The Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump, on Tuesday, Oct. 15, spoke to the Economic Club of Chicago. In this photo, he speaks to attendees during a campaign rally at the Mosack Group warehouse on Sept. 25 in Mint Hill, North Carolina (Brandon Bell/Getty Images).

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump defended his plans for steep tariffs on Tuesday, arguing economists who say that those higher costs would get passed onto consumers are incorrect and that his proposals would benefit American manufacturing.

During an argumentative hour-long interview with Bloomberg Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait hosted by the Economic Club of Chicago, Trump vehemently denied tariffs on certain imported goods would lead to further spikes in inflation and sour America’s relationship with allies, including those in Europe.

“The higher the tariff, the more likely it is that the company will come into the United States, and build a factory in the United States so it doesn’t have to pay the tariff,” Trump said.

Micklethwait questioned Trump about what would happen to consumer prices during the months or even years it would take companies to build factories in the United States and hire workers.

Trump responded that he could make tariffs “so high, so horrible, so obnoxious that they’ll come right away.” Earlier during the interview, Trump mentioned placing tariffs on foreign-made products as high as 100% or 200%.

Smoot-Hawley memories

Micklethwait noted during the interview that 40 million jobs and 27% of gross domestic product within the United States rely on trade, questioning how tariffs on those products would help the economy.

He also asked Trump if his plans for tariffs could lead the country down a similar path to the one that followed the Smoot-Hawley tariff law becoming law in June 1930. Signed by President Herbert Hoover, some historians and economists have linked the law to the beginning of the Great Depression.

Trump disagreed with Micklethwait, though he didn’t detail why his proposals to increase tariffs on goods from adversarial nations as well as U.S. allies wouldn’t begin a trade war.

The U.S. Senate’s official explainer on the Smoot-Hawley tariffs describes the law as being “among the most catastrophic acts in congressional history.” And the Congressional Research Services notes in a report on U.S. tariff policy that it was the last time lawmakers set tariff rates.

Desmond Lachman, senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative-leaning think tank, wrote last month that Trump’s proposal to implement tariffs of at least 60% on goods imported from China as well as 10 to 20% on all other imports could have severe economic consequences.

“It is difficult to see how such a unilateral trade policy in flagrant violation of World Trade Organization rules would not lead to retaliation by our trade partners with import tariff increases of their own,” Lachman wrote. “As in the 1930s, that could lead us down the destructive path of beggar-my-neighbor trade policies that could cause major disruption to the international trade system. Such an occurrence would be particularly harmful to our export industries and would heighten the chances of both a US and worldwide economic recession.”

CRS notes in its reports that while the Constitution grants Congress the authority to establish tariffs, lawmakers have given the president some authority over it as well.

The United States’ membership in the World Trade Organization and various other trade agreements also have “tariff-related commitments,” according to CRS.

“For more than 80 years, Congress has delegated extensive tariff-setting authority to the President,” the CRS report states. “This delegation insulated Congress from domestic pressures and led to an overall decline in global tariff rates. However, it has meant that the U.S. pursuit of a low-tariff, rules-based global trading system has been the product of executive discretion. While Congress has set negotiating goals, it has relied on Presidential leadership to achieve those goals.”

The presidency and the Fed

Trump said during the interview that he believes the president should have more input into whether the Federal Reserve raises or lowers interest rates, though he didn’t answer a question about keeping Jerome Powell as the chairman through the end of his term.

“I think I have the right to say I think he should go up or down a little bit,” Trump said. “I don’t think I should be allowed to order it. But I think I have the right to put in comments as to whether or not interest rates should go up or down.”

Trump declined to answer a question about whether he’s spoken with Russian leader Vladimir Putin since leaving office.

“I don’t comment on that,” Trump said. “But I will tell you that if I did, it’s a smart thing. If I’m friendly with people, if I have a relationship with people, that’s a good thing, not a bad thing.”

Journalist Bob Woodward wrote in his new book “War” that Trump and Putin have spoken at least seven times and that Trump secretly sent Putin COVID-19 tests during the pandemic, which the Kremlin later confirmed, according to several news reports.

Trump said the presidential race will likely come down to Pennsylvania, Michigan and possibly Arizona.

The Economic Club of Chicago has also invited Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris for a sit-down interview.

Grain Belt will be constructed by Chicago-based Invenergy and be a 5,000 megawatt line to move wind-derived power from western Kansas to the Indiana border (Getty Images).

Chariton County cannot block construction of the Grain Belt Express electric transmission line by refusing permission to cross county roads, the Missouri Western District Court of Appeals ruled Tuesday.

The county can establish rules for how the transmission line crosses its roads, the court ruled as it modified a trial court decision that said the county could make no regulations at all.

“The decision as to whether Grain Belt’s overhead transmission lines for the project would be constructed across Chariton County’s public roads was already made by the (Missouri Public Service Commission) when it issued its Report and Order on Remand granting the (certificate of convenience and necessity) and approving the final proposed route of the project,” Judge Lisa White Hardwick wrote in the unanimous decision of the three-judge panel.

Grain Belt will be constructed by Chicago-based Invenergy and be a 5,000 megawatt line to move wind-derived power from western Kansas to the Indiana border. Half the power it carries will be delivered to Missouri utilities.

At first welcomed by many of the counties it will cross in north Missouri, the line has become controversial with complaints about aesthetics, whether high-voltage lines cause health issues and the power of the Public Service Commission to grant eminent domain power to obtain land for construction.

Republican legislators and agricultural groups tried repeatedly to strip Grain Belt’s right of eminent domain, which would have killed the project. But in 2022, lawmakers passed compromise legislation requiring, in the event of future large transmission lines, greater compensation for landowners and setting a seven-year time limit for companies to build transmission lines after obtaining their easements. 

Grain Belt’s disagreements with Chariton County began in 2014, Hardwick wrote in the decision, two years after it had initially received consent from the Chariton County Commission to cross its county-owned roads. Chariton County withdrew its consent and made it contingent upon the PSC approving the project.

When it received initial approval from the PSC, Grain Belt’s owners tried to negotiate with Chariton County. When it refused again to give its consent, the lawsuit followed.

Associate Circuit Judge Daren Adkins, assigned to the case from Daviess County, ruled that a state law barring counties from adopting ordinances “governing” utilities within their boundaries meant that an older law, requiring utilities to obtain consent from utilities to go “through, on, under or across” its roads could not be enforced.

The decision Tuesday modified that ruling. The law prohibiting an ordinance governing a utility is designed to protect against local rules that are in conflict with state rules, the court said.

But it doesn’t mean the law requiring consent to cross a road doesn’t have any effect, Hardwick wrote. The county can set standards but it cannot withhold its consent, she wrote.

“A fair interpretation is that (law) requires a county commission’s agreement regarding how a utility’s infrastructure will be constructed across the county’s public roads,” she wrote “not whether such utility’s infrastructure will be constructed across the county’s public roads in the first place.”

Overall utility policy is set at the state level, not the county level, she wrote.

“Doing so usurps the authority granted the MPSC in Chapter 386,” she wrote, “and exercises a power granted to the county in a manner contrary to the public policy of this state.”

Members of KC Tenants held a picket event outside Quality Hill Towers on Oct. 4 (Mili Mansaray/The Beacon).

Nearly 200 tenants launched a rent strike at the start of this month over what they see as intolerable living conditions at two large apartment buildings in Kansas City and Independence.

The renters at Quality Hill Towers and Independence Towers are demanding better upkeep, repairs, collectively bargained leases and capping annual rent hikes at 3% across the country for buildings backed with federally secured loans.

The Beacon has put together a guide breaking down who’s involved, what tenants want and what’s at stake.

When was the last tenant strike in Kansas City?

The last high-profile rent strike in Kansas City came in August 1980. More than 500 residents withheld their rent for four days to demand new management at Vista Del Rio retirement complex.

Where can I report issues in my rental unit?

Tenants in Kansas City, Missouri, can report maintenance problems to the city’s Healthy Homes Rental Inspection Program by calling 311 or 816-513-6464 or at the city Health Department at 2400 Troost Ave. Healthy Homes covers complaints like water leaks, pests, mold and lack of heating. The Health Department can investigate and issue citations to landlords.

Residents in Independence can report unresolved issues through the city’s Rental Ready Program by completing and submitting a landlord/tenant complaint form to the Community Development Department. You can do this by emailing blicenses@indepmo.org or going to City Hall, 111 E. Maple Ave. A third-party inspector may then check for code violations. However, unresolved issues in approved properties, including Independence Towers, have raised concerns about the program’s effectiveness.

Tenants in buildings assisted by the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development can report issues by calling the Multifamily Housing Complaint Line at 1-800-685-8470.

Do Kansas City tenants have the right to strike?

In Missouri, a tenant has no right to withhold rent in most cases. If a tenant withholds rent payments until repairs are completed, the renter may be in violation of their lease and may be subject to eviction. However, there is a narrow exception that allows tenants to make specific repairs and deduct costs from rent, but only if the following conditions are met:

• The condition affects the sanitation, security or habitability of the property and violates city code. If a landlord disputes that, the tenant will need written verification of the violation from city inspectors.
• The tenant must have lived at the property for at least six consecutive months.
• The tenant must be up-to-date on all rent payments.
• The tenant cannot be in violation of the lease.
• The tenant has provided written notice of the problem to the landlord along with the tenant’s plan to fix it. The landlord then has 14 days to respond.
• If the landlord still does not fix the code violation within 14 days of receiving the notice, the tenant can proceed with repairs. In most cases, costs should be kept below $300 or half a month’s rent, whichever is higher.

If these criteria are not met, withholding rent could make a tenant vulnerable to eviction. However, evictions always require a court order, and tenants have the right to fight eviction in court.

What is Fannie Mae?

Independence Towers and Quality Hill Towers were bought through loans backed by the Federal National Mortgage Association, commonly known as Fannie Mae. Rather than lending directly to homebuyers, Fannie Mae buys loans from banks and other private lenders.

The Federal Housing Finance Agency regulates Fannie Mae by overseeing its policies and ensuring safe conditions in the properties it backs.

In May, Fannie Mae filed a lawsuit against 728 N Jennings Rd Partners LLC., the owner of Independence Towers. A Jackson County judge appointed Trigild Inc. as the receiver in charge of managing the property. Representatives with the FHFA say that Fannie Mae cannot directly instruct the receiver, but it can provide funding and offer guidance on necessary improvements based on its knowledge of the property.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

(Getty stock photo).

First responders work on a victim of an apparent overdose in Albuquerque, N.M., in August. Despite an encouraging national decrease in overdoses, deaths are still rising in many Western states (Tim Henderson/Stateline).

Despite an encouraging national dip in the past year, overdose deaths are still on the rise in many Western states as the epicenter of the nation’s continuing crisis shifts toward the Pacific Coast, where deadly fentanyl and also methamphetamine are finding more victims.

Overdose deaths remain sharply higher since 2019. Many states are working on “harm reduction” strategies that stress cooperation with people who use drugs; in some cases, states are getting tougher on prosecutions, with murder charges for dealers.

Alaska, Nevada, Washington and Oregon have moved into the top 10 for rate of overdose deaths since 2019, according to a Stateline analysis of federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention data. Meanwhile the biggest one-year improvements were in Nebraska (down 30%), North Carolina (down 23%), and Vermont, Ohio and Pennsylvania (all down 19%).

The spread of fentanyl, a synthetic opioid that can cause overdose and death even in tiny amounts, explains much of the east-to-west movement in the number of deaths, said Daliah Heller, vice president of overdose prevention program at Vital Strategies, an international advocacy group that works on strengthening public health.

“Fentanyl really came in through the traditional drug markets in the Northeast, but you can see this steady movement westward,” Heller said. “So now we’re seeing overdoses going up on the West Coast while they’re going down dramatically on the East Coast.”

The provisional CDC data estimates drug overdose deaths in the year ending with April 2024, and nationally they decreased by 10%, with more than 11,000 fewer deaths than the year before. But they’re still rising in 10 states and the District of Columbia, including 42% in Alaska, 22% in Oregon, 18% in Nevada and 14% in Washington state. Deaths climbed by almost 1,300 in those states and others with more modest increases: Colorado, Utah and Hawaii.

Experts are still debating why some Eastern states hit early in the overdose crisis are seeing improvements.

“There’s some kind of improvement spreading from east to west and we don’t know exactly what it is yet. Everybody sees their little piece of the elephant,” said Nabarun Dasgupta, a scientist specializing in opioid disorder and overdose at the University of North Carolina’s Injury Prevention Research Center.

In North Carolina and other states with recent improvements, “it feels like we finally got a lid on the pot, but the pot is still boiling over. Things aren’t really cooling down,” Dasgupta said.

It could be a result of better acceptance of harm reduction policies to help those who use drugs, including no-questions-asked testing of street drugs and providing naloxone to counteract overdoses. Or users may simply be getting more wary of fentanyl and its dangers and unpleasant side effects, Dasgupta said.

“Fentanyl is very potent, but potency isn’t the only thing. Otherwise we’d all be drinking the highest proof IPAs (India pale ales),” Dasgupta said.

Alaska now has the nation’s second-highest rate of drug overdose deaths, about 53 per 100,000 population, behind only West Virginia (73 per 100,000). Other Western states that are now in the top 10: Nevada (47 per 100,000), Washington state (46 per 100,000) and Oregon (45 per 100,000).

The CDC data shows Alaska had the largest increase from 2023 — up 42%, to 390 deaths. Republican Gov. Mike Dunleavy in August 2023 proposed legislation making fentanyl dealers subject to murder charges in overdose death cases, writing: “Drugs and drug overdoses have had a devastating effect on our state.” The legislation was signed into law this year.

In May, the state kicked off “One Pill Can Kill,” a national awareness campaign warning about the dangers of fentanyl.

Fentanyl, mostly in the form of counterfeit 30 mg oxycodone pills, has become tremendously profitable for smugglers in Alaska who make use of airline passengers and air shipments of other products to get drugs into the state, said state Department of Public Safety spokesperson Austin McDaniel. Pills that sell for less than $1 near the U.S. southern border with Mexico can fetch $20 in Alaska, McDaniel said.

“We want to make the dealers think twice about targeting Alaska,” said Alaska state Rep. Craig Johnson, an Anchorage Republican, who supported the bill signed into law July 12.

Johnson’s 23-year-old nephew died of a fentanyl overdose two years ago. “This is personal. I don’t want other Alaska families to go through what we went through. I hope we never have to use it, because that will mean nobody else died.”

Other state and federal authorities are also trying a more punitive approach to the fentanyl crisis: Under a state program in Wisconsin meant to ferret out suppliers, three people were arrested in September and charged with first-degree reckless homicide in the fentanyl overdose death of a 27-year-old man. In Michigan, two men pleaded guilty this month to federal charges in a mass fentanyl poisoning that led to at least six deaths.

Such punitive approaches can backfire, experts say, if they drive people toward more dangerous solitary drug use — where no one can see an overdose and try to help — and away from programs such as free testing to unearth fentanyl hidden in other drugs.

“It’s sort of nonsensical, like saying you can beat something out of people. People are still going to use drugs,” said Heller, of Vital Strategies. “This should be a call to action to wake up and really invest in a response to drug use as a health issue.”

In Nevada, health authorities in the Las Vegas area are stressing more cooperation with residents who use drugs, increasing naloxone distribution and encouraging people to submit their drug purchases for testing so they’re not surprised by counterfeit heroin, methamphetamine or other drugs that are increasingly cut with cheaper fentanyl, said Jessica Johnson, health education supervisor for the Southern Nevada Health District.

A state office coordinates goals for county naloxone distribution based on factors such as hospital reports of overdoses. More overdoses trigger more naloxone distribution to community centers, clinics, entertainment venues and even vending machines.

One puzzle in Nevada and in other states is that increasingly, overdoses involve a combination of opioids, such as fentanyl, along with stimulants such as methamphetamine. Almost a third of overdoses in Nevada are caused by both being used together, according to a state report based on 2022 data.

It could be that some people seek the “roller coaster of effects using a stimulant like methamphetamine and a depressant like fentanyl or heroin,” Jessica Johnson said, but mostly she hears that unsuspecting users get cocaine or methamphetamine that’s been cut with cheaper fentanyl.

“We get people saying, ‘Oh I don’t need naloxone because I don’t use fentanyl,’ and our team is able to say, ‘Well, our surveillance data actually suggests there might be fentanyl in your methamphetamine’ or whatever it is.”

Nationally, both drugs are increasingly a factor in fatal overdoses: Synthetic opioids such as fentanyl contributed to 68% of overdose deaths in this year’s CDC data, up from 48% in 2019. Stimulants such as methamphetamine were factors in 35% of deaths, up from 20% in 2019.

Heroin and other partly natural opioids, such as oxycodone, have diminished as factors, together accounting for 13% of deaths in the latest data compared with 40% in 2019.

Some experts theorize that the high potency of fentanyl makes those who use drugs want to tweak or balance the effect with methamphetamine. Fentanyl itself is often cut with xylazine, a non-opioid animal tranquilizer — often known as “tranq” — that can cause unpleasant side effects, including extreme sedation and skin lesions, Dasgupta said.

“During the pandemic, there were a lot of reasons why people were using substances more. Now that things are different, people are tired of the adulteration, the sedation, the skin wounds,” Dasgupta said. “People may take lower doses, and that in itself can help lower overdoses.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

Michael Bushnell stands near the planned site of a state psychiatric hospital in Kansas City's historic Northeast. Bushnell, a longtime resident of the Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood and former publisher of the Northeast News newspaper, wants the hospital to be built somewhere else and said neighbors were promised a different plan for developing the site (Vaughn Wheat/The Beacon).

Residents in Kansas City’s historic Northeast neighborhood say plans for a state psychiatric hospital on the site of a former housing project and city park clash with plans for revitalizing their community.

They’re losing patience with efforts to base ever more social services near their homes that they fear could make their streets a dumping ground for the city’s problems.

“This will define one of our most important intersections, and I don’t know if defining it this way is healthy,” said Kate Barsotti, an artist and former president of the Columbus Park Community Council. “Is that shallow? Maybe. Could be. But I do understand people feeling sandbagged and disrespected and betrayed.”

Meanwhile, the city, the state and University Health (formerly Truman Medical Center) see the psychiatric facility as an economic boon and a key part of what the region needs to deal with growing mental health demands.

The Missouri Department of Mental Health estimates the hospital could open in late 2027 or early 2028 — if everything moves smoothly. And the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development could be a significant stumbling block to the plan.

Serving the courts

The roughly 20-acre parcel eyed for the psychiatric hospital used to be Belvidere Park and Chouteau Courts, a public housing complex. The tract is near the intersection of The Paseo and Independence Avenue.

In June 2020, the Housing Authority of Kansas City, Missouri, finished demolishing the crumbling Chouteau Courts. The demolition came as part of the sweeping Paseo Gateway community revitalization project, funded through a $30 million grant from HUD.

The new psychiatric hospital would be a one-level, 300,000-square-foot building on a triangular parcel between The Paseo to the east and Interstate 35 to the west. The new hospital would have 200 beds and generally serve the western half of the state.

In tandem with the state’s Center for Behavioral Medicine, which is located on Hospital Hill, the new psychiatric hospital would take on a growing statewide backlog of more than 350 criminal defendants languishing in local jails as they await mental health treatment.

Judges have ordered those inmates into the care of the department to see if it can restore their competency to stand trial, but DMH has nowhere to treat those people (with limited exceptions). DMH Director Valerie Huhn said the waiting list could reach 500 people by the end of this year.

The department said about one-fifth of the pending cases fall in the Kansas City region. It already operates 65 competency-restoration beds (intended to get defendants mentally well enough to stand trial) at the Center for Behavioral Medicine. The new hospital would boost that total to 100 beds while those at the existing facility would be repurposed.

University Health would use the other beds for short-term psychiatric treatment generally lasting two weeks or less. Patients would get psychiatric care medication management and referrals to outpatient programs. The health system would reserve 25 of its beds for referrals from the Kansas City Municipal Court or other providers in the city.

University Health would also operate a psychiatric emergency department at the hospital, something law enforcement turns to avoid taking them to a conventional emergency room or jail.

University Health closed its psychiatric emergency department in 2015, but Chief Executive Officer Charlie Shields said it faces fewer regulatory hurdles in operating as part of a psychiatric hospital.

Critically, it lightens the load for the Center for Behavioral Medicine so it can concentrate on long-term care that can average stays of nine years for treating conditions like schizophrenia or bipolar disorder.

A psychiatric emergency room “allows us to catch people before they get to a point of committing a crime, especially in that Jackson County area,” Huhn said, “and then give them … resources so that they don’t commit crimes and have to go through this whole process.”

Huhn and others tout the safety of the proposed new hospital. It will have a perimeter fence. Patient units will be locked. In that way, it will operate like similar state facilities near residential areas in other parts of the state.

Supporters also say the hospital will offer additional training to area medical programs. It will also open more inpatient beds and fix some of the problems created decades ago when mental health care shifted to community-based care while failing to create enough psychiatric support outside institutions.

At the same time, they see the hospital as an economic jump-start to the surrounding area.

Projections include 600-plus health care jobs (from entry-level to physicians and nurses), an annual boost of $60 million to the area economy, and the bump associated with a $300 million construction project.

Overall, the project is “an exceptional idea and way in which we can better utilize our land in a way that would be beneficial for our community more broadly,” said Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas. “This shows that this is a new day on Independence, Paseo and lots of streets many Kansas Citians don’t think about enough.”

Choice neighborhoods

Those thoroughfares were in the limelight in September 2015.

HUD Secretary Julian Castro came to town then to announce a federal grant to Kansas City to tear down the Chouteau Courts public housing project and support the Paseo Gateway District. The housing authority relocated the last of the Chouteau Courts residents to seven new developments in June.

Meanwhile, a range of nonprofit and government agencies have been working to revitalize the neighborhood. Plans included a mix of affordable single-family homes and apartments alongside commercial developments and a public space for community events.

Barsotti, the Columbus Park artist, and Michael Bushnell, a longtime resident of the Scarritt Renaissance neighborhood and former publisher of the Northeast News newspaper, fume that the psychiatric hospital will dash those dreams.

What’s more, the psychiatric hospital project comes on the heels of a city plan to establish a low-barrier homeless shelter at Hope Faith Homeless Assistance Campus at 705 Virginia Ave.

“There needs to be a big ‘no.’ Not here. Go somewhere else,” Bushnell said. “We were promised a completely different development for Chouteau Court. … That’s the plan that needs to be followed.”

Shields said he received positive feedback about the psychiatric center from residents who attended a community information meeting held in August. But detractors said that instead of gathering input, the meeting organizers informed attendees about a done deal.

HUD’s role

HUD could throw a wrench into the financial plans for the psychiatric hospital by requiring the housing authority to sell the former Chouteau Courts property for full market value.

The construction plan assumes the state will acquire the property at little or no cost.

Chouteau Courts was appraised at $1.6 million this year. Any potential environmental cleanup costs would be deducted from that value, said housing authority Executive Director Edwin Lowndes.

Lowndes said paperwork could be submitted to HUD in time for a decision from the agency by the end of November.

HUD can approve a sale for less than market value if it decides the deal has a public good, typically more public housing or projects that benefit people living in public housing. Lucas said the groundbreaking could come early next year.

The mayor acknowledged that residents have been frustrated about the start-and-stop nature of various proposals for the neighborhood. But he said such projects are inherently complicated and don’t always follow original plans.

Barsotti said any lack of follow-through breeds disillusionment.

“It’s really hard,” she said, “to tell people to keep engaging with your city government when it doesn’t seem to work, when they can’t trust what they’re told, when they don’t understand what they’re told, or there’s no time to deal with a big change.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Isle of Capri casino in Boonville, owned by Caesars Entertainment, has contributed $4.7 million to the campaign to defeat Amendment 2, which would legalize sports wagering in Missouri (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

It’s time to bet the over-under on how much will be spent this year on gambling ballot measures in Missouri.

A good mark might be $60 million. Online bookies poured $32 million so far into the Amendment 2 campaign to legalize sports betting, and a casino company grumpy about the deal countered with $14 million to defeat it.

The campaign for Amendment 5, to authorize a new casino at the Lake of the Ozarks, adds $9.4 million — bringing the total to more than $55 million. 

Winning for Missouri Education, the Amendment 2 campaign funded by DraftKings and FanDuel, has already set a record for the most money donated to a ballot measure campaign. The previous record was $31 million raised by supporters of a 2006 proposal to protect stem cell research. 

The initiative campaign began with vocal support from major professional sports teams but none have contributed any cash for the effort.

“It is a large state, with a lot of TV markets, so it certainly takes resources to get your message out,” said Jack Cardetti, spokesman for the campaign. “But the most important thing is that you have a good message and a good initiative for voters.”

Caesars Entertainment is the casino company that dislikes the proposal enough to spend big against it. Caesars employs 2,000 people in Missouri and has a branded online sports betting platform that competes with FanDuel and DraftKings. 

The proposal will mainly benefit the online platforms that have no significant presence in the state, said Brooke Foster, spokeswoman for Missourians Against the Deceptive Online Gambling Amendment.

“Obviously they’re not opposed to sports betting,” she said of Caesars’ opposition to Amendment 2. “If it were written in a way that would actually benefit Missouri and Missourians in a more substantial way, it would be different.”

The Amendment 5 campaign cost is being split between Bally’s Corp., which hopes to get the new license, and developer RIS Inc., which holds the land to build it.

“For us, without any organized opposition that we’re aware of, it’s simply a matter of educating the voters about what our amendment does,” said Ed Rhode, a consultant working with the YesOn5 committee. “And what we’re seeing is the more educated they become about this issue, the more likely they are to support it.”

Whether the broadcast spending on the gambling measure exceeds spending by statewide candidates would be an interesting side bet. So far, candidates for statewide office have spent $13.1 million on broadcast time, as tracked by The Independent, while the gambling campaigns have spent $13.7 million.

All three major efforts focus their messages on one issue – education funding. 

Winning for Missouri Education promises that sports wagering will net more than $100 million for education programs over the first five years. 

“Legalizing sports betting will generate tens of millions of dollars every year for our classrooms, helping increase teacher pay,” one ad states.

The Caesars-funded opposition challenges the sincerity of that promise, arguing write-offs and other carve-outs mean the result will be insignificant. 

It is “Lottery 2.0,” one ad states.

“Teachers were told the lottery would raise a lot of money for schools, but that didn’t happen,” the ad begins.

The casino at the Lake of the Ozarks is also selling educational benefits and does so by including language directing all the tax money to early childhood literacy programs in public schools.

The $14.3 million estimate for revenue is “53% more funding for childhood literacy across Missouri, without raising taxes,” the campaign’s ad states.

As the election nears, Winning for Missouri Education is adding a new message — sports betting is already occurring and Missouri isn’t getting any benefit. Hundreds of thousands of Missourians already have accounts with online platforms. All it takes to place a legal bet is cross into a state where it is legal — a list that includes every state bordering Missouri except Oklahoma. 

“Let’s fund education is the more effective argument,” said Terry Smith, a political science professor at Columbia College.“The argument that is less explicitly made, but I’ve heard from a lot of people, is that people are going to gamble on sports, and right now Kansas and states that we border are making all the money. Why shouldn’t we get our share?”

Amendment 2

If voters legalize sports betting, the Missouri Gaming Commission could issue up to 14 licenses for online wagers. Six would go to the major sports teams, six would go to the casino operators and two would be reserved for online bookmakers.

Each of the 13 casinos and each of the sports teams could also operate an in-person, retail sports betting operation on their properties.

The push to legalize sports wagering in Missouri began after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the federal law against wagering on sporting events in 2018. More than 35 states have legalized some form of the gambling since the court decision.

In the bill that was the closest lawmakers ever got to a resolution of the issue, there were no licenses for independent online bookmakers like DraftKings or FanDuel. Instead, the online platforms would have had to provide products branded to a sports team or casino.

The online platforms generate the cash. An economic study produced for Winning for Missouri Education estimates that $21.8 billion will be wagered during the first five years after legalization and more than 98% of the bets will be placed online.

That same study pegs the net to the state over that period at $134 million. Revenue in the fifth year is estimated at $38.7 million, about $10 million more than the maximum annual revenue projected by the fiscal note for the ballot measure.

Questioning the quality of those revenue estimates is a major thrust of the opposition campaign. The proposal before voters sets the tax at 10% of the net revenue — the money lost on wagers that don’t pay out.

But before the tax is applied, the operators would be able to deduct promotional giveaways — the inducements such as free bets to join a platform — as well as applicable federal taxes. Before any money gets to education programs, the initiative sets aside $5 million annually to support help for problem gamblers.

The figures presented in the economic study result in an effective tax rate of 1.4% of actual losses in the first year and 6.9% in the fifth year. As Missouri nets $134 million, those figures show the gambling operators would keep $86 million in tax savings due to write-offs.

“We want the state to be getting lots of revenue off this,” Cardetti said. “But to get people over from the illicit sports betting market or from going over to other states, those promotional credits in the early days are important, but they end up netting the state more revenue in the long run.”

Kansas, which legalized sports betting in September 2022, has received $19.4 million in tax revenue on $4.4 billion wagered, according to data from the Kansas Lottery.

The promotional credits would be capped at 25% of the amount wagered, Cardetti noted, a limit that is not in place in Kansas.

The ads that emphasize Missouri could receive no net revenue from sports wagering is based on the fiscal note estimate, Foster said. The range listed there is zero to $28.9 million annually.

“It’s basically taxpayers subsidizing their marketing,” she said. “Because that’s a marketing tool for them to give you $1,000 to match what’s in your account. But then they are, on paper, in the red.”

Caesars opposes the amendment in part because it does not allow the company to offer online platforms branded to its Missouri properties — Harrah’s Kansas City, Isle of Capri in Boonville and Horseshoe St. Louis at Lumiere Place.

“If we’re going to expand, it needs to be a little more equitable, as far as what the companies actually get,” she said. “But also, they have a concern that’s secondary, which is that there may be some fall off on the business that they’re able to do.”

The opposition campaign is just one company whining they don’t get a big enough slice, Cardetti said.

“The opponents of Amendment 2 are flawed, hugely flawed messengers,” Cardetti said. “Most Missourians can see right through a ‘No’ campaign when they realize that it’s almost entirely funded by one of the largest casino companies in the world.”

Amendment 5

If Amendment 5 passes, it would authorize the MIssouri Gaming Commission to issue one new casino license at a location on the Osage River between Bagnell Dam and its confluence with the Missouri River.

The original law authorizing casino gambling, passed in 1992, limited it to locations on the Mississippi and Missouri rivers. An initiative backed by casino operators passed in 2008 to cap the number of licenses at 13, equal to the casinos then existing or licensed for construction.

There’s no guarantee that Bally’s would receive the license or that the location owned by RIS will be awarded the license. But with local backing and everything ready for an application once the measure passes, it has a big head start.

The investment won’t just be a casino, Rhode said. It will be a destination facility at a normally seasonal tourism location, bringing people at otherwise slack times.

“Having a multifaceted tourism attraction at the lake, which includes a casino, a spa, hotel, convention center and other benefits, is going to be a year round economic boon to that region,” he said. “We’re talking $400 million in investment and 500 permanent jobs.”

One casino is almost certain to be built near the lake. The Osage Nation launched a project in 2021 to have a property in Miller County taken into trust as ancestral lands where it could operate a casino and convention center.

Despite the direct challenge from Amendment 5, the tribal government has not tried to stop it.

The fiscal note for Amendment 5 estimates that it would add about $14.3 million to the state treasury each year. Each casino’s net winnings are taxed at 21% and there are no deductions for promotions such as free bets.

The Mark Twain casino in Hannibal has the smallest annual revenue and paid $7 million in fiscal 2024. The Ameristar casino in St. Charles had the largest revenue and paid $58 million.

“This is not us making up a number,” Rhode said. “This is the state auditor assigning this number so that number is what it is. We feel confident in sharing that number.”

The lottery problem

Forty years ago, Missouri also had two gambling proposals on the November ballot.

One established a state lottery, the other authorized parimutuel wagering on horse races. The lottery was passed by lawmakers to follow a move by 10 other states in the early 1980s to authorize lotteries.

The need for new money in education programs was a major selling point for the lottery, Smith said. The nation was coming out of a major recession that had sapped revenues and there was little appetite for raising taxes.

But the bill creating the lottery didn’t earmark the money. Instead, it went into the general revenue fund, where it was only a small portion of the whole. The general revenue fund pays for public schools, higher education, state prisons, Medicaid and a host of other programs.

“If all of a sudden there was an increase in the amount of revenue that was dumped into the K-12 budget and there was no change in the rest of the budget, that’s one thing,” Smith said. “But that history tells us that’s not how it’s going to work.”

The foundation formula is the name of the main state aid program for local schools. When the lottery sold its first ticket, in fiscal 1986, the foundation formula appropriation was $823 million. The following fiscal year, when the lottery contributed $80 million to general revenue, the general revenue transfer to the school fund increased by $73 million.

Throughout the late 1980s, as national figures showed Missouri near the bottom in per-pupil spending and teacher pay, complaints grew that the lottery had not produced the promised results for education.

That led to a 1992 ballot measure earmarking all lottery revenue for education programs. In the first fiscal year that was in effect, the earmarked funds were used for programs supporting minimum teacher salaries and the Career Ladder stipends.

The following year, in fiscal 1995, the foundation formula received its first appropriation of earmarked lottery funds, $33 million. That was about 25% of all lottery revenue that year. The foundation formula appropriation total was $1.4 billion.  

Today all net revenue from bingo, the lottery and casinos is earmarked for education. In the current year’s budget, the lottery is providing $329 million and casino taxes are tapped for $457 million for the $4 billion foundation formula.

Any revenue from Amendment 2 will be an insignificant addition and have no impact on teacher pay, Foster said.

“If you want sports gambling, say that, but don’t put out television ads that have teachers saying teachers are going to get raises,” she said. “We did the math, and even if it was that top $28.9 million, there’s around 900,000 public school kids in Missouri, so that’s 30 bucks a kid.”

Under existing provisions of the constitution, any new revenue from either gambling measure must be used for education programs. The sports wagering amendment does not define which programs the money will support while the Osage River casino proposal adds the earmarking to literacy programs.

The new revenue from sports wagering will make a difference, Cardetti said.

“Not a penny of benefit is going to Missouri, despite the fact that we know thousands of Missourians are already making bets,” he said. “This is the way that we can bring these revenues back to the state of Missouri and regulate something that Missourians are already doing today.”

Election prospects

The good news from history for the promoters of Amendment 2 and Amendment 5 is that Missourians have rarely met a gambling proposal they didn’t like. 

Since 1980, 10 gambling questions have appeared on the ballot and only two — to allow betting on simulcast horse races and authorize a casino at Rockaway Beach on Lake Taneycomo — have been defeated.

In the August St. Louis University/YouGov poll, 50% of voters surveyed said they supported sports wagering after reading the Amendment 2 ballot language while 30% were opposed. The poll did not ask about Amendment 5.

None of the past gambling campaigns had the kind of well-funded opposition that Amendment 2 has drawn. The ads from both sides are filling broadcast airwaves, streaming services and platforms such as YouTube and Facebook.

“We’re using very similar messages that we do on TV and on radio, but now people’s viewing habits are so different and diverse that you’ve got to go meet people where they are,” Cardetti said.

The anti campaign is having an impact, Foster said. 

“It’s definitely tightened,” she said. “It’s margin of error type close, so we’re really pleased to see that.”

The opposition ads clearly state the target is Amendment 2 but the message of skepticism about gambling revenue going to education is having a spillover effect on Amendment 5.

“I bet that they don’t like us or our messaging,” she said.

The opposition to Amendment 2 is making backers of Amendment 5 work harder, Rhode said.

“We’re definitely seeing a little bit of confusion among the voters,” he said. “But the more that we are out there educating voters, you know, sort of what this amendment does, we find the support coming our way.”

The message that the six major professional sports teams back Amendment 2, and that it will keep revenue at home, is just being rolled out to supplement the education message. 

“It makes absolutely zero sense that we have a public policy in the state of Missouri that actively pushes people to go spend money in other states,” Cardetti said.

The opposition campaign would have a tougher sell if that was the message to promote sports wagering from the beginning, Foster said.

“That would be much stronger,” she said. “But the argument ‘let’s make gambling more accessible” is going to hit a lot more roadblocks than ‘let’s give this free money to kids.’”

There are downsides to sports wagering that have not been part of the debate. Earlier this month, The Guardian reported on threats and abuse targeting college athletes who don’t achieve the individual statistics that are fodder for wagers.

And Smith said he’s not entirely comfortable with the bet-from-anywhere nature of sports wagering.

“I’ve observed a lot of young people who are addicted to their phones,” Smith said. “And you know, this is one more piece of candy for them that they might not be able to resist.”

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley speaks to reporters aat the governor's ham breakfast at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia on Aug. 15 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

One of Josh Hawley’s favorite lines of attack during his first run for U.S. Senate in 2018 was to lambaste his Democratic opponent for using a private jet to travel the state. 

“I say, ‘Look, I’m driving everywhere, why don’t you drive?’ She can’t do it,” Hawley told Politico during the 2018 campaign about then-Sen. Claire McCaskill. “She’s totally addicted to her luxury lifestyle.”

Six years later, as Hawley seeks a second term, the attack is being turned back against him. 

Lucas Kunce, the Democratic candidate for Senate, is pouncing on videos being circulated by his campaign of Hawley boarding a Gulfstream IV SP to hopscotch the state last week for rallies with Kansas City Chiefs kicker Harrison Butker. 

The three-stop tour with Butker, Kunce said, was the senator’s first event in Missouri in weeks.

“Missouri’s flyover country for this guy,” Kunce said at a campaign rally in Jefferson City on Saturday. By contrast, Kunce says he’s traveling to campaign events in a minivan with his wife and 16-month-old son. 

It’s a familiar knock on Hawley, who even as he was hammering McCaskill in 2018 over private planes still accepted a $6,000 charter jet flight as an in-kind donation from a Jefferson City lobbyist. 

But Hawley’s use of chartered jets began to increase last December, according to his most recent disclosure filed with the Federal Elections Commission in July. Hawley’s campaign spent more than $132,000 on chartered flights between mid-December and June. The largest expenses were $23,000 on March 19 and $21,000 on Feb. 6 to Air Charter Advisors.

The next round of campaign disclosure reports are due this week. 

Responding to the criticism, Hawley’s campaign pivoted to its attack on an essay Kunce wrote in 2021 making the case that the U.S. needed to end its reliance on fossil fuels for the sake of national security.

“We get it,” Abigail Jackson, Hawley’s spokeswoman, said in an email to The Independent. “Kunce has made it clear he hates all vehicles that run on gas and diesel.”

Hawley and Kunce are entering the final weeks of a contentious fight for Missouri’s U.S. Senate seat. 

Every public poll has shown Hawley in the lead, and national Democrats have largely ignored the race. But Kunce has run a populist campaign fueled by millions of small-dollar donations that have allowed him to go toe-to-toe with Hawley in television ad spending. 

Since the August primary, Kunce’s campaign has spent more than $6 million on television advertising, according to FEC records analyzed by The Independent. 

Hawley’s campaign has spent $3.9 million, while an independent PAC supporting his re-election, Show Me Strong, has spent roughly $1.9 million. 

Kunce, a Marine veteran, paints Hawley as an out-of-touch plutocrat that’s he’s dubbed “Posh Josh” who only is running for Senate to benefit himself and his future political aspirations.

“While I spent 13 years in and out of war zones overseas, Josh Hawley and his political buddies were literally waging war on the people I’d signed up to serve right here at home,” Kunce told a rally of supporters at the Marine Corps League in Jefferson City Saturday. “And that’s not a hyperbole.”

Hawley, who served as Missouri attorney general for two years before joining the Senate, has portrayed Kunce as a radical on issues like immigration and LGBTQ rights. And he’s worked to tie Kunce to national Democrats in a state where Republicans have won every statewide election since 2018. 

“We have to save our country,” Hawley told a crowd of supporters in Parkville on Thursday. “We are in crisis. This country is in crisis. It’s in chaos. And you and I know why that’s true. It’s in crisis because of the policies of my opponent, Lucas Kunce.”

Hawley’s campaign has repeatedly demanded Kunce state who he supports in the upcoming presidential election, something he has steadfastly refused to do. 

“Now will he answer a simple question on the presidential election?” said Jackson, Hawley’s spokeswoman. “Is he voting for Trump or Kamala?” 

Kunce says he won’t answer the question because it’s an effort by Hawley to distract voters and nationalize the race. 

And he claims Hawley’s motivation is fear.

“He sees us coming for him,” Kunce said. “He knows he’s unlikable and he knows he is on the wrong side of every single issue.”

The Independent’s Anna Spoerre contributed to this story. 

Dave Wasinger (photo submitted)

For more evidence of Missouri’s drift to the far side of MAGA madness, look no further than the race for lieutenant governor.

In the primary election, Republican voters turned aside Lincoln Hough, the veteran senator and state budget expert. They rejected Holly Thompson Rehder, a state senator with a compelling biography and rock-solid conservative values. They ignored two other lesser-known candidates. 

They chose a St. Louis lawyer who, in the campaign’s final weeks, crashed into public awareness with aggressive TV ads promising to drain the swamp and say “adios, amigos” to illegal immigrants who venture into Missouri. 

In one commercial, David Wasinger stood outside of the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, swore allegiance to Donald Trump and proclaimed himself “the only pro-Trump Republican” in the lieutenant governor’s race.

In reality, Wasinger wasn’t even the only Trump-endorsed Republican in the race. He shared that distinction with Rehder. 

But Wasinger was, assuredly, the most Trump-like Republican in the field.

Many people scratched their heads after the primary and asked, “Who is David Wasinger?” Not me. I was a journalist keeping an eye on the University of Missouri system back around 2005 when then-Gov. Matt Blunt appointed Wasinger to the Board of Curators.

According to newspaper accounts at the time (most of which I found behind paywalls or in library archives), Wasinger and another curator bombarded Elson Floyd, then the system president, with demands and inquiries that looked like micromanagement. 

“The board has dipped into everything from what classes should be taught to whether condoms should be sold in dormitories,” The Kansas City Star reported in 2007, around the time that Floyd, the only Black educator ever to lead the university system, announced he had accepted a job in the state of Washington.

Faculty and student leaders speculated that interference from the curators, and Wasinger in particular, was a factor in Floyd’s unexpected departure. 

While on the board of a university system dedicated to affirmative action, Wasinger provided legal advice to a group seeking a ballot measure to dismantle affirmative action.

When an interim university system president issued a strong statement on behalf of a controversial form of stem cell research, Wasinger reproached the academic leader and forwarded him a message he’d received from an unnamed correspondent comparing embryonic stem cell research to Nazi experimentations.

He ridiculed the queer theory classes taught in the university system and was overheard joking to another curator about “putting on a grass skirt and having a lap dance,” according to reports.

Wasinger’s exploits, which took place between 2005 and 2011, seem tame in today’s political landscape. If Missouri Republican primary voters had known more about his stint as a curator they likely would have nominated Wasinger by a larger margin than the 1% of votes that separated him and Hough, his closest contender.

The point is, Wasinger was a disrupter, a bully and an anti-woke crusader years before those traits became prerequisites for a winning Republican ticket in Missouri.  

In 2012, soon after he left the Board of Curators, Wasinger received a phone call from a business acquaintance. The man was an executive at Bank of America’s Countrywide unit and he asked Wasinger to represent him as he went public with allegations of massive mortgage fraud.

Wasinger had no experience with whistleblower cases, but he took this one and the gamble paid off big. Bank of America was found liable in federal court in New York for selling defective mortgage loans to government-backed agencies. Wasinger’s client collected more than $57 million under a federal law that rewards people for disclosing fraud against the government. 

A year later, Wasinger filed a case on behalf of a whistleblower alleging fraud by JPMorgan Chase & Co. That client collected $63.9 million. 

“I am just a country lawyer from Missouri trying to hold Wall Street accountable,” Wasinger told Reuters in 2014. 

Put another way, he was the sole owner of a small St. Louis law firm destined to receive a gigantic payday for his successful role in holding Wall Street accountable.

That wealth has enabled Wasinger to self-finance his political career. He unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for Missouri auditor in 2018 and resurfaced this year in the lieutenant governor’s race.

Records available so far show Wasinger has loaned his campaign $2.6 million. Plus, a company based out of Wasinger’s home loaned a PAC $300,000. Missouri First Conservative PAC spent most of the money on direct mailings either praising Wasinger or bashing Hough and Rehder, his closest opponents. 

Wasinger’s Democratic opponent is Richard Brown, a popular House member from Kansas City. 

In an interview with The Martin City Telegraph, the retired school teacher regaled readers with stories about his “Forrest Gump” life, which includes singing on stage with Phil Collins and being rescued as a kid from a deadly 1977 flood by the Kansas City Royals legendary outfielder Amis Otis. 

But at the start of September, Brown’s campaign reported having a little more than $7,000 on hand — hardly enough to compete against Wasinger.

So it seems safe to ponder what we can expect from Wasinger as lieutenant governor. 

For sure, he didn’t pony up $2.5 million-plus to wait around for the Tourism Commission to convene. Wasinger bills himself as a “conservative outsider” and lists “draining the swamp” as his top priority.

In fact, Wasinger says on his campaign website that he’ll be “taking a hammer to the establishment.”

I’m not sure what that means. But I think we’re about to find out. 

Tom Vilsack, 73, has previously come under scrutiny for his close ties to agribusiness companies and organizations (Jared Strong/Iowa Capital Dispatch).

MADISON, Wis. — Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack, who moved into a dairy lobbying position following his first go around as head of the USDA, did not reject making a similar move once his current time as secretary ends.

Speaking to reporters last week at the World Dairy Expo in Madison, Vilsack was asked by Investigate Midwest if he would again join the rotation of federal regulators working in the agriculture industry.

“My plans are to be here today to talk about the dairy industry, because I care about the industry,” he said to a group of reporters after speaking at the Global Dairy Summit, hosted by the state’s Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection.

“That’s what I’m focused on today. That’s what I’ll be focused on tomorrow. That’s what I’m going to be focused on as long as I’ve got energy and breath.”

When pressed again, Vilsack said he couldn’t make promises because he can’t predict the future.

“Nobody can promise where they’re going to be tomorrow. I could be dead tomorrow,” Vilsack snapped, closing the press conference. “Good grief, man, what a question.”

Vilsack, 73, has previously come under scrutiny for his close ties to agribusiness companies and organizations. He’s also been criticized for taking part in what’s known as regulatory capture, a process where government officials, responsible for regulating an industry, later work for that same industry.

Previous Investigate Midwest reporting found that the “revolving door” between regulatory agencies and the agriculture industry is common practice for USDA employees.

Jeff Hauser, founder of the nonprofit Revolving Door Project, said the USDA has a history of promoting the interests of corporations in charge of the nation’s food supply, regardless of administration. The nonprofit group researches and tracks the relationship between officials working in the government and the industries they are supposed to regulate.

“You’re just unlikely to want to get into a feud and enforce a law strictly against an industry that you might be a member of very shortly,” Hauser said.

Soon after Vilsack, a former governor of Iowa, left his first stint as USDA secretary in 2017 under former President Barack Obama, he took an executive position in the dairy industry where he received an annual salary of nearly $1 million, according to public records.

Vilsack became vice president of Dairy Management Inc., the trade association that manages the industry’s checkoff fund. He also served as the CEO of the U.S. Dairy Export Council, an arm of the organization focused on international trade promotion.

Checkoff programs are federally mandated and require commodity producers, from dairy to watermelons, to pay into a pot of money used to market products. A Milwaukee Journal Sentinel investigation found that the dairy checkoff program accounted for nearly half of all the nation’s checkoff spending, with expenses that included large salaries, private jet flights and Super Bowl trips.

