whose missions do not align with President Donald Trump’s agenda.  Under a final rule slated to […]
Shauneen Miranda

AI vs. AI: Patients deploy bots to battle health insurers that deny care

1 month ago
As states strive to curb health insurers’ use of artificial intelligence, patients and doctors are arming themselves with AI tools to fight claims denials, prior authorizations and soaring medical bills. Several businesses and nonprofits have launched AI-powered tools to help patients get their insurance claims paid and navigate byzantine medical bills, creating a robotic tug-of-war […]
Anna Claire Vollers

Trial set to begin in lawsuit challenging legality of Missouri private school voucher program

1 month ago
The constitutionality of Missouri using general revenue to fund private-school scholarships will be debated Monday and Tuesday in Cole County Circuit Court. The Missouri National Education Association is seeking to stop the state from distributing more tax dollars to private schools, saying the $50 million appropriation of general revenue to the MOScholars program is illegal. […]
Annelise Hanshaw

St. Louis jury awards cannabis consultant $3 million in injury lawsuit

1 month ago
A St. Louis jury awarded a California cannabis consultant $3 million on Thursday, following a four-day trial where he argued a 2022 lab accident ended his career in the marijuana industry. The incident happened when Mark Avent of Escondido, Calif.,  was helping build out the cultivation and manufacturing facility at 5401 Bulwer Ave. in St. […]
Rebecca Rivas

ICE courthouse arrests meet resistance from Democratic states

1 month ago
A day after President Donald Trump took office, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement issued a new directive to its agents: Arrests at courthouses, restricted under the Biden administration, were again permissible. In Connecticut, a group of observers who keep watch on ICE activity in and around Stamford Superior Court have since witnessed a series of […]
Jonathan Shorman

New report strengthens the case for career literate classrooms in Missouri

1 month ago
As a teacher and coach, I remember vividly the helplessness I felt when my students would ask me: “But how will this help me get a good job?” For years, educators were often on their own when it came to helping students connect what they were learning in the classroom with where it might lead […]
Leigh Anne Taylor Knight

Top ICE official elaborates on plan to send Kilmar Abrego Garcia to Liberia

1 month ago
GREENBELT, Md. — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials detailed to a federal judge Thursday plans for the Trump administration to again remove the wrongly deported Kilmar Abrego Garcia, this time to the West African country of Liberia. U.S. District of Maryland Judge Paula Xinis is considering whether to lift her order that barred Abrego […]
Ariana Figueroa, William J. Ford

Trump accuses Democratic lawmakers of ‘seditious behavior, punishable by death’

1 month ago
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump accused six Democratic lawmakers of sedition on social media Thursday and threatened them with punishment as severe as death, after they appeared in a video message encouraging U.S. armed forces to refuse “illegal orders.” Trump also shared another social media post that said the Democrats should be hanged. The video’s […]
Ashley Murray

Stock trading by members of Congress could be banned in bipartisan push

1 month ago
WASHINGTON — At least 25 bills have been introduced this Congress to further limit lawmakers and their family members from trading individual stocks, and representatives across the aisle renewed pressure Wednesday on U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson to take up the issue. Their contention is members of Congress hold a serious advantage over everyday Americans […]
Ashley Murray

Abolish Missouri’s income tax?  Find the man behind the tree

1 month ago
Governor, governor:   don’t tax me,  tax the man behind the tree. Gov. Mike Kehoe’s recent announcement that he wants to eliminate the Missouri’s income tax causes me to paraphrase this old poem, used often by the late U.S. Sen. Russell Long, longtime chair (1966-1981) of the Senate Finance Committee, when considering proposals for whatever was […]
Michael A. Wolff

Spiraling health insurance costs stymie members of US Senate panel

1 month ago
WASHINGTON — U.S. senators began debating how to reduce health care costs for Americans during a hearing Wednesday, where experts’ varied recommendations and comments from lawmakers previewed the rocky and potentially long path ahead.  Republicans on the Finance Committee argued the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, has led to a spike in health insurance costs […]
Jennifer Shutt

Progress on overdose deaths could be jeopardized by federal cuts, critics say

1 month ago
The Trump administration has made deep cuts to the main federal agency focused on fighting opioid addiction, potentially jeopardizing the nation’s recent progress on reducing overdose deaths, some public health officials and providers say. Created in 1992, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, known as SAMHSA, hands out billions in grants for mental […]
Shalina Chatlani

Trump administration urged by US House Dems to act on health insurance claim denials

1 month ago
WASHINGTON — Two leading Democrats on a U.S. House panel called on the head of an agency within the U.S. Department of Labor responsible for protecting workers’ benefits to take action to address improper health insurance claim denials, in a Tuesday letter provided exclusively to States Newsroom.   Reps. Bobby Scott of Virginia and Mark DeSaulnier of […]
Shauneen Miranda