MoInd 📰

The historically high surplus Missouri has enjoyed for the past six years will be nearly depleted at the end of the coming fiscal year, state budget director Dan Haug warned lawmakers during a committee hearing last week. For several years, the state has budgeted billions more from the general revenue fund than current taxes were […]

Missouri ranked in the bottom third of all states for children’s health, according to a report released Monday — due in part to a high rate of child and teen deaths. 

Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton made a guest appearance in Philadelphia on Sunday morning to participate in a Q&A session at America in One Room/Pennsylvania. Attendees were told that a special guest would be speaking to them, but the crowd was kept in the dark until Clinton took the stage. For 30 minutes, […]

President Donald Trump called for California Gov. Gavin Newsom to be arrested Monday and dispatched Marines to Los Angeles, shortly after Trump’s mobilization this weekend of California National Guard troops to quell protests without the governor’s consent. Protests of Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents’ activity in Los Angeles sparked a weekend of conflict between protesters […]

WASHINGTON — Attorneys for Kilmar Abrego Garcia, the wrongly deported Maryland man who has now been returned to the United States, are pushing to keep his civil case open in pursuit of sanctions against the Trump administration for refusing to comply with a U.S. Supreme Court order to facilitate his return. “Until the Government is […]

Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man the Trump Administration conceded had been wrongly deported to a notorious El Salvador prison, has been returned to the United States and is scheduled to be arraigned in a Nashville federal court on Friday. A two-count Tennessee grand jury indictment, issued May 21 and unsealed Friday, alleges Abrego Garcia […]

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey has sent several cease-and-desist letters to companies selling a hemp product called THCA flower that looks exactly like marijuana flower sold at dispensaries. Bailey’s letters threaten legal action, including injunctions, civil penalties and attorney’s fees if the companies continue to sell the products.  “When purchasing products, Missourians deserve to know […]

Medical experts are dismayed over a federal report’s claim that kids are overprescribed asthma medications, saying it minimizes how many lives the drugs save. Safe treatment protocols for asthma management have been carefully studied over the years, said Dr. Perry Sheffield, a pediatrician and professor at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai. “The […]

A group of renegade GOP state lawmakers whose quarrels with party leaders defined years of Missouri legislative inaction appears to be ripping apart over a plan to fund stadiums for the Chiefs and Royals.  On Friday, state Sen. Rick Brattin stepped down as chairman of the Missouri Freedom Caucus just days after voting in favor […]

Missouri lawmakers have extended a rule allowing retired teachers to serve as substitutes without losing their retirement allowance. This measure is part of efforts to fill classrooms during a statewide teacher shortage. The state legislature first took notice of the issue in 2022, when the COVID-19 pandemic chiseled away at the teacher workforce. They passed […]

Republicans in the Missouri legislature want everyone to know that they are very concerned about protecting children. Not so much the 130 children and teenagers who die from gunfire in an average year. Those deaths, about two-thirds of which are homicides, are unfortunate collateral damage in the race to make firearms ever more accessible in […]

WASHINGTON — Kilmar Abrego Garcia, a Maryland man wrongly deported to his native El Salvador three months ago, was brought back to the U.S. on Friday and will face federal charges, U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi said. Abrego Garcia’s case had become a flashpoint in a debate over what due process rights protect immigrants from […]

WASHINGTON —  Clean energy manufacturers and advocates say they’re perplexed how the repeal of tax credits in President Donald Trump’s “one big beautiful bill” will keep their domestic production lines humming across the United States, particularly in states that elected him to the Oval Office. While some Republicans have labeled the billions in tax credits […]

Over the past few months, Celina Damian’s phone has been ringing off the hook with one bewildered, anxious question after another: “What kind of loan is this?” “Am I in default?” “Will the government really take my wages?” “Sometimes they just don’t know where to start,” said Damian, California’s student loan servicing ombudsperson. “I’m talking […]

Missouri has begun issuing federal food benefits that could reach 475,000 kids this summer.  The first batch of Missouri’s summer food benefits for children was issued on Thursday night, a spokesperson for the Department of Social Services told The Independent Friday. Each eligible child will receive a one-time benefit of $120, loaded onto a card […]

WASHINGTON — The unprecedented increase in immigration starting in 2021 brought extra revenue to states and local governments, but the cost of services for those newly arrived migrants was greater, leading to a net cost of $9.2 billion in 2023, according to a report the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office published Thursday. The roughly 4.3 million immigrants […]

As Congress continues its investigation into the role AI should play in government, members of the House Oversight Committee are questioning the uses and procurement of AI tools for government work, as well as the privacy concerns the technology poses when unregulated. Expert witnesses testified at a June 5 hearing that the federal government is currently […]

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republican Leader John Thune will spend a crucial next few weeks working behind the scenes with other top GOP senators to reshape the party’s “big beautiful bill” — a balancing test accompanied in recent days by incendiary exchanges between President Donald Trump and billionaire Elon Musk over whether the current proposals […]

The Republican budget bill the U.S. House approved last month includes a surprise for the 40 states that have expanded Medicaid: penalties for providing health care to some immigrants who are here legally. Along with punishing the 14 states that use their own funds to cover immigrants who are here illegally, analysts say last-minute changes […]

WASHINGTON — Members of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus pledged Thursday to make more visits to immigration detention centers across the country to carry out oversight of the Trump administration’s crackdown. The members detailed their visits to various detention centers over last week’s recess. Many people they visited in those centers were arrested while attending their […]