Vilsack, who returned as agriculture secretary in 2021, and the USDA have been criticized by lawmakers for delays in publishing federally mandated financial reports from the dairy checkoff program. As of early October, the dairy checkoff program had not published the most recent two years of audits and missed its July deadline to do so.

Current Dairy Export Council CEO Krysta Harden, who also spoke at last week’s World Dairy Expo, highlighted the council’s push in the past two decades to grow the nation’s export market. She also said she was confident the nation’s dairy industry will continue to expand outside of the country thanks to a “government that supports dairy.”

Harden worked under Vilsack during the Obama administration, eventually becoming the USDA deputy secretary of agriculture. Prior to joining the USDA, she worked in policy and roles for seed and chemical heavyweights DuPont and Corteva. She now leads the export council after Vilsack returned to work for the federal government.

Despite growing markets for export, dairy farmers have only turned a profit three times in the past two decades. In Wisconsin — host of the annual World Dairy Expo since 1970 — dairy farms have declined by nearly two-thirds in that same time.

Joe Maxwell, co-founder of Farm Action, a nonprofit that works against agricultural consolidation, believes Vilsack is an example of the ways regulations have been delayed or stymied because of the close nature between the federal government and industry.

“The USDA has been in bed with the very people that they’re supposed to keep in line, either as a regulator or approval agency for checkoff funding,” Maxwell said.

“Government has a responsibility to put the safeguards in place so our economy works for people,” Maxwell continued. “When our agencies are hired by the very people they’re regulating, those safeguards go away and the people aren’t represented, and this economy works for the corporations and not for the people.”

This article first appeared on Investigate Midwest and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Studies show that AI systems used to make important decisions such as approval of loan and mortgage applications can perpetuate historical bias and discrimination if not carefully constructed and monitored (Seksan Mongkhonkhamsao/Getty Images).

In a recent study evaluating how chatbots make loan suggestions for mortgage applications, researchers at Pennsylvania’s Lehigh University found something stark: there was clear racial bias at play.

With 6,000 sample loan applications based on data from the 2022 Home Mortgage Disclosure Act, the chatbots recommended denials for more Black applicants than identical white counterparts. They also recommended Black applicants be given higher interest rates, and labeled Black and Hispanic borrowers as “riskier.”

White applicants were 8.5% more likely to be approved than Black applicants with the same financial profile. And applicants with “low” credit scores of 640, saw a wider margin — white applicants were approved 95% of the time, while Black applicants were approved less than 80% of the time.

The experiment aimed to simulate how financial institutions are using AI algorithms, machine learning and large language models to speed up processes like lending and underwriting of loans and mortgages. These “black box” systems, where the algorithm’s inner workings aren’t transparent to users, have the potential to lower operating costs for financial firms and any other industry employing them, said Donald Bowen, an assistant fintech professor at Lehigh and one of the authors of the study.

But there’s also large potential for flawed training data, programming errors, and historically biased information to affect the outcomes, sometimes in detrimental, life-changing ways.

“There’s a potential for these systems to know a lot about the people they’re interacting with,” Bowen said. “If there’s a baked-in bias, that could propagate across a bunch of different interactions between customers and a bank.”

How does AI discriminate in finance?

Decision-making AI tools and large language models, like the ones in the Lehigh University experiment, are being used across a variety of industries, like healthcare, education, finance and even in the judicial system.

Most machine learning algorithms follow what’s called classification models, meaning you formally define a problem or a question, and then you feed the algorithm a set of inputs such as a loan applicant’s age, income, education and credit history, Michael Wellman, a computer science professor at the University of Michigan, explained.

The algorithm spits out a result — approved or not approved. More complex algorithms can assess these factors and deliver more nuanced answers, like a loan approval with a recommended interest rate.

Machine learning advances in recent years have allowed for what’s called deep learning, or construction of big neural networks that can learn from large amounts of data. But if AI’s builders don’t keep objectivity in mind, or rely on data sets that reflect deep-rooted and systemic racism, results will reflect that.

“If it turns out that you are systematically more often making decisions to deny credit to certain groups of people more than you make those wrong decisions about others, that would be a time that there’s a problem with the algorithm,” Wellman said. “And especially when those groups are groups that are historically disadvantaged.”

Bowen was initially inspired to pursue the Lehigh University study after a smaller-scale assignment with his students revealed the racial discrimination by the chatbots.

“We wanted to understand if these models are biased, and if they’re biased in settings where they’re not supposed to be,” Bowen said, since underwriting is a regulated industry that’s not allowed to consider race in decision-making.

For the official study, Bowen and a research team ran thousands of loan application numbers over several months through different commercial large language models, including OpenAI’s GPT 3.5 Turbo and GPT 4, Anthropic’s Claude 3 Sonnet and Opus and Meta’s Llama 3-8B and 3-70B.

In one experiment, they included race information on applications and saw the discrepancies in loan approvals and mortgage rates. In other, they instructed the chatbots to “use no bias in making these decisions.” That experiment saw virtually no discrepancies between loan applicants.

But if race data isn’t collected in modern day lending, and algorithms used by banks are instructed to not consider race, how do people of color end up getting denied more often, or offered worse interest rates? Because much of our modern-day data is influenced by disparate impact, or the influence of systemic racism, Bowen said.

Though a computer wasn’t given the race of an applicant, a borrower’s credit score, which can be influenced by discrimination in the labor and housing markets, will have an impact on their application. So might their zip code, or the credit scores of other members of their household, all of which could have been influenced by the historic racist practice of redlining, or restricting lending to people in poor and nonwhite neighborhoods.

Machine learning algorithms aren’t always calculating their conclusions in the way that humans might imagine, Bowen said. The patterns it is learning apply to a variety of scenarios, so it may even be digesting reports about discrimination, for example learning that Black people have historically had worse credit. Therefore, the computer might see signs that a borrower is Black, and deny their loan or offer them a higher interest rate than a white counterpart.

Other opportunities for discrimination 

Decision making technologies have become ubiquitous in hiring practices over the last several years, as application platforms and internal systems use AI to filter through applications, and pre-screen candidates for hiring managers. Last year, New York City began requiring employers to notify candidates about their use of AI decision-making software.

By law, the AI tools should be programmed to have no opinion on protected classes like gender, race or age, but some users allege that they’ve been discriminated against by the algorithms anyway. In 2021, the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission launched an initiative to examine more closely how new and existing technologies change the way employment decisions are made. Last year, the commission settled its first-ever AI discrimination hiring lawsuit.

The New York federal court case ended in a $365,000 settlement when tutoring company iTutorGroup Inc. was alleged to use an AI-powered hiring tool that rejected women applicants over 55 and men over 60. Two hundred applicants received the settlement, and iTutor agreed to adopt anti-discrimination policies and conduct training to ensure compliance with equal employment opportunity laws, Bloomberg reported at the time.

Another anti-discrimination lawsuit is pending in California federal court against AI-powered company Workday. Plaintiff Derek Mobley alleges he was passed over for more than 100 jobs that contract with the software company because he is Black, older than 40 and has mental health issues, Reuters reported this summer. The suit claims that Workday uses data on a company’s existing workforce to train its software, and the practice doesn’t account for the discrimination that may reflect in future hiring.

U.S. judicial and court systems have also begun incorporating decision-making algorithms in a handful of operations, like risk assessment analysis of defendants, determinations about pretrial release, diversion, sentencing and probation or parole.

Though the technologies have been cited in speeding up some of the traditionally lengthy court processes — like for document review and assistance with small claims court filings — experts caution that the technologies are not ready to be the primary or sole evidence in a “consequential outcome.”

“We worry more about its use in cases where AI systems are subject to pervasive and systemic racial and other biases, e.g., predictive policing, facial recognition, and criminal risk/recidivism assessment,” the co-authors of a paper in Judicature’s 2024 edition say.

Utah passed a law earlier this year to combat exactly that. HB 366, sponsored by state Rep. Karianne Lisonbee, R-Syracuse, addresses the use of an algorithm or a risk assessment tool score in determinations about pretrial release, diversion, sentencing, probation and parole, saying that these technologies may not be used without human intervention and review.

Lisonbee told States Newsroom that by design, the technologies provide a limited amount of information to a judge or decision-making officer.

“We think it’s important that judges and other decision-makers consider all the relevant information about a defendant in order to make the most appropriate decision regarding sentencing, diversion, or the conditions of their release,” Lisonbee said.

She also brought up concerns about bias, saying the state’s lawmakers don’t currently have full confidence in the “objectivity and reliability” of these tools. They also aren’t sure of the tools’ data privacy settings, which is a priority to Utah residents. These issues combined could put citizens’ trust in the criminal justice system at risk, she said.

“When evaluating the use of algorithms and risk assessment tools in criminal justice and other settings, it’s important to include strong data integrity and privacy protections, especially for any personal data that is shared with external parties for research or quality control purposes,” Lisonbee said.

Preventing discriminatory AI

Some legislators, like Lisonbee, have taken note of these issues of bias, and potential for discrimination. Four states currently have laws aiming to prevent “algorithmic discrimination,” where an AI system can contribute to different treatment of people based on race, ethnicity, sex, religion or disability, among other things. This includes Utah, as well as California (SB 36), Colorado (SB 21-169), Illinois (HB 0053).

Though it’s not specific to discrimination, Congress introduced a bill in late 2023 to amend the Financial Stability Act of 2010 to include federal guidance for the financial industry on the uses of AI. This bill, the Financial Artificial Intelligence Risk Reduction Act or the “FAIRR Act,” would require the Financial Stability Oversight Council to coordinate with agencies regarding threats to the financial system posed by artificial intelligence, and may regulate how financial institutions can rely on AI.

Lehigh’s Bowen made it clear he felt there was no going back on these technologies, especially as companies and industries realize their cost-saving potential.

“These are going to be used by firms,” he said. “So how can they do this in a fair way?”

Bowen hopes his study can help inform financial and other institutions in deployment of decision-making AI tools. For their experiment, the researchers wrote that it was as simple as using prompt engineering to instruct the chatbots to “make unbiased decisions.” They suggest firms that integrate large language models into their processes do regular audits for bias to refine their tools.

Bowen and other researchers on the topic stress that more human involvement is needed to use these systems fairly. Though AI can deliver a decision on a court sentencing, mortgage loan, job application, healthcare diagnosis or customer service inquiry, it doesn’t mean they should be operating unchecked.

University of Michigan’s Wellman told States Newsroom he’s looking for government regulation on these tools, and pointed to H.R. 6936, a bill pending in Congress which would require federal agencies to adopt the Artificial Intelligence Risk Management Framework developed by the National Institute of Standards and Technology. The framework calls out potential for bias, and is designed to improve trustworthiness for organizations that design, develop, use and evaluate AI tools.

“My hope is that the call for standards … will read through the market, providing tools that companies could use to validate or certify their models at least,” Wellman said. “Which, of course, doesn’t guarantee that they’re perfect in every way or avoid all your potential negatives. But it can … provide basic standard basis for trusting the models.”

The Missouri Supreme Court takes the bench on Sept. 10, 2024, in Jefferson City to hear a case questioning whether an amendment to overturn the state's abortion ban will remain on the state's November ballot. From left are Judges Kelly C. Broniec, Robin Ransom, W. Brent Powell, Chief Justice Mary R. Russell, Zel. M. Fischer, Paul C. Wilson and Ginger K. Gooch (Pool photo by Robert Cohen/St. Louis Post-Dispatch).

If three Missouri Supreme Court judges had their way, voters would not have a say on whether to legalize abortion statewide on this year’s general election ballot.

This November, those voters will have the option to use a power they’ve never used before — to boot two of those judges off the state’s high court.

Abortion rights groups turned in 380,000 signatures this summer for a state constitutional amendment that would establish a right to reproductive health care.

But then a Cole County circuit court judge ruled that their proposed amendment was too vague. That sent the case to the Missouri Supreme Court, which ultimately ruled that it met legal requirements in a 4-3 decision.

Now, the abortion amendment will appear on the ballot — alongside retention votes for two of those judges who dissented in the ruling that ultimately put the issue to a statewide vote.

To abortion-rights advocates like Jess Piper, it’s “instant karma.”

She is the executive director of Blue Missouri and ran unsuccessfully in 2022 to represent a district north of St. Joseph in the Missouri House of Representatives.

“You vote against us, and we can vote to not retain you,” she said. Piper will be voting not to retain Missouri Supreme Court judges Kelly Broniec and Ginger Gooch, who dissented last month in the decision to keep abortion on the ballot.

But some political and legal experts say advocates like Piper should brace for times when judges they like might get tossed off the court for their rulings.

It’d be a gamble. Kicking two judges off the Supreme Court is unprecedented in Missouri and would leave two open seats for the next governor to fill. Mounting a political campaign to remove two judges from the court, if successful, could shake the foundation of an institution that has been insulated from politics for 80 years.

“Be careful what you wish for,” said former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Michael Wolff. “You don’t know what you’re going to get on the other side.”

What judges Broniec and Gooch argued on the abortion petition case

The Supreme Court’s Sept. 10 decision put abortion back on the ballot.

Judges on both sides of the opinion contend the legal decision had nothing to do with abortion.

Rather, they say the case turned on a 1997 law that requires initiative petitions specify what parts of Missouri statute or the state constitution would be repealed by a petition.

Anti-abortion groups said that Amendment 3 was not specific about what Missouri laws would be repealed by establishing a right to reproductive health care.

Abortion-rights groups, on the other hand, said that wasn’t required because the abortion amendment doesn’t actually repeal any laws — it simply adds a guarantee in the Missouri Constitution of access to abortion. If the amendment passes, Missouri’s abortion ban passed by the General Assembly will remain in effect until it’s challenged in court.

Ultimately, the courts could overturn some abortion restrictions — not the amendment itself.

The state Supreme Court ruled that the abortion amendment met the necessary legal requirements to be on the ballot. Judge Paul Wilson also wrote in the majority opinion that requiring a petition to specify a list of laws to be repealed would be overly burdensome, making it functionally impossible to amend the constitution in the future.

In her dissenting opinion, Broniec wrote that the 1997 law requiring petitions to specify what laws would be repealed also includes laws that would be invalidated.

The abortion amendment clearly contradicts a handful of existing Missouri laws, she said, including the abortion ban that went into effect in June 2022, a law requiring a parent’s consent for minors to receive an abortion and a law requiring a 72-hour waiting period.

She said that this amendment — and any future amendment — wouldn’t have to list out every possible law that could be repealed. But, she argued, it should have listed the ones that were most obvious.

Gooch agreed with Broniec, as did Judge Zel Fischer, who is due to retire in 2033.

Both Gooch and Broniec declined to comment for this story. They are prohibited from publicly commenting on court issues under the state’s judicial code of conduct.

The 1940 ‘Missouri Plan’ to keep politics out of the Supreme Court

Unlike many other states, Missouri does not directly elect members of its Supreme Court. And to some experts, that’s a good thing.

The system of judge retention elections — rather than contested elections between two candidates — was created by an initiative petition in 1940 in response to an increasingly politicized court.

“There was a very ugly Missouri Supreme Court race between a Boss (Tom) Pendergast candidate and somebody else,” said Wolff, who is also former dean of St. Louis University School of Law.

Pendergast was a political boss in the early 20th century who controlled Kansas City Hall, the police department and even some statewide elections.

“If you wanted to be a judge in Jackson County or even on the Supreme Court of Missouri,” Wolff said, “a person you needed to go see was Boss Tom. That didn’t necessarily mean that you were going to be the best judge.”

But legal scholars at the time argued for a way to hold judges accountable when they misbehave or perform incompetently.

That created the “Missouri Plan” that nine other states copied and that 10 more followed roughly.

A judicial nominating commission — the chief justice, three members of the Missouri Bar Association and three nonlawyers picked by the governor — creates a list of potential nominees.

The governor then picks a nominee from that list to serve on the Supreme Court for one year before facing a retention election.

Judges who are retained face a retention election every 12 years until they retire at age 70.

No campaign to kick out a Supreme Court judge in Missouri has ever been successful.

Peverill Squire, a political science professor at the University of Missouri, said that although the governor has some say in who gets nominated, the nominating commission has successfully protected the court from partisan politics for the most part.

Gov. Mike Parson “has not been particularly aggressive in that regard,” he said. “They do have to go through the judicial nominating commission that might take some of the edge off of the heavy partisanship.”

Retention races can be a flashpoint for more partisan politics

Piper posted a video to TikTok shortly after the initiative petition Supreme Court decision, calling on voters to not retain Gooch and Broniec. The video has garnered more than 13,000 likes and 1,600 shares. Since then, she said she has met with voters who told her they wrote down the judges’ names so they’d remember in November.

“They’re really angry,” she said. “We didn’t just do the job, we killed it — 380,000 signatures when we only needed 180,000. It angers people across the political spectrum because you don’t have any right to take away my voice.”

Even if voters toss out the judges, Parson’s probable successor, Republican governor candidate Mike Kehoe, likely would replace them with two conservatives.

“He would appoint people in much the same manner that Parson did,” Piper said.

A Ballotpedia study in 2020 found that only three judges had lost retention out of 155 elections across the country since 2008. The other 98% percent won their races.

In nearby Iowa, voters removed two judges from the Supreme Court when they were up for retention in 2010 after the court unanimously overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage in 2009.

A conservative Missouri group attempted to remove Supreme Court Judge Richard Teitelman in 2004. The campaign argued that Teitelman was opposed to the death penalty and in favor of abortion, and that he opposed the right to firearms.

Missouri Supreme Court judges are prohibited under the code of judicial conduct from making any public statements on how they would rule on any given issue. If they do, they must recuse themselves from any case involving those issues.

That backs judges into a corner in those targeted campaigns where they can’t effectively defend themselves against claims that they support or don’t support an issue.

“It was a campaign generated by the (prospective) speaker of the House,” Wolff said of the 2004 retention campaign. “He was targeting some districts where they were trying to gin up the conservative voters. I don’t think they knew or cared who Judge Teitelman was, but they could get people to the polls.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Missouri and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Rural groups are suing the state, saying meatpacking sludge spread on farmland as free fertilizer contains PFAS (USGAO/Wikipedia).

Industrial sludge often offered to Missouri farms as free fertilizer contains “forever chemicals,” several groups threatening to sue the state allege.

Two advocacy groups along with a mid-Missouri farmer notified several sludge providers and the Missouri Department of Natural Resources of their intent to sue in a letter dated Wednesday, saying the waste presents “an imminent and substantial endangerment to the environment and public health.” 

Rural neighbors have reached out to lawyers and state lawmakers in recent months, looking to halt the use of industrial sludge as fertilizer, saying its stench is unbearable and it puts waterways at risk of contamination. 

“It smells like guts and sh*t,” said Donald Craig, a Randolph County farmer, “and it’s just disgusting. It’s horrid.” 

Now, Craig and two rural advocacy groups argue application of the sludge, which typically includes animal residuals from meatpacking, violates the environmental laws because of the PFAS. He said that’s what worries him — the PFAS seeping into the soil and groundwater.

“That’s where we get our water from,” he said, “and I just know it’s not a good thing for our environment.” 

Craig’s fellow plaintiffs are Stop Land Use Damaging Our Ground and Environment — or S.L.U.D.G.E. — and Citizens of Randolph County Against Pollution, known as C.R.A.P.

They say the sludge contains polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — also known as forever chemicals — which are a class of synthetic substances that don’t break down easily and, as a result, linger in the environment. 

The chemicals — used for years in nonstick cookware, cleaning products, waterproof fabrics and firefighting foams, among other applications — can increase the risk of cancer, increased cholesterol and immune system damage.

According to the notice of intent to sue, two companies that apply industrial sludge — Arkansas-based Denali Water Solutions and Maryland-based Synagro — have both admitted there may be PFAS in the sludge they provide. 

The notice cites minutes from a McDonald County Commission meeting in July 2022 when a Denali representative said their sludge may include PFAS.

“However, from the same testimony, it appears Denali has not been testing the industrial wastes it is disposing of through land application,” the notice says. 

Denali declined to comment.

Synagro, in a report posted to its website in August, called itself a “passive receiver” of PFAS when it collects waste. In the same report, it says it’s partnering with a company to test its PFAS-destroying technology and expanding service offerings to remove PFAS and other contaminants. 

Synagro did not immediately return a request for comment.

The notice of intent to sue also takes the Missouri Department of Natural Resources to task for proposed regulations that will require sludge companies to test their material for PFAS. If the chemicals are found, the report says, the companies will be allowed to apply the material but must test the soil twice a year. Soil concentrations, it says, must not exceed federal standards.

“DNR has knowingly allowed,” the notice says, “and will apparently continue to allow the foregoing companies to land-apply industrial wastes containing PFAS in Missouri.”

DNR said it does not comment on pending litigation.

The notice of intent to sue requests that the state prohibit land application of industrial waste and that the companies stop spreading the sludge. If they do not comply by Dec. 12, attorneys for S.L.U.D.G.E., C.R.A.P. and Craig say they will seek a court order.

The Rush Island Energy Center on the Mississippi River will close following a federal court ruling (photo courtesy of Ameren Missouri).

One of Ameren Missouri’s largest coal plants will shut down Tuesday after more than 13 years of litigation over its failure to comply with federal clean air regulations. 

The St. Louis-based electric utility will retire the Rush Island Energy Center, a two-unit 1,178-megawatt coal plant on the banks of the Mississippi River in Jefferson County, which operated for years in violation of the Clean Air Act. 

Ameren, which serves 1.2 million customers in Missouri, announced in 2021 it would retire the plant 15 years early rather than install pollution controls ordered by a federal court.

Once the plant shuts down, the company will start disconnecting the plant from power, move equipment out to Ameren’s other coal plants and ready it for demolition, said Tim Lafser, Ameren’s vice president of power operations and engineering.

“We’re guessing three to six months of activity there before we would be to the point where we could turn it over to a demolition contractor to knock the plant down,” Lafser said.

But knocking down Rush Island doesn’t mark the end of the litigation over its clean air violations. Ameren is still negotiating with federal prosecutors and environmental advocates over how to make up for more than a decade of illegal sulfur dioxide pollution. 

Gretchen Waddell Barwick, director of the Missouri chapter of the environmental nonprofit Sierra Club, said simply retiring Rush Island doesn’t resolve the injustices suffered by communities downwind of the coal plant.

“I don’t think that justice has been served here,” Waddell Barwick said, “but I am pleased for the people in the community that will see their suffering (lessen).” 

Lafser declined to comment on the litigation, saying it would be inappropriate to comment on an ongoing case. 

Rush Island, built in the mid-1970s, narrowly avoided a 1977 update to the Clean Air Act requiring pollution controls at newly-constructed coal plants. Older plants were grandfathered into the rule unless they made upgrades beyond routine maintenance.

Ameren updated Rush Island’s two units in 2007 and 2010 but didn’t install pollution controls, violating the 1977 Clean Air Act update and sparking a lawsuit by the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

In 2019, U.S. District Court Judge for the Eastern District of MIssouri Rodney Sippel ordered Ameren to obtain a permit, install scrubbers and lower its sulfur dioxide emissions. Sippel also ordered Ameren to install scrubbers to temporarily lower sulfur dioxide emissions at its larger Labadie Energy Center in Franklin County to make up for the excess emissions at Rush Island.

The 8th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals in 2021 upheld Sippel’s order requiring Ameren to install scrubbers, but struck down the requirement at Labadie.

Later in 2021, Ameren announced it would retire Rush Island. It argued the retirement should mark the resolution of the lawsuit. But Sippel ordered Ameren and prosecutors to negotiate potential mitigation measures to make up for the sulfur dioxide emissions, which he said “harm public health and the environment, contribute to premature deaths, asthma attacks, acid rain and other adverse effects in downwind communities, including the St. Louis Metropolitan Area.”

Sippel’s order, issued in June, said over the 14 years since Rush Island’s second unit was updated without scrubbers installed, it has released 275,000 tons of sulfur dioxide. Ameren argues the figure is closer to 256,000 tons. 

According to Sippel’s order, Ameren has repeatedly resisted further mitigation beyond retiring Rush Island. It argued there was “no equitable remedy” to the unpermitted pollution and that retiring Rush Island mitigates the harm from its emissions.

“Ameren’s position that an equitable remedy is not available for its unlawful pollution has already been rejected three times,” Sippel wrote. “And, over the course of several hearings, I have informed Ameren that its retirement of Rush Island does not mitigate the massive pollution it released into the atmosphere.”

Correction: This story has been updated to accurately reflect the date of the closure. 

Only seven of the 24 dispensary licenses issued in June managed to get certified by the Division of Cannabis Regulation on Thursday afternoon (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

David Huckins, a disabled veteran from Leavenworth, Kan., threw his name into the lottery this spring for a chance to win a social-equity marijuana dispensary license in Missouri.

In June, he learned he landed one of 57 microbusiness licenses meant to benefit disadvantaged business owners – including disabled veterans, those with lower incomes and people with non-violent marijuana offenses. 

The microbusiness program was part of the constitutional amendment to legalize recreational marijuana that voters passed in 2022. 

Huckins was among one of the 24 dispensary licenses and 33 wholesale licenses for cultivation facilities handed out as part of a second lottery held in June —  out of more than 2,000 applicants. 

But Huckins wasn’t officially in the clear until Thursday afternoon, when he received a notice that he passed the rigorous review process to confirm his eligibility. 

For him, it wasn’t a surprise. 

“I got a letter from the Department of Veterans Affairs saying that I have a disability rating that qualifies me for the application process,” he said. “This one was a slam dunk for the state, I feel like.”

Huckins was an outlier, with only seven of the 24 dispensary licenses that managed to get certified by the Division of Cannabis Regulation on Thursday afternoon, according to the division’s report.

The other 17 dispensary license winners were deemed ineligible, largely because of “failure to provide adequate documentation” that the licensee met the criteria. 

Fifteen of the 33 wholesale licenses needed to create marijuana grow facilities were deemed ineligible as well.

That means less than half — 25 of the 57 licenses — were certified.

That’s a significant decrease from the first round, issued last October, when 37 of the 48 were certified. Out of the 11 that weren’t, nine of them were eventually revoked.

While on the surface it sounds like a problem of technicalities, it could speak to the larger problem of the predatory practices surrounding Missouri’s microbusiness licenses — which the division itself has warned about.

“My first impressions are that most of the licenses that weren’t issued,” Huckins said, “were probably due to people or groups with vast resources that have tried to cheat the system by putting in sometimes hundreds of invalid applications.”

The division declined to provide The Independent with a list of the certified licensees. 

However, of the 24 dispensary licenses selected through the lottery in June, The Independent has identified 14 that are likely connected to groups cannabis regulators have cracked down on previously.

The groups include investors from Arizona, Michigan and within Missouri accused of using disadvantaged people as fronts to gain licenses. The strategy involves recruiting applicants to flood the lottery and increase chances of winning.

The Independent has obtained contracts that these groups have circulated to potential applicants, revealing the investors are aiming to shut out the disadvantaged applicants from most of the profit and control of the business.

Lisa Cox, spokeswoman for the division, said the licensees who weren’t certified today were sent notices of pending revocation.

They will have 30 days to respond to the division’s concerns, “during which licensees may submit records or information demonstrating why the license should not be revoked,” she said.

In the first round, it took about three months after the notices were issued to confirm those being revoked, Cox said.

For Huckins, the entire situation is problematic. 

For one, he said, it means less growing facilities that the dispensaries will be able to rely on. But it also impacts the dynamic of the microbusiness marijuana community. Huckins hosts weekly calls among the licensees so they can share knowledge and help each other.

“The general feeling in the community among other people like myself,” who aren’t connected to big investors, he said. “Most of us feel like this is a social-equity program to benefit people that are socially disadvantaged, not a way for millionaires to get richer.” 

A handful of people opposed to Amendment 3 protested outside the Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday, Sept. 10, 2024, following a ruling to keep the abortion amendment on the Nov. 5 ballot (Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent).

The family business that owns the Kansas City Chiefs is one of the biggest funders of a political action committee opposing a proposed amendment to overturn Missouri’s abortion ban. 

Unity Hunt, the business that controls the assets of the late Lamar Hunt, including the Chiefs, in late September donated $300,000 to the Leadership for America PAC. It is currently running ads on several conservative radio stations across the state opposing the abortion-rights amendment, which will appear on the November ballot as Amendment 3. 

Leadership for America is an independent spending PAC created in January. Prior to receiving the donation from Unity Hunt, the PAC had $31,159 on hand.

Along with paying directly for radio ads, Leadership for America has donated $100,000 to Vote “No” on 3, the main opposition group in the Amendment 3 campaign. And on Oct. 3, the PAC donated $100,000 to a PAC called Missouri Leadership Fund, which gave $100,000 to Vote “No” on 3 six days later.

A spokesperson for the team said Friday that the donation came directly from Lamar Hunt Jr., and not from the Chiefs team.

Unity Hunt did not respond to requests for comment.

No one from Leadership for America could be reached for comment. The telephone number given to the Missouri Ethics Commission for treasurer John Royal has been disconnected.

The ads, which began airing across the state on Monday, call Amendment 3 “cleverly-worded to convince you that it only allows abortions until fetal viability.” 

“But it has loopholes that allow for abortions through all nine months of pregnancy,” the ad continues. “Abortion proponents used to say ‘safe, legal and rare.’ But now they want abortion as common as the morning after pill.”

Supporters of the amendment say claims of abortions in the third trimester are misleading, since the legal freedoms around abortion would only apply until fetal viability, which is generally considered to be around 24 weeks, according to the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists.

The amendment text would allow the Missouri legislature to regulate abortion after fetal viability with exceptions only to “protect the life, or physical or mental health of the pregnant person.”

Abortion is illegal from the moment of conception in Missouri, with limited exceptions for medical emergencies. There are no exceptions for victims of rape or incest. 

Failed GOP attempt to keep abortion off Missouri ballot could foreshadow fight to come

Leadership for America has spent a little more than $32,000 on the radio ads, which are set to run through Nov. 4. There are no other broadcast ads opposing the amendment.  

Organized efforts against Amendment 3 have been hugely outspent by Missourians for Constitutional Freedom, the committee backing the amendment. The campaign reported spending $7.3 million through June 30 and has purchased more than $8.7 million in television ads since the start of September.

Vote “No” on 3 has not filed a full disclosure report but has amassed $870,000 in donations greater than $5,000 since Aug. 30.

While the content of the Leadership for America ad aligns with most other opposition talking points, the original source of the money behind the ad drew some attention. 

“It is incredibly disappointing to see Unity Hunt spend resources on this campaign to spread lies and continue the fear-mongering surrounding Amendment 3,” said state Rep. Maggie Nurrenbern, a Democrat from Kansas City. 

Nurrenbern, who is running for the 17th Senate District in Clay County, said she was particularly alarmed by the size of the donation from a family she said “has done so much good for Kansas City and the Kansas City area.” 

State Rep. Ashley Aune, also a Democrat from Kansas City, said she wasn’t surprised to see the Hunt family backing an effort to stop abortion.

“But also, it’s disappointing because when you have such a big platform,” Aune said. “Using that platform to sow misinformation is a really irresponsible way to use it.”

In 2020, Lamar Hunt Jr. served as the master of ceremonies at the Kansans for Life annual Valentine’s Day banquet. 

Hunt, an owner of the Chiefs, told the crowd: “I do not think it is a cliché to say we are in a life and death battle for the truth and authentic dignity of the human person.” 

Hunt six years earlier published a blog post to his website contemplating what he observed as cultural shifts away from the “pro-choice” movement, comparing the momentum in the “pro-life” community to the San Francisco 49ers comeback and near-win in the final seconds of the 2013 Super Bowl.

This story was updated at 3:20 p.m. Friday to include a comment from a Kansas City Chiefs spokesperson.

Protesters in front of the Senate side of the U.S. Capitol urged Congress to pass the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, in December 2017 in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — After concluding oral arguments Thursday, a panel of federal judges will determine the fate of a program that has shielded from deportation more than half a million immigrants lacking permanent legal status who came into the United States as children.

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, or DACA, a 12-year program that was meant to be temporary during the Obama administration while Congress passed a pathway to citizenship, has been caught in a years-long battle after the Trump administration moved to end the program.

Greisa Martinez Rosas, the executive director for the youth immigration organization United We Dream, said in a statement that the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit should reject the “baseless lawsuit” brought by Texas and other states.

“DACA recipients have withstood over a decade of attacks by violent, anti-immigrant officials and have kept DACA alive through their courage and resilience,” Rosas said. “I urge President (Joe) Biden and every elected official to treat this moment with the urgency it requires and to take bold and swift action to protect all immigrants once and for all. ”

A panel of three judges on the appeals court heard oral arguments on behalf of the program from the Justice Department, the state of New Jersey and an immigration rights group, all advocating the legality of the Biden administration’s 2021 final rule to codify the program.

Last year the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas declared it unlawful and allowed current DACA recipients to continue renewing their status, but barred new applicants.

The Justice Department and the others asked the appeals court judges to consider three things. They are challenging whether the state of Texas has standing to show it was harmed by DACA; whether the regulation is lawful within presidential authority; and whether the trial court had the authority to place a nationwide injunction on the program.

The judges are Jerry Edwin Smith, appointed by former President Ronald Reagan; Edith Brown Clement, appointed by former President George W. Bush; and Stephen A. Higginson, appointed by former President Barack Obama.

The 5th Circuit in New Orleans covers Louisiana, Texas and Mississippi, and typically delivers conservative rulings.

Joseph N. Mazzara, arguing on behalf of the state of Texas, said that DACA harmed the state because there is a “pocketbook cost to Texas with regard to education and medical care.”

He said that the end of DACA would likely lead recipients to self-deport and “return to their country of origin,” which he argued would alleviate Texas’ financial costs.

It could take weeks or months for a ruling, which is likely to head to the U.S. Supreme Court, and the fate of DACA may be left to the incoming administration.

The Supreme Court in 2020 overturned the Trump administration’s decision to end the program, but on the grounds that the White House didn’t follow the proper procedure. The high court did not make a decision whether the program itself was unlawful or not.

States’ standing

Brian Boynton argued on behalf of the Biden administration.

He argued that the eight states that sued the Biden administration along with Texas have no standing because they did not demonstrate any harm caused by DACA.

Those other states challenging DACA include Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, South Carolina, West Virginia, Kansas and Mississippi.

“Any person in the state of Texas, citizen or noncitizen, is entitled to precisely the same types of services, emergency health care services and public K through 12 education,” he said. “It’s not a situation where only someone with DACA is entitled to the services.”

Boynton asked the panel to uphold U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen’s policy of keeping DACA in place for current recipients – about 535,000 people – if the court decides to strike the program down while DACA continues to undergo the appeals process.

Hanen ruled in 2021 that DACA was unlawful, determining that the Obama administration exceeded its presidential authority in creating the program. He allowed current DACA recipients to remain in the program, but barred the federal government from accepting new applicants.

It’s estimated that there are 95,000 applicants that are blocked due to that order, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services data. 

The Biden administration then went through the formal rulemaking, which Hanen reviewed and again deemed unlawful, prompting the appeal before the three judges.

Boynton argued against a nationwide injunction on DACA recipients being able to apply for the program.

“With respect to the propriety of nationwide injunctions, it’s very clear that an injunction should be narrowly crafted to provide a remedy only to the party that is injured, and here that would be Texas,” he said.

Nina Perales, of the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund, argued that Texas in its legal arguments is including spending costs for students in K-12 schools who cannot be DACA recipients because those recipients are over 18 and have aged out of the program.

Perales addressed the health care argument from Texas and said Texas did not show the incurred health costs of just DACA recipients.

“Texas points to health care spending on the entire undocumented immigrant population, as Texas estimates it,” she said. “Not DACA recipients.”

“It’s been widely understood that DACA recipients overall provide a net benefit to their state,” she added.

Josh Payne closes the electric fence after 1,000 sheep pass through to a fresh paddock Sept. 3 at the Payne family farm in Concordia. Payne said that moving 1,000 sheep from paddock to paddock is easier than moving a small number (Cory W. MacNeil/Missourian).

Early on a cool September morning, farmer Josh Payne tends to his flock in Concordia, just east of Kansas City.  As Payne opens the gate, about a thousand sheep round the corner and bound into fresh grass.

The pasture the flock grazes was once corn and soybeans, along with the rest of the Payne family farm. Josh’s grandfather Charles Payne cultivated nearly a thousand acres of row crops for decades.

But as Josh Payne took over managing the property about 15 years ago, that wasn’t going to work anymore.

“I found out I’m allergic to herbicide,” he said. “My throat would swell shut three or four times a week during harvest.”

Payne wanted to transition the farm to regenerative agriculture — a movement that aims to revive farmland soil and by extension the ecosystem and the small farm economy.

He hoped that by changing what and how they farmed, it would reduce the need for chemical inputs and farm with nature. Josh told his grandfather they should use cover crops, graze sheep and plant an orchard. But Charles Payne wasn’t having it.

“I’m like, ‘Grandpa, we should do this.’ He’s like, ‘No, we’re not planting trees!’” Josh Payne said. “Literally. His phrase was, ‘I spent my whole life tearing out trees. We’re not gonna go plant them now.’”

Josh said he and his grandfather had similar disagreements, and even arguments, about many changes Josh hoped to make on the farm.

“We went through a really interesting process because I’m stubborn and he’s stubborn,” he said.

Mid-century farm revolution

Charles Payne, 96, came of age during an industrial and chemical revolution in agriculture. Like countless other Midwestern farmers, he heeded the advice from industry and government leaders to “plant fence row to fence row” to increase the production of commodities.

“And that’s what we did … tore out all the fences and hedgerows,” Charles Payne said. “Now I wish I had some of them back.”

U.S. agriculture production tripled in the latter half of the 20th century, due in part to chemical inputs. But that came with an environmental cost — soil degradation, water quality issues and a loss of biodiversity.

The resurgence of regenerative or environmentally sustainable agriculture is partially a response to the industry’s contribution to climate change and its susceptibility to it. There’s now a surge of funding, research and education to figure out how to scale regenerative agriculture and turn away from equipment and chemically intensive ways of cultivating crops.

But University of Missouri rural sociologist Mary Hendrickson said the way Charles Payne farmed was also a result of policy, research and methods encouraged by the industry at the time. Before the ecological consequences were understood, chemical inputs were “miracles” for a farm.

“Everybody who was going to be an advanced, innovative farmer, they were using chemicals for weed control, for pest control, for all of these things,” she said.

Hendrickson said for a certain generation of farmers, their skepticism or resistance to regenerative agriculture is a result of their lived experience. “There’s a reason why somebody who has lived through that transition says, ‘Wait, you want me to go back to what?” Hendrickson said.

The advice Charles Payne’s grandchildren, Josh and his sister Jordan Welch, are getting is sometimes the exact opposite of what he was told in his day.

Hendrickson said this isn’t unique to agriculture. There are many things in life that people do differently than their grandparents’ generation — such as cooking, cleaning or child rearing.

“The things that my mother did to raise me were not in vogue when I was born, and they were (again) 20 years later,” she said.

Generational legacy

Farming isn’t Josh Payne’s first vocation. After teaching English for years, he said he ended up back on the farm “completely accidentally” when his grandfather requested help managing the land about 15 years ago.

“When we got here it was a very, very conventional farm. Everything was commodity, corn and soy. Everything was Roundup ready. Everything was genetically modified,” Josh Payne said. “I call it growing nickels and dimes.”

Payne wasn’t exactly happy row cropping, and he was curious about trying other methods. But when he discovered his allergy to herbicides, it was a catalyst for change.

“Grandpa, I’m either going to have to go back to teaching or we’re going to have to completely change what we do,” he told Charles Payne.

The Paynes now rotationally graze their sheep among 800 chestnut trees — a method called “silvopasture,” which revives the soil by keeping living roots in the ground year round. They planted the trees eight years ago and are completing their third harvest.

Before the flock of sheep was added to the operation, the Paynes cultivated conventional crops in between the orchard rows that are spaced 30-feet apart — a regenerative method called alley cropping. The Paynes are still finding ways to grow and adapt, most recently by adding a produce garden.

Charles Payne has been farming the stretch of land in Concordia since 1956. He said corn, soy and wheat were the “going” crops at the time.

“We had some good years and we had some very poor years too,” he said.

Josh Payne said his grandfather has a deep knowledge of the land and the industry and now acts as a mentor and adviser to his grandkids.

Although he said he’s had to learn to bite his tongue at times during this transition, Charles Payne said he’s happy they are farming.

“That’s a good thing to have your grandkids farming where you left off,” Charles Payne said. “Of course, it’s a different way of farming, but they’re on the farm, and they seem to really enjoy it.”

For Charles and Josh Payne, the elder’s resistance to change and the younger’s desire for change were both motivated by the goal to keep the farm alive. Josh Payne said the markets for sheep and chestnuts are good and support jobs for him and his sister. He said they’re comparable to the markets his grandfather had for corn, soy and wheat decades ago.

“Grandpa, you made the right decisions for your time,” he said. “You were faithful to this land, to this place, to your family … but that just looks different now.”

Rural sociologist Hendrickson said in agriculture communities especially, there exists a generational pressure to farm and to succeed doing so.

“This identity as a farmer and the land and holding that for the next generation was significant for farmers,” she said.

For years farmers heard that to be successful in modern agriculture, they’d have to get big or get out. Payne thinks there’s another option.

“I think people either got to get big or get weird,” Josh Payne said. “We chose to get weird.”

‘The new old way’

Regenerative agriculture starts with the soil. The health of farm ground is connected to the financial viability and resiliency of the farm, said Chuck Rice, a professor at Kansas State University.

“We’ve lost 50% of our soil organic matter with 100 plus years of cultivation in the United States,” Rice said. “So we aren’t taking care of our soils.”

Methods like those Josh Payne has implemented on the Concordia farm revive — or regenerate — the soil and by extension the ecosystem. Regenerative agriculture methods aim to not only restore farmland to its prechemical and industrial state, but to help the land withstand the severe weather threats from climate change.

“Not only is the economy changing, but the climate’s changing,” Rice said. “I think if you’re staying with the same practices … ultimately you’re going to be losing out.”

Reducing or eliminating tillage of the soil, a practice called “no till,” is often the first step for farmers looking to operate more sustainably. Rice said market forces can sometimes jump start changes in the agriculture industry. In order to till fields, farmers need diesel fuel to power their equipment. That gas was highly priced during the 1970s fuel crisis, which made no till more popular, Rice said.

“There was a quick, rapid adoption of no till during that time period,” he said.

Two generations later, no till continues to steadily spread. Rice said Kansas farmers are leaders in no till operation, encompassing about 40% of the state’s farmed acres.

“We still haven’t reached its peak, but it’s one of the more common practices,” Rice said.

Cody Jolliff is a farm historian and the CEO of the Midwest Center for Regenerative Agriculture at Powell Gardens, a botanical garden in Kansas City.

The Powell Gardens’ Midwest Center for Regenerative Agriculture is creating a living laboratory for farmers to come to Kansas City and get hands-on experience in regenerative agriculture methods. Or as Jolliff said, to learn “the new old way” to farm.

He said in many ways, regenerative agriculture is a return to the farming of another era.

“It’s really interesting though, because as we are going to these super modern methods, they also have a lot of resemblance to old methods,” he said.

Before the Civil War, over half of the country’s residents were farmers, Jolliff said, and they worked with small parcels of land in diversified operations. The modern regenerative agriculture movement encourages that same type of farm diversification.

Jolliff said agriculture has changed before and can change again. He points to the success of the 1914 Smith-Lever Act that created the cooperative extension programs that work from land-grant universities to teach farmers across the nation.

“It takes a long, long time for agriculture methods to change,” he said. “This is not going to be an overnight thing. It’s a huge investment right now across the country into these practices.”

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online. 

(Getty Images).

A complaint filed with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights.

A fired school superintendent and an interim leader without proper state certification.

Two government audits, and a shortage of school buses and bus drivers.

The start of the 2024-2025 school year has been anything but routine for the St. Louis Public School District.

Two months into the school year, questions continue to swirl around the district.

Concerns about the district’s finances, including an operating budget with a $17 million surplus and a projected $35 million deficit, prompted public calls for a state audit, which began in August.

Around the same time — as test scores continued to show a disproportionate number of Black students in metro St. Louis unable to read at grade level — the St. Louis City NAACP filed a complaint with the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Civil Rights against 34 public and charter schools in St. Louis city and county, the St. Louis Special District and the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education.

“Low reading proficiency rates for St. Louis Black students underscore the urgent need for targeted interventions in the region’s schools,” the local NAACP chapter said in a news release.

Meanwhile, after placing Superintendent Keisha Scarlett on paid administrative leave in the summer of 2024 and hiring an outside firm to review hiring, spending and other practices, the SLPS board fired Scarlett in September and named Millicent Borishade as the interim superintendent.

Borishade, who was deputy superintendent, does not hold Missouri superintendent credentials. And Scarlett told St. Louis Public Radio she plans to contest the board’s decision to terminate her contract and will request a hearing before the board.

This week, two more district administrators resigned.

The St. Louis school district, which enrolls about 18,000 students in pre-kindergarten through 12th grade,  employs nearly 2,000 teachers,  according to Byron Clemens, spokesperson for the American Federation of Teachers St. Louis Local 420, the union representing local teachers.

Clemens said the teacher’s union continues to have confidence in the elected school board to “make any corrections and see that the administration will follow board policy and procedures.”

Scarlett, Clemens said, “is entitled to due process.”

In addition to a review of the district’s operations by the Missouri Auditor’s Office, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones’ office will also oversee a local audit.

Conner Kerrigan, Jones’ spokesman, said public concerns about the district “have forced us to increase the scope of the audit to include SLPS contracting practices, conflicts of interest and whistleblower claims, as well as the Board of Education’s oversight and approval of practices pertaining to the hiring and firing of district employees.”

E-mails and calls to the St. Louis Public School District and school board seeking comment were not returned.

Literacy rates

For the St. Louis NAACP, a major concern long term is the wide gap in reading achievement between white and Black students.

Education experts say third-grade reading proficiency is a bellwether for future academic success as students proceed through elementary and secondary grades.

Data for Missouri schools suggest about 42% of  Missouri third-graders are proficient readers, with the rate dropping to 21% for Black third-graders. In the St. Louis Public Schools, about 14% of Black third-graders are proficient readers, compared to 61% of White students.

“The St. Louis City NAACP was brave in filing the complaint with the U.S. Department of Education and Civil Rights,” said Ayanna Shivers, education committee chair for the Missouri NAACP. “There is a literary crisis in our country, and being able to read is a civil right.”

There’s no single solution to helping students become skilled readers, but “research indicates that more than 90% of all students could become proficient readers if they were taught by teachers employing scientifically-based reading instruction,” according to a study conducted by the National Council on Teacher Quality.

Evidence-based reading instruction, reading assessments, individualized reading plans for students struggling with reading and money to help pay for teacher training in evidence-based instruction were included in recent literacy legislation approved by the Missouri General Assembly.

“The most significant impact is the implementation of a statewide foundational reading assessment administered at the beginning and end of each school year for students in grades K-3 and for any newly enrolled students in grades 1-5,” a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Elementary and Secondary Education said in an email to The Independent.

These assessments, the department spokesperson said, “are not standardized assessments. They are adaptive diagnostic assessments that provide detailed information on students’ skills in phonemic awareness, phonics, fluency, vocabulary, and comprehension. Previously, there was no available state-wide data that provided a consistent measure of these foundational reading skills.”

Reading assessments for the 2023-2024 school year are expected to be announced at an Oct. 22 meeting of the State Board of Education.

In January, the St. Louis Public School District launched “Literacy in the Lou,” which found the district providing new books to students to read at school and home. Missouri state appellate judges gathered at a St. Louis Head Start school in September to read to the preschoolers, color pictures, and mold clay letters.

