MoInd 📰

Officials in blue states are vowing to build a “firewall” of reproductive health protections as they anticipate federal and state attacks on abortion access under the Trump administration. “We’re going on offense,” Connecticut Attorney General William Tong, a Democrat, told Stateline. “We are in an unprecedented war on American women and patients. State attorneys general, […]

Americans hand over a huge chunk of their paycheck for a roof over their heads. Policymakers are looking out for indications of what President-elect Donald Trump plans to do to ease housing costs next year after an election where voters were laser-focused on the economy. Housing accounted for 32.9% of consumers’ spending in 2023, making it the […]

Donald Trump announced that loyalist Pam Bondi is his pick for the next U.S. Attorney General. From 2011 to 2019, Bondi served as the Attorney General of Florida. In early 2020, Bondi was one of then-President Donald Trump’s defense lawyers during his first impeachment trial. Later that year, Bondi repeated unsubstantiated claims by Trump that there had […]

WASHINGTON — Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst began proposing ways to cut government spending to the Trump team this weekend, but she’ll need to convince her colleagues in Congress if her ideas are going to have any chance of taking effect — like ending the manufacture of pennies and nickels and curbing overpayments for Pentagon […]

An attorney and former elected official in Independence connected to two Independence utility projects that faced years of FBI scrutiny pleaded guilty Monday to federal tax evasion.  John C. Carnes, 69, was indicted by a federal grand jury in 2022 and charged with one count of tax evasion, one count of corruptly endeavoring to obstruct […]

Every public pension program in Missouri should adopt policies against making political contributions from retirement funds, State Treasurer Vivek Malek wrote in a letter sent Monday to system managers. In the letter, Malek wrote that contributions this fall by funds set up to pay pensions for sheriffs and prosecutors to the campaign committee promoting passage […]

Missouri’s restrictions on puberty blockers and hormone treatment for transgender minors are constitutional and may remain in place, Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter wrote in a 74-page ruling Monday. Soon after the ruling became public, the ACLU of Missouri and Lambda Legal promised to appeal. The state’s restrictions on gender-affirming care, passed by […]

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump’s pledge to get rid of the U.S. Department of Education will be far easier said than done. As Trump seeks to redefine U.S. education policy, the complex logistics, bipartisan congressional approval and redirection of federal programs required make dismantling the department a challenging — not impossible — feat. It’s an effort […]

The latest round of student test scores show fewer Missouri public school districts and charter schools in jeopardy of losing accreditation, though this year’s data won’t immediately affect how schools are graded. Based on annual performance report scores released Monday for the sixth iteration of the Missouri School Improvement Program, or MSIP6, there were 343 […]

Supporting Amendment 3 was never an option for Justice Gatson. As the leader of the Reale Justice Network, a reproductive justice organization based in Kansas City, she had a simple explanation for her decision: the amendment didn’t go far enough in expanding abortion access. So when voters approved Amendment 3 — which lifts Missouri’s near-total […]

When my dad was a kid, his favorite baseball player Roberto Clemente couldn’t stay at the same hotels or eat at the same restaurants with his white teammates when the Pittsburgh Pirates were on the road. Only seven years before I was born, women demanded and won their right to bodily autonomy at the U.S. […]

Some venture capital investors, who have funded the tech boom in Silicon Valley and beyond, say they are excited by the prospect of a lighter regulatory environment under a new Trump Administration than they saw under President Joe Biden. But they warn that Trump policies that will benefit many technology companies may come at a […]

Trevor Hawkins, an attorney at Legal Aid of Arkansas, remembers how busy his job got when the state for a time imposed work requirements on Medicaid recipients: His office was swamped with frantic phone calls from people who said they couldn’t comply with the new rule because they weren’t healthy enough to work or had […]

The 2024 election results created complicated new realities for reproductive rights in the U.S., with Americans even in a few red states overwhelmingly voting to protect the right to have an abortion while also overwhelmingly electing anti-abortion representatives in state houses, courts, Congress and the White House. With a Republican trifecta coming to the nation’s capital in […]

Republicans are currently on track to win control of the presidency, the U.S. House of the Representatives, and the U.S. Senate — which is sometimes referred to as a trifecta. This does not mean that Republicans will have an easy time keeping Donald Trump’s many campaign promises. Under the rules of the Senate, if just […]

President-elect Donald Trump ordered congressional Republicans on Wednesday to block a broadly popular bill to protect press freedoms, likely ending any chance of the U.S. Senate clearing the legislation. The measure would limit federal law enforcement surveillance of journalists and the government’s ability to force disclosure of journalists’ sources, codifying regulations the Department of Justice has […]

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald Trump said Thursday evening he plans to nominate former Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi as his newest pick for U.S. attorney general. Trump’s announcement came just hours after another Floridian, former Congressman Matt Gaetz, withdrew as Trump’s expected nominee for the country’s top law enforcement job. Gaetz was tapped to be nominated […]

The trustees of Missouri’s largest state employee retirement system voted Thursday to prohibit the use of pension funds for political contributions. The Missouri State Employees Retirement System board, responding to donations made this year by two smaller systems, made it the responsibility of the executive director to make sure money doesn’t flow into campaigns for […]

WASHINGTON — Former Florida Congressman Matt Gaetz announced Thursday he’s withdrawing as President-elect Donald Trump’s planned nominee for attorney general days after securing the appointment. Gaetz’s path to Senate confirmation was highly unlikely following years of investigations about alleged drug usage and payments for sex, including with an underage girl. He submitted his resignation to […]

WASHINGTON —  The 2025-26 form to apply for federal student aid is now available to all students and families, the U.S. Department of Education said Thursday. The department used a staggered approach to launch the 2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid — better known as FAFSA — to address any issues before the form became available […]