MoInd 📰

KANSAS CITY — U.S. Department of Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins announced Thursday plans to boost American farmers by purchasing millions of bushels of crops. In an effort to increase American exports, the USDA will purchase 417,000 metric tons of commodities immediately to support the international food aid programs. That’s equivalent to more than 16 million […]

A group of U.S. investors will take over the massive video-sharing platform TikTok, President Donald Trump said Thursday. Trump signed an executive order certifying a transaction for TikTok complies with a 2024 law requiring the platform’s Chinese parent company, Byte Dance Ltd., divest TikTok or face a ban in the U.S.  The company is valued at […]

WASHINGTON — Attorneys on behalf of a dozen U.S. House Democrats Thursday pushed for a federal judge to force the Trump administration to comply with an appropriations law that allows for unannounced oversight visits at Department of Homeland Security facilities that detain immigrants.   “We don’t know what detention will look like in the future,” said […]

TOPEKA — House Minority Leader Brandon Woodard says there’s no way to sugarcoat results of the November 2024 election that deepened the Republican supermajority in the Kansas House. The idea, from the perspective of Democrats, was to recruit viable candidates to compete in winnable districts so the 85-40 GOP advantage would be reduced by at […]

The courts will determine if the bill revising Missouri’s congressional districts is constitutional, Gov. Mike Kehoe said Thursday after announcing his plans to sign the measure this weekend. Speaking to reporters after an event in Columbia, Kehoe said he felt confident he was on firm legal ground when he called lawmakers into a special session. […]

WASHINGTON — The White House has sent guidance to departments and agencies, telling them that if a shutdown begins Wednesday, they’re expected to institute mass firings and layoffs.  The two-page memo, shared with States Newsroom by a Trump administration official, says any programs that received funding in the “big, beautiful” law will “continue uninterrupted.” But the […]

Half of American states do not have enough funds to pay their bills, according to a new analysis released Thursday.  The nonprofit Truth in Accounting, which advocates for more transparency in public finance, released its Financial State of the States report. It concluded that 25 states were unable to cover all their financial obligations at […]

Earlier this year, some conservative states began to embrace child tax credits that put cash directly into the hands of families raising children. Long favored by liberals, child tax credits can help ease the financial burdens of parenthood and have been shown to slash childhood poverty rates. But despite initial optimism from sponsors and child […]

TOPEKA — Kansas legislators are considering changes to the way the state taxes sports gambling after receiving less than a 1% cut on more than $2.7 billion in bets in the past fiscal year. As the expiration dates for contracts between the state and sports wager operators draw nearer, Kansas is confronting an increasingly complex […]

This story was originally published by ProPublica. After a fight with a Black student in a St. Louis suburb left a white student badly injured in March 2024, Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey blamed their school district for unsafe conditions, even though the incident occurred after classes and more than a half-mile from campus. Bailey […]

Sometimes one event brings clarity to other, more ambiguous, actions. ABC’s indefinite suspension of Jimmy Kimmel is such an event. By threatening ABC over a comedian’s on-air comments, Federal Communications Commission chairman Brendan Carr violated core First Amendment limits on the government. And this event is simply the latest example of a playbook that has […]

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has canceled a report that hunger-fighting organizations say was “essential” data to see the results of federal and local policies aimed at ending hunger.  USDA, in a news release about the decision said the reports were “redundant, costly, politicized” and did “nothing more than fear monger.” Paige Chickering, vice chair […]

A majority of children in the United States rely on Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program at some point by their 18th birthday, and many experience periods of coverage loss, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal JAMA. By their 18th birthday, about 3 in 4 children nationwide relied on Medicaid, CHIP […]

A new law that gave Missouri’s attorney general the sole power to appeal preliminary injunctions is unconstitutional, a Cole County judge ruled Tuesday. “Access to courts, including the right to appeal, is a fundamental right for the purposes of equal rights and opportunity under the law,” Circuit Judge Daniel Green wrote. This law, he said, […]

Attorneys representing transgender minors, their loved ones and physicians who provide gender-affirming care say a circuit court judge’s decision to uphold the state’s gender-affirming-care restrictions was “permeated by legal and factual errors.” In oral arguments in the Missouri Supreme Court Wednesday morning, Lambda Legal attorney Nora Huppert said the November judgment “relies on evidence that […]

Members of a special House committee talked Tuesday through a multitude of potential solutions to relieve the tax burden facing Missourians. “The committee’s goal is to find common sense reforms and solutions that will protect homeowners, promote economic stability and share capability,” said Rep. Tim Taylor, R-Bunceton, chair of the Special Interim Committee on Property […]

TOPEKA — The U.S. Department of Justice on Tuesday joined a private prison company in its legal fight with Leavenworth, Kansas, city officials, accusing the city of “aggressive and unlawful” interference with immigration enforcement. The DOJ filed a statement of interest in the case in U.S. District Court, signed by the assistant U.S. attorney general’s […]

With national anxieties over the state of democracy and National Guard troops deployed to the city, the Congressional Black Caucus began its conference Wednesday in a neighborhood center. Elected officials and community leaders have called for unity and urgency to fight President Donald Trump’s agenda that has struck down diversity, equity and inclusion policies, detained immigrants […]

When President Donald Trump signed an executive order last month threatening to withhold federal funding from states and localities that have adopted “cashless bail” policies, he escalated a national fight over how courts decide who should remain behind bars before trial. The move has already rippled into state capitols. In North Carolina, Republican lawmakers are […]

Education and business leaders shaping Missouri’s public school funding formula are hoping to rework the way the state funds students with higher needs. The Missouri School Funding Modernization Task Force’s four working groups held their initial meetings Tuesday and last Wednesday, and there were some common themes in their discussions. During Tuesday’s meetings of the […]