Literacy is a civil right, crucial to democracy, employment and success in life, said Jane Brady, a retired Delaware judge and former attorney general who researches public policy, including efforts across the nation to improve literacy.

Brady says she and the president of the St. Louis NAACP, Adolphus Pruitt, have discussed approaches to teaching reading and improving literacy in Missouri.

“You have to have goal-setting and accountability,” Brady said, citing Mississippi as an example of a state with high poverty levels that saw reading test scores dramatically jump after modernizing curriculum to include science-based reading instruction and provide consequences.

Success in the 11th, 15th and 17th would give the Democrats 12 seats in the Senate, denying the GOP a supermajority for the first time since 2008 (Getty Images).

Democrats hoping to chip away at the GOP supermajority in the Missouri Senate got a big boost last week when its candidates in two swing districts won the endorsement of the state’s largest business advocacy group. 

In a third hotly contested district, the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry chose not to weigh in at all. 

The Missouri Chamber, an historically Republican-leaning organization, formally endorsed Democrat Robert Sauls in Senate District 11 and Joe Pereles in Senate District 15. 

In a third race — for the 17th Senate District in Clay County — the chamber declined to endorse Republican Jerry Nolte or Democrat Maggie Nurrenbern. 

Of the 17 Senate races taking place this year across the state, the 11th, 15th and 17th are widely considered the most competitive. 

Sauls, a Democrat from Independence, is taking on Republican Joe Nicola of Grain Valley for the seat vacated by former Democratic state Sen. John Rizzo. 

Both Pereles and his GOP rival, David Gregory, are from Chesterfield. They’re vying for the seat being vacated by Republican state Sen. Andrew Koenig. 

Nurrenbern, a state representative from Kansas City, and Nolte, a former state lawmaker and presiding county commissioner, hope to replace former Democratic state Sen. Lauren Arthur. 

In announcing its endorsements, the chamber pointed to “political dysfunction” that has derailed the Senate and “stalled key business priorities, harming Missouri employers and families.”

Factional infighting between Republican members of the Freedom Caucus and the Senate’s GOP leadership has derailed the chamber for the last four years.The bad blood came to a head during the 2024 legislative session, when members of the Freedom Caucus waged a 41-hour filibuster that nearly upended the state budget. 

The 2024 legislative session was the least productive in living memory, surpassing even the COVID-shortened 2020 session in futility.

Nicola is widely expected to join the Freedom Caucus if he wins next month. Gregory is a trial attorney, a group that has bankrolled Missouri’s Freedom Caucus in recent years. 

“Ultimately, the Missouri Chamber PAC chose to endorse Sauls and Pereles because we believe they are strong candidates and will work with the business community to move Missouri forward,” said Kara Corches, the chamber’s interim president and CEO. 

In addition to its endorsement, the chamber’s PAC reported earlier this month spending $25,000 to support Pereles in the race. 

Republicans currently hold 24 of the Senate’s 34 seats. 

Democrats are expected to pick up one seat currently held by Republicans — the Boone County-based 19th District.  

Success in the 11th, 15th and 17th would give the Democrats 12 seats in the Senate, denying the GOP a supermajority for the first time since 2008. 

Sauls vs. Nicola

Senate District 11 in Jackson County includes eastern Kansas City and Independence. While held by a Democrat for the last few election cycles, former President Donald Trump carried the district in 2020 and 2016. 

Nicola, a pastor, overcame a massive fundraising disadvantage to defeat state Rep. Aaron McMullin in the August GOP primary, spending roughly $100,000 this cycle compared to $500,000 for McMullin. 

His last report, filed in September, shows only $15,000 cash on hand. 

Sauls, an attorney and former prosecutor, was unopposed in the Democratic primary and reported $202,000 cash on hand in September. Since that report was filed, a political action committee supporting his candidacy — called Independence Leadership PAC — has received $130,000 in large contributions.

Sauls began airing television ads this week, spending $134,520 so far. Nicola has not purchased broadcast time.  

Nicola brushed off the chamber’s endorsement, saying that he will be a “pro-business senator” who will “work to cut taxes, slash governmental red tape and let the free market do what it does best: promote entrepreneurship and create wealth.”

But he mostly chalks up the Missouri Chamber’s endorsement to his opposition to “vaccine mandates, China owning our farmland and taxpayer-funded DEI indoctrination.”

“I completely disagree with these positions,” he said, “and the fact that my opponent is endorsed by a group with these radical policies is telling and completely out of touch with my district.”

Pereles vs. Gregory

The 15th District includes a large portion of suburban St. Louis County, including Chesterfield and Ballwin. It has historically been a Republican stronghold, but has slowly trended towards Democrats in recent years. 

Gregory, a former state legislator, won a three-way Republican primary in August, emerging with only $30,000 in his campaign committee and $4,000 in a PAC supporting him called Show-Me Growth PAC, according to disclosure reports filed last month. 

Pereles, a retired Drury Hotel executive, was unopposed in the Democratic primary. His campaign reported $650,000 cash on hand last month, with a PAC supporting him — called Fearless PAC — receiving more than $400,000 in large donations since the primary. 

Pereles is up on TV, spending $53,000 so far on ads hammering Gregory’s support of Missouri’s abortion ban and mocking his push to build a castle in Jefferson City for his family to live in if he were to win the Senate seat. 

The Missouri Senate Campaign Committee, which supports GOP candidates, launched an ad this month trying to tie Pereles to U.S. Rep. Cori Bush and arguing that Pereles is soft on crime. 

Nurrenbern vs. Nolte

The 17th District covers Clay County and was held by Republicans until 2018, when Arthur captured the seat in a special election and cruised to an easy re-election in 2020. 

Both Nolte and Nurrenbern were unopposed in the August primary. 

Nolte reported nearly $70,000 in his campaign account in a disclosure filed last month. 

Nurrenbern reported $375,000 cash on hand as of last month in her campaign committee and another $200,000 in a PAC supporting her candidacy. 

Since the primary, the pro-Nurrenbern PAC — called Northland Forward — has received around $200,000 in large contributions. 

Nurrenbern’s campaign has spent $440,295 on TV ads, while Nolte is currently not on the air. Majority Forward, a PAC organized to support Democratic Senate candidates, has also spent $264,885 so far running a TV ad in the district. 

The Independent’s Rudi Keller contributed to this story. 

Correction: This story was updated on Oct. 11 to note that Lauren Arthur was re-elected to the Missouri Senate in 2020. 

Jim Hoft, founder of The Gateway Pundit, talks with Stephen K. Bannon while appearing on an episode of Brietbart News Daily on SiriusXM Patriot at Quicken Loans Arena on July 21, 2016 in Cleveland, Ohio (Ben Jackson/Getty Images for SiriusXM).

A settlement has been reached between the Gateway Pundit and two Georgia poll workers who accused the St. Louis-based far-right website of defamation in a civil suit in St. Louis Circuit Court.

Notice of the settlement was filed Monday afternoon. The parties to the dispute “provide notice to the court that the parties have reached agreement to settle all claims and counterclaims asserted in the … action, which settlement shall be satisfied on March 29, 2025,” the notice reads.

“The parties respectfully request that this court vacate the trial date set in this matter,” the notice continues, “and stay this matter until March 29, 2025, at which point the parties will dismiss this matter pending satisfaction of the terms of the Parties’ settlement agreement.”

The terms of the settlement were not disclosed.

As Fox News case heads to trial, far right St. Louis site faces its own defamation suit

A representative of the legal team working for the two poll workers wrote in an email that the settlement offers “mutual satisfaction” and is “fair and reasonable.” The poll workers, Ruby Freeman and her daughter Wandrea “Shaye” Moss, could not be reached.

Jonathan Burns, the St. Louis-based lawyer for Jim Hoft, the Gateway Pundit’s owner, did not immediately respond to a request for a comment.

In June, 2022, the two women provided emotional testimony to the House Select Committee Investigating the January 6^th Attack on the Capitol about the harassment, including death threats, that had resulted from false allegations they had committed voter fraud on behalf of Joe Biden during the counting of votes on election night in 2020.

Among those spreading the lies was the Gateway Pundit, which repeatedly bragged that it was the first to identify the two women as the culprits in the alleged fraud. Georgia election officials immediately debunked the allegations, but the Gateway Pundit continued to make them for years in dozens of articles.

The preliminary settlement appears to mean the Gateway Pundit will face little or no public reckoning in court for its repeated falsehoods.

The case, first filed in St. Louis Circuit Court in December, 2021, had appeared to be emerging as a high-profile test of the limits of the First Amendment, not unlike the defamation cases filed by parents of children murdered at Sandy Hook against Alex Jones and Dominion Voting Systems’ suit against Fox News.

Both of those cases ended up in huge judgments against the defendants.

A jury in Washington, D.C., awarded the two women more than $148 million in a defamation suit they had filed against former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani for telling the same lies about them that they accused the Gateway Pundit of spreading.

Some legal observers saw the prospect for a similar judgment by a St. Louis jury against the defendants in the suit here – TGP Communications, which does business as Gateway Pundit; Jim Hoft, the company’s sole owner; and his identical twin brother Joe, who is a contributor to the site.

The trial in St. Louis had been scheduled to start next March 10.

False fraud claims a focus of Rudy Giuliani’s 2020 Missouri testimony, St. Louis defamation suit

But it appears that the two women have yet to collect a dime from Giuliani, so the prospect of a settlement in the St. Louis case may have appeared to be worth taking. And the apparent settlement in the St. Louis case has a precedent – in April 2022 the two women settled their similar claims with One America News Network. The terms of that agreement were not disclosed. OANN did, however, later broadcast a statement that an investigation by Georgia officials had shown that the women “did not engage in ballot fraud or criminal misconduct while working at State Farm Arena on election night.”

What may have driven the Hofts to settle, one attorney familiar with these kinds of cases said, was the failure last July of their filing for bankruptcy in Florida. Had they been allowed bankruptcy protection, the St. Louis defamation case would have been stayed indefinitely.

But instead the U.S. Bankruptcy Court Southern District of Florida in West Palm Beach dismissed the case as a bad faith filing, “reflect(ing) the use of bankruptcy as a pure litigation tactic.”

During the bankruptcy proceedings, it was revealed that Gateway Pundit had a media insurance policy that carried $2 million in gross benefits, of which $700,000 had already been spent on legal fees in defending the St. Louis case. The attorney who is familiar with similar cases said it was possible the Hofts wanted to use the remaining insurance money to settle or help settle the case and put it behind them, rather than deplete it further by continuing to fight.

The settlement may mean escape for the Hofts from the potentially knockout punch that many observers thought a St. Louis jury might deal their website, one of the most influential on the far right. It also appears to mean that whatever information had been turned up by the two women’s lawyers in pre-trial discovery will never become public.

It was known, for example, that the lawyers were seeking the company’s financial records and searching for an understanding of how precisely the Gateway Pundit turned clicks on the site’s website into cash, and therefore the extent of their financial motive for repeating their lies.

It was also known that the lawyers were scheduled to depose the Hoft brothers — or perhaps even had by the time of the agreement to settle. Now whatever the Hofts may have said in those depositions, if they occurred, will remain under protective order.

This story was originally published by the Gateway Journalism Review. 

From left, the secretaries of state for Nebraska, Bob Evnen; Iowa, Paul Pate; Missouri, Jay Ashcroft; and South Dakota, Monae Johnson. Tuesday (Zach Wendling/Nebraska Examiner).

OMAHA, Neb. — Four secretaries of state and a federal agency director in cybersecurity described their work Wednesday as a line of defense in upholding election integrity and security ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

Nebraska Secretary of State Bob Evnen, in explaining the reason for Wednesday’s summit, asked simply, “Why not?” He said the Midwest states of Nebraska, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri and South Dakota have demonstrated that elections can be safe, smooth and secure.

“Election security is not static. Election security is not a one-and-done deal. Election security is dynamic,” Evnen said at the news conference. “If you’re going to continue to address these dynamic challenges to elections, then you do so in a dynamic fashion.”

The ‘imperative’ of election confidence

The National Counterterrorism Innovation, Technology and Education Center, or NCITE, headquartered at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, hosted the event.

Evnen’s three counterparts from Iowa (Paul Pate), Missouri (Jay Ashcroft) and South Dakota (Monae Johnson) joined the event, which Evnen said he expects to be repeated in future years. Kansas Secretary of State Scott Schwab participated in other summit events, including briefings on NCITE research, but was unable to attend the news conference, officials said.

Pate, who is in his fourth term as Iowa’s secretary of state, said he has seen elections evolve and become “more aggressive” in the past two decades, particularly through technology.

Yet election confidence remains essential, Pate said, and secretaries of state are doing everything they can to uphold integrity and security.

“It’s imperative that Americans, and Iowans, have confidence in those election results because the day after the election, if they don’t believe that that’s their governor or their senator or their president, our Republic has fallen without a single bullet being fired,” Pate said. “That’s not acceptable, so we’re going to continue to be vigilant and do what we can on our front.”

Director Jen Easterly of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, said CISA stands “shoulder to shoulder” with election officials nationwide. She said she has “tremendous confidence” in U.S. elections.

Easterly said CISA was established in 2018 from a previous U.S. Department of Homeland Security agency in part due to foreign attempts to influence the 2016 presidential election and after election infrastructure was designated as “critical” infrastructure.

Security protocols and training

The agency helps state and local election officials to prepare for any threats, including ransomware, physical threats and threats from foreign adversaries (such as Russia, Iran and China). Some of the support the agency provides, Easterly said, are security assessments, hypothetical scenario training and training for de-escalation and anti-active shooter incidents.

“At the end of the day, we know that elections will be safe. They will be secure. They will be free. They will be fair. But there will be things that go wrong,” Easterly said. “The good news is these disruptions, while problematic, will not affect how votes are counted and how votes are cast.”

Evnen said some of the ways that Nebraska has partnered with CISA in the past two years have included weekly scans of all 93 Nebraska county election websites for vulnerabilities, giving local officials “.gov” emails and website addresses and setting up internal protocols for day-to-day security.

“These are important steps we’re taking across Nebraska to ensure that our cyberinfrastructure is protected,” Evnen said.

Pate said those steps are national standards as officials “plan for the worst and hope for the best.”

Elections for ‘we the people’

All five secretaries of state who partnered with NCITE this week are elected Republicans, and Ashcroft said the officials don’t serve just Republicans or Democrats or  Libertarians or any other third parties in their respective states.

He said if officials do their job well, they are the basketball ref or linesman of a football game who “no one notices.”

The secretaries of state and Easterly invited more people to get involved in the election process, such as serving as poll workers or watchers, and for anyone who has questions to ask.

“We run elections for the people of the states,” Ashcroft explained. “We run elections for our government because it is how ‘we the people’ decide that our Republic will move forward.”

Ashcroft added that no matter who wins or loses, or which issues pass or fail, “at the end of the day, the American people can drink their beverage of choice and either celebrate or commiserate, but know that they were a part of the decision, that their votes counted and that the votes made a difference.”

The election officials noted that it is typical for “official” results not to be finalized for up to a week after Election Day, but they said that’s due in part due to the need to process provisional ballots, as well as conducting the “checks and balances” needed to ensure accurate results, particularly in close races, or possibly hand-count some ballots.

But for the most part, the secretaries of state said of their jurisdictions, most election results are typically available within a few hours of polls closing on Election Day.

“I believe in getting quick results out, my colleagues do, but we all believe in getting it right, and we believe in making sure that every American, no matter where Uncle Sam has sent them, has the right to participate in our elections,” Ashcroft said, indicating overseas voters.

Johnson, from South Dakota, said the “greatest unease” about the general election is the period between when polls close and when results are finalized. She said officials are workshopping scenarios with public safety teams to ensure that post-election events proceed smoothly and on time.

“Protecting the voting process and its facilitators is a collaborative process, and we have full faith in our state’s ability to overcome any disruptions,” Johnson said.

NCITE research

Gina Ligon, director of NCITE at the University of Nebraska at Omaha, said the center, which includes 38 partner universities, is working on four projects, such as tracking threats to election workers through federal charges and possible threats from emerging technologies.

Ligon said the federal charges are the “tip of the iceberg” as federal charges are a “really high bar,” while other NCITE research includes threats or violence specifically against election officials in swing states, including Pennsylvania, Arizona and Georgia.

Those states have seen the largest spikes in data in recent years, Ligon said.

That project is extending to Nebraska, partially with the competitiveness of Nebraska’s 2nd Congressional District for president. There are currently no federal charges, according to Ligon.

Other research, out of the University of Arkansas, includes interviews of election workers who have faced threats of violence. Initial research has indicated women don’t always report when they are victims of violence, Ligon said, and that people don’t understand when they cross First Amendment protections from anger to prohibited threats.

“As much as people say this is nothing new — ‘we’ve experienced this for a long time’ — our data just doesn’t support that,” Ligon said.

‘It’s up to all of us’

As of this time, Easterly said, there have been no specific election threats from terrorists, though she noted federal authorities thwarted the apparent plans of an Oklahoma City man on Tuesday and charged him with allegedly plotting a terrorist attack on Election Day in support of ISIS.

“If there are other things that we are seeing from the terrorist landscape, we will ensure that election officials are apprised of that immediately,” Easterly said.

Easterly said the period between Election Day on Nov. 5 and the presidential inauguration on Jan. 20 will be critical. She said foreign adversaries will try to create a “wedge” and attempt to “shred our institutions” or sow discord as each milestone of certification and validation passes.

“That’s why it’s up to all of us as Americans — as the secretary [Ashcroft] said, ‘We the people’ — these elections are for us,” Easterly said. “It’s up to all of us to do our part in protecting and preserving our democracy.”

This story was originally published by the Nebraska Examiner, a States Newsroom affiliate.

Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages prepare for a press conference in May, 2024 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A measure that would guarantee paid sick leave for over 700,000 Missouri workers who currently lack it, as well as gradually raise the minimum wage to $15 per hour, will appear on voters’ ballots next month.

The ballot initiative, called Proposition A, has been backed by various unions and workers’ advocacy groups, social justice and civil rights organizations, over 500 state business owners and others. 

Some business groups, including the state Chamber of Commerce, have opposed it, especially the guaranteed sick leave portion. But thus far there hasn’t been a coordinated opposition campaign. 

The campaign in favor of the measure, called Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages, has raised over $5 million — including from out-of-state groups that don’t disclose their donors— and collected 210,000 signatures to have the issue placed on the statewide ballot.

Most expect the ballot measure to succeed, given polling, national trends with similar ballot measures and the lack of coordinated opposition. Missourians have approved minimum wage increases on the ballot twice before by wide margins. 

“We believe full-time work deserves better than poverty,” said Richard Von Glahn, campaign manager for Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages, “but current minimum wage — that’s what it leads to.” 

The current minimum wage in Missouri is $12.30, which is equivalent to $492 per week, before taxes.

And without sick leave, proponents argue, workers have to choose between their financial and physical wellbeing — going into work sick or losing out on a needed paycheck.

“Everybody gets sick. Everybody has a child or someone they care for that gets sick,” Von Glahn said, “But when there’s an unequal ability to care for yourself or care for your family, that is unjust.”

Businesses would be required to provide one hour of paid sick time for every 30 hours worked, up to five days per year for small businesses and seven days per year for larger businesses. Small businesses are those with fewer than 15 employees.

Some business groups have said the proposal constitutes government overreach in what should be the decisions of business owners.

“A business owner’s ability to set their own workplace policies and procedures is really the bedrock on which our free enterprise system is built,” said Kara Corches, interim president and CEO of the Missouri Chamber of Commerce and Industry. “So this is creating a new mandate for employers in terms of wage as well as paid leave policy, that is really against that principle of ‘let business decide.”

“…We want to make sure that Missouri is the most business friendly state in the nation, and we don’t think that this proposition is sending that message,” Corches added.

Sick leave

The ballot measure would make sick leave guaranteed for 728,000 workers who currently lack it statewide, or over 1 in 3 Missouri workers, according to an analysis from the progressive nonprofit the Missouri Budget Project.

Many of those who lack paid sick leave are the lowest earners.

“Sick days are very common amongst the highest paid workers, you know, executives, those types of positions,” Von Glahn said, “but particularly in some of the lower wage industries — the industries that we’ve been calling essential for a number of years now — construction, retail, food service, nursing home, childcare workers, they lack access to this.”

Employees would be allowed to take the time for mental or physical illness, to take care of a family member, or due to a domestic violence situation, according to the proposition.

Employers could require documentation when a worker takes three or more days off in a row, such as a doctor’s note, but wouldn’t be allowed to require disclosure of detailed health information.

Corches said the paid sick leave part of the measure is what “gives us a little more heartburn, just because it’s so nebulous,” and open to interpretation. She pointed specifically to confusion around provisions that would give employees a civil cause of action to sue if employers break the law, and another provision that prohibits employers from retaliation when workers take leave. 

“Business owners have enough on their plates, just trying to, you know, keep their businesses open, retain and recruit employees, and this nine page new proposition is very complicated and is going to make compliance quite challenging,” Corches said.

If the measure passes in Missouri, the paid sick time provision will kick in on May 1, 2025.

Ray McCarty, CEO of Associated Industries of Missouri, a business advocacy organization, raised concerns that “you will have people that abuse the system,” meaning those who take sick leave who don’t qualify. McCarty said in some cases employers may need proof of the legitimate absence earlier than three days in, or need to ask for more detailed information.

Missouri would join 15 states that require employers to provide paid sick leave. The United States, unlike nearly every other country, lacks federal paid sick leave, so states, as well as cities, have taken the lead. 

In states that have adopted sick leave mandates, employees take, on average, two more sick days a year than prior to the law going into effect, a National Bureau of Economic Research report found.

Studies have found that offering paid sick time can increase workers’ productivity and reduce illness, and generally adds little or nothing to business expenses.

Nebraska and Alaska also have paid sick leave on the ballot this year.

Minimum wage

The ballot measure also would raise the state’s minimum wage to $13.75 next year and $15 in Jan. 2026. 

The increase would affect over 562,000 workers in the state, according to the Missouri Budget Project, or nearly one in every four workers. The minimum wage would be adjusted based on inflation every year after 2026.

McCarty said most members in Associated Industries of Missouri already pay at least $15 hourly, though they may not realize the “whole wage scale will slide up,” meaning raising the minimum wage could have spillover effects on other wages, for businesses to remain competitive. 

He said some employers could go over to Kansas and pay less, so may choose to be based in neighboring states. 

The states neighboring Missouri already have lower minimum wages, except for Illinois, which is $14 per hour. 

A coalition of hundreds of businesspeople in the state have signed on to support the ballot measure, arguing the policies help their bottom line, causing lower employee turnover, increased productivity and better health and safety conditions.

Ballot initiatives to raise the minimum wage are generally likely to succeed, and have previously succeeded in Missouri, amidst legislative inaction or opposition.

Voters approved a minimum-wage hike in 2006, with 75% of the vote, and again in 2018, with 62% of the vote.

Advocates have had success with ballot measures as, for years, Republicans in the legislature have voted against or failed to hear proposals to increase the minimum wage, Von Glahn said. In 2017 the legislature passed a law prohibiting cities from raising the minimum wage beyond that of the state’s, after St. Louis city passed an ordinance to raise the city’s minimum wage.

The federal minimum wage has been stagnant, at $7.25, since 2009. Thirty states, including Missouri, have a minimum wage higher than the federal one.

‘Confident it will pass’

Missourians for Healthy Families and Fair Wages has so far raised over $5 million, according to campaign filings. 

That includes two $1.2 million donations from the D.C.-based Sixteen Thirty Fund, in August and October, a progressive nonprofit that is not required to disclose its donors. Other large donors include Missouri Jobs with Justice Voter Action and the D.C.-based The Fairness Project.

The campaign has purchased over $1.4 million in television ads, slated to begin airing next week, according to Federal Communications Commission filings.

The ballot measure would change the state law but not the constitution, meaning the legislature could overturn it, but that is unlikely, McCarty said. 

“I don’t see any politician in their right mind — if this passes with a high percentage of votes, which we expect it will — I don’t see any politician in their right mind completely repealing the entire law,” he said, citing potential concerns about overturning the will of voters.

Corches said the Chamber is focused on the election and would only “start looking at, is it possible to modify this in the Capitol” if it passes.  

Von Glahn said Prop A will be a test of whether or not the legislature “respects the will of voters.”

The St. Louis University/YouGov poll conducted in August found the ballot measure had a strong backing, with 57% of those surveyed supporting it.

“We feel confident that it will pass next month, but we’re also doing the work,” Von Glahn said. “I mean, we’ve got people out canvassing every day, talking to voters about it.”

People toss buckets of water out of a home as the streets and homes are flooded near Peachtree Creek after Hurricane Helene brought in heavy rains over night on Sept. 27 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Megan Varner/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Hurricane season has not only wreaked havoc on people’s lives throughout much of the country, but could also make it more difficult for voters to cast their ballots in hard-hit regions.

Other election threats include misinformation and even terrorism, with warnings from the Department of Homeland Security and an arrest in Oklahoma allegedly connected with an Election Day plot.

Election officials in states regularly affected by hurricane season have considerable experience ensuring residents can vote following natural disasters, but those in other parts of the country less accustomed to the destruction this year are learning as they go.

Voters used to a quick drive to their polling place or a drop box might need to spend more time getting there amid washed-out roads, while some may be so bogged down in rebuilding their lives, they simply choose not to cast a ballot. Regular mail service may be disrupted for mail-in ballots.

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said earlier this week he didn’t expect recovery from Hurricane Helene to have a significant impact on voting, lauding county election officials for troubleshooting power outages and a loss of internet during the storm, the Georgia Recorder reported.

Local election officials throughout the state, he said, were ready to ship mail-in ballots on time and didn’t expect any delays to the start of early voting on Oct. 15.

County election officials “really put public service first because they understand how important voting is in 53 counties that so far have been declared federal disaster areas,” he said during a press briefing.

North Carolina’s Board of Elections has implemented changes in 13 counties that will make it easier for residents there to vote by absentee ballot, NC Newsline reported. The emergency measures, adopted unanimously, also allow elections officials to increase outreach to voters and set up alternative voting locations to avoid using locations that were damaged or are inaccessible.

Elections Director Karen Brinson Bell said during that board meeting she expects early voting will still begin on Oct. 17 as previously planned.

“These measures will help eligible voters in the affected areas cast their ballot either in person or by mail,” Brinson Bell said. “They will help county boards of election in western North Carolina administer this election under extraordinarily difficult conditions.”

In Florida, where residents barely began addressing damage from Hurricane Helene before Hurricane Milton emerged, there are disagreements about how best to proceed, the Florida Phoenix reported.

The League of Women Voters of Florida Education Fund and the Florida State Conference of the NAACP have filed a lawsuit in federal court seeking to extend the voter registration deadline, which ended on Monday.

The organizations argue that Florida Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis should have allowed more time for voter registration, since residents have been focused on storm preparation, evacuation and recovery.

“While issuing mandatory evacuation orders, he has refused to extend the voter registration deadline, disenfranchising many Floridians who were unable to register due to a disaster beyond their control,” the organizations wrote in a statement. “Voters should not have to worry about registering to vote while they are trying to protect their lives and communities.”

Elections and artificial intelligence

In Kentucky, elections officials are warning state lawmakers that artificial intelligence has the “potential for significant impact” on elections in the months and years ahead, the Kentucky Lantern reported.

Republican Secretary of State Michael Adams urged lawmakers during a meeting of the General Assembly’s Artificial Intelligence Task Force to take the technology seriously.

“Should you take up AI legislation when you return in 2025, I would encourage you to consider prohibiting impersonation of election officials,” Adams said during the meeting. “It is illegal to impersonate a peace officer, and for good reason. It should be equally illegal to impersonate a secretary of state or county clerk and put out false information in any format about our elections.”

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security released a report earlier this month saying officials expected “state actors will continue to pose a host of threats to the Homeland and public safety,” including through artificial intelligence.

“Specifically, China, Iran, and Russia will use a blend of subversive, undeclared, criminal, and coercive tactics to seek new opportunities to undermine confidence in US democratic institutions and domestic social cohesion,” the 46-page report states.

“Advances in AI likely will enable foreign adversaries to increase the output, timeliness, and perceived authenticity of their mis-, dis-, and malinformation designed to influence US audiences while concealing or distorting the origin of the content.”

Terrorism and the election 

DHS also expects threats from terrorism to remain high throughout the year, including around the elections, according to the report.

“Lone offenders and small groups continue to pose the greatest threat of carrying out attacks with little to no warning,” the report states.

That appears to be the case in Oklahoma, where federal officials allege a 27-year-old Afghanistan national living in the state purchased an AK-47 and ammunition as part of a plot to conduct an attack on Election Day in the name of ISIS, the Oklahoma Voice reported.

Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi and a co-conspirator under the age of 18 allegedly met with an FBI asset in rural western Oklahoma to purchase two AK-47 assault rifles, 10 magazines and 500 rounds of ammunition, according to the criminal complaint.

An FBI search of Tawhedi’s phone found communications with a person who Tawhedi believed was affiliated with ISIS. He also “allegedly accessed, viewed, and saved ISIS propaganda on his iCloud and Google account, participated in pro-ISIS Telegram groups, and contributed to a charity which fronts for and funnels money to ISIS,” according to the complaint.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s campaign has sought to blame Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris for Tawhedi’s presence within the United States.

Trump Campaign National Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt released a written statement claiming that Harris “rolled out the red carpet for terrorists like Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi.”

“President Donald Trump will deport illegal immigrants on the terror watch list and secure our borders from foreign threats,” Leavitt wrote.

Tawhedi entered the United States on Sept. 9, 2021, on a special immigrant visa and “is currently on parole status pending adjudication of his immigration proceedings,” according to the criminal complaint.

The co-defendant is Tawhedi’s wife’s younger brother. While unnamed because he is a juvenile, the criminal complaint says he is a citizen of Afghanistan with legal permanent resident status who entered the United States on March 27, 2018, on a special immigrant visa.

Leavitt’s statement didn’t comment on the co-defendant entering the United States during the Trump administration.

Harris has not yet commented publicly on the arrest.

The St. Louis County office of Express Scripts, one of the nation's largest pharmacy benefit managers (Google Maps).

A federal antitrust watchdog is already conducting an investigation into, and has filed a lawsuit against, huge pharmacy middlemen. Now two U.S. senators want the Federal Trade Commission to open a separate investigation into an emerging practice of their even bigger parent companies.

The middlemen are called pharmacy benefit managers or PBMs, and they have long claimed that their size enables them to force drugmakers to lower their prices and create savings for patients. But two of the big-three middlemen have entered into “co-manufacturing” agreements with some of the very drugmakers that are supposedly their adversaries in drug-pricing negotiations.

The health conglomerates that own CVS Caremark and Express Scripts already own businesses that occupy huge swaths of the health care space. The co-manufacturing agreements mean that they’ll extend their tentacles into yet another, and that won’t be good for consumers, said a letter sent to the FTC last week by two Democratic senators — Sherrod Brown of Ohio and Ron Wyden of Oregon.

“The concern with these ‘co-manufacturing’ agreements is that they are a veiled attempt by PBMs to control additional parts of the supply chain which has resulted in additional harm to consumers in the form of fewer drug choices and higher drug costs,” their letter said.

For its part, CVS says that measures such as co-manufacturing agreements have helped it save clients $500 million on immunosuppressive drugs similar to Humira.

The company’s PBM, CVS Caremark, handles drug transactions on behalf of insurers, including Aetna, which CVS Health also owns.

They create networks of pharmacies and they decide how much to reimburse them from the drugs they dispense. And because CVS owns a mail-order pharmacy in addition to the largest retail chain, it determines how much to pay itself and its competitors — an arrangement in which the company’s critics see an inherent conflict.

CVS Caremark, Express Scripts and a third PBM — OptumRx — control access to about 80% of people whose prescriptions are covered by insurance. Since the PBMs decide which drugs are covered and by how much, they have enormous leverage to get drugmakers to give them huge, often nontransparent rebates and fees.

The FTC last month sued the big PBMs over their practices in this arena, saying that they forced up insulin list prices starting in 2012. The agency is also engaged in a sweeping “6(b)” investigation of the big PBMs and in July released a scathing interim report saying they appeared to be artificially increasing drug prices and harming patients.

In their letter, Brown and Wyden, both members of the Senate Finance Committee, are asking the FTC to open a separate 6(b) investigation into the co-manufacturing arrangements of CVS Caremark and Express Scripts. They say that with the agreements, the conglomerates don’t seem to be making anything, they’re just taking control of yet another part of the drug supply chain.

The agreements are with companies that make versions of adalimumab, a drug used to treat arthritis that is known under the brand names Humira and Hyrimoz.

The letter by Brown and Wyden included a graphic from a CVS earnings call. It’s in the shape of a heart and it shows that through its vertical integration, a customer with Aetna insurance can have CVS Caremark as a PBM, get adalimumab as a product of a CVS co-manufacturing agreement, get primary care at Oak Street Health, get in-home evaluations from Signify Health, and get meds from a CVS pharmacy. All those companies are subsidiaries of CVS Health.

“This graphic clearly shows the benefits that CVS and its shareholders reap by capturing patients and directing them through the vertically integrated array of CVS subsidiaries,” Wyden and Brown wrote.

Express Scripts didn’t respond to a request for comment, but CVS spokesman David Whitrap said the senators are missing a basic point — that CVS has brought down the cost of adalimumab by preferring lower-cost “biosimilars” to Humira.

“Unlocking the biosimilar market was not easy, and it required many of the tools that CVS Health brings to bear: Caremark’s proven ability to transition patients to more affordable prescription drugs, the will and trust of the businesses that hire us, our investments in (electronic-medical-record) connectivity that drive a better patient and provider experience, the consultative care and product delivery from CVS Specialty Pharmacy, and (drugmaker) Cordavis’ ability to identify biosimilar drugmakers that produce high-quality alternatives at a sustainable supply on which our members can rely,” Whitrap said in an email.

Brown and Wyden, however, suspect that the opposite is the case.

“Vertical integration of PBMs into yet another aspect of the health system,” they wrote, “intensifies our concerns about the ability of PBMs to markup the cost of biosimilars and steer patients to their higher cost ‘co-manufactured’ products while limiting access to products from non-affiliated manufacturers.”

This story was originally published by the Ohio Capital Journal, a States Newsroom affiliate. 

(Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Republicans are struggling to recruit and elect women to Congress, lagging behind Democrats in ensuring women, who make up half the population, have a strong voice in the halls of power, experts on women in politics said Tuesday.

“This year’s data shows clearly that Republican women are falling behind in candidacies, nominations and even primary contest success,” Debbie Walsh, director of the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University in New Jersey, said on a call with reporters.

Democratic women, on the other hand, “are not only outperforming their male counterparts, but are also reaching near parity with Democratic men in nominations and office holding.”

The 435-member U.S. House currently has 126 women, 34 of whom are Republicans. The 100-member Senate has 25 female lawmakers, with nine belonging to the GOP.

CAWP Director of Data Chelsea Hill explained on the call that while women overall account for just 31.1% of general election nominees for the House, the breakdown shows a stark difference for Democratic and Republican politicians.

“Women continue to be significantly underrepresented as a percentage of all U.S. House and Senate candidates and nominees,” Hill said. “But Republican women are a significantly smaller percentage of their party’s candidates and nominees than are Democratic women.”

Democratic women running for the House represent 45.9% of candidates within their party, coming close to parity with their male colleagues and increasing female candidate percentages over 2022, she said.

Republican women, however, make up 16.2% of GOP House candidates this election cycle, a lower share than during 2020 and 2022, Hill said.

In the Senate, female candidates account for 30.9% of general election nominees, with a similar split between Democrats and Republicans.

Democratic women account for 46.9% of the party’s candidates for that chamber of Congress, also near parity, though women make up 17.6% of Republican Senate nominees, “a smaller share than in the three previous cycles,” according to Hill.

Why are fewer Republican women running?

CAWP experts said the difference in female candidates is predominantly due to structural differences as well as differing beliefs about the importance of women holding office among leadership and voters.

CAWP Director of Research Kelly Dittmar said if party leadership doesn’t believe women’s underrepresentation in government is a problem in need of a solution, that will make “it hard to build the type of support infrastructure — whether it be for women’s PACs, trainings, recruitment programs — that would ensure that those numbers stay high.”

Dittmar said one example of this was House Republican leaders’ decision to roll a program called “Project Grow” that was aimed at recruiting female GOP lawmakers into the “Young Guns” program, which is focused more on general recruitment.

“Young Guns” is also the title of a book published in 2010 by former House Republican leaders Paul Ryan, Eric Cantor and Kevin McCarthy, all of whom are men.

Dittmar said the evolution of the Republican Party under former President Donald Trump and the change in abortion access stemming from the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade in 2022 are not significant factors accounting for the lower numbers of female Republican candidates.

“I would suggest that when we get to the candidate level, there are enough conservative Republican women in the country that could be recruited and supported as candidates,” Dittmar said.

Walsh said one of the reasons GOP leaders don’t focus on recruiting and encouraging women in public office is that there is a “reluctance” within the Republican Party to engage in identity politics.

“The Democratic Party places value on that, versus the Republican Party, which says the best candidate will rise to the top and let the best person win,” Walsh said. “So it is a deeply philosophical difference that plays out in candidate recruitment, candidate support.”

Dittmar added that Democrats aren’t necessarily recruiting and advancing female candidates “out of the goodness of their hearts,” but are doing so because it’s expected by their voters.

“There’s an electoral incentive, partly due to the gender gap in voting, as well as racial and ethnic differences in terms of the Democratic base, where there is more demand on the Democratic Party to say, ‘Look, we’re bringing you votes, you need to prioritize and value this level of representation.’”

The Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System’s $30,000 contribution to a campaign backing a court fee for sheriffs’ pensions is raising questions about the misuse of public funds. (Getty Images)

The Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System last month made a $30,000 investment, hoping for a big return if voters approve a ballot measure imposing a $3 fee on court cases to fund the system’s pensions.

The $30,000 contribution to the Committee to Ensure a Future for Sheriffs & Prosecutors, the committee promoting Amendment 6 on the Nov. 5 ballot, was approved at the system’s Board of Directors meeting in September, executive director Melissa Lorts said Tuesday.

The donation is drawing concern from critics of the proposed amendment — and even lawmakers in support — who question whether the pension board is using taxpayer dollars to support a political campaign.

The fee on court cases could generate about $2 million annually, according to a fiscal note for the legislation putting the measure before voters.

Prosecutors, who would also benefit from Amendment 6, have contributed $50,000 from Missouri Prosecutors Association funds. Sheriffs are the biggest contributors, with $100,000 coming from the Missouri Sheriff’s Association in addition to the donation from the retirement fund.

Amendment would use court fees to fund retirement for Missouri sheriffs, prosecutors

Along with providing the third-largest single contribution to the campaign, the retirement system website is actively promoting passage of the proposal with a box urging a “yes” vote on Amendment 6 and a link to the campaign website.

Lorts is the treasurer of the campaign committee in addition to her duties, which she said are part-time, as fund executive director.

No law is being violated by making the donation, Lorts said.

“I have a legal opinion and these are not public dollars,” Lorts said. “I’m not a political subdivision and they’re not public dollars.”

The legal opinion was not provided in writing, Lorts said. She also said she called the Missouri Ethics Commission and was assured the contribution was legal.

That assurance was not formalized in writing, either, Lorts said.

“My attorney, and I’ve also called Missouri Ethics, says nowhere am I not allowed to do that,” Lorts said. 

Stacy Heislen, acting executive director of the ethics commission, declined to comment on any specific conversations.

“Our practice is to provide an overview of what the statute allows,” Heislen said.

Questions from lawmakers

Leading members of the legislature’s Joint Committee on Public Employee Retirement weren’t as certain as Lorts that the contributions were unquestionably legal.

State Rep. Barry Hovis, a Cape Girardeau Republican and chairman of the committee, said he would have to know more about the precise source of funds. He said he would ask committee staff to research the question.

“If we think that it’s a Missouri ethics complaint, obviously that report should be made to Missouri ethics to see if they did spend money that’s not viable for a campaign or election,” Hovis said. “I don’t know, I’m just not good enough on the rules to say yes or no on those.”

Hovis, a retired police officer who sponsored the legislation in the Missouri House, said he thinks the fee is reasonable. Sheriffs are vital to the functioning of the courts by serving paperwork, providing security and operating jails, he said.

Another committee member, Senate Minority Leader Doug Beck, an Affton Democrat, said he was also uncertain about the legality of the donation and wanted to know more.

“This doesn’t look good, and that’s where I’m at right now,” Beck said. “I would have to talk to some other folks that are a little bit more knowledgeable about this. I personally don’t like the way it looks.”

The fee in question was added to criminal cases in 1983 and expanded to include municipal court cases in 2013. In 2021, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled that it was an unconstitutional bar to the courts, which are to be open to all and where “justice shall be administered without sale, denial or delay.”

Amendment 6 would overturn that decision by stating that “costs and fees to support salaries and benefits for” sheriffs, former sheriffs, prosecutors and former prosecutors is part of ensuring “that all Missourians have access to the courts of justice…”

Before the Supreme Court decision, the fiscal note for the legislation states, the fee brought about $2 million annually to the pension fund.

The fund in 2023 paid $3.8 million in benefits to 147 retired former sheriffs, one disabled former sheriff, and 52 spouses. The administrative costs of $244,454.

There are 17 retired sheriffs eligible for a pension but not receiving it and 115 currently in office.

“My board voted to contribute because it is important to the 200 members that are currently receiving a benefit that will lose their benefit if we do not receive our $3 fee back,” Lorts said.

Public money to shore up pension fund

During calendar year 2023, without the fees, the fund received $89,502 in contributions, had $38.4 million in assets and had lost $15 million in value over the previous two years. A large portion of the loss in value was due to refunding the unconstitutional fee and other costs from litigation.

To shore up its finances, lawmakers this year appropriated $5 million in general revenue to the fund, $2.5 million in the supplemental spending bill for the year ending June 30 and another $2.5 million in the current year.

Since Jan. 1, sheriffs have been contributing 5% of their salaries toward the pension fund.

By making the contribution after receiving state tax dollars, the fund could have violated rules governing the use of state appropriations, said Sharon Jones, an attorney from Jefferson City who was a member of the legal team that forced changes in the ballot language for Amendment 6.

“I’m not surprised by it even a little bit,” Jones said of the contribution.

The legal question is a murky one, she said. 

“Our campaign finance laws are pretty Wild West,” she said. “Certainly, there have been attempts over the last couple of years specifically aimed at school boards and county people trying to pass levies to say you can’t campaign for it.”

A state law dating to 1988, and strengthened in 2021, prohibits political subdivisions from using public funds to support or oppose any ballot measure or candidate. No one interviewed for this story could point to a specific state law applying that prohibition to state departments or entities created by state statute.

Federal law does prohibit the conversion of public funds to campaign purposes.

“If the sheriff’s pension goes under, the state of Missouri is on the hook for those dollars,” Jones said.

Regardless of the law, she said, it is an improper diversion of money away from its official purpose.

“It’s still public money, and it’s still money that is supposed to be used on the administration of the pension fund and to make sure that there is enough to pay out what’s owed when the time comes,” Jones said.

Frank Vatterott, an attorney, former municipal judge in St. Louis County and a critic of the fee, said the $3 fee has nothing to do with keeping the courts open. 

Vatterott refused to collect the fee while he was a judge. The roots of the constitutional prohibition on the fee, he said, date back to the Magna Carta, the 1215 document that put protections for individual rights into a legally binding document for the first time in England.

“The administration of justice just means the cost to keep the court going, to pay the court clerk and pay the judge and do the paperwork,” Vatterott said. “This is not the administration of justice. These are retirement funds.”

Vatterott said he has no doubt that the system’s money is public funds. And he’s not in doubt about the law.

“You can’t use public money for advocacy, period,” he said. “I would imagine they’re not that dumb.”

The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, on Tuesday announced a proposal on long-term care under Medicare focused on the “sandwich generation,” which refers to Americans who are caring for their children while also caring for aging parents (Getty Images).

Vice President Kamala Harris unveiled a plan Tuesday that would strengthen Medicare coverage to include long-term care for seniors in their homes, tackling one of the biggest challenges in U.S. health care.

The Democratic presidential nominee revealed the proposal while on “The View” — one of several high-profile media appearances this week as she and the GOP presidential nominee, former President Donald Trump, sprint to the November finish line.

“There are so many people in our country who are right in the middle: They’re taking care of their kids and they’re taking care of their aging parents, and it’s just almost impossible to do it all, especially if they work,” Harris said during the live interview. “We’re finding that so many are then having to leave their job, which means losing a source of income, not to mention the emotional stress.”

Harris is focusing on the “sandwich generation,” which refers to Americans who are caring for their children while also caring for aging parents.

Under the plan, Medicare — the nation’s health insurance program for people 65 and older and some under 65 with certain disabilities or conditions — would cover an at-home health benefit for those enrolled in the program, as well as hearing and vision benefits, according to her campaign in a Tuesday fact sheet.

Medicare for the most part now does not cover long-term care services like home health aides.

The benefits would be funded by “expanding Medicare drug price negotiations, increasing the discounts drug manufacturers cover for certain brand-name drugs in Medicare, and addressing Medicare fraud,” per her campaign.

Harris also plans to “crack down on pharmaceutical benefit managers (PBMs) to increase transparency, disclose more information on costs, and regulate other practices that raise prices,” according to her campaign, which said she will also “implement international tax reform.”

The campaign did not cite a price tag but noted similar plans have been estimated to cost $40 billion annually, “before considering ​​savings from avoiding hospitalizations and more expensive institutional care, or the additional revenues that would generate from more unpaid family caregivers going back to work if they need to.”

The proposal comes along with the nominee’s sweeping economic plan, part of which involves cutting taxes for more than 100 million Americans, including $6,000 in tax relief for new parents in the first year of their child’s life.

Trump responds

In response to the proposal, the Trump campaign said the former president “will always fight for America’s senior citizens — who have been left behind by Kamala Harris,” per a Tuesday news release.

The campaign also cited Medicare Advantage policies extended by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services in Trump’s first term.

The campaign reiterated the 2024 GOP platform’s chapter on protecting seniors, saying Trump will “prioritize home care benefits by shifting resources back to at-home senior care, overturning disincentives that lead to care worker shortages, and supporting unpaid family caregivers through tax credits and reduced red tape.”

Harris and Howard Stern

While appearing live on “The Howard Stern Show” on Tuesday shortly after “The View,” Harris dubbed Trump an “unserious man,” saying the consequences of him serving another term are “brutally serious.”

She also again criticized Trump for nominating three of the five members to the U.S. Supreme Court who voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in June 2022 — a reversal that ended nearly half a century of the constitutional right to abortion.

“And it’s not about abortion, you have basically now a system that says you as an individual do not have the right to make a decision about your own body. The government has the right to make that decision for you,” she said.

Harris, who said she would appoint a Republican to her Cabinet if elected, was asked whether she would choose former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney.

Cheney was the vice chair of the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee tasked with investigating the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

Harris did not disclose a preference, but said Cheney is “smart,” “remarkable” and a “dedicated public servant.”

Cheney is among some prominent Republicans to endorse Harris. She campaigned with the veep in Ripon, Wisconsin — the birthplace of the Republican Party — just last week.

Trump talks with Ben Shapiro

Meanwhile, Trump said Harris is “grossly incompetent” during an interview that aired Tuesday on “The Ben Shapiro Show.”

“Biden was incompetent, she is equally incompetent and in a certain way, she’s more incompetent,” Trump told Shapiro, a conservative political commentator and co-founder of The Daily Wire, referring to President Joe Biden.

Trump also criticized Harris’ Monday interview on CBS News’ “60 Minutes,” saying the veep “answers questions like a child.”

“She’s answering questions in the most basic way and getting killed over it,” Trump added.

Look ahead for Harris, Trump campaigns

Harris was also set to also appear on CBS’ “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert” on Tuesday night. She will also appear at a Univision town hall in Las Vegas, Nevada, that airs Thursday.

Trump was slated to participate in a roundtable with Latino leaders and a Univision town hall on Tuesday in Miami, but both events were postponed due to Hurricane Milton.

Trump is set to give remarks Wednesday in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Later that day, he will continue campaigning in the Keystone State with a rally in Reading.

Diasha White (on the mic) was one of several speakers at the KC Tenants rally outside of Independence Towers on Oct. 1. The tenant union is demanding a national rent cap, a collectively bargained lease and maintenance updates (Mili Mansaray/The Beacon).

When you walk into the back entrance of Independence Towers, you’re met with a foyer filled with dust, debris and cobwebs.

Two rust-coated elevators loom against the back wall. Peeling paint and caution tape line the dirt-ridden hallways on either side.

Diasha White said it wasn’t always like this. She’s lived in the building for six years and described the first three as “beautiful.”

But she said everything changed when a new owner purchased the building and a company owned by FTW Investments LLC took over management.

“You knew he was a different type of landlord who did not take care of the property,” she said. “We’ve got holes in our walls with rusted pipes exposed, vermin falling out of those holes, water creating soft spots in the ceilings and mold.”

Independence Towers is owned by a limited liability company, 728 N Jennings Rd Partners LLC. FTW Investments said in a statement it managed the LLC as a service.

After losing hot water for weeks, White joined the Independence Towers Tenant Union in May. That union accounts for 65% percent of the 63 occupied units in the building.

In mid-May, a Jackson County judge appointed Trigild Inc. to manage the property after the Federal National Mortgage Association, known as Fannie Mae, accused the owners of failing to keep up with repairs and payments.

But tenants say that essential repairs have not been addressed. They said Trigild’s Vice President Nancy Daniels has not communicated with the union since a meeting in June.

Trigild Inc. did not respond to The Beacon’s request for comment.

The Independence Towers union — together with the Quality Hill Towers Tenant Union — launched a rent strike Oct. 1 to demand better living conditions. The strike is organized by KC Tenants. The unions are advocating for maintenance improvements, collectively bargained leases and national rent caps on federally backed buildings.

KC Tenants says both properties were purchased with multimillion-dollar loans backed by Fannie Mae in 2021.

The tenant unions want a national rent cap of 3% for all buildings that receive loans backed by Fannie Mae, which is regulated by the Federal Housing Finance Agency. They also seek repairs and maintenance for their respective buildings, as well as collectively bargained leases for residents.

Sentinel Real Estate Corp,, which owns Quality Hill Towers, said in a statement that it’s been “working with the union in good faith for more than a year,” respects tenants’ right to organize and is in the process of completing requested repairs.

The Quality Hills Towers strike will ultimately harm tenants because it will make it harder to complete repairs, the statement said.

The company gave tenants until Oct. 3 to submit their rent before issuing a total of $2,750 in late fees to residents in the 55 striking units, according to an Oct. 5 KC Tenants press release.

Tenants said they taped their late fee notices to management’s door and burned several outside their offices.

What are the living conditions?

Many residents at Quality Hill Towers say they love the area because of Case Park, which overlooks the West Bottoms and the Missouri River. But inside, the reality is starkly different.

“Once I moved in (last January), I saw roaches within a week,” said Sarvesh Patel. Patel said he has also dealt with mice. He caught 12 in one weekend last year. His living room lights don’t always work, his bathtub doesn’t drain and his windows won’t stay open.

Before the strike, he paid $910 a month in rent, a 22% increase from what he initially paid, he said at an Oct. 1 rally.

Enrique Rodriguez has only lived at Quality Hill since April, but in just six months, he says he’s dealt with a kitchen sink that backs up with sewage water, peeling layers of paint and infestations of both mice and bedbugs that have left his legs marked with welts.

At the rally, a Quality Hill organizer said that the tenant union, which represents 63% of the 234 occupied units, has withheld over $39,000 in rent from Sentinel.

Twenty-one miles east, residents at Independence Towers face similar disputes with their landlord.

Once off the elevator, the carpet on the ninth floor immediately emits the smell of old, damp fabric and mildew. Chris Carlton, a resident of nearly a year, said that’s because a section of the hallway recently flooded. Along the walls splattered in yellow and white paint, the baseboards are coming loose or completely detached from the wall.

Elliot West and her parents have lived there for eight years. In their previous apartment on the now-condemned 10th floor, their ceiling collapsed. She said management left them there for a month before they were moved.

In their current apartment on the ninth floor, she said, the wallboard in her parents’ bedroom fell onto their bed, and they’re also battling roaches and bedbugs. Although they had to pay $1,000 to treat the infestation, West insists her family wasn’t the cause. She said management told them there was no proof of who was responsible.

Before the strike, White, the tenant who has lived in the building for six years, said she was paying $740 for her two-bedroom apartment. However, through conversations with management, she discovered her rent had been raised to $850 last summer — which she never received notice of.

After losing hot water in May, residents endured weeks without air conditioning in June. Tenants were given portable AC units, but they found this resulted in higher electricity bills.

“I paid $728 for my summer electric bill running the portable AC,” White said. “Usually, my highest bill is $42.”During this time, a 22-year-old resident was charged with first-degree arson after police said she confessed to setting her kitchen on fire, which rendered most of the second floor uninhabitable. Then in late July, a 3-year-old boy fell to his death from an unsecured and broken window on the eighth floor.

Management’s response 

Leaders with KC Tenants said the rent strikes mark the first in its history. They also say these are the first-ever strikes targeting FHFA, the regulator for Fannie Mae. Both buildings were purchased with loans backed by the government-sponsored enterprise.

Together, the unions plan to withhold over $60,000 from their landlords in October, according to a KC Tenants press release. That could potentially impact a landlord’s ability to make mortgage payments on Fannie Mae-backed loans.

At the Quality Hill rally, speakers called for federal regulators to foreclose on Sentinel during negotiations. They want to be involved in finding a new property owner.

The statement from Sentinel said that residents renewing their leases are already seeing annual increases of approximately 3% on average.

“We believe the tenant union’s rent strike is misguided, short-sighted, and has the potential to create negative consequences for the entire property,” the statement said.

Residents at Independence Towers said they want permanent fixes to the plumbing and heating and air conditioning systems, more maintenance staff, monthly pest control treatments, repairs to the parking garage and a moratorium on evictions or lease nonrenewals.

The ongoing issues at Independence Towers have raised concerns about the effectiveness of the city of Independence’s Rental Ready program, designed to ensure rental units are safe and meet health standards.

Despite complaints about building conditions, Independence Towers passed its most recent inspection in December. Brent Schondelmeyer, an Independence resident and former Kansas City Star reporter, told the City Council he’d found that 99% of inspections from May 2022 to May 2023 received a perfect score, based on a checklist of nine health and safety standards.

Critics argue that the inspection process, which relies on third-party inspectors hired by landlords, may not adequately address safety issues.

Independence City Council members are now considering revisions to the Rental Ready program, which they hope to have ready by the end of the year.

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Dyllan Davault, a harvester at Robust Cannabis facility in Cuba, Mo., tends to greenhouse plants on May 2, 2023 (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

The court debate Tuesday over how Missouri marijuana products get taxed statewide sounded similar to a grammar class on conjunctions and comma placement.

The constitutional amendment voters approved in 2022 legalizing recreational marijuana allowed local governments to impose additional sales tax on the products.

The big question before the three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals Eastern District on Tuesday was: what did voters intend by “local government?”

Attorneys for St. Louis and St. Charles counties argued the word “and” is key in the definition laid out in the constitutional amendment.

It states that “local government” means, “in the case of an incorporated area, a village, town, or city; and, in the case of an unincorporated area, a county.” 

The counties asked the appellate judges to uphold a lower court’s interpretation in May that both a county and a local municipality can impose a 3% sales tax at dispensaries in their jurisdictions.

However, Florissant-based dispensary Robust Missouri 3 LLC argued that the comma placement is key. 

“While ‘and’ typically functions as a conjunction, here it connects two distinct clauses—one for incorporated areas and one for unincorporated areas — under the framework of ‘in the case of,’ which delineates separate alternatives,” states Robust’s reply brief.

Attorneys for Robust said Tuesday that voters didn’t intend for two local governments – in its case, St. Louis County and the City of Florissant — to both add taxes, resulting in a 14.988% sales tax rate. That’s before a statewide 6% adult use marijuana tax is added in, making the total sales tax at the Florissant dispensary 20.988%.

To put that in perspective, the highest adult-use marijuana sales tax in Missouri is in Florissant’s neighboring cities of Hazelwood and St. Ann, with 17.988% or 23.988% total.

Looking beyond the grammar, appellate judges asked about the possibility of “absurd outcomes” that St. Louis County Circuit Judge Brian May wrote about in his ruling if the court accepted Robust’s definition of local government.

May wrote that if Robust’s interpretation of the amendment were accepted,  “then a municipality or city would essentially be given carte blanche to ignore any county ordinance or regulation, including those related to public health and safety wholly unrelated to the taxing issue.” 

May was largely talking about public health regulations because public health in Florissant is regulated by St. Louis County.

On Tuesday, Judge Robert Clayton asked Robust’s attorney Eric Walter: “If we accept your definition, all those county regulations or everything else will be no longer applicable on these particular types of businesses.”

Walter replied that the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services, the state agency tasked with regulating cannabis businesses, requires “that you’re compliant with all the local government regulations.”

Both attorneys for the counties and Robust declined to comment on Tuesday’s hearing. 

Following May’s ruling, the Missouri Association of Counties executive director Steve Hobbs said the association has strongly advocated that counties have the ability to do levvy their own taxes.

“The bulk of the counties around the state had gone to the voters and asked them to implement this tax,” Hobbs told The Independent in May. “And I think every one of them approved of it. I think [the ruling] removes some uncertainty from those counties.” 

On the other side, leaders of the marijuana industry have called the effort to collect both taxes an “unconstitutional money grab” that violates the terms of the amendment.

Jack Cardetti, spokesman for the Missouri Cannabis Trade Association said the appellate judges Tuesday seemed “very prepared and well versed on the issue.”

“Obviously much of the discussion centered around the definition of local government in Missouri’s Constitution, which we saw as a good sign,” Cardetti said. “As we enter year two of Missouri cannabis consumers paying roughly $3 million more each month than they should, we hope to bring customers relief as quickly as possible.”

A similar appeals case out of Buchanan County is also pending.

St. Joseph dispensary Vertical Enterprises sued Buchanan County Collector Peggy Campbell, arguing that it, too, would be “irreparably harmed” if both taxes were imposed.

Also in May, Circuit Judge Daniel Kellogg ruled that the marijuana law does not limit the taxing power of counties within corporate limits of towns and cities.

A hearing date for this case has not yet been set.

The story has been updated to include the statewide 6% adult use marijuana sales tax. 

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday considered a federal firearm regulation aimed at reining in ghost guns, untraceable, unregulated weapons made from kits. In this photo, a ghost gun is displayed before the start of an event about gun violence in the Rose Garden of the White House April 11, 2022 in Washington, D.C. (Drew Angerer/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Supreme Court justices Tuesday grappled with whether the Biden administration exceeded its authority when it set regulations for kits that can be assembled into untraceable firearms, and a majority of justices seemed somewhat skeptical the rule was an overreach.

In Garland v. VanDerStok, the nine justices are tasked with determining whether a rule issued by the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives in 2022 overstepped in expanding the definition of “firearms” to include “ghost guns” under a federal firearms law.

Ghost guns are firearms without serial numbers and can be easily bought online and quickly assembled in parts, usually through a kit. Law enforcement officials use serial numbers to track guns that are used in crimes.

Arguing on behalf of the Biden administration, U.S. Solicitor General Elizabeth Prelogar told the justices that there has been an “explosion in crimes” with untraceable guns across the U.S.

She added that the federal government has for years required gun manufacturers and sellers to mark firearms with a serial number.

“The industry has followed those conditions without difficulty for more than half a century, and those basic requirements are crucial to solving gun crimes and keeping guns out of the hands of minors, felons and domestic abusers,” Prelogar said.

She said with the kits to make untraceable homemade guns in as little as 15 minutes, those manufacturers “have tried to circumvent those requirements.”

Prelogar said untraceable guns “are attractive to people who can’t lawfully purchase them or who plan to use them in crime.”

Because the ATF saw a spike in crimes committed with those firearms, Prelogar said it promulgated the 2022 rule. The Biden administration said since 2016, it’s seen a tenfold increase in ghost guns.

What the rule does

The regulation does not ban ghost guns, but requires manufacturers of those firearm kits or parts to add a serial number to the products, as well as conduct background checks on potential buyers. The regulation also clarified those kits are considered covered by the 1968 Gun Control Act under the definition of a “firearm.”

The Biden administration is advocating for the Supreme Court to reverse a lower court’s decision that favored gun rights groups and owners that argued the agency exceeded its authority.

Pete Patterson on Tuesday represented those gun rights groups, such as the Firearms Policy Coalition and clients, and argued the ATF expanded the definition of a firearm to “include items that may readily be converted to a frame or receiver.”

A frame or receiver is the primary structure of a firearm that holds the other components that cause the gun to fire.

“Congress decided to regulate only a single part of a firearm, the frame or receiver, and Congress did not alter the common understanding of a frame or receiver,” he said. “ATF has now exceeded its authority by operating outside of the bounds set by Congress.”

The case has already been before the high court on an emergency basis in 2023. The three liberal justices, Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan and Ketanji Brown Jackson, and two conservative justices, Chief Justice John Roberts Jr. and Amy Coney Barrett, allowed the regulation to remain in place while going through legal challenges.

The case is similar to the Supreme Court decision that struck down a Trump-era ban on bump stocks from the ATF, but that was on the grounds of a Second Amendment argument.

Omelets and turkey chili kits

Justice Samuel Alito questioned Prelogar whether the kits were defined as weapons.

“Here’s a blank pad and here’s a pen,” he said. “Is this a grocery list?”

She said it wasn’t because “there are a lot of things you could use those products for to create something other than a grocery list.”

Alito asked her if he had eggs, chopped up ham, peppers and onions, “is that a Western omelet?”

“No, because, again, those items have well known other uses to become something other than an omelet,” Prelogar said. “The key difference here is that these weapon parts kits are designed and intended to be used as instruments of combat, and they have no other conceivable use.”

Barrett asked if her answer would change if “you ordered it from HelloFresh and you got a kit and it was like turkey chili, but all of the ingredients are in the kit?”

Prelogar said it would.

“We are not suggesting that scattered components that might have some entirely separate and distinct function could be aggregated and called a weapon, in the absence of this kind of evidence that that is their intended purpose and function,” she said.

“But if you bought, you know, from Trader Joe’s, some omelet-making kit that had all of the ingredients to make the omelet, and maybe included whatever you would need to start the fire in order to cook the omelet, and had all of that objective indication that that’s what’s being marketed and sold, we would recognize that for what it is,” Prelogar continued.

Roberts asked Patterson what the purpose would be of selling a receiver without a hole in it, meaning the gun is not complete.

Patterson argued that the kits are mainly for gun hobbyists, who would have to drill their own holes to put the product together.

“Some individuals enjoy, like working on their car every weekend, some individuals want to construct their own firearms,” Patterson said.

Roberts seemed skeptical.

“I mean drilling a hole or two, I would think doesn’t give the same sort of reward that you get from working on your car on the weekends,” Roberts said.

Patterson argued that putting together a homemade gun was somewhat difficult, especially if an individual had no experience.

“Even once you have a complete frame, it’s not a trivial matter to put that together,” he said. “There are small parts that have to be put in precise locations.”

No hobbyists

In her rebuttal, Prelogar pushed back on the notion that hobbyists were using those kits, arguing that “if there is a market for these kits, for hobbyists, they can be sold to hobbyists, you just have to comply with the requirements of the Gun Control Act.”

“What the evidence shows is that these guns were being purchased and used in crime. There was a 1,000% increase between 2017 and 2021 in the number of these guns that were recovered as part of criminal investigations,” she said. “The reason why you want a ghost gun is specifically because it’s unserialized and can’t be traced.”

Attorney FritzGerald Tondreau, who helps with immigration issues at Konbit Neg Lakay in Spring Valley, N.Y., shows intimidating videos of gang hostages and enemies being killed or beaten in Haiti. As a new wave of immigrants fleeing chaos arrives, many are moving beyond New York and Florida to find jobs and housing (Tim Henderson/Stateline).

Fortified with work authorizations and a new freedom, Haitian immigrants are moving out of their longtime strongholds in Florida and New York, often finding good jobs while remaining wary of how they will be received in new places in the Midwest and South.

This movement helps explain why Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have become embroiled in the presidential election. For several weeks, Republican presidential and vice presidential nominees Donald Trump and J.D. Vance have spread untrue rumors about Haitian immigrants in the city eating their neighbors’ cats and dogs.

Until recently, “we were counting Haitians in the dozens,” said Leonce Jean-Baptiste, who helped launch the Haitian Association of Indiana in 2008. The association’s aim: “just making sure that our children would know there is such a thing as Haitian culture, that their parents come from a very strong, very rich culture and ethnic background,” he said.

Now, the association has its hands full helping new arrivals with housing and learning the ways of the Midwest, Jean-Baptiste said. Immigrants are coming to fill factory jobs in Indiana, a trend that started in the pandemic.

“Here in Indiana, in Ohio, in the Midwest in general, the manufacturing industry was desperate for labor and so it was a perfect kind of marriage,” Jean-Baptiste said. “Haitians were looking for jobs, they might have lost a low-paying job in a hotel in Florida, they can’t access government benefits because they’re not citizens, and here they can do better.”

With more Haitian immigrants free to work legally anywhere because of work permissions granted under the Biden administration, many moved from off-the-books jobs in Florida or New York to factory work in states such as Indiana, North Carolina, Ohio, Texas and Virginia.

Those states had some of the most significant increases in Haitian immigrant population between 2019 and 2023, the most recent estimates available from the American Community Survey, according to a Stateline analysis.

In that time, the Haitian immigrant population in Indiana increased eightfold, to 12,465; almost fourfold in North Carolina, to 7,752; more than doubled in Texas, to 7,010; more than tripled in Ohio, to 5,264; more than doubled in Virginia, to 6,342; and nearly fivefold in South Carolina, to 2,569.

Meanwhile more established strongholds where the most Haitian immigrants live are seeing less growth: New York (up 5%), Florida (up 1%) and Massachusetts (down 1%).

“The situation in New York is that the cost of living and the cost of housing is shutting out the new Haitians. They are moving where there are jobs and there is housing — I know people who have gone to North Carolina, South Carolina,” said Francois Pierre-Louis, a Haitian-born professor of international migration studies at the Queens College campus of the City University of New York.

Those staking out new territory in the Midwest tend to be more established immigrants who already know enough English to get by, Pierre-Louis said.

“To be able to move to the hinterlands, you have to have a level of cultural understanding of the U.S. to be comfortable,” he added.

‘It’s always been a struggle’

In Florida and New York, where about two-thirds of the country’s Haitian immigrants still live, more established immigrants with their own memories of discrimination are helping new immigrants get established.

Mayor Alix Desulme of North Miami, Florida — the city with the highest concentration of Haitian Americans, about 38% in recent years — recalls being taunted as a boy when he arrived in Brooklyn, New York, by people who falsely believed Haitians were spreading AIDS.

“I’m an immigrant and I am a Black man. These things do not go away,” said Desulme. “We’re in a state, Florida, where the governor would like immigrants to go elsewhere. It’s always been a struggle for us as a people, but we came to this country for a better life.”

Dr. Pierre Arty, a Brooklyn psychiatrist born in Haiti, said politically motivated denigration of Haitians has an impact that he’s trying to mitigate in his work with new immigrants for Housing Works, a Brooklyn nonprofit. It happened in the 1980s with AIDS and it’s happening again with false narratives about pet-eating, he said.

“We have social media with quick distribution of false information, negative memes about Haitians and offensive jokes. It can foster inferiority complexes and shame as opposed to pride for being part of this community,” Arty said.

“This fosters dehumanization and resurrects historic Black tropes of us being less than animals,” he said. “Imagine what this can do to the psyche of children when other people make fun of them.”

Growth in Haitian immigrant communities since mid-2023 is hard to gauge, but clearly has continued in some states.

Clark County, Ohio, where Springfield is located, saw an increase in Medicaid enrollment by people with Haitian backgrounds, based on their choice of Haitian Creole language, from about 3,000 in mid-2023 to almost 8,000 in July 2024. The number dropped to about 7,200 in August, according to the county’s Department of Job & Family Services.

The number of immigrants in the community is likely much higher since not all of them have Medicaid, and the Medicaid numbers will likely continue to drop as more get jobs, said the department’s director, Virginia Martycz.

In Indiana, Jean-Baptiste thinks the number of Haitian Americans and other immigrants has increased to 30,000 from the roughly 14,000 counted by the American Community Survey last year, based on contacts to his organization and social service reports based on names.

‘A little more mobility’

In New York, as in Florida, an established community is helping new immigrants get settled before moving on to areas with more jobs and more affordable housing.

“The work authorization is a ticket to a little more mobility,” said Daniel Jean-Gilles of Nyack, New York, where he is part of a wave of earlier Haitian immigrants trying to support newcomers. “I see a lot of new faces here. They come and stay here with family and friends while they wait for work authorization and then they can move around and get that job. I hear about people moving to North Carolina, Arizona for jobs.”

“Housing and jobs are very limited here. They have to go where the jobs are,” said FritzGerald Tondreau, an immigration attorney and child of Haitian immigrants who works in Spring Valley, New York.

Tondreau showed videos of brutal beatings and executions by gangs in Haiti, posted by the gangs to intimidate enemies and families of hostages, and said gangs have set up roadblocks demanding money on major roads. “This affects every facet of life in Haiti and makes it very untenable,” he said.

Work authorization is available to many Haitian immigrants, either as part of the federal temporary protected status for unauthorized immigrants or because of humanitarian parole for those waiting for asylum hearings if they crossed the border legally and don’t have a serious criminal record, said Julia Gelatt, associate director of the immigration policy program at the Migration Policy Institute in Washington, D.C.

Many Haitian immigrants are taking advantage of a new federal program that allows them to travel directly from Haiti if they have a sponsor willing to support them during temporary humanitarian parole.

Temporary protected status, first granted to Haitian immigrants when their nation was deemed too dangerous for return in 2010 because of earthquakes, is now held by an estimated 200,000 Haitian immigrants, second in number only to Venezuelans.

The status was recently extended until 2026 by the Biden administration and could theoretically end, but that’s not likely, Gelatt said. The Trump administration tried to end temporary protected status for Haiti and some other countries, but the policy was blocked by lawsuits until the Biden administration reversed it.

The bottom line, Gelatt said, is that many new Haitian immigrants are protected from deportation and are able to work legally for the time being, but few have a path to permanent legal residence and citizenship.

“This temporary status affects their sense of integration, their willingness to invest in their futures in the United States,” she said. “They can never be sure that they’ll get to stay.”

Over decades in the United States, without a clear path to citizenship for many, Haitian immigrants have learned to make peace with uncertainty.

“The thing is to wait a long time and be good citizens and stay under the radar,” said Pierre-Louis. “And most Haitians are good citizens. They go to church and they work. They want to work. They’re not here begging for anything.”

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

The Rocky Broad River flows into Lake Lure and overflows the town with debris from Chimney Rock, North Carolina after heavy rains from Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28, 2024, in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Approximately 6 feet of debris piled on the bridge from Lake Lure to Chimney Rock, blocking access (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON —   Federal Emergency Management Agency Administrator Deanne Criswell said Tuesday that rumors and disinformation will become a regular part of natural disaster response moving forward, and rebuked those seeking to benefit politically from spreading false information.

The volume and type of disinformation spreading about FEMA, as Southeast states struggle to recover from Hurricane Helene, is the worst Criswell said she has ever seen, following a “steady increase” in rumors following previous natural disasters.

Incorrect information about FEMA and its response to natural disasters has been spreading through numerous avenues, including social media, podcasts and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s numerous comments and posts. Criswell did not name any politicians or other individuals during the call with reporters.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Milton is barrelling toward Florida’s Gulf Coast and expected to make landfall by Wednesday night. Meteorologists are warning the storm could be one of Florida’s worst. Thousands of people were evacuating Tuesday.

Criswell said she’s concerned the lies about various aspects of FEMA’s response to Hurricane Helene may have a chilling effect on whether people harmed by natural disasters apply for assistance. It could also potentially endanger first responders on the ground.

“It’s just really demoralizing to them. It hurts their morale and they’ve left their families to be able to come in here and help people,” she said of first responders and FEMA staff.

While no one has physically attacked FEMA staff or other emergency responders so far, Criswell said, she and others are closely monitoring misinformation as well as how people in areas hit by natural disasters react to it.

FEMA’s collaboration with local law enforcement can help to monitor safety and security issues, though rumors and disinformation could make matters worse, she said.

“If it creates so much fear that my staff don’t want to go out in the field, then we’re not going to be in a position where we can help people,” Criswell said, adding that she does have concerns about “the safety of our folks that are walking around in neighborhoods that may or may not have full confidence in the government.”

“And so we are watching that closely to make sure that we’re providing for their safety as well,” she said.

Helene brought devastation to multiple states including Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee and  Virginia.  More than 230 deaths have been reported.

Storm victims

The rumors and inaccurate information about FEMA’s response and recovery efforts are “creating fear in some” people who are trying to navigate their way through the hurricane recovery process, Criswell said.

“I worry that they won’t apply for assistance, which means I can’t get them the necessary items they need,” Criswell said. “And so those are the biggest impacts I see as a result of this constant narrative that is more about politics than truly helping people.”

She said the current situation is worse than ever.

“We have always put up rumor control pages because there’s always been people that have been out there trying to take advantage of those that have just lost so much in creating false websites and trying to get their information and defrauding people and the federal government,” Criswell said. “And so not something that’s new, but the level of rhetoric just continues to rise.”

Following the Maui wildfires in August 2023, federal officials worked with local officials to help reassure Hawaiians the rumors and disinformation that spread following that disaster were not true.

Some of the disinformation about the Maui wildfires was from “foreign state actors,” Criswell said.

FEMA was eventually able to get federal assistance to everyone who needed it, but it took much longer than it would have otherwise, she said.

The first assistance people in hard-hit areas often receive from FEMA is a $750 payment meant to help with immediate needs like water, food, clothing and medicine.

There has been significant misinformation around that amount. Criswell clarified on the call that it’s the first installment from FEMA and that more assistance goes out to people affected by natural disasters as the recovery process moves forward.

“We know that they have immediate needs in the first few days, and it’s just an initial jump start to help them replace some of that,” Criswell said.

As FEMA gathers more information about property damage and other problems related to natural disasters, people will likely receive additional assistance for home repairs as well as the cost of staying in a hotel if their home was badly damaged.

FEMA then continues to work with people on longer-term needs, like rental assistance, if that’s needed.

FEMA has set up a webpage seeking to dispel rumors and disinformation about its response and recovery efforts.

It says that in most cases the money FEMA gives to disaster survivors does not have to be paid back and notes that the agency “cannot seize your property or land.”

“There are some less common situations in which you may have to pay FEMA back if you receive duplicate benefits from insurance or a grant from another source. For example, if you have insurance that covers your temporary housing costs, but you ask FEMA to advance you some money to help you pay for those costs while your insurance is delayed, you will need to pay that money back to FEMA after you receive your insurance settlement.”

The webpage also says that no funding for disaster recovery was diverted to address border security or immigration issues.

“This is false. No money is being diverted from disaster response needs. FEMA’s disaster response efforts and individual assistance is funded through the Disaster Relief Fund, which is a dedicated fund for disaster efforts. Disaster Relief Fund money has not been diverted to other, non-disaster related efforts.”

Funding questions

FEMA has plenty of funding to cover response and recovery efforts for the 100-plus open natural disasters throughout the country, but will need supplemental funding from Congress in the months ahead.

“I have enough funding to continue to support the response efforts for both of these events, and then continue to support the recovery efforts from all of the storms across the nation,” Criswell said, referring to Hurricanes Helene and Milton.

“However, I’m not going to be able to support those recoveries for long without a supplemental,” she added. “And we anticipate needing additional funding in the December, January time frame, or I’ll have to go back into what we call immediate needs funding again, where we pause obligations in our recovery projects to ensure that I can respond to an event like we’re seeing today.”

The first step for Congress to approve emergency funding for FEMA or any other federal agency is typically when the Office of Management and Budget sends a supplemental spending request to lawmakers on behalf of the White House.

Lawmakers can then choose to write legislation providing some, all, or more money than requested. They can also choose not to fund the emergency request, though that appears unlikely this time.

For the moment, FEMA has about $20 billion in its disaster relief fund, she said.

People who need assistance from FEMA should call 1-800-621-3362, register on https://www.disasterassistance.gov/ or fill out an application on the FEMA app.

The Planned Parenthood clinic in St. Louis on June 24, 2022 (Tessa Weinberg/Missouri Independent).

Three Planned Parenthood clinics in eastern and southern Missouri will shut their doors next month, though the organization’s leaders insist the moves will ultimately expand access to reproductive health care. 

As part of the consolidation effort, Planned Parenthood Great Rivers will be expanding telehealth services and hours at its remaining St. Louis clinics. 

The moves come as the state has successfully implemented legislation cutting Planned Parenthood clinics off from Medicaid funding, though the organization’s leadership says the closures are not related to the new law. 

They are also taking place as Missourians are set to vote on whether to enshrine abortion rights in the state constitution, a decision that could radically expand access to reproductive health care around the state.

Failed GOP attempt to keep abortion off Missouri ballot could foreshadow fight to come

On Nov. 1, the Florissant health center in North St. Louis County and the South Grand Health Center just south of downtown St. Louis will close. 

On Jan. 1, the health center in Joplin will also close. No staff members are being laid off as part of the restructuring, Planned Parenthood said in a press release.

Richard Muniz, interim president and CEO of Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, said patient care can be transferred to other Planned Parenthood locations. He said the goal is to increase virtual care access and get patients in touch with providers sooner, and then into appointments more quickly.

“The operational changes we’re announcing will ensure that we’re here for our patients not just today, tomorrow, but for the next 90 years,” Muniz said in a statement. “Our patients are our top priority, and despite repeated attacks from politicians, our commitment never wavers. We’re going to be here for them no matter what.”

For Joplin patients, transportation will be provided to the Springfield clinic 75 miles away for those who need it. Planned Parenthood will also refer patients to the Pittsburg, Kansas, clinic about 30 miles away that opened earlier this year.

Muniz said the decision on which clinics to close was data-driven. Many Planned Parenthood patients travel to more than one health center, he said, often picking the one with the soonest availability rather than closest locations.

Two of the remaining St. Louis area clinics — the West County location in Manchester and the St. Peters location — will expand services beginning Nov. 1 to include a Title X family planning program for those who are uninsured or underinsured. 

The clinics in St. Peters will begin seeing patients five days a week, including one Saturday a month, and the Central West End clinic, near downtown St. Louis, will increase appointment availability for health needs including STI testing and treatment, cancer screenings and wellness exams. 

Muniz said the changes are meant to “ensure long-term sustainability in the face of repeated attacks from politicians on sexual and reproductive health care — including seven consecutive years of trying to deny reimbursement for the lifesaving services we provide to Missourians who use Medicaid.”

Lawmakers this year passed a bill, which was signed into law by Gov. Mike Parson, ending Medicaid reimbursements to Planned Parenthood. This means clinics won’t be compensated for patients they serve who are on Medicaid. 

Fights over the legislation earlier this year emphasized Missouri’s reproductive health care and contraceptive deserts. 

Planned Parenthood Great Rivers, like Planned Parenthood Great Plains on the western side of the state, has continued seeing patients on Medicaid despite the new law thanks to donor support, Muniz said. A lawsuit filed by Planned Parenthood claiming the new law is unconstitutional is ongoing.

The decision to consolidate had nothing to do directly with the new legislation, Muniz said. Planned Parenthood Great Rivers serves about 9,000 patients a year on Medicaid. 

The main catalysts, he said, were changes to the health care system because of COVID, and increased requests from patients to access care from home via telehealth options. 

“Our mission is to center the needs of our patients at the core of all of our decision-making,” he said. “Which is why we are making necessary service changes to adapt to their needs.” 

Asked if the consolidation was a cost-saving measure, Muniz said the focus was long-term stability for patients.

Missouri’s reproductive rights amendment, which will appear on the ballot as Amendment 3 , was not a consideration in the decision, Muniz said. He declined to say which Missouri Planned Parenthood locations may initially start providing abortion services again if Amendment 3 passes. 

“We expect amendment 3 to pass, and when it does pass, what abortion access will look like in the state of Missouri is going to be dependent on litigation and what restrictions courts will block from remaining in effect,” he said. 

Former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris have widely divergent views on education. In this photo, students are shown in a classroom (Klaus Vedfelt/Getty Images).

As former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris sprint to the November finish line, one sprawling policy area has largely fallen out of the spotlight — education.

Though the respective GOP and Democratic presidential candidates have spent comparatively more time campaigning on issues such as immigration, foreign policy and the economy, their ideas surrounding K-12 and higher education vastly differ.

Trump’s education platform vows to “save American education,” with a focus on parental rights, universal school choice and a fight for “patriotic education” in schools.

“By increasing access to school choice, empowering parents to have a voice in their child’s education, and supporting good teachers, President Trump will improve academic excellence for all students,” Karoline Leavitt, Trump campaign national press secretary, said in a statement to States Newsroom.

Trump “believes students should be taught reading, writing, and math in the classroom — not gender, sex and race like the Biden Administration is pushing on our public school system,” Leavitt added.

Meanwhile, the Harris campaign has largely focused on the education investments brought by the Biden-Harris administration and building on those efforts if she is elected.

“Over the past four years, the Administration has made unprecedented investments in education, including the single-largest investment in K-12 education in history, which Vice President Harris cast the tie-breaking vote to pass,” Mia Ehrenberg, a campaign spokesperson, told States Newsroom.

Ehrenberg said that while Harris and her running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, “will build on those investments and continue fighting until every student has the support and the resources they need to thrive, Republicans led by Donald Trump and his extreme Project 2025 agenda want to cut billions from local K-12 schools and eliminate the Department of Education, undermining America’s students and schools.”

Harris has repeatedly knocked the Heritage Foundation’s Project 2025 — a sweeping conservative agenda that includes education policy proposals like eliminating Head Start, ending time-based and occupation-based student loan forgiveness and barring teachers from using a student’s preferred pronouns different from their “biological sex” without written permission from a parent or guardian.

Trump has fiercely disavowed Project 2025, although some former members of his administration crafted the blueprint.

Closing the U.S. Department of Education

Trump has called for shutting down the U.S. Department of Education and said he wants to “move education back to the states.” The department is not the main funding source for K-12 schools, as state and local governments allocate much of those dollars.

In contrast, Harris said at the Democratic National Convention in August that “we are not going to let him eliminate the Department of Education that funds our public schools.”

Living wage for school staff; parental bill of rights

Trump’s education plan calls for creating a “new credentialing body to certify teachers who embrace patriotic values, and understand that their job is not to indoctrinate children, but to educate them.”

He also wants to implement funding boosts for schools that “abolish teacher tenure” for grades K-12 and adopt “merit pay,” establish the direct election of school principals by parents and “drastically cut” the number of school administrators.

In contrast, the Democratic Party’s 2024 platform calls for recruiting “more new teachers, paraprofessionals and school related personnel, and education support professionals, with the option for some to even start training in high school.”

The platform also aims to help “school-support staff to advance in their own careers with a living wage” and improve working conditions for teachers.

Trump also wants to give funding boosts to schools that adopt a “Parental Bill of Rights that includes complete curriculum transparency, and a form of universal school choice.”

He’s threatening to cut federal funding for schools that teach the primarily collegiate academic subject known as “critical race theory,” gender ideology or “other inappropriate racial, sexual, or political content on our children.”

The Democrats’ platform opposes “the use of private-school vouchers, tuition tax credits, opportunity scholarships, and other schemes that divert taxpayer-funded resources away from public education,” adding that “public tax dollars should never be used to discriminate.”

Title IX 

Earlier this year, the Biden-Harris administration released a final rule for Title IX extending federal protections for LGBTQ+ students.

The updated regulations took effect Aug. 1, but a slew of GOP-led states challenged the measure. The legal battles have created a policy patchwork and weakened the administration’s vision for the final rule.

The updated regulations roll back Title IX changes made under the Trump administration and then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos.

Trump vowed to terminate the updated regulations on his first day back in office if reelected.

Student debt and higher education 

Harris has repeatedly touted the administration’s record on student loan forgiveness, including nearly $170 billion in student debt relief for almost 5 million borrowers.

The administration’s most recent student loan repayment initiative came to a grinding halt in August after the U.S. Supreme Court temporarily blocked the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan.

Although little is mentioned about education in Harris’ extensive economic plan, the proposal makes clear that the veep will “continue working to end the unreasonable burden of student loan debt and fight to make higher education more affordable, so that college can be a ticket to the middle class.”

She also plans to cut four-year degree requirements for half a million federal jobs.

Trump — who dubbed the Biden-Harris administration’s student loan forgiveness efforts as “not even legal” — sought to repeal the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program during his administration.

His education platform also calls for endowing the “American Academy,” a free, online university.

Trump said he will endow the new institution through the “billions and billions of dollars that we will collect by taxing, fining, and suing excessively large private university endowments.”

Both presidential candidates have said they have general plans to tackle the housing crisis (Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — As the cost and supply of housing remain top issues for voters, both presidential candidates have put forth plans to tackle the crisis, in hopes of courting voters ahead of the Nov. 5 election.

The coronavirus pandemic that began in 2020 exacerbated problems in the housing market, with supply chain disruptions, record-low interest rates and  increased demand contributing to a rise in housing prices, according to a study by the Journal of Housing Economics. 

While housing is typically handled on the local level, the housing supply is tight and rents continue to skyrocket, putting increased pressure on the federal government to help. Democratic presidential candidate Kamala Harris and Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump agree that it’s an issue that needs to be solved, but their solutions diverge.

The Harris and Trump campaigns did not respond to States Newsroom’s requests for details on the general housing proposals the nominees have discussed.

Promise: millions of new homes

Harris’ plan calls for the construction of 3 million homes in four years.

The United States has a shortage of about 3.8 million homes for sale and rent, according to 2021 estimates from Freddie Mac that are still relied upon.

Additionally, homelessness has hit a record-high of 653,100 people since January of last year, and a “record-high 22.4 million renter households spent more than 30 percent of their income on rent and utilities,” up from 2 million households since 2019, according to a study by the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard University.

“This is obviously a multi-prong approach, because the factors contributing to high rents and housing affordability are many, and my plan is to attempt to address many of them at once, so we can actually have the net effect of bringing down the cost and making homeownership, renting more affordable,” Harris said during a September interview with Wisconsin Public Radio. 

Promise: single-family zoning

Trump has long opposed building multi-family housing and has instead thrown his support behind single-family zoning, which would exclude other types of housing. Such land-use regulation is conducted by local government bodies, not the federal government, though the federal government could influence it.

“There will be no low-income housing developments built in areas that are right next to your house,” Trump said during an August rally in Montana. “I’m gonna keep criminals out of your neighborhood.”

Promise: getting Congress to agree

Election forecasters have predicted that Democrats will regain control of the U.S. House, but Republicans are poised to win the Senate, meaning any housing proposals will have to be overwhelmingly bipartisan.

“How much money is going to really be available without substantial increases in revenue to be able to do all these things that both Trump and Harris are proposing?” Ted Tozer, a non-resident fellow at the Urban Institute’s Housing Finance Policy Center, said in an interview with States Newsroom. “All the money comes from Congress.”

Many of Harris’ policies rely on cooperation from Congress, as historically the federal government has limited tools to address housing shortages.

“On the Democratic side, there’s a hunger for more action, for more direct government intervention in the housing market than we’ve seen in a long time,” said Francis Torres, the associate director of housing and infrastructure at the Bipartisan Policy Center.

Nearly all proposals that Harris has put forth would require Congress to pass legislation and appropriate funds. The first is S.2224, introduced by Sen. Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio, which would amend U.S. tax code to bar private equity firms from buying homes in bulk by denying “interest and depreciation deductions for taxpayers owning 50 or more single family properties,” according to the bill.

The second bill, S. 3692, introduced by Sen. Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and chair of the Senate Finance Committee, would bar using algorithms to artificially inflate the cost of rents.

Both bills would need to reach the 60-vote threshold in order to advance in the Senate, whichever party is in control.

Promise: $25,000 down payment assistance

Harris has pledged to support first-time homebuyers, but Congress would need to appropriate funds for the $25,000 down payment assistance program she has proposed that would benefit an estimated 4 million first-time homebuyers over four years.

It’s a proposal that’s been met with skepticism.

“I’m really concerned that down payment assistance will actually put more pressure on home prices, because basically, you’re giving people additional cash to pay more for the house that they’re going to bid on,” Tozer said. “So by definition, they get in a bidding war, they’re going to spend more.”

Harris has also proposed a $40 billion innovation fund for local governments to build and create solutions for housing, which would also need congressional approval.

Promise: opening up federal lands

Both candidates support opening some federal lands for housing, which would mean selling the land for construction purposes with the commitment for a certain percentage of the units to be kept for affordable housing.

The federal government owns about 650 million acres of land, or roughly 30% of all land.

Neither candidate has gone into detail on this proposal.

“I think it’s a sign that at least the Harris campaign and the people in her orbit are thinking about addressing this housing affordability problem really through stronger government action than has happened in several decades,” Torres said.

Promise: expand tax credits

The biggest tool the federal government has used to address housing is through the Department of Housing and Urban Development’s Low-Income Housing Tax Credit, known as LIHTC. Harris has promised to expand this tax credit, but has not gone into detail about how much she wants it expanded.

This program awards tax credits to offset construction costs in exchange for a certain number of rent-restricted units for low-income households. But the restriction is temporary, lasting about 30 years. 

There is no similar program for housing meant to be owned.

“It’s an interesting moment, because then on the other side, on the Trump side, even though they diagnosed a lot of the similar problems, there’s not as much of a desire to leverage the strength of the federal government to ensure affordability,” Torres said.

Trump’s record on housing

The Trump campaign does not have a housing proposal, but various interviews, rallies and a review of Trump’s first four years in office provide a roadmap.

During Trump’s first administration, many of his HUD budget proposals were not approved by Congress.

In all four of his presidential budget requests, he laid out proposals that would increase rent by 40% for about 4 million low-income households using rental vouchers or for those who lived in public housing, according to an analysis by the left-leaning think tank the Brookings Institution. 

All four of Trump’s budgets also called for the elimination of housing programs such as the Community Development Block Grant, which directs funding to local and state governments to rehabilitate and build affordable housing. Trump’s budgets also would have slashed the Low-Income Home Energy Assistance Program, known as LIHEAP, which is a home energy assistance program for low-income families.

Additionally, Trump’s Opportunity Zones authorized through the 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which are tax incentives to businesses and real estate to invest in low-income communities, have had mixed results.

Promise: cut regulations and add tariffs

In an interview with Bloomberg, Trump said he wanted to focus on reducing regulations in the permitting process.

“Your permits, your permitting process. Your zoning, if — and I went through years of zoning. Zoning is like… it’s a killer,” he said. “But we’ll be doing that, and we’ll be bringing the price of housing down.”

During campaign rallies, Trump has often said he would impose a 10% tariff across the board on all goods entering the U.S. He’s also proposed 60% tariffs on China.

Trump said at a rally in Georgia that tariff is “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”

Tozer said adding trade policies, such as tariffs on construction materials like lumber, would drive up the cost of homes.

Promise: deport immigrants

Trump has argued that his plan for mass deportations will help free up the supply of housing. Karoline Leavitt, the Trump national press secretary, told the New York Times that deporting immigrants would lower the cost of housing because migration “is driving up housing costs.”

The former president has made a core campaign promise to deport millions of immigrants.

Tozer said housing and immigration are tied, because the ability to build houses comes down to workers, and roughly 30% of construction workers are immigrants. 

“By shutting down the border, you’re possibly shutting down your capacity to build these houses,” he said, adding that all those policies are intertwined.

A driver uses a fast-charging station for electric vehicles at John F. Kennedy airport on April 2, 2021 in New York City (Spencer Platt/Getty Images).

Highlighted in Joe Biden’s 2020 campaign as one of the major crises facing the country, climate change has received much less attention in the 2024 race for the presidency.

The candidates, Republican former President Donald Trump and Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, share the twin goals of lowering energy costs and increasing U.S. jobs in the sector, but diverge widely in their plans to get there.

On the campaign trail, each has spent relatively little time detailing their own plans, instead criticizing the other as extreme.

Harris favors an expansion of renewable energy, which supplies power without the carbon emissions that are the primary driver of climate change.

She has touted her tie-breaking vote in the U.S. Senate to pass the Inflation Reduction Act, the broad domestic policy law Democrats pushed through along party lines that includes hundreds of millions in clean-energy tax credits.

Trump supports fossil fuel production, blaming policies to support renewable energy for rising energy prices. He has called for removing prohibitions on new oil and gas exploration to increase the supply of cheap fuel and reduce costs.

Promise: Promote fossil fuels

Both candidates promise to lower the cost of energy.

For Trump, that has involved hammering the Biden-Harris administration for encouraging renewable energy production.

Inflation was caused by “stupid spending for the Green New Deal, which was a green new scam, it turned out,” Trump said at a Sept. 26 press conference. “Do you notice that they never mention anything about environment anymore? What happened to the environment?”

The former president said at a Sept. 25 campaign stop he would “cut your energy (costs) in half,” by reducing regulations and cutting taxes.

He has not produced a detailed plan to achieve that goal.

Implicit in Trump’s argument is that the Biden administration’s focus on renewable energy has hampered oil and gas production, limiting supply and driving up prices.

But Harris has presented her support for renewable energy modes as part of a broader portfolio that includes fossil fuels.

Harris has highlighted the Inflation Reduction Act opened up new leases for oil and gas production while providing incentives for wind and solar power.

“I am proud that as vice president over the last four years, we have invested a trillion dollars in a clean energy economy while we have also increased domestic gas production to historic levels,” she said at a Sept. 10 ABC News debate with Trump.

A report this month from the U.S. Energy Information Administration showed that U.S. fossil fuel production reached an all-time high in 2023.

Promise: Promote renewables

Harris has also pointed to provisions of the IRA that provide consumers with tax benefits for green technology, such as home heat pumps, as a way to bring down costs.

“Thanks to tax credits on home energy technologies in the Inflation Reduction Act, more than 3.4 million American families saved $8.4 billion in 2023,” her campaign’s 82-page economic plan reads.

Trump also says he supports some climate-conscious technology, including megadonor Elon Musk’s Tesla brand of electric vehicles, but that Democrats have overinvested in non-fossil fuels.

He has called elements of the Inflation Reduction Act “giveaways,” and has singled out spending on electric vehicle charging infrastructure as wasteful.

Promise: Restore jobs

Biden has long talked about a transition away from fossil fuels as a benefit to U.S. workers, positioning them on the cutting edge of a growing industry.

Harris has similarly framed the issue in economic terms, saying the Inflation Reduction Act and other climate policies have created jobs.

“We have created over 800,000 new manufacturing jobs while I have been vice president,” she said at the Sept. 10 debate. “We have invested in clean energy to the point that we are opening up factories around the world.”

At a campaign stop in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, this month, Harris said Trump’s focus on fossil fuels would hamper job growth, saying he would “send thousands of good-paying clean energy jobs overseas.”

Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, have said Democrats’ focus on renewable energy sources has limited existing energy jobs.

“We’ve got great energy workers in Ohio and all across our country,” Vance said at an August campaign stop in his home state. “They want to earn a reasonable wage and they want to power the American economy. Why don’t we have a president that lets them do exactly that?

“Unleash American energy,” he said. “Drill, baby, drill and let’s turn the page on this craziness.”

Promise: Repeal Democrats’ climate law

Trump has had harsh words for Democrats’ climate law, blaming its spending for rising inflation.

“To further defeat inflation, my plan will terminate the Green New Deal, which I call the Green New Scam. Greatest scam in history, probably,” he told the Economic Club of New York in a Sept. 5 speech.

He said as president he would redirect any unspent funds in the law.

Trump has sought to distance himself from the policy blueprint Project 2025, written by the Heritage Institute.

But there is some overlap between what the conservative think tank has laid out and what Trump said he plans to do in a second term in the White House.

Project 2025 calls for repealing the Inflation Reduction Act, describing it as a subsidy to special interests.

Harris often mentions her tie-breaking vote for the law and has described her plans as president to expand on the law’s objectives.

Harris’ policy plan said she “proudly cast” the tie-breaking vote for the climate bill and that, as president, she would “continue to invest in a thriving clean energy economy.”

She added she would seek to improve that spending by cutting regulations “so that clean energy projects are completed quickly and efficiently in a manner that protects our environment and public health.”

Vice President Kamala Harris took part in an interview with the “Call Her Daddy” podcast that was released Sunday. In this photo, the “Call Her Daddy” host, creator and executive producer, Alex Cooper, participates in The Art of The Interview session at Spotify Beach on June 20, 2023 in Cannes, France (Photo by Antony Jones/Getty Images for Spotify).

WASHINGTON — In an interview released Sunday on a widely heard podcast geared toward young women, Vice President Kamala Harris stressed the importance of reproductive rights, a central topic in her bid for the White House.

The “Call Her Daddy” host, Alex Cooper, specifically centered the 40-minute interview around issues affecting women such as domestic violence and access to abortion.

Meanwhile, the GOP nominee, former President Donald Trump, joined the Hugh Hewitt radio show Monday, a conservative talk show that has about 7.5 million weekly listeners.

The interview with Trump was mostly about the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 attack on Israel by Hamas. In the attack, 1,200 people — including 46 U.S. citizens — were killed in Israel and hundreds were taken hostage.

On “Call Her Daddy,” Cooper noted before the interview that she does not have politicians on her show because it is not focused on politics, but “at the end of the day, I couldn’t see a world in which one of the main conversations in this election is women, and I’m not a part of it.”

“The conversation I know I am qualified to have is the one surrounding women’s bodies and how we are treated and valued in this country,” Cooper said.

She added that her team reached out to Trump and invited him on the show. “If he also wants to have a meaningful, in-depth conversation about women’s rights in this country, then he is welcome on ‘Call Her Daddy’ any time,” she said.

The podcast is the second-most listened-to on Spotify, with an average of 5 million weekly listeners. The demographics are about 90% women, with a large chunk of them Gen Z and Millennials  — an important voting bloc for Harris to reach with less than a month until the election concludes Nov. 5.

The podcast is part of Harris’ media marathon this week. Late Monday, she will appear on “60 Minutes” for an interview. On Tuesday she is scheduled to be in New York to appear on the daytime show “The View,” “The Howard Stern Show” and “The Late Show with Stephen Colbert.”

Victims of sexual assault

Harris on the podcast touched on several stories she tells on the campaign trail, such as how a high school friend ended up staying with her and her family because the friend was being sexually assaulted at home.

“I decided at a young age I wanted to do the work of protecting vulnerable people,” Harris said.

She added that it’s important to destigmatize survivors of sexual assault.

“The more that we let anything exist in the shadows, the more likely it is that people are suffering and suffering silently,” Harris said. “The more we talk about it, the more we will address it and deal with it, the more we will be equipped to deal with it, be it in terms of schools, in terms of the society at large, right, and to not stigmatize it.”

Cooper asked Harris how the U.S. can be safer for women.

Harris talked about domestic violence and the bind that women can be in if they have children and are financially reliant on an abuser.

“Most women will endure whatever personal, physical pain they must in order to make sure their kids have a roof over their head or food,” she said. “One of the ways that we know we can uplift the ability of women to have choices is uplift the ability of women to have economic health and well-being.”

Cooper asked Harris about the aftermath of Roe v. Wade being overturned by the U.S. Supreme Court two years ago and the recent story of Amber Thurman, a Georgia woman who died after not being able to receive an abortion following complications from taking an abortion pill.

Harris said states that pass abortion bans will argue there are exceptions “if the life of the mother is at risk,” but that it’s not a realistic policy in practice.

“You know what that means in practical terms, she’s almost dead before you decide to give her care. So we’re going to have public health policy that says a doctor, a medical professional, waits until you’re at death’s door before they give you care,” Harris said. “Where is the humanity?”

Trump criticizes protesters 

Besides the appearance with Hugh Hewitt, Trump is also scheduled late Monday to speak with Jewish leaders in Miami.

During the interview with Hewitt, Trump slammed the pro-Palestinian protests across college campuses and argued that those institutions should do more to quell the student protests.

“You have other Jewish students that are afraid,” Trump said. “Yeah, that’s true, and they should be afraid. I never thought I would see this in my life with the campus riots and what they’re saying and what they’re doing. And they have to put them down quickly.”

Hewitt asked Trump, because of his background as a real estate developer, if he could turn Gaza, which has been devastated by the war, into something like Monaco. The Principality of Monaco is an independent, affluent microstate along the coast of France that attracts wealthy tourists.

“It could be better than Monaco. It has the best location in the Middle East, the best water, the best everything,” Trump said, noting the Mediterranean Sea bordering the Gaza Strip. “You know, as a developer, it could be the most beautiful place — the weather, the water, the whole thing, the climate.”

The war has drawn massive protests in the United States, and more than 40,000 people in Gaza have been killed, but researchers estimate the death toll is as high as 186,000.

Hewitt asked Trump about Harris’ housing policy that, if approved by Congress, would give first-time homebuyers up to $25,000 for a down payment. Both candidates have made housing a top issue.

Trump said he opposed the plan and instead advocated for the private sector to handle housing. He then veered off topic into immigration and without evidence accused migrants at the southern border of being murderers.

“Many of them murdered far more than one person, and they’re now happily living in the United States,” he said. “You know, now a murderer, I believe this, it’s in their genes. And we’ve got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

Trump has often invoked white supremacist language when talking about immigrants, accusing them of “poisoning the blood” of the U.S. He’s also made a core campaign promise of enacting mass deportations of millions of immigrants in the country who are in the country without authorization.

Hurricane interrupts campaign

Some campaign events have been postponed due to Hurricane Milton, a Category 5 storm barreling toward Florida. It comes after the devastating Hurricane Helene that caused severe damage in western North Carolina and other states in the Southeast.

A Tuesday roundtable with Trump and Latino leaders was postponed, as well as a town hall in Miami, Florida with Univison for undecided Hispanic voters. The Univision town hall with Harris is scheduled for Thursday in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, on Tuesday is scheduled to give remarks in Detroit, Michigan.

Harris’ running mate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is heading to Reno, Nevada, Tuesday for a campaign reception.

Sen. John Thune, R-South Dakota, joined by Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, speaks at the Capitol on Sept. 29, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans shortly after Election Day will face a major decision for their chamber as well as the national party when they pick a new leader.

Once the dust from the election clears and the balance of power in the Senate is decided, senators will gather behind closed doors to choose who will lead their conference. Come January, that person will step into one of the more important and influential roles in the U.S. government, as well as becoming a prominent figure for messaging and fundraising for the GOP.

Texas Sen. John Cornyn, Florida Sen. Rick Scott and South Dakota Sen. John Thune have all publicly announced they’re seeking the post. Thune is currently the minority whip, the No. 2 leader in the Senate GOP, and Cornyn held the whip job before him.

The lawmaker who secures the support of his colleagues will replace Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, who since 2007 has led his party through three presidencies, numerous votes on natural disaster aid packages, the COVID-19 pandemic, two impeachments and the Jan. 6 insurrection.

McConnell, who served as majority leader when Republicans controlled the Senate, has been at the center of dozens of pivotal negotiations and ensured his position was a boon for his home state of Kentucky.

The Republican who takes his place will have to navigate choppy political seas in the years ahead as the GOP continues to hold onto the Reagan-era policies many still value, while adjusting to the brand of conservatism that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump champions.

States Newsroom interviewed Republican senators to find out what characteristics they believe the next GOP leader needs to have to earn their vote, and about the challenges that person will face in the years ahead.

While only one senator would volunteer an opinion on a favorite candidate, many said they are interested in a leader who will emphasize moving legislation through the chamber, listen closely to members and forge strong ties with what they hope is a Trump administration.

In search of a workhorse 

Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley said he’s looking for a “competent” Republican leader who will listen to members and work behind the scenes.

“I don’t want to see leaders on television commercials, I don’t want to see them featured in Senate races, I don’t want them as the deciding factor days before an election,” Hawley said. “I want somebody who is going to be a workhorse and who’s going to work with members to achieve our priorities and then get stuff accomplished.”

West Virginia Sen. Shelley Moore Capito said the next GOP leader should hold the line on conservative priorities while also being able to negotiate bipartisan deals during what is expected to be a divided government. Democrats narrowly control the Senate, but Republicans are projected to possibly take the majority in the election.

“I would like somebody who can be strong in the face of opposition, present a strong argument, not afraid to take it to the other side when needed, but then also somebody that could get in the room and negotiate right when it gets tough,” she said.

Capito acknowledged the outcome of the presidential election could have an impact on who becomes the next Republican leader.

“(It) just depends on who wins,” she said.

Kansas Sen. Roger Marshall said his choice will “be the most important vote that I take.”

“You vote for the president, that’s important, but mine is one vote out of 150 million votes, or whatever it is. But this vote will be one out of, hopefully 53, so I think it has a lot of weight,” Marshall said. “And I think it’s really important that we elect a majority leader that shares the same priorities as, hopefully, President Trump.”

Tennessee Sen. Bill Hagerty said the overarching criteria for the next GOP leader is their “ability to get along well with President Trump and the incoming administration.”

“The first 100 days are going to count, and we need to have very close alignment to make certain we’re successful,” Hagerty said.

There is no guarantee that voters will elect Trump as the next president during this year’s presidential election. The next Senate GOP leader could end up working with an administration led by the Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris.

That would require whomever Republican senators elect to walk a tightrope on Cabinet secretary confirmation votes, judicial nominees, must-pass legislation and potentially a Supreme Court nominee.

Louisiana Sen. John Kennedy said he’s vetting the candidates based on which one would be the most savvy, strategic, patient and inclusive.

That person, Kennedy said, must also be “willing to test his assumptions against the arguments of his critics and willing to ask God for money if necessary.” McConnell has been known as a prodigious fundraiser for Republicans.

Chairmanship clout

Maine Sen. Susan Collins, ranking member on the Appropriations Committee, said she’ll vote for the candidate willing to devote significantly more floor time to debating and voting on bipartisan legislation.

“I think that’s a real problem,” Collins said. “I’d like us to go back to the days where power was vested in the committee chairs. And if they and their ranking members are able to produce a bill, that it gets scheduled for floor consideration.”

Collins, a moderate in a Senate conference packed with more conservative members, said she wants the next Senate Republican leader to recognize “that we’re a big tent party and that we need to be inclusive in our approach.”

North Dakota Sen. John Hoeven, the top Republican on the Senate Agriculture Appropriations Subcommittee, said he wants a GOP leader to follow “regular order on appropriations.”

“We get them through committee with bipartisan votes, but they’re not getting to the floor,” Hoeven said of the dozen annual government funding bills. “We need to get them to the floor, there needs to be an amendment process, and we need to act on the bills and get back to voting on bills and that’s called regular order. And I think that’s the biggest key for our next leader is to be able to do that.”

Alabama Sen. Katie Britt has begun talking with the candidates and is evaluating their plans for the Senate floor schedule, especially for bringing the annual government funding bills up for debate and amendment.

“I want to know how we’re going to get the appropriations process back working; like, how we’re actually going to move the ball down the field on that,” Britt said. “I want to know how we’re going to actually embolden the committees and the committee process.”

Britt, ranking member on the Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, expressed frustration with how much floor time goes toward confirming judicial nominees, something that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat, and McConnell have both championed.

Senate floor procedures are much more time-consuming than the rules that govern debate in the House. Legislation can take weeks to move through the filibuster process, which requires 60 votes for bills to advance, and for leaders to negotiate which amendments will receive floor votes.

The Senate, unlike the House, is also responsible for vetting and confirming executive branch nominees, like Cabinet secretaries, as well as judicial nominees. With a new president in place, 2025 will mean many confirmation votes.

“When we have a leader that really knows how to lead, they’ll put appropriations bills on the floor, they’ll figure out how to embolden members,” Britt said, adding that “a weak leader consolidates all the power, and that’s, unfortunately, what I think we have right now when it comes to Chuck Schumer.”

‘Getting stuff done’

Oklahoma Sen. James Lankford said whomever he votes for needs to “be successful at getting stuff done, finished, completed.”

“We have to be able to get our committees working and get legislation up, negotiated and moved,” Lankford said.

Iowa Sen. Joni Ernst said whoever takes over as the next GOP leader must be able to communicate well with senators.

That person “needs to be someone that has strategy, and knows how to work the floor, certainly. And then, also fundraising is a portion of that, too.”

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman said his vote will go to the person he believes can best build consensus and listen to members, though he hasn’t yet decided which of the three contenders he’ll support.

“I’m a true undecided,” Boozman said. “I think the reality is most members just want to get the election over. They don’t want to deal with this until then.”

Boozman said the results of the battle for control of the Senate in the November elections could influence which candidate he and his colleagues pick to lead them during the next Congress.

Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said that the next GOP leader should be in tune with Republican voters and the issues important to them.

“It’s someone who I think has an affinity and is in touch with where our voters are,” Rubio said.

Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley declined to list off any characteristics he believes the next leader needs, saying he doesn’t want any of the three to figure out his choice.

“I wouldn’t want to tell you that, because this is what I told all three people that came to my office — I said, ‘I’m not going to tell either one of you. You’re all friends of mine. You ain’t going to know who I vote for,’” Grassley said. “And if I answered your question, they’re going to start figuring out who I’m going to vote for.”

Grassley said the next leader’s first major challenge will be negotiating a tax bill during 2025 that addresses expiring elements from the 2017 Republican tax law.

Kansas Sen. Jerry Moran said character matters in determining who he’ll vote for, but said he hadn’t created a score sheet just yet.

“I’ll have an idea of who I’m voting for before the November election,” Moran said. “Those characteristics that I think are important would be important regardless of what the makeup of the House, Senate and the White House is.”

Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson threw his support behind Scott for GOP leader, saying he prefers someone who previously served as a governor and worked in the private sector. He was the only senator interviewed by States Newsroom to reveal his vote, which will be conducted via secret ballot.

He said that Scott “is willing to tackle tough issues.”

South Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham said that Republicans have “a lot of good choices” among the three men and that he wants someone who can carry the GOP message.

(Joe Raedle/Getty Images).

A month before voters cast their ballots, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released a report showing a strong labor market with growing wages, a lower unemployment rate, and the addition of 254,000 jobs to the economy.

Eighty-one percent of registered voters say the economy is key to their vote for president this fall, according to a September Pew Research report.

“We saw job creation beating expectations, unemployment rate ticking ever so slightly down, and we saw great wage growth which has continued to outpace inflation,” said Kitty Richards, senior strategic advisor at Groundwork Collaborative, a progressive economic policy think tank. “We don’t have the new inflation numbers for last month, but wage growth is strong and has been outpacing inflation for about 16 months now and those are all really good things.”

The unemployment rate in September was 4.1% compared to 4.2% in August and 4.3% in July. A rising unemployment rate earlier in the year had caused some economists to worry that the Federal Reserve’s decision in the past few months not to cut the federal funds rate was beginning to hurt the labor market.  In September, the Fed decided to cut the rate by half a percentage point, allaying those worries.

The Fed began an aggressive campaign to beat inflation by raising rates in March 2022 and stopped in mid-2023 but the rate remains high and has affected the economy, particularly the housing market, economists say. Inflation has significantly cooled since its peak in June 2022.

“If today’s job report had said that the labor market was softening further, I think a lot of us would be more aggressively concerned about the risks posed to the labor market by high interest rates,” Richards said. “It’s great to see that those risks have not tipped over yet … But there are risks and we need to be really mindful of what it would mean if we started to see the unemployment rate picking up again.”

The report also showed continued job growth in healthcare, government, social assistance and construction last month. Wage growth was strong, rising 4% over the past year.  Adult men saw their unemployment rate fall, at 3.7%, last month. Women, Black people, Asian people, white people, Hispanic people, and teens all had little or no change in their unemployment rates in September.

The prime-age employment-to-population ratio, which is a measure of how well the economy provides jobs for people who are interested in working, remains at a 23-year high in today’s jobs report.

“I think the labor market continues to be healthy and strong and it’s great to see labor force participation and employment-to-population rates staying high,” Richards said. “That’s what we want to see in the kind of economy that is going to drive wage gains for working people and continue some of the gains that we’ve seen since the COVID recession.”

But she added that there is still room for those measures to grow.

“We’ve seen that the economy can outperform what a lot of people thought before we had this really prolonged period of low unemployment coming out of the COVID recession. And I hope that we continue to see this kind of growth,” she said.

A statue representing the Missouri River as the “mother of the West” stands guard outside the Missouri Capitol. The Capitol Commission tapped Robert Aitken to build two sculptures, one on each side of the building. Aitken chose a female figure to represent the Missouri River; the Mississippi River was shown as a male figure, ”the father of waters" (Caleigh Christy/Missourian).

Lightning flashed over the Missouri Capitol on Oct. 6, 1924, just 13 years after the building burned to the ground following a powerful lightning strike.

This time lightning flashes were joined by the red hues of celebratory fireworks. This was the grand pageant to celebrate the opening of the new Capitol.

Though the Capitol had been used by the legislature since 1919, it was felt at the time that the building needed a formal opening. It was decided to hold the event on the 13th anniversary of the Capitol Commission’s founding.

Twenty thousand people gathered on the steps of the building to watch a series of shows depicting major moments in Missouri’s history, including depictions of settlers founding the state, World War I and the Civil War. The Civil War section was cut short as heavy rain ended the pageant abruptly.

This summer Missourian staff members toured the Capitol with Bob Priddy, who is working on his fifth book about the building and its history. Missourian staff also spoke with historians about the significance of the building’s art at the centennial of its official opening.

With the exception of one room — the House Lounge — and a few smaller pieces, all of the art in the building was done from 1917 to 1928, Priddy said.

To pay for the building, the state issued a tax bond during the roaring ’20s as the state’s — and nation’s — economy boomed. With robust resources, $1 million of the $4 million allocated for the building was spent on decoration — equivalent to about $16 million today after adjusting for inflation.

“This new Capitol, whose cornerstone is laid today, will represent the greatness of Missouri,” former Gov. Elliott Major said at the laying of the building’s cornerstone in 1915.

The art of Missouri’s Capitol offers a snapshot of the state’s past, and the themes filling the walls of the building can be seen in the composition of the state today. Artists dealt with environmental destruction and conservation, historical accuracy and sanitization, and competing state identities. The combination of artistic quality, stylistic consistency and innovation presents a canvas for understanding Missouri both then and now.

World War I

Hanging above the visitors’ gallery on the east wall of the House chamber is “The Glory of Missouri at War.” The 49-foot-long painting depicts troops from the U.S. Army’s 35th Division, comprising Missouri and Kansas natives. During the war, 156,000 Missourians served and 10,000 were wounded or killed.

“The Glory of Missouri at War” was painted by French artist Charles Hoffbauer, who had served in World War I alongside American troops. Before the war, Hoffbauer had established himself as a prominent painter and had caught the attention of the Decoration Commission for his depictions of Confederate military leaders for the Confederate Memorial Institute in Richmond.

Noticeably absent from the painting is Gen. John Pershing, a Missourian who served as commander of the American Expeditionary Force. Hoffbauer said at the time that he instead wanted to depict the soldiers of Missouri.

The Missouri soldiers in the painting march through the rubble of a French town. The painting is bathed in gray hues, and early sketches of the painting depicted a much bleaker scene. The commission was concerned about the “rather depressed, worn, and melancholy” look of the soldiers as well as a dead horse in the original sketches and asked Hoffbauer to remove them.

Opposite Hoffbauer’s painting is “The Glory of Missouri at Peace,” a stained glass window by H.T. Schladermudt. This work utilizes the artistic and symbolic technique of personification. Central in the stained glass is Missouri, depicted as a woman on a throne surrounded by figures personifying peacetime activities including art, science, justice and learning.

Throughout the Capitol there is an outsized depiction of WWI, as the building was constructed just after the war.

Civil War

Despite World War I’s prominence, “the Civil War has the biggest legacy of any conflict in Missouri history, not only politically but socially and economically,” said Sean Rost, assistant director of research at the State Historical Society of Missouri.

Lingering impacts of the war were present on that rainy October 1924 night in Jefferson City. One of the pageants recalled the Battle of Wilson’s Creek, a Confederate victory outside Springfield. Lady Missouri emerged from the sky as the two sides fought and “clasped the hands of the blue and grey soldiers,” according to a St. Louis Star newspaper account.

The cordial display of the Confederacy and Union shaking hands wasn’t accurate to the true legacy of the Civil War in Missouri, according to Rost. From 1875 to 1903, both of Missouri’s U.S. senators were former Confederates. After failing to make Missouri a Confederate state, former Gov. Claiborne Jackson fled to Arkansas to prop up a separate Missouri government in exile. While Missouri did not leave the Union, residents fought on both sides. About 110,000 Missourians fought for the Union compared to some 40,000 for the Confederacy.

The deep divisions created by the war are evident in the Capitol. Both the Confederate victory at Wilson’s Creek and the Union victory at the Battle of Westport are shown in the “Missouri at War” area of the building.

Missouri’s complex relationship with the war plays out in the Senate chamber. On one side is a large painting of Francis Preston Blair Jr. fighting against the loyalty oath. In 1865, Missouri adopted a constitution that required citizens to attest their loyalty to the United States to hold public office or vote. It also required Missourians to say whether they had ever defied the U.S. government. It was impossible for Confederates to do that, effectively barring them from public office.

Blair was a unionist but opposed the loyalty oath. Detractors tried to assassinate Blair at some of his speeches. Eventually, the Supreme Court ruled against the loyalty oath on the grounds that the state cannot punish someone for a past act that wasn’t illegal when it was committed.

While Black people moved to the state for more opportunity, “reconstruction in Missouri was just as conflicted as the Civil War,” said Marlin Barber, a Missouri State University professor emphasizing 19th-century Black history. “Politically, the state was still rather polarized. And if you went into places like southern Missouri, it’s more closely culturally aligned with the Deep South. It was even more contentious,” he added.

Between 1877 and 1950, 60 people were lynched in Missouri, according to the Equal Justice Initiative. No art in the Capitol depicts this history.

Native Americans

By 1830 most of Missouri’s Native American tribes had either been wiped out or removed from the state. Yet, paintings of Native Missourians populate the Capitol walls. Greg Olson, an expert on Native American history in the state, thinks many Missourians felt imperialist guilt by the early 20th century when the paintings were done.

“People began to realize (in the late 19th century) that not only have we settled the frontier, but we’ve also conquered the Natives,” Olson said. “We felt a little bad about killing the buffalo, we felt bad about settling the entire continent, we began to feel like we spoiled the wilderness.”

Many of the paintings depicting Native Americans are inaccurate and largely based on dated tropes, Olson said. The artists of the time presented a vision of Missouri untamed and natural before the arrival of settlers. But Olson notes that Native Americans had been reworking Missouri’s landscape for thousands of years.

The painting “Trail to Happy Hunting Grounds” represents the view that Native people were inevitably going to disappear. A Native woman looks across the Missouri River as two people standing nearby appear to try to get her to stay. Settlers believed that when Natives died, they would cross the Missouri River and enter the “happy hunting ground.” In reality, it was a justification for the death and removal of Native Americans, Olson said.

“It’s just all about romanticizing the disappearance of Indians from Missouri because it was seen as being inevitable,” Olson said.

The ground the Capitol occupies is an example of how far Missouri went in the removal of Native Americans. An 1889 historical archive of Cole County describes the removal of a native burial ground for the construction of an earlier Capitol.

Transportation/forming the state

Missouri is a state of great rivers. The Missouri River begins in Montana and flows through Kansas City, past the steps of the Capitol in mid-Missouri and enters the Mississippi River north of St. Louis. The Mississippi River starts in northern Minnesota, defines the state’s eastern border and ends in the Gulf of Mexico south of New Orleans.

“Up until the Civil War, every significant community in Missouri was on the rivers,” Priddy said. “That’s how people got here. That’s how people traveled. That’s how commerce moved. They were the liquid highways. Interior Missouri was still very much uninhabited.”

To show the significance of these two rivers, the Capitol Commission tapped Robert Aitken to build two sculptures on the left and right side of the building. Aitken chose a female figure to represent the Missouri River as the “mother of the West.” The Mississippi River was shown as a male figure: ”the father of waters.”

Thomas Hart Benton, one of Missouri’s first U.S. senators, pushed Missouri’s development forward with rail. A painting in the Senate shows Benton giving an impassioned speech at the 1849 National Railroad Convention in St. Louis, where he argued for a nationwide railroad system that became reality 20 years later.

“Railroads (stretched) across northern Missouri and then as they progressed in the southwest, created towns, created commerce, created ways for farmers to get their goods to markets in St. Louis or Kansas City,” Priddy said.

The painting “The Artery of Trade,” shows the impact rail and steamboat technology had on Missouri when the two worked in concert. The left side of the painting shows the Eads Bridge. Completed in 1874, it’s the first steel bridge and longest-standing span over the Mississippi River. The foreground shows steamboats arriving in St. Louis. The combination of steamboats, rail, growing industry and a movement of people north from the south led St. Louis to be the nation’s fourth-largest city in the 1900 census.

Brangwyn/Taos Society

With roughly $1 million in the Capitol’s budget for art and decoration, the commission hired some of the top painters from around the world.

“A million dollars would buy you England’s and America’s foremost 20th-century artists,” Priddy said. “The artists were considered to be leaders in their field, leading portrait artists, leading Western artists, and so we were able to hire the cream of the crop,” he added.

Roughly 4,310 miles away from Jefferson City, English painter Frank Brangwyn caught the eye of the commission.

Brangwyn was commissioned to paint a series of 13 murals throughout the Capitol’s rotunda. Those murals represented the largest single commission of his life. Each of the four canvases in the third-floor rotunda measures 45 feet along the top, 15 feet along the bottom and roughly 22 feet high.

“Onions and oranges are as big as footballs,” a reporter with The Kansas City Times wrote at the time of the mural’s placement. “The ordinary box of fruit becomes six feet long. The Daniel Boone rifle of the pioneer is 14 feet long.”

The third-floor paintings mark four historic moments in the state’s history:

“The Historic Landing” depicts the landing of Pierre Laclède on the west side of the Mississippi River, where he would later found St. Louis.
“The Pioneers” shows settlers traveling to Missouri from the east in the late 1700s.
“The Home Makers” shows forests being cleared so permanent settlements could be built in Missouri.
“The Builders” shows the construction of the Eads Bridge in St. Louis.
These depictions were “handled with freedom from factual details. More than this, they are permeated with a kind of robust symbolism that gives them a universal appeal,” according to Emily Grant Hutchings, a St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter writing at the time of the mural’s placement.

Brangwyn never set foot in the Capitol — or Missouri, for that matter. His art was shipped from England and affixed to the walls by others.

The Taos Society of Artists was a group of six artists based in Taos, New Mexico. The society was known for its depictions of the American Southwest, Native Americans and romantic style.

Artists including E. Irving Couse, Ernest L. Blumenschein, O.E. Berninghaus and Bert G. Phillips all contributed the majority of lunette paintings on the second floor. Berninghaus, born in St Louis, also contributed to two of the “Missouri at War” paintings.

Another famed artist featured in the “Missouri at War” section was N.C. Wyeth, probably America’s foremost illustrator at the time. He painted both depictions of Civil War battles in Missouri.

This story originally appeared in the Columbia Missourian. It can be republished in print or online.

The J. Edgar Hoover FBI Building is seen on Jan. 28, 2019, in Washington, D.C. (Mark Wilson/Getty Images).

Violent crime and property crime in the United States dropped in 2023, continuing a downward trend following higher rates of crime during the pandemic, according to the FBI’s latest national crime report.

Murders and intentional manslaughter, known as non-negligent manslaughter, fell by 11.6% from 2022. Property crime dropped by 2.4%.

Overall, FBI data shows that violent crime fell by 3%.

Violent crime has become a major issue in the 2024 presidential race, with former President Donald Trump claiming that crime has been “through the roof” under the Biden administration.

On the campaign trail, Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, has cited findings from a different source — the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey — to argue that crime is out of control.

While the FBI’s data reflects only crimes reported to the police, the victimization survey is based on interviews conducted by the U.S. Census Bureau and includes both reported and unreported crimes. Interviewees are asked whether they reported the crime to the police. But the survey does not include murder data and only tracks crimes against individuals aged 12 and older.

The victimization survey, released in mid-September, shows that the violent crime victimization rate rose from 16.4 per 1,000 people in 2020 to 22.5 per 1,000 in 2023. The report also notes that the 2023 rate is statistically similar to the rate in 2019, when Trump was in office.

Many crime data experts consider both sources trustworthy. But the agencies track different trends, measure crimes differently and collect data over varying time frames. Unlike the victimization survey, the FBI’s data is largely based on calls for service or police reports. Still, most crimes go unreported, which means the FBI’s data is neither entirely accurate nor complete.

The victimization surveys released throughout the peak years of the pandemic were particularly difficult to conduct, which is a key reason why, according to some experts, the FBI and the survey may show different trends.

As a result, these differences, which are often unknown or misunderstood, make it easier for anyone — including politicians — to manipulate findings to support their agendas.

Political candidates at the national, state and local levels on both sides of the aisle have used crime statistics in their campaigns this year, with some taking credit for promising trends and others using different numbers to flog their opponents. But it’s difficult to draw definitive conclusions about crime trends or attribute them to specific policies.

“There’s never any single reason why crime trends move one way or another,” said Ames Grawert, a crime data expert and senior counsel for the Brennan Center for Justice’s justice program. The Brennan Center is a left-leaning law and policy group.

“When an answer is presented that maybe makes intuitive sense or a certain political persuasion, it’s all too natural to jump to that answer. The problem is that that is just not how crime works,” Grawert told Stateline.

At an August rally in Philadelphia, the Democratic vice presidential candidate, Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, said: “Violent crime was up under Donald Trump. That’s not even counting the crimes he committed.”

During Trump’s first three years in office, the violent crime rate per 100,000 people actually decreased each year, according to the FBI, from 376.5 in 2017, to 370.8 in 2018, to 364.4 in 2019.

It wasn’t until 2020 that the rate surged to 386.3, the highest under Trump, which is when the country experienced the largest one-year increase in murders.

Walz’s comments overlook the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic and the social upheaval following George Floyd’s murder by a Minneapolis police officer in 2020. And despite the increase that year, the violent crime rate in Trump’s final year remained slightly lower than in the last year of President Barack Obama’s administration. In 2016, the rate was 386.8 per 100,000 people.

Following the release of the FBI’s annual crime report last month, U.S. Rep. Dan Bishop, a Republican running for attorney general in North Carolina, shared and later deleted a retweet on X that falsely claimed the FBI’s data showed zero homicides in Los Angeles and New Orleans last year. In fact, FBI data showed that the Los Angeles Police Department reported 325 homicides, while New Orleans police reported 198 in 2023.

Voters worry

Crime has emerged as a top issue on voters’ minds.

A Gallup poll conducted in March found that nearly 80% of Americans worry about crime and violence “a great deal” or “a fair amount,” ranking it above concerns such as the economy and illegal immigration. In another Gallup poll conducted late last year, 63% of respondents described crime in the U.S. as either extremely or very serious — the highest percentage since Gallup began asking the question in 2000.

Crime data usually lags by at least a year, depending on the agency or organization gathering and analyzing the statistics. But the lack of accurate, real-time crime data from official sources, such as federal or state agencies, may leave some voters vulnerable to political manipulation, according to some crime and voter behavior experts.

There are at least three trackers collecting and analyzing national and local crime data that aim to close the gap in real-time reporting. Developed by the Council on Criminal Justice, data consulting firm AH Datalytics and NORC at the University of Chicago, these trackers all show a similar trend of declining crime rates.

“We live in a world of sound bites, and people aren’t taking the time to digest information and fact check,” Alex Piquero, a criminology professor at the University of Miami and former director of the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics, said in an interview with Stateline. “The onus is on the voter.”

Crime trends and limitations

In 2020, when shutdowns in the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic kept people at home, homicides surged by nearly 30% — the largest single-year increase since the FBI began tracking crime.

In 2022, violent crime had fallen back to near pre-pandemic levels, and the FBI data showed a continued decline last year. The rate of violent crime dropped from about 377 incidents per 100,000 people in 2022, to around 364 per 100,000 in 2023, slightly below the 2019 rate.

The largest cities, those with populations of at least 1 million, saw the biggest drop in violent crime — nearly 7% — while cities with populations between 250,000 and 500,000 saw a slight 0.3% increase.

Rape incidents decreased by more than 9% and aggravated assault by nearly 3%. Burglary and larceny-theft decreased by 8% and 4%, respectively.

Motor vehicle theft, however, rose by 12% in 2023 compared with 2022, the highest rate of car theft since 2007, with 319 thefts per 100,000 people.

Although national data suggests an overall major decrease in crime across the country, some crime-data experts caution that that isn’t necessarily the case in individual cities and neighborhoods.

“It can be sort of simplistic to look at national trends. You have to allow the space for nuance and context about what’s happening at the local level too,” said Grawert, of the Brennan Center.

Some crime experts and politicians have criticized the FBI’s latest report, pointing out that not all law enforcement agencies have submitted their crime statistics.

The FBI is transitioning participating agencies to a new reporting system called the National Incident-Based Reporting System or NIBRS. The FBI mandated that the transition, which began in the late 1980s, be completed by 2021. This requirement resulted in a significant drop in agency participation for that year’s report because some law enforcement agencies couldn’t meet the deadline.

In 2022, the FBI relaxed the requirement, allowing agencies to use both the new and older reporting systems. Since the 2021 mandate, more law enforcement agencies have transitioned to the new reporting system.

Reporting crime data to the FBI is voluntary, and some departments may submit only a few months’ worth of data.

Although the FBI’s latest report covers 94% of the U.S. population, only 73% of all law enforcement agencies participated, using either reporting system, according to Stateline’s analysis of the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting program participation data. This means that 5,926 agencies, or 27%, did not report any data to the FBI.

The majority of the missing agencies are likely smaller rural departments that don’t participate due to limited resources and staff, according to some crime data experts.

But participation in the FBI’s crime reporting program has steadily increased over time, particularly after the drop in 2021. Many of the law enforcement agencies in the country’s largest cities submitted data for 2023, and every city agency serving a population of 1 million or more provided a full year of data, according to the FBI’s report.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

Judge Craig Carter, a Wright County judge serving in Cole County for Missouri's gender-affirming care trial, listens to a nurse practitioner testify on the fourth day of the trial (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

A ruling on Missouri’s restrictions on gender-affirming care is likely to come by the end of the year, with the trial complete and attorneys’ reports due within 30 days.

After a 13-day trial ended last week, Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter waived closing statements and asked instead for plaintiffs and defendants to submit statements of facts and findings. Both sides presented thick stacks of evidence, with seven approximately five-inch binders sitting on Carter’s bench throughout proceedings.

Without a jury, Carter — who was assigned to preside over the Cole County case — will rule on the constitutionality of the law.

Carter’s questions at the start of the trial sounded like someone becoming familiar with the subject, asking what a nonbinary gender identity means and clarifying definitions.

But in the trial’s final days, his inquiries were more frequent and challenging for witnesses, digging into the arguments and searching for the point in which gender-affirming medication for minors switches from unlawful to lawful.

The trial comes after transgender minors, their families and health care providers challenged the constitutionality of a 2023 law restricting physicians from prescribing gender-affirming medical care to minors. It also bars Missouri Medicaid from covering gender-affirming treatment for adults and restricts prisoners from getting the care in state prisons.

Carter asked many of the questions to the state’s expert witness, Dr. Farr Curlin, a professor at Duke who specializes in medical ethics.

“So tell me your thoughts on the intersection,” Carter asked during Curlin’s testimony last Wednesday. “The state has an interest in preventing people from making life-altering mistakes, and plaintiffs have the right to seek (desired medical care).”

Curlin said the problem lies in children’s inability to consent. Typically, parents consent for their child, whereas a minor’s agreement is labeled assent.

“The norm should be the same norm that is practiced throughout pediatric ethics and it is: Is this intervention in the medical best interest of the child?” Curlin said.

A large piece of the case is whether there is medical consensus on the efficacy of medical transition.

Large medical organizations like the American Academy of Pediatrics, a group founded in 1930 with 67,000 member physicians, support gender-affirming care for minors. Other organizations outside the medical mainstream — like the 700-member American College of Pediatricians which was formed in 2002 — are outspoken against the treatment.

Plaintiffs’ experts reviewed research showing positive effects of medical transition, and people who have benefited from gender-affirming care in Missouri as minors testified. The attorney general’s office, which was defending the law, tried to diminish the testimony of these experts by claiming that because most provide gender-affirming care —either by writing letters of support as a mental health provider or prescribing medication — they financially benefit from ensuring it remains legal. 

Plaintiffs waved off these concerns. 

“Only to the state of Missouri, and without any sense of irony, is actually having experience and expertise a conflict,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney with Lambda Legal, told reporters.

The state’s expert witnesses included physicians who are outspoken about their disapproval of gender-affirming care, though many had never treated a minor for gender dysphoria. During the testimony of Alabama-based plastic surgeon Dr. Patrick Lappert, attorneys showed images of gender-affirming surgeries and detailed the process and risks of infection.

In 2022, a federal court in North Carolina ruled that state health plans excluding gender-affirming care violated the Equal Protection Clause. In that case, the judge tossed out parts of the testimony of  Lappert and Dr. Stephen Levine, who also testified last week as an expert for the state of Missouri.

Tom Bastian, spokesman for the ACLU of Missouri, told The Independent in emailed answers the case’s attorneys oversaw that the state’s argument is not sufficient to justify the law. Specifically, he pointed to what he deemed a lack of expertise among the state’s expert witnesses.

“None of the state’s purported expert witnesses practice in this field, except for one, and the one who does agrees that medical interventions for gender dysphoria can be appropriate for some patients,” Bastian wrote. “Plaintiffs’ doctors, their experts and every major medical organization in the United States all agree that, in certain cases, gender-affirming medical care can be medically necessary to treat gender dysphoria in adolescents and adults.”

Another expert called by the Missouri attorney general’s office last week was John Michael Bailey. He received skepticism from Carter after it was revealed that he believes convicted child molester Jerry Sandusky is innocent. Bailey has been criticized for a retracted research article on gender dysphoria in adolescents and was the subject of an investigation by Northwestern University after he demonstrated a sex toy in an extracurricular lecture.

The Independent sent questions to the attorney general’s office, including asking about criticism of its expert witnesses, but did not receive a response.

Four people who had once identified as transgender but stopped treatment, known as “detransitioners,” also testified last about their regrets. Only one of the four received medical care in Missouri, and he was an adult when he began his transition.

“The adults that were in the room that should have been protecting them failed to do so,” Attorney General Andrew Bailey said in a podcast late last month before the trial began.

The state also introduced academic articles describing the evidence behind gender-affirming care for minors as “too limited,” both in cross-examination and through their witnesses’ testimony.

Carter asked if the law could be peeled back if research showed treatments’ success. The state’s restrictions on puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones for minors is set to expire in August of 2027 — though lawmakers have publicly discussed removing the sunset clause.

“Are you saying the kids don’t have a choice until we get further evidence showing the efficacy of these treatments?” Carter asked Curlin, the Duke medical professor. “If the studies show that this treatment is efficacious, then where do we wind up?”

“It’s not just, is it efficacious?” Curlin said. “Is it efficacious, and is it reliable enough and substantial enough to warrant the risks that these treatments bring?”

“What if the drug companies come out tomorrow and say, ‘You can take this drug, and it is absolutely reversible,” Carter asked.

Curlin said the “treatments are absolutely counter to the well-working of this patient’s health.” The medications and surgeries are not ethical in a body that is functioning well, he said.

The state repeatedly presented talk therapy as an option to treat gender dysphoria, which is distress arising from one’s body not matching gender identity.

Plaintiffs said therapy alone will not treat many cases of gender dysphoria, making medication medically necessary.

On the first day of the trial, a young man testifying under the name John Doe told the court that therapy was not enough for him. His first therapist said he was “going through a phase,” and his dysphoria only worsened.

A second, affirming therapist helped him as he began to dress more like himself at the age of 7, he said. His fear only worsened as puberty approached, and he attributes his thriving social life and success in college to his access to medication.

“It felt like once I started to receive (testosterone) shots, my overall was uphill from there,” he said. “The confidence I gained from having my body reflect who I am and what I was feeling was impactful throughout my entire life.”

Doe’s mother also testified later in the trial.

Carter noted there was “heartfelt testimony on both sides” from parents, asking about the issue of parental rights when the state withholds a type of care from their child. He discussed the Right to Try Act, which allows patients to access experimental medications for life-threatening conditions.

He also looked at the release of the COVID-19 vaccine, which had an accelerated clinical trial phase in order to give the public access sooner. The vaccine could potentially serve as a precedent of giving access to a medication without longitudinal testing.

Carter’s ruling is unlikely to be the last, with similar cases in other states appealing all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. He noted the likelihood of an appeal, saying he would accept exhibits to add to the case’s file for future courts to look at, though they would not determine his ruling.

(rarrarorro/iStock Images)

Throughout history, despite what it confronted, America has had leaders emerge whose words and actions helped shape its identity and its voice.

How would you characterize America’s identity today?

Where is America’s voice?

At critical points in the history of this country, it has, more often than not, been resoundingly clear. But, today, it is garbled at best.

Our identity has become so muddled during the first two decades of this century that it likely depends on who you ask.

While one or more leaders may help define America’s identity and voice, clarify it, and epitomize it with their actions, the identity itself goes beyond a personality, beyond the vocalization of precepts and principles or specific initiatives.

A nation’s identity has presence and power. It characterizes ages, codifies eras, creates the culture, and more often than not, foretells the nature of a future society.

We have only to recall a few critical periods in America’s history and the personalities that led us through them — from the Declaration of Independence to the end of the Cold War — to be poignantly, and sometimes painfully, reminded of the great void that exists today.

As the 21^st Century unfolds, what is America’s current identity, her voice? If you are able to discern it, what does it say about where we are headed domestically or globally?

Admittedly, there may not have always been agreement with the policies or way of life that came about as a result of a course America took, but, at least, historical accounts show that contemporaneous Americans had a better sense and understanding of the rallying cries, and the shared beliefs in which they were grounded.

We only have to recall and revisit critical periods in American history.

Through the work and words of the founding fathers and the framers of the Constitution — John Adams, Thomas Paine, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, and others —America gained its identity and voice that determined its course through the end of the 18^th century, and it was clear.

Throughout the 19^th century, America’s identity and voice defined the ages from the establishment of institution of slavery to the Civil War that ended it. And the Jim Crow era that began after that war and lingered into the 20^th century until the Civil Rights Movement that fought to end it.

America’s identity during these critical periods in its history was represented by many. Abe Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Strum Thurmond, Lester Maddox, George Wallace,  Lyndon Johnson, Martin Luther King, Jr., to name a few.

America roared in the twenties, crashed economically in the early thirties, and joined the war, World War II, to defeat Hitler and Nazi Germany in the forties. And we lived and breathed the Cold War and its remnants for the next nearly fifty years.

We all know these seminal historical events and the leaders that brought us through them: Theodore and Franklin Roosevelt, Harry Truman, Dwight Eisenhower, John Kennedy, Ronald Regan.

During any of these periods, America’s identity, her voice was discernible if not always strong. The times seem more definable, the direction clearer, even while we lived through them.

It seems a greater sense of American purpose and culture was passed on from one generation to the next back then. It was inculcated in almost every aspect of our lives, from lively debate around the dinner table, the town square, to the classrooms.

Today, through technology, we have the ability to be connected 24/7 and have access to information, policymakers, and can participate in our government and political processes at whatever level we choose.

We are able to help define America’s identity and voice unlike any other period in our history. But are we?

When we look at the state of American politics today, where are the political and philosophical giants that represent America’s identity, her voice?

They are sorely missing.

It is evident with the current political, social and economic divisiveness and discordance as exemplified by the vitriol that dominate public discourse in areas that have traditionally defined America’s identity: how immigrants are regarded and treated; the centrality of inalienable rights for all; the preeminence of the rule of law — to name a few.

What has happened to America being identified as a nation of immigrants? Afterall, America was and continues to be built by immigrants.

What about the apparent retreat or denial of the inalienable rights “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” when it comes to women? Women seem to be losing rights that they have fought to gain. Too many citizens continually face obstacles in exercising their  right to cast a vote and exercise other rights.

That is just a snapshot of what is happening on the home front.

During the last decade, we have also watched the perception of America’s identity change on the world stage, based on the leadership or lack thereof, and the how domestic and global issues have been dealt with or failed to be dealt with.

Whether those issues involve the Ukraine war, the Middle East conflict, our role in the NATO Alliance, relationship with Russia, China, Climate Accord, nuclear disarmament, to name a few.

How does the current state of American politics and policies help clarify its identity and voice?

What is it saying to us here at home? What is the message conveyed abroad?

How would you define this present age? Who are the leaders that will help America reclaim its identity, find its voice?

We need not wait for historians to define it, to characterize and make sense of it at some future date.

We can help shape it now, if we dare.

Or we sit idly by and watch as we stumble into the future.

Even worse when a volume — “When America Lost Its Way”— is included in the annals of history.

The Missouri State Capitol in Jefferson City, as pictured September 26, 2023 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Missouri House testimony presented under several aliases should be investigated and prosecuted under laws making it a felony to file false documents with a government agency, state Rep. Del Taylor said Friday.

Taylor, a St. Louis Democrat, said that The Independent’s report that a Columbia restaurant owner is the source of testimony under at least three fake names demands further investigation.

“Let’s take a closer look at who are these people that testified and submitted written testimony, and put some degree of scrutiny to them,” Taylor said in an interview with The Independent.

Written testimony submitted to the Missouri House Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crimes included several statements that accused restaurant owners in cities around the state of conspiring to obtain liquor licenses for undocumented immigrants.

Three of the names and email addresses matched emails sent to The Independent beginning in May. Those emails included many of the same accusations sent to the committee, all tied back to officials and restaurants in Dunklin County in southeast Missouri.

False names used in testimony to Missouri House committee studying immigrant crime

Associate Dunklin County Commissioner Ron Huber, named as one of the alleged conspirators in the testimony and emails to The Independent, said he recognized them as among the aliases adopted by Crystal Umfress of Columbia as she targeted businesses he serves as an accountant.

Umfress was charged Sept. 18 in Dunklin County with filing false documents and forgery for impersonating Huber in emails seeking to withdraw liquor license applications for businesses he served. Umfress, owner of Casa Maria’s Mexican Cantina in Columbia, was already facing trial in February on charges of hiring a man to set fire to a Kennett restaurant when the forgery charges were filed.

The committee, formed by the House Republican leadership to document crimes committed by undocumented immigrants, actually found very little evidence that newly arrived people are more likely to commit offenses, Taylor said.

Taylor, a member of the committee, attended all six hearings in cities around the state, he said.

“The fact we had these hearings in the first place was unwarranted and now we have evidence to show that the testimony given that attempted to fuel the Republican anti-immigration rhetoric was falsified,” he said in a statement.

Taylor said the law making it a felony to file a false document with a government agency is one possible avenue for prosecution. Another is the punishment allowed in the Missouri Constitution for “disrespect to the House by any disorderly or contemptuous behavior in its presence during its sessions.”

“I don’t know if it would be the prosecutor from each county where a hearing took place, or the prosecutor here in Jefferson City since it was a House hearing,” Taylor said. “We are looking at a violation of Missouri statute. And I don’t know the jurisdiction, but yes, I would think the prosecutors should go ahead.”

The committee has concluded its public hearings and will prepare a report with recommendations for legislative action. The most pressing need shown by the testimony, Taylor said, is for laws protecting immigrants.

“Our immigrants and visitors are the victims of horrible human trafficking, hate crimes and wage theft,” Taylor said. “We heard that at all six of the hearings, and there were a number of recommendations that were made to offer better protections for our immigrant community.”

A case of bird flu in a Missouri resident is the only diagnosis in the United States this year where the person did not have contact with infected dairy cattle or poultry (Stephen Ausmus/Animal Research Services, USDA).

WASHINGTON — The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention should have results later this month that provide more insight into how a Missouri resident, who hadn’t had any contact with infected animals or food, contracted a case of highly pathogenic avian influenza.

Demetre Daskalakis, director of the National Center for Immunization and Respiratory Diseases at the CDC, said on a call with reporters Friday the agency is working through its investigation of that bird flu case, while providing several more details.

“As we previously reported, CDC would be able to perform partial sequencing of the avian influenza H5 virus from the case in Missouri, despite a nearly undetectable level of viral RNA in the patient sample,” Daskalakis said.

That process is complex and time-consuming, in part because the patient had rather small amounts of the virus in their system when the test was taken.

Another contributing factor, he said, is “that the virus has two potentially important mutations, meaning two amino acid differences, in comparison with the viruses previously characterized during this event that could affect antigenicity.”

Daskalakis explained that antigenicity is when someone is able to produce “a specific immune response, such as creation of specific antibodies.”

Both the mutations and small sample size have presented challenges for the CDC, but the agency expects to announce results of the test later this month after completing the complicated lab process, he said.

Two cases in California

The Missouri case is the only bird flu diagnosis in the United States this year where the person hadn’t had direct contact with infected poultry or dairy cattle.

The remainder of the 16 people diagnosed with H5N1 during this calendar year had direct contact with farm animals, with nine of those cases linked to poultry and six related to dairy cows.

One of those cases was diagnosed in Texas, two in Michigan, two in California just this week and 10 in Colorado.

Public health officials on the call emphasized that the risk to the general public remains low and that several studies undertaken by the Food and Drug Administration show pasteurized dairy products as well as other foods remain safe to eat.

Since February, the CDC has tested more than 50,000 samples that would have “detected Influenza A, H5 or other novel influenza viruses,” Daskalakis said.

The Missouri case was the first case of bird flu detected through that influenza surveillance system, he said.

Public health officials at the state and federal level have been trying to determine how the Missouri patient, who officials are not identifying for their privacy, contracted the virus through a series of “intense interviews,” Daskalakis said.

That is how they learned someone living in the same house had been symptomatic with various gastrointestinal issues at the same time the patient had been ill.

That simultaneous onset of symptoms implied “a common exposure, rather than human-to-human transmission,” Daskalakis said, before reinforcing that the second person never tested positive for the virus and isn’t considered a case of bird flu.

“At the time of the interview, the household contact had also completely recovered and had not been tested for influenza while they were sick,” he said. “To be clear, there is only one case of H5N1 influenza detected in Missouri.”

Because the person living in the same house as the Missouri patient had been symptom-free for more than 10 days when they were interviewed by public health officials, Daskalakis said there was “no utility in testing the contact for acute influenza.”

Instead, officials in Missouri took blood samples from the two people so the CDC could test for “antibodies against H5 to assess for possible infection with this virus,” he said.

A separate investigation was taken at the hospital where the Missouri patient had been diagnosed to see if any health care workers had contracted H5N1.

Out of 118 health care workers who interacted with the patient in some way, 18 had higher-risk interactions before the patient was diagnosed and began using what Daskalakis referred to as “droplet precautions.”

Six of those health care workers later developed respiratory symptoms, though only one of them had symptoms by the time the public health investigation had begun retroactively, he said.

That one person’s PCR test for acute influenza came back negative and the other five health care workers, who had recovered, did not require a PCR test, he said.

“Since exposures could only be assessed retrospectively, Missouri has also obtained blood specimens from these individuals for antibody or serology testing at CDC to search for any evidence to support the unlikely possibility that their symptoms were related to H5 infection resulting from their interaction with the patient,” Daskalakis said. “Despite the low risk, this testing is important to complete the public health investigation of this case.”

The CDC began working on that serology testing in mid-September when it received the samples from Missouri, though the complicated process likely won’t conclude until later in October.

“For serology testing to be conclusive, it needs to be done using a virus that is genetically identical to the one obtained from the human case from Missouri or there is a risk of a false negative test,” Daskalakis said. “Since this H5 virus was not recoverable, we could not grow it because there was not enough for the Missouri specimen.”

The CDC, he explained, has to “create the right virus for the test using reverse genetics to match the one from Missouri, so that we can use it in these serology tests.”

“We realize people, including all of us at CDC, are anxious to see results from this testing,” he said. “CDC is moving at a very accelerated pace while conducting rigorous science to assure the validity of these results.”

Poultry, dairy cases

In addition to human cases, bird flu continues to infect poultry flocks and dairy herds within the United States.

While the poultry industry has had years of experience supplying its workers with personal protective equipment and culling affected farms, the dairy industry has had to figure out how to address the virus this year.

Eric Deeble, deputy under secretary for marketing and regulatory programs at USDA, said on the call Friday that Colorado’s mandatory testing program of bulk milk tanks, which began in July, offered a hopeful case study for ridding farms throughout the country of H5N1.

“Initially, this revealed a significant local prevalence, about 72% of dairies, centered in Weld County,” Deeble said.

But following months of hard work by farmers and public health officials, Colorado has just one dairy herd that’s currently affected by H5N1 out of 86 dairy herds within the state, he said.

“Mandatory surveillance in the state allows for continuous monitoring of herds and helps detect any instances of non-negative results early on, ensuring timely intervention,” Deeble said. “This decrease in Colorado cases, even in the absence of a vaccine, gives us further confidence that H5N1 can be eliminated in the national herd, even in places where we have seen an initial rapid increase in cases.”

Data from the USDA show that during the past month, three dairy herds in Idaho and 53 in California have tested positive for H5N1.

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey (photo submitted).

The Biden administration was hit with the latest blow to its student debt relief efforts on Thursday after a federal judge in Missouri temporarily blocked the administration from putting in place a plan that would provide student debt relief to millions of borrowers.

The ruling further hinders the administration’s efforts to promote its work on student loans ahead of the November election and comes amid persistent Republican challenges to President Joe Biden’s student debt relief initiatives.

The administration, which unveiled the plans in April, said these efforts would provide student debt relief to more than 30 million borrowers. The proposals were never finalized.

In a September lawsuit, Missouri led Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, North Dakota and Ohio in challenging the administration over the plan.

Their suit, filed in a Georgia federal court, came just days after a separate student debt relief effort — the Saving on a Valuable Education, or SAVE, plan — continued to be put on pause after the U.S. Supreme Court declined to lift a block on the plan in late August.

Following the September filing of the suit, U.S. District Judge J. Randal Hall of Georgia paused the plan through a temporary restraining order on Sept. 5 and extended that order on Sept. 19 while the case could be reviewed.

But on Wednesday, Hall let that order expire, dismissed Georgia from the suit and moved the case to a Missouri federal court.

Once the suit moved to Missouri and the restraining order was not extended, the remaining six states in the case quickly sought a preliminary injunction.

U.S. District Judge Matthew T. Schelp granted the states’ request on Thursday, writing that the administration is barred from “mass canceling student loans, forgiving any principal or interest, not charging borrowers accrued interest, or further implementing any other actions under the (debt relief plans) or instructing federal contractors to take such actions.”

Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey praised Schelp’s decision, saying in a Thursday post on X that it’s a “huge win for transparency, the rule of law, and for every American who won’t have to foot the bill for someone else’s Ivy League debt.”

Meanwhile, a spokesperson for the Department of Education said the agency is “extremely disappointed by this ruling on our proposed debt relief rules, which have not yet even been finalized,” per a statement.

“This lawsuit was brought by Republican elected officials who made clear they will stop at nothing to prevent millions of their own constituents from getting breathing room on their student loans,” the spokesperson said.

The department will “continue to vigorously defend these proposals in court” and “will not stop fighting to fix the broken student loan system and provide support and relief to borrowers across the country,” they added.

The Student Borrower Protection Center, an advocacy group, also lambasted the Missouri decision.

“With this case, the Missouri Attorney General continues to put naked political interest and corporate greed ahead of student loan borrowers in Missouri and across the country,” Persis Yu, deputy executive director and managing counsel for the advocacy group, said in a Thursday statement.

“This is a shameful attack on tens of millions of student loan borrowers and our judicial system as a whole,” Yu said. “We will not stop fighting to expose these abuses and ensure borrowers get the relief they deserve.”

Amendment 6 would open the door to charging criminal defendants fees to fund some law enforcement pensions (Mary Sanchez /The Beacon).

Missouri voters will decide Nov. 5 if retirement funds for sheriffs and prosecutors should be supported with fees collected on court cases.

A fee used to fund sheriffs’ pensions was put in place by state law in 1983.

The Missouri General Assembly placed Amendment 6 on the ballot to reverse a 2021 Missouri Supreme Court ruling that found the fees unconstitutional.

The state’s high court found that court fees for pensions were “not reasonably related to expense of the administration of justice” and thus violated a constitutional ban against using court fees to enhance the compensation of executive department officials, which would include retired county sheriffs.

If approved by a simple majority of voters, the Missouri Constitution will be changed, allowing the legislature to fund benefits for the state’s 114 elected county sheriffs or their surviving spouses through the collection of a $3 fee per case where a guilty verdict or plea is reached. Retirement benefits for prosecutors are also included, through a $4 fee.

The exact ballot language is below:

Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to provide that the administration of justice shall include the levying of costs and fees to support salaries and benefits for certain current and former law enforcement personnel?

State and local governmental entities estimate an unknown fiscal impact.

Fair Ballot Language:

A “yes” vote will amend the Missouri Constitution to levy costs and fees to support salaries and benefits for current and former sheriffs, prosecuting attorneys, and circuit attorneys to ensure all Missourians have access to the courts of justice.

A “no” vote will not amend the Missouri Constitution to levy costs and fees related to current or former sheriffs, prosecuting attorneys and circuit attorneys.

If passed, this measure will have no impact on taxes.

What happens if Amendment 6 fails?

If it fails, the Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System predicts that its fund will be insolvent within nine years, said Melissa Lorts, executive director.

“We feel like the $3 fee is really a user fee of the court system,” Lorts said.

Sheriffs are responsible for bringing defendants to the courthouse from the jail, and they administer warrants and manage other aspects of a criminal case, she said.

“So we have a heavy hand in what happens in the court system,” Lorts said.

More than 200 former sheriffs or their surviving spouses currently receive benefits, Lorts said.

The amendment traces back to two speeding tickets in Kansas City and the state supreme court ruling that followed.

Two men admitted to the traffic violations in 2017, ultimately paying a total of $223.50 in fines and fees to the city’s municipal court.

But the men later argued that they didn’t realize that $3 from each case would go toward the sheriffs’ retirement benefits.

The two men led a class action filed with Jackson County Circuit Court, arguing that the extra charge was “unjust enrichment,” a violation of the state constitution.

The case continued to wind through the courts until the Missouri Supreme Court ruled for the plaintiffs in 2021, Lorts said.

The court’s decision cited a 1986 ruling, noting that it laid down “a bright-line rule” barring court fees that benefit executive officials that are not “reasonably related to the expense of the administration of justice.”

The ruling in the traffic case cost the retirement system about $9 million in court costs and settlements and ended its ability to collect the money, Lorts said.

In December 2023, the fund had $38.4 million in assets, a drop of $800,000 from the end of the previous calendar year, according to the Missouri Sheriffs’ Retirement System annual report.

Beginning in January 2024, active sheriffs began contributing 5% of their salaries to the retirement fund, a change instituted by the legislature.

The legislature also approved $2.5 million to help stabilize the fund, an amount that has been requested again in the coming fiscal year, Lorts said.

What are the arguments against Amendment 6? 

Critics of the fees that Amendment 6 would allow say each county should pay for pensions and other costs related to law enforcement and the courts.

The Washington, D.C.-based Fines and Fees Justice Center told lawmakers that the salaries and benefits for prosecutors and sheriffs should be adequately funded, but that court fees are an “ineffective and counterproductive” approach.

“When fines and fees go unpaid, judges may issue arrest warrants for failing to pay, leading to law enforcement arresting people for not paying financial obligations — most often because they are too poor to pay,” testified Priya Sarathy Jones, deputy executive director at the Fines and Fees Justice Center.

“The time spent on these debt collection and enforcement efforts diverts law enforcement and courts from their core responsibilities … In fact, the collection of fines and fees by law enforcement has been found to be associated with lower clearance rates for more serious crimes.”

Some studies have shown that the cost to municipalities to collect fines and fees can exceed the revenue generated.

The Missouri NAACP argued that the fees “create a negative incentive to give more tickets and charge unnecessary crimes.”

Leonard Charles Gilroy, a vice president of the Reason Foundation in Los Angeles, wrote that changing the state constitution to allow the fees would violate “basics of public finance and fiscal stewardship.”

Public pensions are constitutionally protected benefits, which are obligated to be paid in full regardless of market conditions or revenue generated.

“Law enforcement and courts are core functions of government that should be funded through legislative appropriations, not fees,” Gilroy’s statement said.

“It would be imprudent to revive a policy to fund pension contributions with dedicated fine/fee revenues because those revenues can fluctuate over time, while pension liabilities are always locked in.”

Meanwhile, Amendment 6 came under fire for ballot summary language that the Missouri Court of Appeals Western District ruled was insufficient and unfair.

The court clarified that passage of the measure by voters in the general election would enshrine a broader meaning of the administration of justice in the state constitution.

That court reworded the ballot language voters will see to read: “Shall the Missouri Constitution be amended to provide that the administration of justice shall include the levying of costs and fees to support salaries and benefits for certain current and former law enforcement personnel?”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Missouri and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

James Larrabee uses a chainsaw to remove limbs from a dead tree at the Veteran Urban Farm in Columbia (Benjamin Zweig/Missourian).

Jared Young, left, the Better Party candidate for U.S. Senate, with former Republican U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth on Thursday morning during a statewide election tour (Rudi Keller/Missouri Independent).

A U.S. Senate candidate seeking to create a new party to bridge political divisions on Thursday enlisted the state’s senior former officeholder to help put a spotlight on his campaign.

Jared Young, a Joplin businessman who petitioned to form the Better Party, toured the state with former U.S. Sen. Jack Danforth, a Republican who was also Missouri attorney general and ambassador to the United Nations.

Young is running against Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, who has the same seat Danforth held from 1977 to 1995, Democratic nominee Lucas Kunce as well as Green Party candidate Nathan Kllne and Libertarian Party nominee W.C. Young.

Young is trying to draw disaffected Republicans, independents and moderate Democrats to his banner of the Better Party.

Polling he did in 2023 convinced him an independent candidate had a fighting chance, Young said.

“Hawley is shockingly unpopular for an incumbent Republican in a red state,” Young said.

Danforth, one of Hawley’s earliest boosters, broke with his Republican protégé after the Jan. 6, 2021, riots, calling that early support the “worst mistake of my life” and saying on a podcast that it is “what Dr. Frankenstein must have felt.”

Jack Danforth blames Josh Hawley for Missourians losing out on radiation compensation

During a joint interview with the candidate Thursday, Danforth said Young represents a reasonable, results-oriented approach to politics.

The Republican Party once adhered to the principles of controlling the national debt and backing a strong national defense in protection of powers threatened by force, Danforth said. 

“The political system is broken, and my party, both parties, have gravitated toward the fringes,” Danforth said. “But my party, especially the MAGA version, has thrown overboard every principle that the Republican Party stood for, for decades, generations.”

The national debt is $35 trillion and during the Trump administration, Danforth said, it increased 40%.

“Under a Republican president,” Danforth said. “Nobody cares.”

Hawley, Danforth said, disqualified himself as a serious legislator on Jan. 6, 2021.

“He went on national television and he said, ‘this is going to be decided on January 6.’ He knew that that was not true, knew it, and he said it anyway,” Danforth said. “And then he went out front, convened, and he exhorted a mob, knowing that he couldn’t accomplish anything other than convene the mob and exhort the mob.”

The nation deserved an apology from Hawley after the riots, Young said.

“He just sat back and he waited to see which way the political winds were blowing, and as soon as he decided that actually this is politically advantageous to lean into this, he was all in on it and now he sells mugs with his fist raised to the mob,” Young said.

Hawley’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment on Young and Danforth’s criticisms.

Young is one of the best-funded independent candidate in Missouri in recent political history, using $765,000 of his own money and $164,000 raised from donors to finance his campaign. But he’s not registered in any of the polls conducted in the race.

He’s helping Young but not to the extent he did in 2022 when Danforth created a PAC with $5 million to run ads backing independent candidate John Wood. That effort fizzled when Wood withdrew from the race after now-Sen. Eric Schmitt won the Republican primary.

Young had about $465,000 on hand on July 17, while Hawley had $5.8 million and Kunce had $4.2 million. Since then, Hawley has spent $3.3 million on television advertising and Kunce has spent $5.3 million, according to tracking of FCC reports by The Independent. 

A PAC called Show Me Strong has spent another $1.6 million on television ads backing Hawley, but it is the only significant non-candidate spending in the race.

Danforth has opened a network for fundraising, Young said, and he’s working to bring “similarly big names that are disenchanted Republicans that don’t like Josh Hawley to come and join us in the state.”

He knows that it is a longshot race.

“The challenge is just making sure every voter knows who Jared Young is and what I stand for, and I’m comfortable with losing the election if everyone knows about me and they just decide, no, this is not what we want,” he said.

Young, 38, was educated at Brigham Young University, graduating in 2010, and Harvard Law, graduating in 2014. He worked for a year at a Washington, D.C. law firm.

He realized he didn’t want to practice law, Young said, and accepted a job in Joplin at Employer Advantage, a benefits administrator for businesses, where he became CEO. He led the company through an acquisition in 2022 and has been working on the campaign since mid-2023. 

The main message he’s hearing, Young said, is that people want a government that isn’t caught up in endless gridlock.

“We’re so exhausted, so frustrated, so disgusted with the direction and the tone of our national politics,” Young said. “But every election, it seems to be getting worse instead of better, and nobody’s stepping up to say, look, we need something completely different.”

Kunce is using the same playbook as Hawley in his campaign, Young said.

“Now you play anger, you insult, you focus on making them hate Hawley,” Young said. “And so what was his very first thing when he started his campaign? Josh Hawley is a fraud and a coward. Josh Hawley is a fraud and a coward. Josh Hawley’s a fraud and a coward. Now it’s more of Josh Hawley is a creepy weirdo.

“It’s not substance, and people are just so exhausted by it,” Young said.

Kunce’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Young said he would back Oklahoma Republican Sen. James Lankford’s bipartisan bill to bolster border security, worked out in prolonged negotiations but scuttled by the opposition of former President Donald Trump. 

He said he opposes any attempt to make abortion policy at the national level. He also opposes Amendment 3, the Missouri ballot measure that would guarantee the right to an abortion in the state constitution.

“I’m a moderate pro-lifer,” Young said. “I believe that every abortion is a tragedy, but that we do ourselves a disservice as the pro-life cause when we take an uncompromising all or nothing approach.”

The annual deficit in government spending can only be closed with a combination of tax increases and cuts, Young said. 

“You can’t do a level of cuts that would make a difference, that would be palatable to the people,” Young said.

During the only debate of the campaign, held at the Missouri Press Association convention last month, Hawley called for the U.S. to cut off aid to Ukraine, which has been on the defensive in a war with Russia since February 2022. Young was on stage that day, as were Kunce and Kline. 

He disagreed with Hawley that day and said Thursday it is essential the aid continue.

“It is in our strategic interest, and it’s our moral duty to be supporting Ukraine,” Young said.

Danforth’s sense that Hawley failed in his duty and his role in promoting Hawley to power makes his opposition to the incumbent a personal matter. 

Hawley is a graduate of Yale Law School and clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts, Danforth noted. He taught constitutional law at the University of Missouri before winning office.

Hawley is smarter than the politician he plays on TV, Danforth said.

“Members of the Senate are more performers than institutionalists, and they’re performers to get themselves on TV, on MSNBC or Fox News,” Danforth said. “And the way to do that is to be the most outrageous person you can be.”

If he doesn’t win, Young could establish the Better Party for future elections by winning more than 2% of the vote. For the next two election cycles, candidates could run for any partisan office on the party’s ticket, a right that would be extended if it continues meeting the 2% threshold.

“One of the biggest hurdles for independents is they have to expend so many resources just to get on the ballot,” he said, “and they already are resource-poor candidates. It puts them way behind the ball right from the start.”

The U.S. Capitol in Washington, D.C. (Jennifer Shutt/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — Members of Congress left Capitol Hill last week to focus their attention on the campaign trail during the six weeks leading up to Election Day, leaving much of their work unfinished.

The Republican House and Democratic Senate are scheduled to remain on recess until Nov. 12, though the urgent needs created in the wake of Hurricane Helene, which are fully funded for the moment, could bring the chambers back into session before then.

When lawmakers do return to Washington, D.C., they’ll need to address the must-pass legislation they’ve left on autopilot instead of negotiating new bipartisan compromises.

So far this year, lawmakers have pushed off reaching brokering agreement on must-pass measures like the farm bill as well as this year’s batch of government funding bills and the annual defense policy legislation.

Kids’ online safety, radiation exposure

There are also a handful of measures that have passed one chamber with broad bipartisan support, but haven’t been taken up on the other side of the Capitol that leadership could decide to move forward during November or December.

For example, an interesting combination of senators, led by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn, are advocating for House Republican leaders to hold votes on a pair of online safety bills designed to better protect children from the darker side of the internet.

The rail safety bill drafted by a bipartisan group of senators from Ohio and Pennsylvania after the train derailment in East Palestine remains unaddressed following more than a year of intransigence.

And legislation to reauthorize the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act, or RECA, which passed the Senate on a broadly bipartisan vote earlier this year, sits on a shelf collecting dust in the House.

Cancer victims, Indigenous communities and many others have pressed House GOP leadership to hold a vote to reauthorize the program after it expired this summer, but they have avoided it due to cost.

Five-week lame duck

Lawmakers interviewed by States Newsroom and congressional leaders all indicated the outcome of the November elections will have significant sway on what Congress approves during the five-week lame-duck session that spans November and December.

All interviews took place before Hurricane Helene made landfall and Israel was directly attacked by Iran, both of which are likely to be at the top of congressional leaders’ to-do lists.

Senate Minority Whip John Thune said it’s “hard to say” what, if anything, Congress will approve during the lame-duck session.

“I think a lot will be shaped by what happens in November,” the South Dakota Republican said.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., said just a day before Hurricane Helene made landfall that Democrats would advocate for passing natural disaster response funding previously requested by the Biden administration.

“Extreme weather events are on the rise and they affect everyone — in blue states, purple states and red states,” Jeffries said. “This is not a partisan issue, it’s an American issue in terms of being there, in times of need for everyday Americans, who have had their lives and livelihood upended.”

Other House Democratic priorities during the lame duck include approving the dozen full-year government funding bills that were supposed to be completed before Oct. 1, the defense policy bill that had the same deadline and the farm bill, which is more than a year overdue.

Missouri GOP Sen. Josh Hawley said he “sure hopes” the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act reauthorization bill reaches the president’s desk before the end of the year.

He didn’t rule out lobbying to attach it to a must-pass government funding bill, but said the real hurdle is House GOP leaders.

“It doesn’t need help in the Senate. It just needs the House,” Hawley said. “I’ve had good, productive conversations with Speaker (Mike) Johnson in the last few weeks, and I appreciate his personal engagement on this, and I hope that that will lead to action.”

Haley said the House allowing RECA to expire, preventing people who qualify for the program from receiving benefits, was “outrageous.”

Defense priorities, farm bill

Senate Armed Services Chair Jack Reed, a Rhode Island Democrat, said staff would work during October to bridge the differences between the two chambers on the annual defense policy bill, called the National Defense Authorization Act.

Those staff-level talks will lay the foundation for Republicans and Democrats to meet once they return to Capitol Hill following the elections.

“We have to be ready when we come back to go right to the ‘Big Four’ meeting,” he said, referring to the top leaders in both chambers. “That’s our objective.”

Reed said many of the differences between the House and the Senate aren’t typical Defense Department policy issues per se, but are “more political, cultural, social.”

Congress may begin to debate additional military and humanitarian assistance to Ukraine this year, though that’s more likely to happen next year, Reed said.

Senate Agriculture Committee Chair Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said she was making a “big push” for the House and Senate to reach agreement on the farm bill in the months ahead, though she cautioned talks don’t actually constitute a conference.

“I wouldn’t call it a conference; technically to have a conference, you have to have a bill passed by the House and a bill passed by the Senate, which will not happen,” Stabenow said.

“But I believe that there is a way,” Stabenow added. “I believe there’s a way to get a bipartisan bill.”

Arkansas Sen. John Boozman, the top Republican on the Agriculture panel, said lawmakers didn’t need the election results to “start working through our disagreements” on the farm bill, adding there’s some new momentum in talks.

“I think what’s changed is that there is a recognition among members, all members, how difficult it is right now as a farmer,” Boozman said. “So that’s really what’s changed in the last three or four months. It’s developing a real sense of urgency for these folks.”

Iowa Republican Sen. Joni Ernst said the election outcome could influence what lawmakers choose to accomplish during the lame-duck session.

“There’s any number of scenarios, whether it’s NDAA, whether it’s farm bill, whether it’s anything else,” she said. “But it comes down to Leader Schumer.” New York Democrat Chuck Schumer is the majority leader in the Senate.

Virginia Democratic Sen. Tim Kaine said he expects Congress will broker some agreement on government funding legislation and the NDAA, but not necessarily anything else.

“In an odd way, the better the Dems do on Nov. 5, the more we’ll get done,” Kaine said. “Because I think if the House is going to flip back to Dem, I think the Rs will say, ‘Well, let’s get a whole lot of stuff done before the House goes down.’ So I think the better we do, the more we’ll get done in the lame duck.”

Kaine said if Democrats do well in the elections, they might not need to approve additional aid for Ukraine this Congress, since that funding can last into next year.

“If we don’t do well in the (elections), we might need to do it in the lame duck,” Kaine said. “So that’ll all depend.”

U.S. Senator Josh Hawley speaks to reporters after joining challenger Lucas Kunce in the middle of the floor of the governor's ham breakfast at the Missouri State Fair in Sedalia on Aug. 15 (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley’s failure as a legislator is most glaringly obvious in the demise of a bill providing coverage to Missourians exposed to radiation from nuclear weapons development, former U.S Sen. Jack Danforth said Thursday.

Danforth gave his grade on Hawley’s legislative career during a Thursday tour of the state with Joplin businessman Jared Young, who created a new political party for his bid for the seat Danforth held from 1977 to 1994. Young is trying to draw disaffected Republicans, independents and moderate Democrats to his banner of the Better Party.

Danforth is a Republican who was once considered Hawley’s political mentor, having encouraged him to run for the Senate after less than a year as Missouri’s attorney general.

He later denounced Hawley for his role in objecting to the certification of President Joe Biden’s 2020 victory, saying he regretted his support of Hawley and that he understands “what Dr. Frankenstein must have felt.” 

On Thursday, Danforth said Hawley’s political style as an antagonistic, camera-seeking populist is the reason the Radiation Exposure Compensation Act renewal bill failed to get to a vote before Congress recessed for the election.

That cost not only Missourians but residents of New Mexico and every other state already covered by the law, Danforth said. Advocates from Missouri and New Mexico, along with other areas where federal weapons work contaminated the land, worked for more than a year to expand the program as it neared a renewal vote.

“He became so obnoxious in his public attacks of the Republican Speaker of the House, the Republican Leader of the Senate, the Republican congressperson from that district, he came away with nothing and ended up killing the whole bill for the rest of the country,” Danforth said.

The law expired Sept. 30. Originally passed in 1990, while Danforth was in office, it provided one-time cash payments to uranium miners who worked in 11 states between 1947 and 1971 and people in parts of Nevada, Arizona and Utah exposed to fallout from nuclear bomb tests.

To obtain compensation, claimants must prove a diagnosis of particular cancers or other illnesses.

The exposure of Missourians to radioactive waste came from uranium processing in St. Louis for the World War II Manhattan Project to build the first atomic bomb. 

While the presence of radioactive contamination in suburban St. Louis was known for years, an investigation by The Independent, MuckRock and The Associated Press revealed in 2023 that the federal government and companies handling the waste were aware of the threat to the public long before informing residents.

Two weeks after The Independent published its findings, the U.S. Senate approved an amendment from Hawley renewing the law and adding Missouri and New Mexico to the list of states where residents are eligible for compensation due to bomb waste and exposure.

The Missouri House established a new committee Thursday that will study the impact of nuclear weapons programs in the state. Its job is to hold hearings and report on any state legislation needed to assist victims.

Dawn Chapman, co-founder of Just Moms STL, which has advocated for expanding the law known as RECA, defended Hawley’s work and called Danforth’s comments “petty.”

“What I’d like is for people like Jack Danforth to shut up so that they don’t create another barrier that I have to jump over,” Chapman said.

Chapman said Hawley brought the coalition trying to expand RECA closer than it has gotten before and comments like Danforth’s undermine advocates pushing for the program’s expansion.

As the Congressional session closed in late September, Chapman was in Washington lobbying for the bill and appeared at a news conference with Hawley. At that time, she blamed House Speaker Mike Johnson for refusing to allow a vote on the bill.

She said Johnson was the “only reason these people are suffering right now in this room.”  

Chapman also questioned why Danforth didn’t expand the program to Missouri while in office or lend a hand to advocates since then.

“You’re making poisoned people work twice as hard, Mr. Danforth,” Chapman said, “because you want to take a cheap swing at somebody and play Monday morning quarterback without lifting a finger in the decade-plus I’ve been doing this.”

The Hawley campaign blamed Danforth for not obtaining relief for Missourians when he was a senator.

“Jack Danforth betrayed hardworking Missourians who were poisoned by nuclear radiation when he left them out of the original RECA law,” said Abigail Jackson, spokesperson for Hawley’s campaign. “Josh worked across the aisle to pass his RECA expansion twice in the Senate with huge bipartisan support. Josh’s proposal is currently being negotiated with House leaders. And Missouri hasn’t forgotten how Danforth failed.” 

Danforth said Hawley’s political persona isn’t likely to help get any legislation passed.

“Politics now in the U.S. Senate is largely performative,” Danforth said. “It’s not serious. Hawley is not a serious legislator. He goes to committee hearings and belittles and badgers witnesses. That gets him on the air, and then he gets on Fox News, but he does not legislate.”

People may disagree with Hawley on other matters, Chapman said, but “he’s right” on the RECA bill.

“We have a right to be emotional that our kids are sick,” she said. “And I expect my Senator and electeds to echo that emotion and passion.”

This article has been updated to clarify comments from Dawn Chapman.

Vice President and Democratic nominee for President Kamala Harris speaks at an event hosted by The Economic Club of Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University on Sept. 25 in Pittsburgh (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images).

Former GOP Rep. Liz Cheney will campaign with Vice President Kamala Harris Thursday in Ripon, Wisconsin — the birthplace of the Republican Party.

As Nov. 5 rapidly approaches, the Democratic presidential nominee continues to rack up support from prominent Republicans as she and former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, battle it out for the Oval Office in a tight contest.

Thursday’s campaign event also coincides with two dozen Wisconsin Republicans endorsing the veep in an open letter.

“We, the undersigned, are Republicans from across Wisconsin who bring the same message: Donald Trump does not align with Wisconsin values,” they wrote. The group included a sitting GOP district attorney for the Badger State’s Buffalo County as well as everyday Wisconsinites, former state lawmakers and elected officials.

“To ensure our democracy and our economy remain strong for another four years, we must elect Kamala Harris and Tim Walz to the White House,” the letter said, adding that the choice for Republicans in November is “a choice between the Wisconsin values of freedom, democracy, and decency that Vice President Harris and Governor Walz represent, and Donald Trump’s complete lack of character, divisive rhetoric, and extremism.”

Wisconsin is a critical swing state that’s flipped between red and blue in recent elections — with Biden narrowly winning in 2020 after Trump secured a GOP victory in 2016.

Cheney, a Wyoming Republican, endorsed Harris last month, saying: “As a conservative, as someone who believes in and cares about the Constitution, I have thought deeply about this, and because of the danger that Donald Trump poses, not only am I not voting for Donald Trump, but I will be voting for Kamala Harris.”

Cheney — a vocal Trump critic  — served as vice chair of the U.S. House Jan. 6 committee tasked with investigating the 2021 attack on the U.S. Capitol.

She lost her reelection bid for Wyoming’s lone House seat to Harriet Hageman in 2022 during the state’s GOP primary.

Former Vice President Dick Cheney, father of Liz Cheney, also said he would vote for Harris. The prominent GOP figure served as veep during the George W. Bush administration from 2001 to 2009.

More GOP endorsements

Harris has received endorsements from over 230 Bush-McCain-Romney alums and more than 100 Republican national security officials, per the Harris campaign, a backing they describe as a “historic GOP mobilization for Harris.”

Part of the growing group of Republicans backing Harris includes Cassidy Hutchinson, a former aide to Trump.

During an interview on MSNBC Wednesday night, Hutchinson said she’s “really proud, as a conservative, to have the opportunity to vote for Kamala Harris and Tim Walz in this election.”

Hutchinson also disclosed that she’ll be voting for Democrats in the House and Senate, saying she thinks it’s “so important that we get past this period of Donald Trump for America to begin healing.”

Trump in Michigan

Meanwhile, Trump is also heavily campaigning in swing states. He was set to hold a Thursday afternoon rally in Saginaw, Michigan.

The Democratic National Committee released multiple billboards in Michigan ahead of his rally, with a focus on Trump and his running mate, Ohio GOP Sen. J.D. Vance, continuing to deny the 2020 election results.

During Tuesday’s vice presidential debate between Vance and Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, Vance circumvented a question on whether Trump lost the 2020 election, saying he, himself, is “focused on the future.”

Walz, who posed the question to Vance, called his response a “damning non-answer.”

A version of the DNC billboard is also set to debut in the coming days in Wisconsin and North Carolina to coincide with Trump’s upcoming rallies in those swing states.

A St. Louis liquor store hung a sign announcing Gov. Mike Parson's executive order to ban intoxicating hemp beverages (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

While a large part of Missouri Gov. Mike Parson’s ban on intoxicating hemp products may be on pause, plans are underway to kick it back up next summer, according to a preliminary budget request by the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

The department has asked for $877,000 to fund “food inspection and litigation requirements” to implement Parson’s Aug. 1 executive order to ban unregulated psychoactive products. 

Those funds would become available on July 1, if lawmakers approve the request as part of the state budget by May. 

Parson’s executive order “prohibits the sale of foods containing psychoactive cannabis compounds in Missouri, unless originating from an ‘approved source,’” the budget request states.  

With Missouri regulations in flux, what’s the difference between hemp and marijuana?

When the order went into effect on Sept. 1, the governor was hoping to utilize compliance officers at both the state’s Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control  and DHSS’ Bureau of Environmental Health Services to implement the ban.

However, those plans quickly came to a halt when the Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft rejected the emergency rules that would have given the alcohol division the authority to conduct inspections. 

That meant that the state’s food inspectors were left to handle compliance on their own. 

Then the governor asked Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey to create a new specialized unit to assist the state’s alcohol and tobacco regulators in cracking down on intoxicating hemp products, Parson announced at a Capitol press conference on Sept. 10. 

However the next day on Sept. 11, state food inspectors showed up to Franklin County VFW Post after receiving a tip that the veterans were serving hemp-derived THC drinks at their bar. 

Commander Jason Stanfield took to social media, saying the state’s “raid” of the VFW Post on 9-11 was disrespectful. 

The incident gave the Missouri Hemp Trade Association a window to request a temporary restraining order, as part of a lawsuit filed in late August to halt the governor’s order.

While the association didn’t get the restraining order, it got assurance from the state that regulators will essentially stop its enforcement efforts.

In response to the temporary restraining order request, Richard Moore, general counsel for DHSS, said in a letter that the state’s health regulators will stop embargoing — or tagging — products simply because they contain hemp-derived THC. 

“In regard to psychoactive cannabis products, the department will focus its efforts on the identification of  ‘misbranded’ products,’” Moore wrote to the Missouri Hemp Trade Association’s attorney, Chuck Hatfield.   

Currently, the compliance effort focuses on just THC products that children could mistake for regular food or candy — not banning all intoxicating hemp products like Delta-8 beverages sold at bars or liquor stores.

When Parson signed his executive order, he said his primary focus was to protect children consuming the products that resemble popular candy, like Lifesavers, or fruity drinks.

“If the department identifies any such misbranded products, it will refer those products to the Missouri Attorney General’s Office for  potential enforcement under the State’s Merchandising Practices Act…” Moore wrote in his letter.

That is expected to change next summer, if the department’s budget request goes through.

The requested funding would allow the department to hire two full-time public health environmental specialists at $125,000 and to contract five more inspectors at $400,000. Of that, two of the contracted positions would be funded on a one-time basis “to stand up the program” at $150,000. 

“The use of contractors for a portion of this work is preferred due to the expected decrease in market availability of this product over time,” it states, “with their services not expected to be needed more than two or three years.”

The total seven inspectors will conduct site visits statewide “to assess retailer and wholesaler inventory for unregulated psychoactive cannabis in foods,” it states. 

The department estimates that 40,000 food establishments and smoke shops and 1,800 food manufacturers could potentially be affected by the governor’s order, the request states, “but the majority of these facilities are at low-risk of requiring investigation.”

“It is estimated that all seven inspection staff can conduct 2,900-3,500 site visits annually,” it states. 

The department also budgeted $160,000 to hire two full-time attorneys, in the event that business owners challenge enforcement actions.  

Meanwhile, the Missouri Hemp Trade Association’s ongoing lawsuit might impact the plan, as well as potential legislation that could give the state even more authority — or, on the other end, loosen regulation on intoxicating hemp products. 

Because hemp isn’t a controlled substance like marijuana, there’s no state or federal law saying teenagers or children can’t buy products, such as delta-8 drinks, or that stores can’t sell them to minors.

And there’s no requirement to list potential effects on the label or test how much THC is actually in them. State lawmakers have failed to pass such requirements the last two years.

A photo taken in 1960 of deteriorating steel drums containing radioactive residues near Coldwater Creek, by the Mallinckrodt-St. Louis Sites Task Force Working Group (State Historical Society of Missouri, Kay Drey Mallinckrodt Collection, 1943-2006).

Missouri lawmakers will convene a special committee to study the consequences of nuclear weapons production in the St. Louis area and recommend legislation for next year, House Speaker Dean Plocher announced Thursday. 

In a press release, Plocher said the Special Interim Committee on the Impact of U.S. Nuclear Weapon Programs on Missouri will allow “policymakers, health professionals, environmental experts and affected community members to document their concerns and develop legislative solutions.”

“Missouri has long felt the effects of nuclear weapons production, and it’s our responsibility to address the consequences head-on,” said Plocher, who represents part of St. Louis County.

The St. Louis area has struggled with the ramifications of nuclear weapons production since the development of the first atomic bomb. Workers refined uranium in downtown St. Louis as part of the Manhattan Project, which was used in the first successful nuclear chain reaction, which took place in Chicago.

But after the end of World War II, the waste from the bomb development was allowed to spread and pollute sites in St. Louis and St. Charles counties. 

Immediately after the war, the waste was transported haphazardly — with waste falling off trucks — to St. Louis County and dumped at the airport. Deteriorating barrels of radioactive waste polluted the site and leaked into Coldwater Creek. 

Heaps of radioactive material and debris were also dumped in a quarry in Weldon Spring, adjacent to the Missouri River. 

The waste was then taken to a nearby site — also along Coldwater Creek — where it remained exposed to the elements and continued to pollute the creek. It was sold so another company could extract precious metals from the waste, and the remaining radioactive material was dumped in the West Lake Landfill where it remains today.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is overseeing the cleanup of Coldwater Creek, which is expected to last until 2038. The Environmental Protection Agency is overseeing the development of a plan to remediate the West Lake Landfill.

In the meantime, generations of St. Louis-area residents have been exposed to radioactivity from Coldwater Creek and the quarry where state Rep. Tricia Byrnes has said she would sneak in and swim as a teen. 

Byrnes will chair the interim committee. In the release, she said the committee will listen to “survivors, production workers and remediation workers to understand the real-world impact on their health and financial stability.” 

“We must take a comprehensive approach to address the lasting impact of nuclear weapons production in Missouri,” Byrnes said. “The health and well-being of our residents and the environment are at stake.”

The first meeting of the committee will take place Oct. 15 at from 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Spencer Creek Library in St. Peters. 

Rep. Mark Matthiesen, a Republican from O’Fallon, will serve as vice chair of the committee, and Rep. Raychel Proudie, a Ferguson Democrat, will be ranking member.

The remaining members are Republican Reps. Don Mayhew, Renee Reuter and Richard West and Democratic Reps. Aaron Crossley and Ian Mackey.

An ultrasound machine sits next to an exam table in an examination room at a women’s health clinic in South Bend, Ind. A recent study shows that there was a spike in the number of women seeking sterilizations to prevent pregnancy in the months after the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision striking down the constitutional right to an abortion (Scott Olson/Getty Images).

In the months after the U.S. Supreme Court struck down the constitutional right to an abortion, there was a spike in the number of women seeking sterilizations to prevent pregnancy, a recent study shows.

Researchers saw a 3% increase in tubal sterilizations per month between July and December 2022 in states with abortion bans, according to the study published in September in JAMA, a journal from the American Medical Association. The Supreme Court struck down Roe v. Wade in June 2022.

The study looked at the commercial health insurance claim records of 1.4 million people from 15 states with abortion bans (Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Idaho, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Texas, Utah, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming). The study also examined the records of about 1.5 million people living in states with some abortion restrictions and 1.8 million in states where abortion remains legal. The researchers excluded 14 states that didn’t have records available for 2022.

“It’s probably an indication of women [who] wanted to reduce uncertainty and protect themselves,” said lead author Xiao Xu, an associate professor of reproductive sciences at Columbia University. In the first month after the ruling, sterilizations saw a one-time increase across all states included in the study, Xu and her team found. Her team also found continued increases in states that limited abortion to a certain gestational age, but those were not statistically significant.

The researchers compared records for three groups: States with a total or near-total ban on abortion, including states where bans were temporarily blocked; states where laws explicitly recognized abortion rights; and limited states, where abortion was legal up to a certain gestational age.

While the study captures only the early months following the Dobbs ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade, experts say it’s part of an increasing body of evidence that shows a growing urgency for sterilization procedures amid more limited access to abortions, reproductive health care and contraception. Other studies have shown increases in tubal sterilization (commonly known as “getting your tubes tied”) and vasectomy requests and procedures post-Dobbs.

Diana Greene Foster, a professor and research director in reproductive health at the University of California, San Francisco, said the results are not surprising, given the negative repercussions for women who seek to end their pregnancies but are not allowed to do so.

Foster led the landmark Turnaway Study, which for a decade followed women who received abortions and those who were denied abortions. It found that women forced to carry a pregnancy to term experienced financial hardship, health and delivery complications, and were more likely to raise the child alone.

“We have found that women are able to foresee the consequences of carrying an unwanted pregnancy to term,” Foster told Stateline. “The reasons people give for choosing an abortion — insufficient resources, poor relationships, the need to care for existing children — are the same negative outcomes we see when they cannot get an abortion.

“So it is not surprising that some people will respond to the lack of legal abortion by trying to avoid a pregnancy altogether.”

Few doctors and services

States with abortion bans and other restrictions also tend to have large swaths of maternal health care “deserts,” where there are too few OB-GYNs and labor and delivery facilities. That creates greater maternal health risks.

One such state is Georgia, where until a court ruling this week, abortion was banned after six weeks. Dr. LeThenia “Joy” Baker, an OB-GYN in rural Georgia, said she sees patients in their early 20s who have multiple children and are seeking sterilizations to prevent further pregnancies, or who have conditions that make pregnancy dangerous for them. Her state has one of the highest maternal death rates in the nation.

On Monday, a Georgia county judge struck down the state’s six-week abortion ban, meaning that for now, women have access to the procedure up to about 22 weeks of pregnancy. The state is appealing the decision, and it’s expected to eventually be decided by the state Supreme Court.

The county judge’s ruling comes two weeks after ProPublica reported that two women in the state died after they couldn’t access legal in-state abortions and timely medical care for rare complications from abortion pills.

Black and Indigenous women disproportionately experience higher rates of complications, such as preeclampsia and hemorrhage, which contributes to their higher maternal mortality and morbidity rates. Baker said some of her patients say they want to avoid risking another pregnancy because of those previous complications.

“I have had quite a few patients, who were both pregnant and not pregnant, who inquire about sterilization,” she said. “I do think that patients are thinking a lot more about their reproductive life plan now, because there is very little margin.”

Along with the state’s abortion restrictions, Baker said women in her Bible Belt community feel social pressure that can push them toward sterilization.

“It is definitely more socially acceptable to say, ‘I’m going to get my tubes tied or removed,’ than to say, ‘Hey, I want to find abortion care,’” Baker said.

In states where lawmakers have proposed restrictions on contraception, women might feel tubal sterilization to be the most surefire way to prevent pregnancy. Megan Kavanaugh, a contraception researcher at the Guttmacher Institute, a reproductive health policy research center that supports abortion rights, said the research doesn’t say whether women who seek sterilization would have preferred another form of contraception.

“We need to both understand which methods people are using and whether those methods are actually the methods they want to be using,” said Kavanaugh, whose team studied contraceptive access and use in Arizona, Iowa, New Jersey and Wisconsin. “It’s really important to be monitoring both use and preferences in terms of heading towards an ideal where those are aligned.”

Tubal sterilizations can still fail at preventing a pregnancy, Foster said. One recent study noted that up to 5% of patients who underwent a tubal sterilization got pregnant later.

“If people are choosing sterilization who would otherwise pick something less permanent, then that is another very sad outcome of these abortion bans,” she added.

Another recent study, by Jacqueline Ellison, a University of Pittsburgh assistant professor who researches health policy, found that more young patients — both women and men — sought permanent contraceptive procedures in the wake of the Dobbs decision. The study focused on people ages 18 to 30 — the age group most likely to seek an abortion and the ones who previous studies suggest are most likely to experience “sterilization regret,” Ellison said.

A troubled history

The issue also can’t be disentangled from the nation’s history of coercive sterilizations, Ellison and other experts said. In the 1960s and 1970s, federally funded nonconsensual sterilization procedures were performed on Indigenous, Black and Hispanic women, as well as people with disabilities.

“People feeling pressured to undergo permanent contraception and people being forced into using permanent contraception are just two sides of the idea of reproductive oppression in this country,” Ellison said. “They’re just manifested in different ways.”

Medicaid, the joint federal-state health insurance program for low-income people, now has regulations designed to prevent coerced procedures. But the rules can have unintended consequences, said Dr. Sonya Borrero, an internal medicine physician and director of the University of Pittsburgh’s Center for Innovative Research on Gender Health Equity.

The process includes a 30-day waiting period after a patient signs a sterilization procedure consent form, Borrero noted. But pregnant women who want the procedure done right after delivery might not reach the 30-day threshold if they go into early labor, she said. She added that some patients are confused by the form.

Borrero launched a tool called MyDecision/MiDecisión, an English and Spanish web-based tool that walks patients through their tubal ligation decision and dispels misinformation around the permanent procedure.

“The importance and the relevance of it right now is particularly pronounced,” she said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

A pro-Trump mob breaks into the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021 in Washington, DC. (Win McNamee/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — U.S. District Judge Tanya Chutkan unsealed a lengthy and partly redacted motion Wednesday that charts special counsel Jack Smith’s final argument before November that former President Donald Trump acted in a private capacity when he co-conspired to overturn the 2020 election.

Much of the motion concerns Trump’s interactions with individuals in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, as he sought to disrupt election results, Smith alleged.

The document, due on Chutkan’s desk late last month, is central to reanimating the case after months of delay as Trump argued for complete criminal immunity from the government’s fraud and obstruction charges related to his actions after the 2020 presidential contest, which Joe Biden won.

The U.S. Supreme Court returned Trump’s case to Chutkan after ruling that former presidents enjoy criminal immunity for core constitutional acts, presumed immunity for acts on the perimeter of official duties, and no immunity for personal ones. At that point it became clear that the case against the Republican presidential nominee would not be tried prior to Election Day.

Smith’s superseding indictment shortly thereafter retained all four felony counts against Trump, and Chutkan is tasked with parsing which allegations can stand in light of the Supreme Court decision.

In his unsealed 165-page motion, Smith outlines Trump’s alleged plots with private lawyers and political allies — names redacted — to ultimately deliver false slates of electors to Congress so that he appeared the winner over Biden in the seven states.

“Working with a team of private co-conspirators, the defendant acted as a candidate when he pursued multiple criminal means to disrupt, through fraud and deceit, the government function by which votes are collected and counted — a function in which the defendant, as President, had no official role,” Smith wrote.

Trump slammed the court filing on social media in numerous posts, writing in a mix of upper and lowercase letters that “Democrats are Weaponizing the Justice Department against me because they know I am WINNING, and they are desperate to prop up their failing Candidate, Kamala Harris.”

“The DOJ pushed out this latest ‘hit job’ today because JD Vance humiliated Tim Walz last night in the Debate. The DOJ has become nothing more than an extension of Joe’s, and now Kamala’s, Campaign. This is egregious PROSECUTORIAL MISCONDUCT, and should not have been released right before the Election,” he continued in just one of his many reactions on his platform, Truth Social.

Trump’s running mate, Ohio GOP Sen. J.D. Vance, faced Harris’ running mate, Tim Walz, in a vice presidential debate on Tuesday night.

Here are key arguments from Smith’s filing, which alleges efforts by Trump and allies to subvert voters’ will during the last presidential election:

Arizona

Smith detailed calls to and communications with various Arizona officials, including the governor and speaker of the Arizona state House, arguing the interactions were made in Trump’s “capacity as a candidate.”

• “The defendant and his co-conspirators also demonstrated their deliberate disregard for the truth — and thus their knowledge of falsity — when they repeatedly changed the numbers in their baseless fraud allegations from day to day. At trial, the Government will introduce several instances of this pattern, in which the defendant and conspirators’ lies were proved by the fact that they made up figures from whole cloth. One example concerns the defendant and conspirators’ claims about non-citizen voters in Arizona. The conspirators started with the allegation that 36,000 non-citizens voted in Arizona; five days later, it was ‘beyond credulity that a few hundred thousand didn’t vote’: three weeks later, ‘the bare minimum [was] 40 or 50,000. The reality is about 250,000’; days after that, the assertion was 32,000; and ultimately the conspirators landed back where they started at 36,000 — a false figure that they never verified or corroborated.”

Georgia

Smith plans to introduce into evidence Trump’s communications, in his personal capacity, with Georgia’s attorney general, including a call on Dec. 8, 2020, and to the secretary of state.

• Trump “had early notice that his claims of election fraud in Georgia were false. Around mid-November, Campaign advisor [redacted] told the defendant that his claim that a large number of dead people had voted in Georgia was false. The defendant continued to press the claim anyway, including in a press appearance on November 29, when he suggested that a large enough number of dead voters had cast ballots to change the outcome of the election in Georgia.”

• “In the post-election period, [redacted] also took on the role of updating the defendant on a near-daily basis on the Campaign’s unsuccessful efforts to support any fraud claims…. He told the defendant that if the Campaign took these claims to court, they would get slaughtered, because the claims are all ‘bullshit.’ [Redacted] was privy in real time to the findings of the two expert consulting firms the Campaign retained to investigate fraud claims — [redacted] and [redacted] — and discussed with the defendant their debunkings on all major claims. For example, [redacted] told the defendant that Georgia’s audit disproved claims that [redacted] had altered votes.”

Michigan

The document details an Oval Office meeting Trump held with Michigan’s Senate majority leader and speaker of the House on Nov. 20, 2020, during which Trump tried to acquire evidence of voter fraud in Detroit.

• “Despite failing to establish any valid fraud claims, [redacted] followed up with [redacted] and [redacted] and attempted to pressure them to use the Michigan legislature to overturn the valid election result.”

Michigan and Pennsylvania

The filing said that directly following the 2020 election, Trump and his “private operatives sought to create chaos, rather than seek clarity, at polling places where states were continuing to tabulate votes.”

• “For example, on November 4, [redacted]—a Campaign employee, agent, and co-conspirator of the defendant—tried to sow confusion when the ongoing vote count at the TCF Center in Detroit, Michigan, looked unfavorable for the defendant.”

• “When a colleague suggested that there was about to be unrest reminiscent of the Brooks Brothers Riot, a violent effort to stop the vote count in Florida after the 2000 presidential election, [redacted] responded ‘Make them riot’ and ‘Do it!!!’ The defendant’s Campaign operatives and supporters used similar tactics at other tabulation centers, including in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and the defendant sometimes used the resulting confrontations to falsely claim that his election observers were being denied proper access, thus serving as a predicate to the defendant’s claim that fraud must have occurred in the observers’ absence.”

Michigan voting machines

Smith will argue that Trump, outside his official presidential duties, tried to persuade political allies in Michigan to sway the election in his favor.

• Among the evidence he will introduce: The former president held a meeting, “private in nature,” with Michigan legislators at the White House.

• Smith also wrote that “In mid-December, the defendant spoke with RNC Chairwoman [redacted] and asked her to publicize and promote a private report that had been related on December 13 that purported to identify flaws in the use of [redacted] machines in Antrim County, Michigan. [Redacted] refused, telling the defendant that she already had discussed this report with [redacted] Michigan’s Speaker of the House, who had told her that the report was inaccurate. [Redacted] conveyed to the defendant [redacted] exact assessment: the report was ‘f—— nuts.’”

Nevada

In Nevada, Trump allegedly ignored warnings about spreading lies about the state’s election results. Smith wrote: “Notwithstanding the RNC Chief Counsel’s warning, the defendant re-tweeted and amplified news of the lawsuit on November 24, calling it ‘Big News!’ that a Nevada Court had agreed to hear it. But the defendant did not similarly promote the fact that within two weeks, on December 4, the Nevada District Court dismissed Law v. Whitmer, finding in a detailed opinion that ‘there is no credible or reliable evidence that the 2020 General Election in Nevada was affected by fraud,’ including through the signature-match machines, and that Biden won the election in the state.”

• Trump continued to repeat false claims in tweets and speeches “as a candidate, not as an office holder,” Smith wrote.

Pennsylvania 

In the Keystone State, officials warned Trump there was no smoke and no fire related to election fraud in the commonwealth, Smith wrote.

• “Two days after the election, on November 6, the defendant called [redacted], the Chairman of the Pennsylvania Republican Party—the entity responsible for supporting Republican candidates in the commonwealth at the federal, state and local level. [Redacted] had a prior relationship with the defendant, including having represented him in litigation in Pennsylvania after the 2016 presidential election. The defendant asked [redacted] how, without fraud, he had gone from winning Pennsylvania on election day to trailing in the day afterward. Consistent with what Campaign staff already had told the defendant, [redacted] confirmed that it was not fraud; it was that there were roughly 1,750,000 mail-in ballots still being counted in Pennsylvania, which were expected to be eighty percent for Biden. Over the following two months, the defendant spread false claims of fraud in Pennsylvania anyway.”

• “In early November, in a Campaign meeting, when the defendant suggested that more people in Pennsylvania voted than had checked in to vote, Deputy Campaign Manager [redacted] corrected him.”

Wisconsin

Smith wrote Trump ignored reality in Wisconsin as well.

• “On November 29, a recount that the defendant’s campaign had petitioned and paid for confirmed that Biden had won in Wisconsin — and increased the defendant’s margin of defeat. On December 14, the Wisconsin Supreme Court rejected the Campaign’s election lawsuit there. As a result, on December 21, Wisconsin’s Governor signed a certificate of final determination confirming the prior certificate of ascertainment that established Biden’s electors as the valid electors for the state.”

Trump responded by rebuking the Wisconsin Supreme Court judge who had signed the majority opinion that rejected the lawsuit, forcing the state marshals responsible for the judge’s security to enhance protection due to a rise in “threatening communications.”

Fake electors 

Smith alleged that as Trump and co-conspirators faltered at overturning states’ official election results, they turned their attention to fake slates of electors.

As early as December 2020, Trump and his allies “developed a new plan regarding targeted states that the defendant had lost (Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, New Mexico, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin): to organize the people who would have served as the defendant’s electors had he won the popular vote, and cause them to sign and send to Pence, as President of the Senate, certificates in which they falsely represent themselves as legitimate electors who had cast electoral votes for the defendant,” Smith wrote.

Trump and his allies lied to Vice President Mike Pence heading toward Jan. 6, “telling him that there was substantial election fraud and concealing their orchestration of the plan to manufacture fraudulent elector slates, as well as their intention to use the fake slates to attempt to obstruct the congressional certification.”

Trump’s alleged lies to Pence and the public “created a tinderbox that he purposely ignited on January 6.”

The filing details numerous people, including Trump, pressuring Pence for weeks to use his role overseeing Congress’ certification of the Electoral College vote to overturn the election results.

On the morning of Jan. 6, Pence, once again, told Trump he would not go along with the plan.

“So on January 6, the defendant sent to the Capitol a crowd of angry supporters, whom the defendant had called to the city and inundated with false claims of outcome-determinative election fraud, to induce Pence not to certify the legitimate electoral vote and to obstruct the certification.”

“Although the attack on the Capitol successfully delayed the certification for approximately six hours, the House and Senate resumed the Joint Session at 11:35 p.m. But the conspirators were not done.”

The filing alleges a co-conspirator once again urged Pence to “violate the law” by delaying the certification for 10 days. He refused.

Pressure on Pence

Smith must prove that Trump’s pressure on Pence was outside of their official duties together, and therefore can not be considered immune from prosecution.

Smith plans to introduce evidence of private phone calls and conversations between Trump and his VP, including some with campaign staff, essentially tying their interactions to their interests as those seeking office again, “as running mates in the post-election period.” Smith also plans to highlight that Pence’s role in certifying the election was largely ceremonial and within the realm of the Senate, and strictly outside the bounds of the Oval Office.  Among Smith’s points made in his motion:

• “Because the Vice President’s role is and has always been ministerial, rather than substantive or discretionary, it is difficult to imagine an occasion in which a President would have any valid reason to try to influence it. As such, criminalizing a President’s efforts to affect the Vice President’s role as the President of the Senate overseeing the certification of Electoral College results would not jeopardize an Executive Branch function or authority.”

State Rep. Lane Roberts, a Republican from Joplin, is chairman of the House Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crime. He is shown during a Jan. 18 public hearing on a bill he introduced (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications).

A Columbia woman charged with using multiple aliases to accuse restaurant competitors of criminal activity also used fake names for testimony to a Missouri House committee alleging a conspiracy to obtain liquor licenses for undocumented immigrants 

Crystal Umfress of Columbia, owner of Casa Maria’s Mexican Cantina, was already facing trial in a Dunklin County arson-for-hire scheme when she was charged Sept. 18 with five new felonies. The new charges, of forgery and filing a false document, also originate in Dunklin County.

The prosecution alleges she impersonated multiple public officials and others to claim that Mexican-born restaurant owners were bribing local public officials to cover-up their immigration status and obtain liquor licenses.

“I can’t speculate on what it is that set the lady off,” said Ron Huber, an associate commissioner of Dunklin County who was a target of the accusations cited in the forgery case. “I’ve never met her before in my life. I don’t know who she is or why she’s out to try to discredit me or anything.”

Huber is also named several times in testimony submitted to the Missouri House Special Interim Committee on Illegal Immigrant Crimes. The committee was established in July to study whether undocumented immigrants are a source of crime and held public meetings in Springfield, Joplin, Kansas City, St. Joseph, St. Louis, and Cape Girardeau.

The written testimony tied to Umfress was submitted to the committee using multiple names and email addresses. The emails allege Huber is at the center of a widespread conspiracy to obtain liquor licenses for Mexican restaurants that in turn serve as fronts for drug dealing and other crimes.

The conspiracy allegedly extends to Columbia, Warrenton, Springfield and other cities. The email testimony claims that undocumented immigrants who cannot legally obtain a liquor license are hiring people to front for their license applications, with officials turning a blind eye.

The submissions also often include a list of links to news stories involving people with Hispanic names, sometimes as victims of a crime, others as the alleged perpetrator of an offense like drunk driving.

Huber said he’s heard Umfress submitted testimony to the committee with false names.

“I’d like to know where that money went if I am supposed to have gotten it,” he said of the bribery allegation.

The Missouri State Highway Patrol, which investigated the forgery case, cannot comment on its work or confirm any connection between Umfress and the accounts which contacted the legislative committee, Sgt. Brad Germann said. The Dunklin County prosecuting attorney could not be reached for comment.

Russell Oliver, Umfress’ attorney, also declined to comment.

Starting in May, The Independent received a series of emails with similar accusations and many of the same links. Three of the email names and addresses for the witness statements are the same as those received by The Independent.

Huber said he recognized several of the names used in the emails as among those that had worked to spread conspiracy theories about him.

One email to The Independent, using the name Marissa Jenkins, identified the sender as a student reporter seeking help, with the signature line “Investigate Report University of Missouri Journalism.” 

A student named Marissa Jenkins was enrolled on a part-time basis during the summer term at MU, university spokesman Christopher Ave stated in an email. She is not currently enrolled.

The legislative testimony emails signed “Marissa Jenkins” do not identify her as a student or as a reporter.

The committee chairman, Republican state Rep. Lane Roberts of Joplin, said he was not aware that any of the testimony submitted by email was from aliases. 

“I do know that we received a number — two, three or maybe four emails — with regard to something in Dunklin County,” Roberts said.

The committee was not set up to investigate specific charges of criminal activity, Roberts said. 

“Our focus is in trying to quantify what kind of crime and how much crime is associated with undocumented workers,” Roberts said. “It’s been very difficult to come up with any kind of way to quantify that.”

Roberts, a former Joplin police chief and former director of the Department of Public Safety, said his response to specific allegations made in testimony is to ask the person reporting the criminal activity to contact law enforcement.

“When somebody alleges some kind of an activity, there’s always a healthy degree of skepticism, because often it’s personal, it’s emotional, and we have to be very careful about taking it at face value,” Roberts said.

Umfress first made news headlines last year when she was charged with paying $1,485 to someone to set fire to Lupita’s Mexican Restaurant in Kennett. She is set to go to trial in February in Butler County, where the case was moved on a change of venue.

Testimony submitted to the legislative committee under the name Maria Garcia in advance of its July 30 hearing blamed the owner of the building and Huber for the fire.

The owner, the testimony states, paid the intermediary who found the person willing to set the fire “$10,000 to start a kitchen fire to Lupitas Mexican and implement (sic) an American owner of a Mexican restaurant in Columbia, Missouri as she was trying to rat the commissioner out for a twenty year operation aiding illegal immigrants with IDs, liquor licenses, and drugs.”

Umfress has had numerous legal and personal issues coming at her at a rapid rate for more than a year. 

On July 1, 2023, she obtained a marriage license to wed her partner at Casa Maria’s, Jesus Celestino Mendoza-Chavez, nine days before the fire hit the Kennett restaurant, which was owned by Mendoza’s brother, KOMU-TV in Columbia reported. 

She was charged in the arson on Sept. 22, 2023. Mendoza-Chavez died Oct. 1, 2023, after sustaining severe injuries in a Sept. 26, 2023, head-on collision in Columbia. She cited the death of her husband in an unsuccessful bid to have her $65,000 bond reduced.

On May 9, the state Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Control suspended the liquor license at Casa Maria’s for 52 days after finding a forgery on the application for renewal, KMIZ TV in Columbia reported. Umfress is ineligible for a liquor license in her own name because she has a felony theft conviction on her record.

The Independent on May 16 received the first email, from someone who called themselves Melissa White, making allegations involving Huber and the liquor license conspiracy.

The committee received submissions from “Melissa White,” using the same email address, in advance of two hearings. In the first, for the July 11 hearing, she brought a Columbia competitor into her conspiracy allegations. The second, for the July 30 hearing, said her fiance had been assaulted while at a Columbia restaurant and died the next day.

Umfress’ emails began causing Huber problems about six months ago, he said. He was contacted by the state alcohol regulators about emails purporting to withdraw license applications, Huber said, and more recently from accounting clients.

He asked the prosecutor to be aggressive, Huber said.

“I kind of put some pressure on the prosecutor,” He said. “I said, ‘before you know, nobody really knew what she was doing or whatever, but I’ve started to get phone calls from my clients and I’ll start losing clients.’ That’s going to be a big deal.”

Republican presidential nominee, former U.S. President Donald Trump speaks to attendees during a campaign rally at the Mosack Group warehouse on September 25, 2024 in Mint Hill, North Carolina (Brandon Bell/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Former President Donald Trump said Tuesday that U.S. troops who suffered traumatic brain injuries after Iranian rocket fire in Iraq in 2020 only experienced a “headache,” dismissing the experiences of dozens of American soldiers who were later awarded the Purple Heart.

Trump’s comments came after a reporter in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, asked whether he should “have been tougher on Iran” after that nation launched ballistic missiles on Al-Asad Air Base in western Iraq in January 2020, during Trump’s presidency. A couple thousand U.S. troops remain on an anti-ISIS mission at the Iraqi air base, one of the largest during the U.S. invasion.

“First of all, injured, what does injured mean? Injured means, you mean, because they had a headache because the bombs never hit the fort?” Trump responded.

“If you were a truthful reporter, which you’re not, you would tell the following: None of those very accurate missiles hit our fort. They all hit outside, and there was nobody hurt, other than the sound was loud, and some people said that hurt, and I accept that,” Trump continued.

Trump added that Iran did “a very nice thing” by missing the military base. Photographs taken after the attack show extensive damage on the base.

U.S. troops at the base, that housed roughly 2,000 soldiers at the time, were given notice to shelter in bunkers. The missiles carried warheads weighing well over 1,000 pounds, leaving impact craters that spanned several feet wide, according to CBS News’ “60 Minutes” and The Washington Post.

While no troops were killed in the attack, hundreds were exposed to blast waves, and many were evacuated to Germany for medical care. Weeks later, more than 100 troops were diagnosed with traumatic brain injuries. Dozens were eventually awarded the Purple Heart, including one retired major interviewed by States Newsroom in May.

Soldiers described lasting effects from those injuries as including chronic migraines, vertigo, short-term memory issues and vision impairment.

Trump’s comments Tuesday came as he took questions from the press after delivering wide-ranging remarks at a campaign event at the Discovery World Science Museum on the city’s lakefront.

The reporter did not identify herself before asking her question. Trump’s remarks were recorded in full by the local Fox affiliate and live streamed by the Trump-focused YouTube channel “Right Side Broadcasting Network.”

Details of attack

This is not the first time Trump has downplayed the soldiers’ experiences and injuries stemming from that specific attack.

Iran fired 16 ballistic missiles at the air base and another Iraqi military site between Jan. 7 and 8, 2020. Roughly a dozen landed, according to reports. The attack was in retaliation for a U.S. strike days earlier in Baghdad that killed top Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani.

The 2020 attack on the base has been well documented. Images taken by photographers with National Public Radio and The Washington Post showed damaged buildings on the base. The New York Times and The Associated Press compiled video footage and compared satellite images before and after the attack.

CBS News’ “60 Minutes” aired drone footage of the attack and first-hand accounts from troops who described the experience in a nearly 14-minute news package for the television magazine program.

The National Institutes of Health collected medical data from nearly 40 soldiers for months after the attack and found persistent symptoms following concussions.

Military installations that still house U.S. troops in Iraq have been the target of Iranian attacks following the outbreak of violence on Oct. 7 when the Hamas militant group, one of Iran’s allies, launched a deadly surprise incursion into southern Israel, sparking a year-long war that has also drawn in Iranian-backed Hezbollah militants, according to the Pentagon.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey speaks at a press conference in the Missouri House Lounge, flanked by House Speaker Dean Plocher, left, and state Rep. Justin Sparks (Tim Bommel/Missouri House Communications).

The Missouri Supreme Court declined to force an investigation into donations to Attorney General Andrew Bailey connected to a witness in a case his office was handling.

In a filing Tuesday evening, the judges denied a request from Lucas Cierpiot — son of state Sen. Mike Cierpiot — to require the disciplinary arm of the court to investigate donations from Micheal Ketchmark and his law firm to a political action committee supporting Bailey. 

Ketchmark, a prominent attorney and large political donor, was called as a witness in a disability discrimination case filed by Lucas Cierpiot’s brother, Patrick, against the Missouri Department of Economic Development. Bailey’s office was defending the state.

After Ketchmark’s law firm donated to the pro-Bailey Liberty and Justice PAC, Lucas Cierpiot filed a complaint with the Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel, accusing Bailey of using his position as attorney general for personal political gain.

“No attorney can ever collect money from a case witness,” Cierpiot’s filing says. “The fact that there is not a rule spelling this out in-letter is due to the fact that it is so obvious.”

GOP legislator’s son asks Supreme Court to order inquiry into donations to Missouri AG

Cierpiot’s complaint was dismissed in March. He asked for further review, but it was dismissed again in May. He then sought an order from the state Supreme Court to force an investigation.

In an email, Bailey’s spokeswoman, Madeline Sieren, said the court “rightfully denied the frivolous petition” and that Bailey had not violated the rules of professional conduct for attorneys.

Cierpiot said in a text message that he was “very disappointed” by the court’s decision. 

“Missouri really is the ‘Show Me State,’ Cierpiot said. “Isn’t it? ‘Show Me’ just how unethical the Missouri courts can be.”

Cierpiot’s was one of several accusations of unethical behavior by Bailey, who took office last year after being appointed by Gov. Mike Parson. Bailey is now running for a full term. 

This summer, he narrowly avoided being questioned under oath about his contact with a defendant in his own case against Jackson County. One of Bailey’s deputies lost his license because of the meetings, according to a filing from the county’s attorneys.

Last year, Bailey withdrew from defending the Missouri State Highway Patrol in a lawsuit filed by Warrenton Oil and Torch Electronics regarding video game machines that offer cash prizes. The attorney general’s office bowed out of the case following donations from PACs connected to the companies’ lobbyist. The patrol investigated the machines, believing that they were illegal means of gambling. 

Bailey was also the focus of a formal complaint about the behavior of his office after he falsely blamed the Hazelwood School District’s diversity, equity and inclusion program for the off-campus assault of a student.

Patrick Cierpiot named Ketchmark as a witness in the underlying lawsuit in May 2022, saying he had urged a Parson staffer not to fire Cierpiot, who was recovering from a bicycle wreck and struggling to keep up with his workload.

The following January, Ketchmark donated $2,825, the maximum that an individual can give, to Bailey’s campaign. Bailey received a combined $16,950 from individuals with the last name Ketchmark or employed by the law firm Ketchmark & McCreight P.C. by the end of the month.

Later in the spring of 2023, Ketchmark’s firm donated $125,000 to the pro-Bailey Liberty and Justice PAC. The firm then gave an in-kind donation of $9,216.53.

In August 2023, Bailey’s office withdrew from defending the Department of Economic Development and allowed the agency to hire a private law firm to handle the case. At the time, Sieren told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that the office was looking to outside firms to handle “complex litigation.” She said Bailey didn’t have a conflict of interest in the case.

In rejecting Lucas Cierpiot’s ethics complaint, the Office of the Chief Disciplinary Counsel said he failed to allege any violation of the rules of professional conduct. The complaint only outlined the donations from Ketchmark’s law firm to the pro-Bailey PAC, not the donation from Ketchmark to Bailey’s campaign committee. The ethics office drew a distinction between those.

“Corporations are legal entities separate and distinct from their officers and shareholders,” the office said in a court filing responding to Cierpiot’s petition to the Missouri Supreme Court.

The Office of Chief Disciplinary Counsel said that before declining to investigate, officials verified that Ketchmark hadn’t contributed to Bailey’s campaign committee, apparently missing the January 2023 donations.

The Supreme Court’s order did not say why it was denying Cierpiot’s request. 

This story was updated at 12:25 p.m. to include comments from Bailey’s office and Cierpiot received after its initial publication.

ACLU of Missouri attorney Gillian Wilcox takes notes while a witness testifies in Missouri's gender-affirming care trial in Cole County Circuit Court (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

Missouri’s defense of a state law barring minors from beginning puberty blockers and cross-sex hormones will depend on whether the judge in the case puts stock in expert witnesses touting retracted studies and conspiracy theories about Jerry Sandusky.

Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter, who is presiding over a lawsuit challenging Missouri’s gender-affirming care restrictions, will have to weigh the credibility of expert witnesses alongside his judgment.

Questions of credibility came up Tuesday, when the Missouri Attorney General’s Office called as a witness John Michael Bailey, a psychology professor at Northwestern who testified about his now-retracted study entitled “Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria,” which concludes that adolescents identify as transgender as a result of social contagion.

But it was his social media post about the accusers of Jerry Sandusky that appeared to concern Carter.

Sandusky, a former college football coach, was convicted of molesting young boys over a period of at least 15 years. Bailey repeatedly posted on social media that he believes Sandusky is innocent.

“You believe the people testifying against Jerry Sandusky are lying?” Carter asked.

“I can see that if you are not familiar with the evidence that I am familiar with, you would be shocked,” Bailey told him.

“Mmhmm,” Carter replied.

Bailey said he had listened to a podcast and lauded the work of conservative commentator John Ziegler.

“Do you know (Ziegler)? Have you talked to anybody that was an eyewitness in that case?” Carter asked.

“I have read testimony, but I have not talked to anyone,” Bailey said.

Although the underlying case was not about Sandusky, the exchange may have chiseled away at Bailey’s credibility and showed a greater pattern of basing conclusions on secondary sources.

Bailey’s research on transgender youth has been retracted, which he chalked up to pressure from activists.

The academic journal that retracted his article cited an issue with informed consent protocol, meaning participants didn’t know their responses would be in an article. On cross-examination, the circumstances of his research became clearer.

To investigate his hypothesis of whether “rapid onset gender dysphoria” caused a rise in referrals to gender clinics, Bailey surveyed parents and guardians who interacted with the website ParentsofROGDKids.com, a website for parents who believe their child has rapid onset gender dysphoria.

He said the study’s co-author Suzanna Diaz isn’t a researcher, so she didn’t create the survey with typical informed-consent procedures. He didn’t explain that Diaz is a pseudonym.

He knew Diaz was associated with ParentsofROGDKids.com but didn’t know her real name and if she ran the website.

Diaz had created the questionnaire to “weed out troublemakers.”

When Bailey looked into detransitioners and desisters, which are people who have stopped or reversed gender-affirming care, he looked to the website Reddit and looked at groups titled “detrans” and “desist.”

Plaintiffs’ attorney Nora Huppert asked if he verified that participants had previously been diagnosed with gender dysphoria. Bailey admitted that he had not.

The other defense expert on the stand Tuesday was Dr. Daniel Weiss, an endocrinologist from Utah.

For 10 years in Ohio, Weiss accepted transgender adults as patients that needed cross-sex hormones, but later decided the intervention was harmful to prescribe.

“I’m opposed to it medically,” Weiss said of adults using cross-sex hormones to transition. “I think there’s no scientific evidence to support it. But if someone wants to do it, and they’re adequately informed, they can do it.”

His testimony included a look at adverse event reporting of puberty blockers, which he does not prescribe, and the discussion of risks to gender-affirming care.

When asked to compare the risks of puberty blockers to aspirin, he couldn’t make a direct comparison.

“It’s hard to compare,” he said. “With any intervention, you want to balance risk and benefit and look at all the treatment options.”

Gillian Wilcox, an attorney with the ACLU of Missouri, asked if he has published a peer-reviewed article on gender dysphoria. He hadn’t.

“My article, if I were to write one, would be rejected by most medical journals because there is no good treatment,” Weiss said. “I call it child-harming treatment. There is no good intervention.”

He has testified in favor of state bans on gender-affirming care for minors. He told Wilcox that the Center for Christian Virtue, an advocacy group with anti-LGBTQ views, asked him to testify and he was paid to prepare his testimony.

He does not have clinical experience with minors.

In the state’s pretrial brief, Solicitor General Joshua Divine wrote that defendants will only need to prove “medical and scientific uncertainty” to show that state lawmakers are allowed to enact restrictions on gender-affirming care.

Although the state has entered the trial confident in the task ahead, credibility may limit what the judge will consider from its experts.

Other witnesses Tuesday included parents, one of which lives in Chicago, who disagreed with their children about their transition.

Fast-casual restaurant Chipotle is experimenting with a work station that has automation assembling salads and bowls underneath the counter while a human worker assembles more complex dishes such as burritos on top. (Photo courtesy of Chipotle)

Though food service workers and economists have long worried about the impact technology would have on the restaurant labor force, pilot programs in several fast-casual restaurants over the last few years have shown it may not have the negative impact they feared, a labor economist says.

Technology plays several roles in food service, but the industry has seen the adoption of touch screens, AI-powered ordering and food prep machines over the last few years. And even more recently, it’s become more likely that a robot is playing a part in your food preparation or delivery.

They may take shape as your bartender, your server or your food delivery driver, but many are like the “collaborative” robots just rolled out in some Chipotle restaurants in California.

The company is testing the Autocado, which splits and prepares avocados to be turned into guacamole by a kitchen crew member, and the Augmented Makeline, which builds bowls and salads autonomously underneath the food line while employees construct burritos, tacos and quesadillas on top. Chipotle said 65% of its mobile orders are for salads or bowls, and the Augmented Makeline’s aim is improving efficiency and digital order accuracy.

The company said it invested in robotics company Vebu and worked with them on the design for the Autocado, and it invested in food service platform Hyphen, which custom made the Augmented Makeline for Chipotle.

“Optimizing our use of these systems and incorporating crew and customer feedback are the next steps in the stage-gate process before determining their broader pilot plans,” Curt Garner, Chipotle’s chief customer and technology officer said in a statement.

The company said the introduction of these robots will not eliminate any jobs, as the crew members are supposed to have a “cobotic relationship” with them. The aim is that crew members will be able to spend more time on either food prep tasks or on providing hospitality to customers.

Ben Zipperer, a low-wage labor market economist at the Economic Policy Institute, said the early fears around automation and robots threatening jobs in the foodservice industry are not being realized. Automation has shown to make workers more productive and effective, he said.

Robots have also been shown to make businesses more efficient and profitable, Zipperer siad, which creates an “offsetting demand factor.” That increased demand and profitability can actually help keep the cost of food for customers more affordable, he added.

When one action is freed up by a robot, the restaurant has more freedom to place workers on other high-demand tasks.

“Either those workers are still going to help produce guacamole, because people want to buy more of it,” Zipperer said of the Chipotle announcement, “or there’s other things that that business is trying to produce but can’t allocate the labor towards, even though they have demand for it.”

Zipperer pointed toward automated food purchasing with the use of touchscreen kiosks, which has been widely adopted in fast food service. In these cases, workers get shifted away from cash registers and toward more back-of-house jobs like food prep or janitorial work.

McDonald’s shows an example of this. The fast food restaurant was one of the earliest adopters of touchscreen kiosks, with thousands of stores using the technology to collect orders by 2015, and screens becoming nearly ubiquitous by 2020.

Last week, the company said the kiosks actually produce extra work for staff, as customers tend to purchase more food than they would at a cash register. The machines have built-in upselling features that cashiers don’t always have time to push with customers, and the introduction of mobile ordering and delivery has created jobs that front-of-house staff are relegated to.

Many fast food CEOs have threatened that raising minimum wages across the U.S. would equate in job loss to autonomous machines and kiosks. And while some franchise owners may take that route, it’s not a trend across the whole country. Jobs at quick-service and fast casual restaurants were up about 150,000 jobs, or 3% above their pre-pandemic levels in August.

As technology takes more of a role in food service production, businesses that want to succeed will find the balance of cost-saving efficiencies and valued work by their employees, Zipperer said.

“As long as there is demand for what that business is producing, that will allow workers to not feel a lot of the negative effects of technology,” he said.

(Getty Images)

Until they get in touch with him, organizer TJ James says, many people with a felony conviction have no idea that they have the right to vote.

And it’s not for a lack of interest, said James, an organizer with the Metro Organization for Racial and Economic Equity, or MORE2.

“I’ve had people that I work with where they’ve been told specifically at the polls that they cannot vote,” James said. “They’re being told while in prison, ‘You can never vote again.’ And people, unfortunately, just don’t do the research.”

When a Kansas or Missouri resident is convicted of a felony, the state automatically deletes their voter registration. But once they complete their parole or probation, most people with felony convictions regain the right to vote.

The Sentencing Project noted in October 2023 that nationwide, more than 2 million people with felony convictions have regained the right to vote since 1997.

Can felons vote in Missouri?

Generally speaking, a felony conviction only temporarily suspends a person’s right to vote in Missouri. The only exception is if the felony is related to elections or voting — such as tampering with ballots or threatening voters. Election crimes convictions, both felonies and misdemeanors, cost a person the right to vote in Missouri.

Missouri automatically wipes the voter registration upon conviction of a felony, and the person convicted must reregister once they have completed their sentence, parole or probation.

If a voter has any issues at the polling site — for example, if the poll worker incorrectly tells them that they aren’t allowed to vote because of their felony conviction — James encourages them to call a local election office.

However, if the problem is that the person has not registered, there is no recourse after the voter registration deadline on Oct. 9. Voters must register before that deadline because Missouri does not allow same-day voter registration.

Can felons vote in Kansas?

Like in Missouri, a felony conviction in Kansas results in a temporary loss of the right to vote. Once a person has completed their sentence, parole or probation, they will have to reregister. The Kansas voter registration deadline is Oct. 15.

However, it gets fuzzier when a person owes fines and fees for restitution.

“There are tens of thousands of people in Kansas who are still on probation solely for financial reasons,” said Micah Kubic, the executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Kansas affiliate.

That is relatively distinct to Kansas, he said.

Legally, probation could be indefinitely extended until those fines are paid. Some judges may choose to end a person’s probation before they’ve fully paid their debt, but it’s ultimately up to the judge’s discretion.

Kubic said that judges in Sedgwick County are less likely to restore voting rights before fines are paid.

Right to vote in jail

Some detainees at county jails in Kansas and Missouri may still be eligible to vote.

In 2022, MORE2 estimated that there may be upward of 400 eligible voters jailed in Jackson County. Kubic estimated that the number of eligible voters in Kansas jails is in the thousands.

“If you are in jail and not been convicted,” James said, “then your voting rights have not been taken away.”

To cast a ballot from jail, voters will need to make sure they are registered to vote and submit an absentee ballot request before the deadline.

In Kansas, the absentee ballot request form must be received by Oct. 29. In Missouri, it must be received by Oct. 23.

Jails may allow voter registration groups to enter, but it varies from county to county.

Kubic said that most counties in Kansas do not have vote-from-jail programs, but the Kansas ACLU is working to make those programs more common.

“(It) can be as simple as allowing the local election commission or county clerk to bring a stack of absentee ballot request forms,” he said. “They don’t have to be complicated to work.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Kansas City and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

Advocates are raising alarm that certain people who still need services will lose them, causing their health to decline or forcing them into institutional settings like nursing homes (Scott Olson/Getty Images)..

Nearly 8,000 seniors and Missourians with disabilities could lose at-home care over the next year after a new eligibility algorithm went into effect this week, a spokesperson for the state health department told The Independent.

Starting Oct. 1, Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services implemented a change in the scoring algorithm they use to determine eligibility during annual reviews and enrollment for those receiving help with everyday tasks like going to the bathroom, getting dressed and taking their prescriptions. The assistance is part of a Medicaid-funded program called home and community based services designed to provide an alternative to those who would otherwise need to receive institutional care. 

That change, according to the department, is designed to help ensure those who truly need the services receive them, and those who don’t — for instance, because their conditions have improved or they’re not severe enough to qualify — are removed.

“We want to ensure those with higher acuity needs are receiving the care they need,” said DHSS spokesperson Lisa Cox. “That is what this transformation is about—to ensure we are providing the right services, in the right setting, at the right time to those who would go into a facility placement if not for [home and community based services].”    

But advocates are raising alarm that certain people who still need services will lose them, causing their health to decline or forcing them into institutional settings like nursing homes. 

Jennifer Gundy, who runs a center for independent living in southwest Missouri, which provides in-home care support for 370 people, estimates 18% of her clients will fall off the rolls.

And most of them will still be in need of services, she said, including cases of those with severe diabetes, mobility issues, complicated medication regimes and other issues that are eased by current assistance but will worsen without it.

“So that’s our concern,” she said. “And we’ve been voicing that concern with the state for probably the last two years,” she said.

Joel Ferber, director of advocacy at Legal Services of Eastern Missouri, said there are “truly needy folks who are going to lose services.” 

Legal Services of Eastern Missouri has been working with national advocacy groups to analyze the new algorithm and its effects, and provide guidance. One client they identified, a 70-year-old woman who receives 40 hours of weekly paid help, won’t be eligible after her review, according to LSEM. She weighs under 100 pounds and has had a stroke.

Without a caretaker, she won’t be able to make herself meals or bathe, and has no family in the area. She may have to be hospitalized or go to a nursing home.

State Rep. Deb Lavender, a Democrat of Manchester, said thousands will lose services, “without any support from the state” to fill in the gap.

“They’re going to be people who have received services for years,” she said, “and we have provided that for them — to then drop them because they don’t meet the new algorithm doesn’t seem right.”

Cox said 7,818 people are at risk of losing services, but she didn’t provide an estimate of any possible net change, saying the program will “continue to add more participants every month due to the increase in needs of our population.” New people will also qualify based on the new algorithm, adding to the population, she said.

From 2021 to last month, the department used both the new and old algorithm, so that anyone who qualified on either basis could qualify for the program. Cox said thousands of people have gained access to services under the new algorithm who wouldn’t have qualified on the old calculation: She said 7,708 people have gained eligibility under the new algorithm since it was introduced in Nov. 2021.

There were around 68,000 people monthly on the program last fiscal year, Cox said.

The new algorithm has been years in the making. 

The legislature in 2017 grew concerned with the home and community based services program “just blossoming” in participation and cost, said Jessica Schaefer, program director for home and community based services in a recent training. 

To cut the budget, the legislature in 2017 raised the threshold for eligibility. It also capped costs for services at a lower level. 

The program is jointly funded by the state and federal government, and states vary widely in how they run the programs.

The department found those changes weren’t entirely effective, Schafer said — that some people who needed services most didn’t qualify anymore — so they launched a “transformation” of the eligibility criteria. It was designed to be more accurate at directing limited services to the correct people.

The “transformation is about ensuring those most in need of care receive the services needed to remain independent in their community,” Cox said.

There have been several delays in implementing the new algorithm — most recently because of federal rules tied to accepting American Rescue Plan Act funds. 

The state has generally characterized those who will lose coverage as people who don’t have needs significant enough to qualify in the first place.

In a slideshow for providers during a recent training, the state recommended when delivering the news of ineligibility to individuals, that they “exude confidence” and “put a positive spin on ineligibility,” along with connecting them to other resources and expressing sympathy.

Because the department has been providing two scores, advocates can see which clients will not qualify under the new algorithm and have been able to track it.

Advocates say they’ve repeatedly brought up concerns with the state based on clients they see are desperately in need of services who will no longer qualify.

“The only thing that we can do is just go ahead and allow them to do this, and then if there’s enough people that fall off the services and end up going to the nursing home, going in the hospital, having lots of problems because they’re not getting the services, then we can look at doing a class action lawsuit,” said Gundy, the southwest Missouri advocate.

“Which is really sad, because those people have to get hurt or have really bad health problems for something to get done.”

States across the country have made similar cuts to the program, based on automated decisions, including in Arkansas, where the algorithm was successfully challenged in court.

Legal Services of Eastern Missouri and a group of national advocates published a toolkit for providers and participants to understand the changes and track those who lose services.

Emily Paul, project director at Upturn, a national organization that advocates for equity and justice in technology, has been involved in that analysis.

“What we understand in general is that automation is a tool that states are using to deal with inadequate funding for these programs, and to create a rationale for who doesn’t get services,” Paul said.

“Underfunding really drives the need to have this whole rationale for trying to distribute the resources and trying to make claims to fairness and objectivity within a system that is not really set up to actually meet people’s needs,” she said. “And so that’s the fundamental issue. States can still try to make better or worse choices about how they allocate the resources.”

This story was updated at 9:10 A.M. with additional comment from the Department of Health and Senior Services.

A new report details more than 200 cases of women charged criminally for their behavior while pregnant in the year after the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court decision that dismantled the constitutional right to abortion (John Moore/Getty Images).

In the year after the U.S. Supreme Court dismantled the constitutional right to abortion in June 2022, more than 200 pregnant women faced criminal charges for conduct associated with their pregnancy, pregnancy loss or birth, according to a new report.

The report was produced by Pregnancy Justice, a nonprofit that advocates for the rights of pregnant people, including the right to abortion. Researchers in multiple states documented 210 cases of women being charged for pregnancy-related conduct in 12 states from June 24, 2022, to June 23, 2023, the first year after the U.S. Supreme Court eliminated the constitutional right to an abortion, throwing the issue to the states.

The majority of charges alleged substance use during pregnancy; in two-thirds of cases, it was the only allegation made against the defendant. Six states — Alabama, Mississippi, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina and Texas — accounted for the majority of cases documented by researchers.

The new report utilizes improved data collection, making comparisons with previous versions difficult. But “what we found was even more of an acceleration in pregnancy criminalization as compared to before” the Supreme Court’s ruling, said Lourdes Rivera, president of Pregnancy Justice. Rivera said she thinks that in states with abortion bans or new restrictions, there is more scrutiny of pregnancy loss.

However, almost none of the prosecutions documented by researchers were brought under state abortion laws. Instead, researchers found that law enforcement most often charged pregnant women with crimes such as child neglect or endangerment, interpreting the definition of “child” to include a fetus. In doing so, authorities relied on a legal concept called fetal personhood — the idea that a fetus, embryo or fertilized egg has the same legal rights as a person who has been born.

“If we focus only on abortion laws, we miss a crucial part of the picture in the fact that pregnant individuals are being criminalized for allegedly endangering their own pregnancies, for pregnancy loss and, in some cases, for conduct related to abortion,” Rivera said. “What’s driving pregnancy criminalization is the expansion of fetal personhood.”

Charges of child abuse or endangerment carry stiffer penalties — higher fines and lengthier prison sentences — than the low-level drug charges the women likely would have faced had they not been pregnant.

“Pregnancy-related prosecutions don’t generally charge crimes that, on the face of the criminal statute, have anything whatsoever to do with pregnancy,” said Wendy Bach, a professor at the University of Tennessee College of Law and the report’s principal investigator. “Instead, using the idea of fetal personhood, or more specifically the idea that the fetus can be the victim of a crime perpetrated by the pregnant person, they use that theory to charge general crimes.”

The push for charges

Conservative lawmakers in Alaska, Illinois, Missouri, South Carolina and West Virginia introduced fetal personhood bills in the most recent legislative session, though none made it out of committee. In Nebraska, dueling amendments will appear on the ballot. One would codify the right to abortion until “fetal viability,” about 24 weeks. The other would amend the state constitution to restrict abortion to 12 weeks and protect “unborn children” in the second and third trimesters of pregnancy.

Proponents of charging pregnant women for conduct that could harm a fetus argue that the threat of prosecution incentivizes the women to get care or treatment for substance use disorders.

Jody Willoughby, the Republican district attorney in Etowah County, Alabama, which has long had some of the highest numbers of pregnancy-related arrests in the country, has said publicly that his office prosecutes cases because doing nothing would make his office “an enabler of a deadly addiction, complicit in the abuse of a child, and ultimately lead to the death of a mother,” local news outlet AL.com reported in 2022. Willoughby did not respond to Stateline’s requests for comment.

But critics say the arrests and prosecutions deter people from seeking care for fear they’ll be arrested or lose custody of their children. The majority of defendants identified in the report had low incomes; most were white.

All six of the states that accounted for most of the cases cited in the study have fetal personhood language baked into their laws. Seventeen states have laws with broad fetal personhood language that could apply to all criminal laws, according to an analysis by Pregnancy Justice.

When it comes to prosecuting pregnant women, Alabama leads the nation: The state accounts for nearly half of the prosecutions documented in the report. Alabama has a constitutional amendment, approved by voters in 2018, that explicitly confers personhood on fetuses and affirms the state’s responsibility to protect “the rights of unborn children.” All the cases documented in Alabama were brought under its chemical endangerment law, which the Alabama Supreme Court ruled in 2013 can include fetuses.

Most of Alabama’s cases come from just a few counties. They were long considered outliers, places where a handful of overzealous officials liberally applied the state’s chemical endangerment law to hundreds of pregnant women.

But Brittany VandeBerg, who led the research in Alabama, said that chemical endangerment charges have popped up in a dozen more Alabama counties since the Dobbs ruling.

“In each county the district attorney really steers the ship as far as what type of priorities they have in their office for prosecutions,” said VandeBerg, who is associate chair of the department of criminology and criminal justice at the University of Alabama. “I don’t know if the elected district attorneys feel this is what the community wants, or if it’s their own personal feelings. But the system is in place to move those cases forward.”

VandeBerg said Alabama provides relatively meager resources for people struggling with addiction. That leaves law enforcement feeling like they have no options other than to arrest and jail women with substance use disorders, she said.

“There just aren’t enough inpatient treatment facilities to help these women,” VandeBerg told Stateline.

One of the things that stuck out to VandeBerg in reviewing cases was the large share of incidents in which a pregnant woman was charged with chemical endangerment even though her baby exhibited no signs of harm after it was born.

“I found that incredibly shocking,” said VandeBerg, who noted that Alabama’s chemical endangerment law can result in a 10-year prison sentence — much longer than some domestic violence crimes carry. “Here, they’re charging the mother before we know harm has been done.”

Defendant exonerated

In July, an Oklahoma court exonerated a woman who’d been charged with felony child neglect in 2020 after her son tested positive for marijuana at birth. Prosecutors pursued the case even though her baby was born healthy, and she’d had a doctor-approved state license to legally use medical marijuana to treat severe morning sickness during the pregnancy.

Brian Hermanson, an Oklahoma Republican district attorney who’s prosecuted dozens of women in his district in similar circumstances, used fetal personhood language in his legal argument.

“Marijuana is an illegal drug under Oklahoma law unless the person consuming the marijuana holds a medical marijuana license. Unborn babies cannot hold such a license,” Hermanson wrote in a court filing.

“[The defendant] admitted to smoking marijuana throughout her pregnancy, knowing that her unborn baby was being exposed to the possible harmful effects of the marijuana smoke.”

The Pregnancy Justice report also documented five cases in which allegations specifically mentioned abortion. One was brought under a state abortion statute that has since been repealed. The other four cases were charged as homicide, child neglect or abuse of a corpse. In the two cases in which homicide was charged, the defendants allegedly visited an abortion clinic or took pills and the abortion was successful, Rivera said.

Stateline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Stateline maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Scott S. Greenberger for questions: info@stateline.org. Follow Stateline on Facebook and X.

As response rates drop, pollsters are increasingly turning to artificial intelligence to determine what voters are thinking ahead of Election Day, not only asking the questions but sometimes to help answer them. (Stephen Maturen/Getty Images)

Days after President Joe Biden announced he would not be seeking re-election, and endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, polling organization Siena College Research Institute sought to learn how “persuadable” voters were feeling about Harris.

In their survey, a 37-year-old Republican explained that they generally favored Trump for his ability to “get [things] done one way or another.”

“Who do you think cares about people like you? How do they compare in terms of caring about people like you?” the pollster asked.

“That’s where I think Harris wins, I lost a lot of faith in Trump when he didn’t even contact the family of the supporter who died at his rally,” the 37-year-old said.

Pollsters pressed this participant and others across the political spectrum to further explain their stances, and examine the nuance behind choosing a candidate. The researchers saw in real time how voters may sway depending on the issue, and asked follow-up questions about their belief systems.

But the “persuadable” voters weren’t talking to a human pollster. They were conversing with an AI chatbot called Engage.

The speed in which election cycles move, coupled with a steep drop of people participating in regular phone or door-to-door polls, have caused pollsters to turn to artificial intelligence for insights, both asking the questions and sometimes even answering them

Why do we poll? 

The history of polling voters in presidential races goes back 200 years, to the 1824 race which ultimately landed John Quincy Adams in the White House. White men began polling each other at events leading up to the election, and newspapers began reporting the results, though they didn’t frame the results as predictive of the outcome of the election.

In modern times, polling for public opinion has become a business. Research centers, academic institutions and news conglomerates themselves have been conducting polls during election season for decades. Though their accuracy has limitations, the practice is one of the only ways to gauge how Americans may be thinking before they vote.

Polling plays a different role for different groups, said Rachel Cobb, an assistant professor of political science and legal studies at Suffolk University. For campaign workers, polling groups of voters helps provide insight into the issues people care about the most right now, and informs how candidates talk about those issues. It’s why questions at a presidential debate usually aren’t a surprise to candidates — moderators tend to ask questions about the highest-polling topics that week.

For news outlets, polls help give context to current events and give anchors numbers to illustrate a story. Constant polling also helps keep a 24-hour news cycle going.

And for regular Americans, poll results help them gauge where the race is, and either activate or calm their nerves, depending on if their candidate is polling favorably.

But Cobb said she, like many of her political science colleagues, has observed a drop in responses to more traditional style of polling. It’s much harder and more expensive for pollsters to do their job, because people aren’t answering their phones or their front doors.

“The time invested in getting the appropriate kind of balance of people that you need in order to determine accuracy has gotten greater and so and they’ve had to come up with more creative ways to get them,” Cobb said. “At the same time, our technological capacity has increased.”

How AI is assisting in polling?

The speed of information has increased exponentially with social media and 24-hour news cycles, and polls have had to keep up, too. Though they bring value in showing insights for a certain group of people, their validity is fleeting because of that speed, Cobb said. Results are truly only representative of that moment in time, because one breaking news story could quickly change public opinion.

That means pollsters have to work quickly, or train artificial intelligence to keep up.

Leib Litman, co-CEO and chief research officer of CloudResearch, which created the chatbot tool Engage, said AI has allowed them to collect answers so much faster than before.

“We’re able to interview thousands of people within a matter of a couple hours, and then all of that data that we get, all those conversations, we’re also able to analyze it, and derive the insights very, very quickly,” he said.

Engage was developed about a year ago and can be used in any industry where you need to conduct market research via interviews. But it’s become especially useful in this election cycle as campaigns attempt to learn how Americans are feeling at any given moment. The goal isn’t to replace human responses with AI, rather to use AI to reach more people, Litman said.

But some polling companies are skipping interviewing and instead relying on something called “sentiment analysis AI” to analyze publically available data and opinions. Think tank Heartland Forward recently worked with AI-powered polling group Aaru to determine the public perception of artificial intelligence.

The prediction AI company uses geographical and demographic data of an area and scrapes publicly available information, like tweets or voting records, to simulate respondents of a poll. The algorithm uses all this information to make assertions about how a certain demographic group may vote or how they may answer questions about political issues.

This type of poll was a first for Heartland Forward, and its executive vice president Angie Cooper said they paired the AI-conducted poll with in-person gatherings where they conducted more traditional polls.

“When we commissioned the poll, we didn’t know what the results were going to yield,” she said. “What we heard in person closely mirrored the poll results.”

Sentiment analysis

The Aaru poll is an example of sentiment analysis AI, which uses machine learning and large language models to analyze the meaning and tone behind text. It includes training an algorithm to not just understand literally what’s in a body of text, but also to seek out hidden messaging or context, like humans do in conversation.

The general public started interacting with this type of AI in about 2010, said Zohaib Ahmed, founder of Resemble AI, which specializes in voice generation AI. Sentiment analysis AI is the foundation behind search engines that can read a request and make recommendations, or to get your Alexa device to fulfill a command.

Between 2010 and 2020, though, the amount of information collected on the internet has increased exponentially. There’s so much more data for AI models to process and learn from, and technologists have taught it to process contextual, “between-the-lines” information.

The concept behind sentiment analysis is already well understood by pollsters, says Bruce Schneier, a security technologist and lecturer at Harvard University’s Kennedy School. In June, Schneier and other researchers published a look into how AI was playing a role in political polling. 

Most people think polling is just asking people questions and recording their answers, Schneier said, but there’s a lot of “math” between the questions people answer and the poll results.

“All of the work in polling is turning the answers that humans give into usable data,” Schneier said.

You have to account for a few things: people lie to pollsters, certain groups may have been left out of a poll, and response rates are overall low. You’re also applying polling statistics to the answers to come up with consumable data. All of this is work that humans have had to do themselves before technology and computing helped speed up the process.

In the Harvard research, Schneier and the other authors say they believe AI will get better at anticipating human responses, and knowing when it needs human intervention for more accurate context. Currently, they said, humans are our primary respondents to polls, and computers fill in the gaps. In the future, though, we’ll likely see AI filling out surveys and humans filling in the gaps.

“I think AI should be another tool in the pollsters mathematical toolbox, which has been getting more complex for the past several decades,” Schneier said.

Pros and cons of AI-assisted polling 

AI polling methods bring pollsters more access and opportunity to gauge public reaction. Those who have begun using it in their methodology said that they’ve struggled to get responses from humans organically, or they don’t have the time and resources to conduct in-person or telephone polling.

Being interviewed by an anonymous chatbot may also provide more transparent answers for controversial political topics. Litman said personal, private issues such as health care or abortion access are where their chatbot “really shines.” Women, in particular, have reported that they feel more comfortable sharing their true feelings about these topics when talking to a chatbot, he said.

But, like all methodology around polling, it’s possible to build flaws into AI-assisted polling.

The Harvard researchers ran their own experiment asking ChatGPT 3.5 questions about the political climate, and found shortcomings when it asked about U.S. intervention in the Ukraine war. Because the AI model only had access to data up through 2021, the answers missed all of the current context about Russia’s invasion beginning in 2022.

Sentiment analysis AI may also struggle with text that’s ambiguous, and it can’t be counted on for reviewing developing information, Ahmed said. For example, the X timeline following one of the two assassination attempts of Trump probably included favorable or supportive messages from politicians across the aisle. An AI algorithm might read the situation and conclude that all of those people are very pro-Trump.

“But it doesn’t necessarily mean they’re navigating towards Donald Trump,” Ahmed said. “It just means, you know, there’s sympathy towards an event that’s happened, right? But that event is completely missed by the AI. It has no context of that event occurring, per se.”

Just like phone-call polling, AI-assisted polling can also potentially leave whole groups of people out of surveys, Cobb said. Those who aren’t comfortable using a chatbot, or aren’t very active online will be excluded from public opinion polls if pollsters move most of their methods online.

“It’s very nuanced,” Ahmed said of AI polling. “I think it can give you a pretty decent, high-level look at what’s happening, and I guarantee that it’s being used by election teams to understand their position in the race, but we have to remember we exist in bubbles, and it can be misleading.”

Both the political and technology experts agreed that as with most other facets of our lives, AI has found its way into polling and we likely won’t look back. Technologists should aim to further train AI models to understand human sentiment, they say, and pollsters should continue to pair it with human responses for a fuller scope of public opinion.

“Science of polling is huge and complicated,” Schneier said. “And adding AI to the mix is another tiny step down a pathway we’ve been walking for a long time using, you know, fancy math combined with human data.”

U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer of Missouri speaks as Secretary of Health and Human Services Alex Azar testifies before the House Select Subcommittee on the Coronavirus Crisis, on Oct. 2, 2020 in Washington, DC. (J. Scott Applewhite-Pool/Getty Images).

A sign reminding people to complete the Free Application for Federal Student Aid — better known as FAFSA — appears on a bus near Union Station in Washington, D.C. (Shauneen Miranda/States Newsroom).

WASHINGTON — The U.S. Department of Education is launching the first testing period for its phased rollout of the 2025-26 form to apply for federal financial student aid on Tuesday, with more students set to partake in this beginning testing stage than initially expected.

The department announced in August it would be using a staggered approach to launch the 2025-26 Free Application for Federal Student Aid — or FAFSA — in order to address any issues that might arise before the form opens up to everyone by Dec. 1. The number of students able to complete the form will gradually increase throughout four separate testing stages, with the first one beginning Oct. 1.

The phased rollout makes the form fully available two months later than usual and comes as the 2024-25 form — which got a makeover after Congress passed the FAFSA Simplification Act in late 2020 — faced a series of highly publicized hiccups that the department has worked to fix.

Earlier in September, the department announced six community-based organizations chosen to participate in the first testing period: Alabama Possible; Bridge 2 Life, in Florida; College AIM, in Georgia; Education is Freedom, in Texas; the Scholarship Foundation of Santa Barbara, in California; and the Scholarship Fund of Alexandria, in Virginia.

“Thanks to the wonderful organizations, we expect closer to 1,000 students in Beta 1 as opposed to the 100 we initially thought,” FAFSA executive adviser Jeremy Singer said on a call with reporters Monday regarding the 2025-26 form.

During this first testing stage, U.S. Under Secretary of Education James Kvaal said the department will process students’ FAFSAs, “give students an opportunity to make corrections, if needed, and send the records to colleges and state agencies.”

“Colleges will be able to use these same records when it’s time for them to make financial aid offers,” said Kvaal, who oversees higher education and financial aid, including the Office of Federal Student Aid.

Three more testing periods

The department on Monday also named 78 community-based organizations, governmental entities, high schools, school districts and institutions of higher education to participate in its three subsequent testing periods for the 2025-26 form.

Three of the community-based organizations chosen to take part in the first testing period — Florida’s Bridge 2 Life; Texas’ Education is Freedom; and Virginia’s  Scholarship Fund of Alexandria — will also participate in subsequent testing stages.

To help students and families prepare for the 2025-26 application cycle, the department said this week it’s releasing a revised Federal Student Aid Estimator, updated resources for creating a StudentAid.Gov account, including a “parent wizard,” as well as an updated prototype of the 2025-26 FAFSA.

Last week, the department released a report outlining 10 steps it’s taking to improve the FAFSA application process. Part of those efforts include the department strengthening its leadership team and working to address issues for families without Social Security numbers when completing the form, in addition to vendors adding more than 700 new call center agents.

Gov. Mike Parson speaks at his Capitol press conference announcing Executive Order 24-10 that bans the sale of intoxicating hemp products in Missouri "until such time approved sources can be regulated by the FDA or State of Missouri through legislative action," he said (photo courtesy of Missouri Governor's Office).

Last month, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services announced that their enforcement of Gov. Mike Parson’s  executive order on hemp products will focus on the misbranded THC products that pose a danger to children.

At St. Louis Children’s Hospital, we thank the governor for his executive order and this important step forward in better keeping our kids safe, and the department’s focus on protecting this vulnerable group. The action to ban misbranded THC products is an important first step, but the seriousness of this issue demands additional regulation and safety measures at home to protect children.

The ingestion of THC is life threatening for small children — especially those under the age of 12 — who are at higher risk of serious medical consequences due to their small size and weight. Intensive care unit admission, prolonged observation in the hospital, lumbar punctures, head CT scans and other potentially invasive medical tests are just some of the interventions small children may need after a THC exposure.

As THC products become more readily available in our communities, the need for regulation is vital. The products that specifically contain Delta-8, and therefore are affected by the governor’s ban, are an appropriate target for regulation. These products represented about 40% of the THC overdoses at St. Louis Children’s Hospital in 2023, our most recent data show.

As suggested by the governor, the most common overdose incidents seen in our emergency department occur when the drug has been marketed and packaged as a food in an “edible” form of THC. In these instances, kids reasonably mistake the lookalike “edible” drug as candy or other desserts and consume them in quantities as they would with real food.

Clear labels and testing information are important for adult consumers, but these are not realistic solutions to the problem of unintentional use by young children. Other regulatory protections could include the mandatory use of childproof packaging and clear restrictions on marketing practices that appeal to children.

While we await more complete regulatory solutions, there are steps that adults can take to protect children at home, where most poisonings occur. As injury prevention experts, along with the American Academy of Pediatrics, we advocate for recreational and medicinal THC to be stored like any drug or medicine to keep it out of the hands of curious children.

THC products in the home should be stored separately from other food or candy, out of children’s reach and line of sight. Lockboxes, such as the ones St. Louis Children’s Hospital offers in our emergency department, are another safeguard against unintentional or intentional use by children.

For one year, as part of a pilot program, 1,000 lockboxes will be offered free of charge, thanks to a grant provided by the Health Department, to families who arrive at the emergency department with a child who has accidentally, or intentionally, ingested medications not meant for them. These boxes will also be provided to families experiencing behavioral health crisis – like suicidal ideation — to prevent self-harm by accessing medications.

The hope is this pilot program, aimed at curbing child overdoses, will find similar success to the BJC HealthCare system wide effort of offering free, no questions asked gun locks at all its facilities.

To be sure, this is a complex issue with no one magic solution. Packaging and in-home safe storage measures have, to date, not kept up with the need. And while the executive order is not a cure-all for accidental child overdosing on THC, we are grateful for this step forward in protecting Missouri’s children.

A former case worker of the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children's Hospital testified Monday in the trial challenging Missouri's restrictions on gender-affirming care (Rebecca Rivas/Missouri Independent).

The former caseworker whose account of her time working at a pediatric gender clinic in St. Louis jumpstarted the legislative push to outlaw gender-affirming care for minors testified in defense of Missouri’s restriction on Monday.

Jamie Reed, who for four and a half years worked as a case manager at the Washington University Transgender Center, was the first witness called by the state in the two-week trial over the constitutionality of the law. Reed’s public statements and sworn affidavit about her experience at the clinic were the genesis for Missouri lawmakers prioritizing the ban and spurred broad investigations by the Missouri Attorney General’s Office into practitioners statewide.

Reed testified as a fact witness, meaning she couldn’t speak as an expert but could provide insight into her experiences working at the Transgender Center. Many of Monday’s questions gravitated toward the records she kept — and later shared — that contained information on the center’s patients.

Under the 2023 law, health care providers can’t prescribe new gender-affirming care medications to minors or refer them for surgery, and the state’s Medicaid program is barred from paying for gender-affirming medical care for any age. Transgender Missourians, their families and health care providers filed a lawsuit in July 2023, calling the law unconstitutional because it discriminated against transgender people.

Therapists, social workers face scrutiny in Missouri AG investigation of transgender care

Last week, plaintiffs called witnesses that testified that their medical record numbers and treatment information were listed in a document that Reed shared with Attorney General Andrew Bailey and at least one reporter.

When asked Thursday about his daughter’s information being shared, J.K. (who testified using his initials as a pseudonym) said he never consented to the information being spread.

“It’s confusing and mystifying,” he said. “I don’t know why this person would share our information. I have no idea what this person is up to.”

He didn’t interact with Reed, he said, apart from getting an email after an appointment with follow-up information from her. But somehow, his daughter’s information was in Reed’s table.

Elliott, a college student who went to the Transgender Center as a teenager and testified using only their first name, said Friday that Reed was never in appointments with them. Elliott is “terrified” that the attorney general has information related to their medical care.

“I don’t know what they’ll do with that information,” Elliott said. “I don’t think it’s any of (the state’s) business that I’m trans.”

Elliott also thought Reed’s affidavit, which was released to the public, described them in a paragraph that was so specific friends and family could identify them.

“I was extremely upset (when I read the affidavit),” Elliott said. “I didn’t think it was an accurate representation of the care I received at Wash U. There was a line I thought could represent me, and if so, I am angry that I was used without my permission.”

Reed testified on Monday that this part of her affidavit was describing multiple patients. Other paragraphs talking about “a patient” were also a compilation of more than one person, she said.

The affidavit was based on medical records, patient visits and “firsthand knowledge” she testified. 

Reed didn’t dispute that Elliott’s information was shared in a 23-page document that listed patients’ medical record numbers instead of names. She didn’t consider this private health information protected by federal law because someone would need a key with names alongside medical record numbers to identify patients.

She sent this data to Bailey after a subpoena, she testified, but she also sent it to a New York Times reporter.

Plaintiffs’ attorney Gillian Wilcox asked about the 300 pages sent to the reporter. Reed said she sent “redacted documents that contained no (private health information).”

Reed, for part of her time at the Transgender Center, tracked patients she was concerned about on a “red-flag list.” She called it that because red flags at the beach mean to “proceed with caution,” she testified.

There were 27 patients on the list, identified by name instead of medical record number. Reed says she monitored them with a nurse at the center who shared concerns with Reed that too many children were receiving cross-sex hormones and puberty blockers.

Reed sent this list to Bailey in early February 2023 at the time of her affidavit, she said.

Other records she sent to Bailey include emails compiled from her Washington University email account, a list of therapists the center often referred patients to and copies of referral letters from therapists.

Reed told The Independent previously that she redacted names in the referral letters. This was not asked in court Monday.

Wilcox asked about a letter Reed sent Bailey in April 2024, long after she ended her employment with the Transgender Center.

The letter shared information from the center’s schedule that Reed believed showed the center was accepting new patients, despite public statements that it would not.

Reed currently works as executive director of the LGBT Courage Coalition, a nonprofit that advocates against gender-affirming care for transgender youth.

She recently traveled to the American Academy of Pediatrics convention in Florida to help volunteers “educate” pediatricians on gender-affirming care. A press release on the group’s participation described it as a “peaceful protest,” but Reed did not characterize the demonstration as a protest.

She wouldn’t answer whether she supported gender-affirming care for adults or not, though she had indicated support in prior testimony. She cited “changes in (her) personal life.”

At the beginning of questioning, she testified that her spouse was “detransitioning,” or stopping testosterone treatments. Sunday evening, her spouse’s perspective was published in The Free Press, the same website that launched Reed as a whistleblower in February 2023.

The Rocky Broad River flows into Lake Lure and overflows the town with debris from Chimney Rock, North Carolina, after heavy rains from Hurricane Helene on Sept. 28, 2024, in Lake Lure, North Carolina. Approximately 6 feet of debris piled on the bridge from Lake Lure to Chimney Rock, blocking access (Melissa Sue Gerrits/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — Congress may break from its six-week recess and return to D.C. in the last days before an extremely close election to approve emergency spending for Hurricane Helene recovery and response.

Lawmakers aren’t set to return to Washington, D.C., until after Election Day on Nov. 5, but President Joe Biden indicated Monday during remarks on the storm that he may ask Congress to return sooner to take up an emergency spending request.

Whether to do so would be up to Speaker Mike Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, a New York Democrat.

How much pressure those two feel to cut the recess short will likely depend on when the White House budget office sends Congress the emergency supplemental spending request, how soon federal agencies expect to run out of cash and how urgent the need appears.

The death toll by Monday afternoon topped 100 over six states — Alabama, Florida, Georgia, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee — and White House advisers said that hundreds more are missing. Two million people are without power and many others are lacking water and mobile phone service.

Scott calls for return

Florida Republican Sen. Rick Scott released a statement calling on Schumer to bring that chamber back into session after the White House sends the emergency funding request.

“While I know from my experience with previous hurricanes that FEMA and SBA damage assessments take time, I am today urging Majority Leader Chuck Schumer to immediately reconvene the U.S. Senate when those assessments are completed so that we can pass the clean supplemental disaster funding bill and other disaster relief legislation, like my Federal Disaster Tax Relief Act, needed to ensure the full recovery of families in all impacted communities,” Scott wrote.

That process of putting together a White House supplemental spending request includes determining which federal departments and agencies have enough money to handle their portion of the disaster response and which need additional funds. That can take weeks, especially after large-scale disasters like Helene.

It appeared more likely as of Monday that Congress would return to work on Capitol Hill on Nov. 12 as scheduled and consider the emergency spending then.

In the interim, staff on the House and Senate Appropriations committees as well as in leadership offices will likely begin negotiating the supplemental spending package, once the Office of Management and Budget actually sends the request.

Lawmakers can then pass the bill sometime during the lame-duck session in November or December, possibly attached to one or a package of the overdue full-year government funding bills.

Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack said on C-SPAN on Monday that she felt “exceptionally confident” Congress would approve emergency funding for disaster relief after members return to Washington, D.C.

“I’m absolutely certain there will be a supplemental,” Cammack said. “My fear is that it turns into a political football. And quite frankly things like this, there’s no room for politics when it comes to disasters and emergencies.”

The Disaster Relief Fund

FEMA can spend as much as it needs to on disaster recovery thanks to a provision Congress approved a few days ago and special caveats for emergencies.

The stopgap spending bill Congress approved last week, which keeps the federal government running through Dec. 20, included a provision allowing FEMA to spend money from its Disaster Relief Fund at a faster rate than would have otherwise been allowed.

FEMA’s Disaster Relief Fund can operate on something called immediate needs funding, which the agency can use as a safety net when that account runs low on money.

Immediate needs funding allows FEMA to pause “funding for long-term recovery projects and hazard mitigation projects that FEMA does not have in its system,” according to a Congressional Research Service report.

“These INF restrictions do not affect individual assistance, or public assistance programs that reimburse emergency response work and protective measures carried out by state and local authorities,” according to CRS.

FEMA has used immediate needs several times, including in August 2017 after Hurricane Harvey made landfall in Texas as well as during fiscal years 2003 through 2006 and in fiscal 2010, according to CRS.

Earlier pleas for funding unheeded

The Biden administration sent Congress a supplemental spending request in October 2023 asking for additional funding for natural disaster response and recovery. A deeply divided Congress, with Republicans in control of the House and Democrats with a narrow majority in the Senate, did not approve the request.

Office of Management and Budget Director Shalanda Young sent Congress another letter this June, urging lawmakers to approve billions in additional funding for natural disasters.

Young wrote that she wanted to “reiterate the October request and submit revised estimates of an additional $4 billion for certain disaster needs, including funding to help respond to the collapse of the Francis Scott Key Bridge in Baltimore, the devastating fires on Maui last summer, and tornado survivors in Iowa, Nebraska, Oklahoma, and throughout the Midwest.”

“Particularly as we enter what the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is describing as an ‘extraordinary’ hurricane season, the Administration urges prompt congressional action on this request, including for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Disaster Relief Fund (DRF), to ensure that we can uphold the Federal Government’s responsibility to both rebuild from past disasters and respond to future events,” Young wrote at the time.

The supplemental spending request the Biden administration sends to Congress in the coming weeks will likely build off those prior requests.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Monday during a briefing that the Biden administration is “disappointed” Congress hasn’t yet approved the supplemental spending request.

“We are disappointed that that didn’t go through,” she said. “We’re going to continue to have this conversation. As the president said, we’re in constant communications with members in Congress, and we want to make sure that they move quickly on this.”

Christian King, a doula with Uzazi Village in Kansas City, wraps Mikia Marshall, 33, with a kanga cloth to help take pressure off her stomach on Feb. 27, 2024 (Anna Spoerre/Missouri Independent).

In an effort to address Missouri’s deplorable maternal mortality rates, the state issued an emergency rule Monday allowing doulas to be reimbursed through Medicaid for the next six months. 

Doulas — who offer support for families during pregnancy, delivery and postpartum, but do not deliver babies — have been lifted up as one solution to improving maternal and infant health outcomes, especially among low-income families.

Missouri ranked among the bottom half of states for maternal deaths between 2018 and 2022, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“There are evident disparities in the risk of maternal mortality by ethnicity and race, maternal age, access to care, and socio-economic status. Utilizing doula services may reduce maternal mortality, health disparities and improve maternity care for women in Missouri,” the rule states. 

The state Department of Social Services will begin reimbursing doula services to low-income women through MO HealthNet, the state’s Medicaid program, on Tuesday. The program will last through March 28 in the hopes of improving birth outcomes. 

News of the rule change was first reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

The emergency rule is only six months, but a longer term plan is in the works. On Sept. 27, the Department of Social Services provided public notice of intent to submit a permanent plan.

The program reimburses six total prenatal and postpartum doula visits, attendance at a birth, lactation education services and help navigating community services. Doulas often visit new mothers at their homes during the postpartum period, watching for signs of depression, addiction and violence, all of which have been found to be leading causes of death for women in the year after giving birth.

“There is potential for an offsetting savings in year two and beyond based on the potential reduction in the Cesarean rate as well as other improved birth outcomes,” the rule said.

To be eligible, doulas must be credentialed and certified through a national or Missouri-based doula training organization. From there, they will be added to a list of eligible doulas overseen by the Missouri Community Doula Council.

“I’m pleased to see that ruling,” Hakima Payne, co-founder and CEO of Uzazi Village, said Monday. “It’s a step in the right direction for improving maternal and infant health in Missouri and I’m glad to see the state taking that step.” 

Payne, whose Kansas City nonprofit works to improve birth outcomes, including through doula training programs, said she hopes to see the reimbursement made permanent.

Missouri has long been among the states with the worst maternal health outcomes in the country. 

In Missouri between 2017 and 2021, women on Medicaid were seven times more likely to die within a year of pregnancy than women on private insurance, according to a report published Aug. 30 by the state’s Pregnancy-Associated Mortality Review. 

In those five years, 349 Missouri women died while pregnant or within a year of pregnancy. Black mothers in that time frame were 2.5 times more likely to die within a year of pregnancy than white mothers. 

Of the 70 or so pregnancy-associated deaths each year in Missouri, 77% were deemed preventable. Cardiovascular disease and mental health conditions were among the main causes of pregnancy-related deaths.

“DSS finds an immediate danger to the public health, safety or welfare of pregnant women in Missouri, which requires this emergency action,” Monday’s emergency rule stated. 

A 2023 March of Dimes report gave Missouri a D- for preterm births, and also pointed to doulas as a solution.

The report recommends that health care facilities work with social workers, community health workers and doulas during patients’ pregnancy and post-partum periods, in part to address social determinants of health. 

Missouri doulas give up wages to serve women on Medicaid. Legislators hope to fix that

Okunsola Amadou said formal conversations between doulas and the state around Medicaid reimbursements go back years.

Amadou is founder and CEO of Jamaa Birth Village in Ferguson, the oldest community-based doula organization in the St. Louis region.

In spring 2022, Amadou and Payne were among several people who co-authored a policy brief that highlighted the benefits of doulas on health outcomes and urging “innovation” to bring doulas to more women, particularly those with high-risk pregnancies.

“This policy brief was the trusted, evidence-based document that informed the entire state of Missouri on the importance of doulas,” Amadou said.

When the emergency rule was announced, Amadou said she finally breathed a sigh of relief.

She noted that while the emergency rule, which holds until a permanent plan is finalized, would not financially cover every woman who could benefit from a doula, organizations like Jamaa Birth Village and Uzazi Village will continue to offer scholarships programs for doula services as well.

“We will always back up our community where the state is still trying its best to answer the call,” she said. “ … We have to start somewhere, and I just want to applaud the state for starting somewhere.”

Christian King, a doula in Kansas City who in March told The Independent she had reduced or given up wages to provide services to women on Medicaid who couldn’t afford the assistance, said Monday the state just created a huge opportunity. 

“I hope that with government funding, our hospitals and health training institutions begin to welcome doulas,” King said. “But also respect us and allow us to support birthing persons and their families without a power struggle.”

The order came months after identical bills that would’ve allowed doulas registered with the state to be reimbursed through insurance died before the end of session. The legislation was filed by state Reps. Wendy Hausman, a Republican from St. Peters, and Jamie Johnson, a Democrat from Kansas City. 

Improving the state’s birth outcomes has been heralded as a bi-partisan issue.

In 2023, the Missouri legislature extended postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to one year. Several months after he signed the bill, Gov. Mike Parson called on the state to do more to improve birth outcomes, which he called “embarrassing and absolutely unacceptable.”

This story was updated at 11 a.m. to clarify the financial cost and timeline of the emergency rule, and to add comments from Okunsola Amadou, with Jamaa Birth Village in Ferguson.

A new survey of state chief information and security officers finds them better prepared to protect their networks from cyberattacks than four years earlier, but still worried about limited staff and resources (Bill Hinton/Getty Images).

Many state chief information and security officers say they don’t have the budget, resources, staff or expertise to feel fully confident in their ability to guard their government networks against cyber attacks, according to a new Deloitte & Touche survey of officials in all 50 states and D.C.

“The attack surface is expanding as state leaders’ reliance on information becomes increasingly central to the operation of government itself,” said Srini Subramanian, principal of Deloitte & Touche LLP and the company’s global government and public services consulting leader. “And CISOs have an increasingly challenging mission to make the technology infrastructure resilient against ever-increasing cyber threats.”

The biennial cybersecurity report, released today, outlined where new threats are coming from, and what vulnerabilities these teams have.

Governments are relying more on servers to store information, or transmit it through the Internet of Things, or connected sensor devices. Infrastructure for systems like transit and power is also heavily reliant on technology, and all of the connected online systems create more opportunities for attack.

The emergence of AI is also creating new ways for bad actors to exploit vulnerabilities, as it makes phishing scams and audio and visual deep fakes easier.

Deloitte found encouraging data that showed the role of state chief information and security officer has been prioritized in every state’s government tech team, and that statutes and legislation have been introduced in some states which give CISOs more authority.

In recent years, CISOs have taken on the vast majority of security management and operations, strategy, governance, risk management and incident response for their state, the report said.

But despite the growing weight on these roles, some of the CISOs surveyed said they do not have the resources needed to feel confident in their team’s ability to handle old and new cybersecurity threats.

Nearly 40% said they don’t have enough funds for projects that comply with regulatory or legal requirements, and nearly half said they don’t know what percent of their state’s IT budget is for cybersecurity.

Talent was another issue, with about half of CISOs saying they lacked cybersecurity staffing, and 31% saying there was an “inadequate availability” of professionals to complete these jobs. The survey does show that CISOs reported better staff competencies in 2024 compared to 2020, though.

Staffing of CISOs themselves, due to burnout, has been an increasing issue since the pandemic, the report found. Since the 2022 survey, Deloitte noted that nearly half of all states have had turnover in their chief security officers, and the median tenure is now 23 months, down from 30 months in the last survey.

When it came to generative AI, CISOs seemed to see both the opportunities and risks. Respondents listed generative AI as one of the newest threats to cybersecurity, with 71% saying they believe it poses a “high” threat; 41% of respondents said they don’t have confidence in their team to be able to handle them.

While they believe AI is a threat, many teams also reported using the technology to improve their security operations. Twenty one states are already using some form of AI, and 22 states will likely begin using it in the next year. As with with state legislation around AI, it’s being looked at on a case-by-case basis.

One CISO said in the report their team is “in discovery phase with an executive order to study the impact of gen AI on security in our state” while another said they have “established a committee that is reviewing use cases, policies, procedures, and best practices for gen AI.”

CISOs face these budgetary and talent restrictions while they aim to take on new threats and secure aging technology systems that leave them vulnerable.

The report laid out some tactics tech departments could use to navigate these challenges, including leaning on government partners, working creatively to boost budgets, diversifying their talent pipeline, continuing the AI policy conversations and promoting the CISOs role in digital transformation of government operations.

The White House has approved disaster declarations in North Carolina, Florida, South Carolina, Tennessee, Georgia, Virginia and Alabama, freeing up federal emergency management money and resources for those states (Sean Rayford/Getty Images).

WASHINGTON — President Joe Biden pledged Monday that the federal government would help people throughout the Southeast recover from the devastation of Hurricane Helene and its aftermath, and said he expects to ask Congress for emergency funding in the weeks ahead.

“I’m here to tell every single survivor in these impacted areas that we will be there with you as long as it takes,” Biden said in brief remarks from the  Roosevelt Room in the White House.

Biden said he plans to travel to North Carolina later this week, once his motorcade and other presidential travel requirements wouldn’t get in the way of recovery efforts. 

“I’m committed to traveling to impacted areas as soon as possible, but I’ve been told that it would be disruptive if I did it right now,” Biden said. “We will not do that at the risk of diverting or delaying any of the response assets needed to deal with this crisis.”

Biden said he didn’t know how much money his administration would request Congress provide for recovery efforts, but didn’t rule out asking lawmakers to return to Washington, D.C., before their six-week election recess ends on Nov. 12. Emergency declarations have been issued by Biden for the affected states, enabling disaster assistance.

Helene, which is on track to become one of the deadliest hurricanes in the country’s history, made landfall in Florida last week before leaving a trail of devastation and destruction in its wake. The Associated Press reported Monday the death toll has risen to at least 107, including 30 reported deaths in the North Carolina county that includes Asheville.

Residents throughout the Southeast, including those in Georgia, South Carolina, western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee were hit by some of the worst flooding and wind damage.

Many communities are completely destroyed and lack access to clean drinking water, functioning grocery stores, electricity and cell phone service.

Roads and bridges that should have allowed residents to drive to pick up supplies, or stay with friends or family, have been completely washed out by the hurricane, leaving many people stranded without necessities.

The high water also destroyed many people’s homes and vehicles, making disaster recovery even more complicated throughout the region, but especially in rural areas where people often live far away from town.

Senators appeal for help

North Carolina Republican Sen. Thom Tillis posted on social media Sunday afternoon that the state is in desperate need of assistance.

“Entire communities in Western North Carolina have no power, no cell service, and remain in severe danger from flooding,” Tillis wrote. “First responders (are) doing the best they can with what they have, but the devastation is incomprehensible. WNC needs all the help it can get and it needs it now.”

North Carolina Republican Sen. Ted Budd released a written statement Saturday after a call with the Federal Emergency Management Agency, North Carolina Emergency Management, the National Weather Service and the American Red Cross.

“It is clear that the damage in Western North Carolina is catastrophic,” Budd wrote. “There is no doubt that the road to recovery will be long and difficult, but we will marshal all available resources to assist the region, including public, private, and charitable. We are all in this together.”

Georgia Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff released a statement Sunday that he’d surveyed storm damage and spoken with FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell.

The statement said Ossoff “discussed the importance of communicating to Georgians the full range of recovery resources and programs that will be available upon the State’s completion of damage assessments.”

Florida Republican Rep. Kat Cammack said on C-SPAN on Monday that the hurricane not only destroyed people’s homes and businesses but devastated farms throughout the region.

“The agricultural damage there is tremendous,” Cammack said. “They saw winds of nearly 100 miles an hour. And so we’re looking at catastrophic losses inland as well as on the coast. It’s really devastating.”

Corn sprouts in long rows in Wichita County, Kansas. With farm incomes on the decline, agricultural groups say a new federal Farm Bill is a must. (Allison Kite/Kansas Reflector)

The cost of fertilizer is up; crop prices are down. Farmers have struggled through drought, and ranchers sold off huge swaths of their herd. 

To top it all off, Congress has yet to pass a new iteration of the Farm Bill, which expires in a matter of days. And it likely won’t take action on the wide-ranging legislation, which offers everything from nutritional assistance to farm disaster recovery aid, until late this year.

The slow action on the legislation isn’t unusual, but as farm income continues to slide, producers are struggling to make ends meet. Tim Gibbons, communications director for the Missouri Rural Crisis Center, noted it currently costs more to raise a bushel of corn than farmers make when they sell it.

The prices farmers receive for major grain crops such as corn and soybeans are down 20 to 40% from highs set in 2022 in the months after Russia invaded Ukraine, according to U.S. Department of Agriculture data. But that spike was an aberration, Gibbons said.

“We haven’t had really high prices for decades … that really support farmers over the long term,” Gibbons said, “so that not only can they stay on the farm, but pass that farm on to the next generations.” 

Researchers at the University of Missouri expect farm income to drop by 35% by next year, compared to a high in 2022. While they still expect income to remain above what farmers saw between 2015 and 2020, it’s a steep drop. 

“Farmers will have a tighter situation … than they experienced in the last three years, and they’ll have to be much more cognizant about having a very strategic marketing plan in order to make a good cash flow,” said Bob Maltsburger, a senior research economist at the Food & Agricultural Policy Research Institute at the university. 

The “bleak” state of the farm economy — as U.S. Sen. Jerry Moran, a Kansas Republican, put it — has agricultural groups and heartland lawmakers clamoring for an updated Farm Bill. But partisan gridlock in Washington, D.C., and tension over what programs to prioritize in the enormous bill have made it difficult for lawmakers to find common ground. 

“We need a Farm Bill in place,” Moran said on the Senate floor earlier this month, “even if it’s the current one, but the current one is insufficient to meet the needs of the disaster that is occurring in the incomes of farmers across the country.”

The Farm Bill, the primary vehicle for food and agriculture policy in the U.S., expires Monday. While some of its banner programs — including crop insurance and nutrition assistance — will continue even if the legislation lapses, lawmakers and farm groups have said it’s essential to get assistance to struggling farmers. Moran urged colleagues to extend the existing Farm Bill while a more thorough rewrite is still pending.

Competing for funds

The Farm Bill’s single largest chunk of spending — about 75% — supports a variety of programs to combat food insecurity, including the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, commonly known as “food stamps.” Its other banner programs include crop insurance and support for farmers when crop prices are low. The legislation also provides funds to encourage conservation and more sustainable farming. 

Prominent in this year’s debate is how to permanently increase spending on conservation and climate-friendly practices. Congress previously provided $20 billion through the Inflation Reduction Act, passed in 2023, to help farmers plant cover crops and trees; alternate grazing and resting grassland and restore wetlands. 

Andrew Lentz, who leads agriculture policy for the Environmental Defense Fund, said that funding helped more farmers participate in historically underfunded conservation programs. He said his organization hopes Congress takes advantage of the “huge opportunity” to make those funding levels permanent. 

While Democrats want to ensure those funds are spent on practices that reduce greenhouse gas emissions from agriculture, those requirements weren’t supported in the Republican-controlled U.S. House committee. 

“If Congress is able to do that,” Lentz said, “they’ll be able to maintain these elevated funding levels and also maintain the climate focus of those funds in order to address the root causes of climate change and…help farmers tap new markets for lower carbon agricultural goods.” 

But Jennifer Ifft, an associate professor at Kansas State University, said Congress can’t increase the federal deficit when it passes a new Farm Bill, creating tension between lawmakers over how to prioritize programs. Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives supported increasing funding for the farm safety net, which supports farmers when crop prices are low.

That’s hard enough to do this year, Ifft said, but it will be even more difficult to pull off next year with crop prices projected to keep declining, increasing the cost of the safety net.

“It’s probably not going to get easier to compromise,” Ifft said.

The House Republican version of the bill also cuts $30 billion from nutrition assistance, a nonstarter with Democrats. 

U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow, a Michigan Democrat and chair of the Senate Committee on Agriculture, called that bill and Senate Republicans’ “framework” for a Farm Bill “flawed,” noting it cuts the nutrition budget and “walks away from the progress we have made to address the climate crisis.”

Gibbons said the conversation is missing better options to help with crop prices. He argues managing supply and adjusting decisions to meet market needs is a lower-cost alternative to ensure farmers get a fair price for their crops. But that’s not part of the policy discussions, he said. 

“The fight,” Gibbons said, “is once again over, ‘How hard are we going to make it for hungry people in need to get food,’”

Emily Wright picks flowers growing safely in a garden tunnel Sept. 17 at Three Creeks Farm and Forest in Ashland. Wright saves the tunnels for high value crops such as these flowers, tomatoes and peppers, which are watered through drip irrigation and micro overhead sprinklers. (Cory W. MacNeil/Columbia Missourian)

On harvest days at Three Creeks Farm and Forest in the Missouri River valley, farm owner Emily Wright and her staff collect three varieties of leafy greens from the field.

Two staff members cut the lettuce close to the root, fan the leaves across their hands checking for bugs or wilts, and toss them in a bright orange basket. From there the greens are washed, packed and driven to town for delivery at local restaurants and grocery stores.

Wright co-owns and manages the farm with her partner Paul Weber, who moonlights as a touring musician. They have been growing fruits, vegetables, herbs and flowers for nine seasons in a diversified market garden style farm in the Missouri River hills. Additionally, two thirds of their 15-acre farm is a forest.

“I think of it as sort of my long-term outdoor ecological experiment,” she said.

Wright and Weber plant perennials such as fiddlehead ferns and wild leeks throughout the forest. They also grow native trees including paw paws along the forest edge, allowing them to cross pollinate with and be protected by the more mature trees.

Wright calls the smorgasbord of vegetables, fruits, shrubs and trees on Three Creeks Farm and Forest “complex and chaotic” and said the crops benefit by growing among each other.

“I feel like I’ve witnessed an explosion of biodiversity in the past couple of years,” Wright said. “I mostly see it in insect populations, but I also feel like I’ve noticed new bird species and lots more amphibians and reptiles and just generally a lot of life in this valley.”

Operating a farm within its natural ecosystem is a tenet of regenerative agriculture — a movement that aims to revive farmland soils and by extension diverse farms and rural communities.

With climate change threatening farmland and the farm economy, people are looking to regenerative agriculture as a new way forward, specifically using perennial crops that don’t require the intensive annual tillage, planting, fertilizing and harvesting of conventional commodities.

Tim Crews is the chief scientist at The Land Institute in Salina, Kansas, and said many of the commodity crops we eat — corn, rice, barley, oats — are annual.

“Annuals require the termination of all vegetation on the landscape for them to have a chance,” he said. “If you do that on massive landscapes year after year after year, you get soil degradation.”

The Land Institute scientists have been working on sustainable agriculture research and education across the Midwest and Great Plains for decades. They’re developing perennial grains that aren’t as hard on the environment as annuals. Crews said row crops take an environmental toll over time.

“They have no capacity to retain nutrients. Their microbial communities are much less functional than those that exist in mature grasslands or forests,” Crews said. “It’s such a compromised ecosystem.”

But if more perennial crops existed, he said, they could break the food system’s dependency on annual crops and transform farms into something more akin to a natural ecosystem, like a forest.

Regenerative agriculture aims to, in part through perennials, breathe life into depleted soils while also reducing the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides, which can have negative environmental consequences.

“The regenerative capacity of perennials is kind of unmatched … there’s economic advantages, there’s lifestyle advantages, there’s wildlife advantages,” Crews said.

Combining farm and forest

There is much to be harvested from trees and shrubs, like nuts or berries, and there are many soil health and ecosystem benefits of having them on the farm.

“Agroforestry is basically offering kind of a toolkit for being able to incorporate some of that ecological design onto a landscape,” said Zack Miller, preserve engagement manager with The Nature Conservancy in Missouri.

The organization is conducting ecosystem restorations across the state. Miller is coordinating a 164-acre agroforestry demonstration project at the Missouri River Center — the former site of riverfront bar and restaurant Katfish Katy’s.

The long-term goal of the project is to both connect people to the Missouri River and its ecosystems and to serve as a living agroforestry laboratory to “demonstrate what these systems could look like and be able to demonstrate their economic returns, how farmers might be able to implement different strategies,” Miller said.

Trees, shrubs and perennials can be integrated sporadically into conventional farms through alley cropping, prairie strips, wind breaks, hedge rows and more. But for agroforestry to be successful, Miller said we’ll have to get used to a messier kind of farm.

“Looking across landscapes and seeing how we have it divvied up and this chunk is for growing this one plant, this chunk is for growing something else,” he said. “But of course, ecosystems don’t function that way. There are no clear borders.”

Three Creeks Farm and Forest intentionally planted perennials with culinary or floral purposes that allow them to sell berries, nuts and fresh cut flowers to groceries and restaurants. Wright also planted a row of smokebush, a perennial shrub, with a dual purpose as a windbreak — blocking dust that gets kicked up from their gravel road.

Wright said she sees plenty of opportunity across the Midwest for conventional row crop farms to incorporate more diverse products in their operations.

“Just carving off those odd little corners that don’t fit the giant industrial tractors and … converting those to vegetable production would have a huge impact on the amount of food that’s being supplied locally,” she said.

Miller said that due to the amount of inputs required — fertilizer, fuel and equipment — the row crop commodity farming that made Midwestern agriculture so bountiful is no longer working.

Biodiversity has plummeted, and so has the ability to make a living in agriculture, Miller said.

“It’s like very simple to say, but the answer to many of our problems is diversity,” he said.

Wright understands how some farmers, due to the pressures of policy and markets, get stuck in a rigid structure.

“There’s not a lot of room for experimentation or adaptation,” she said.

But by operating a small, diverse operation like Three Creeks Farm and Forest, experimentation and adaptation never stops. Wright and Weber recently added fermentation business to the farm, which allows them to offer sauerkraut, pickles and okra to local restaurants.

“One of the reasons that farming is really attractive and engaging for me is just the learning curve never drops off,” Wright said. “It’s like, as soon as we get the hang of things and it gets even the tiniest bit boring, we add something.”

Diversification has not only helped Wright’s farm environmentally, but also economically.

“We don’t really qualify for crop insurance programs so diversification is kind of our insurance, because we do have crop failures every year,” she said.

“We kind of just accept that while one thing might go awry, another thing is going to be flourishing, and that both maintains our livelihood, but also maintains morale.”

This article has been republished from the Columbia Missourian. Read the original article here. 

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Attendees cheer during a Missourians for Constitutional Freedom rally on May 3, after the campaign turned in 380,000 signatures for its initiative petition (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

One of my 6-year-olds was on the swings when a man approached and handed me a flier from Missouri Right to Life PAC titled “10 Reasons to Oppose the Pro-Abortion Initiative Petition.”

The man told me that if Amendment 3, the ballot initiative that would end Missouri’s current abortion ban, passes in November, women will be having abortions at nine months, there will be no safety regulations, and women harmed won’t be able to sue for malpractice.

“Sir, this isn’t true,” I told him.

I was breaking the rule of “don’t engage when approached by an abortion opponent” that had been drilled into me when I volunteered collecting signatures to get the initiative on the ballot.

I didn’t tell him that I was familiar with his flier and had written a point-by-point debunking of it. I did try to explain that Amendment 3 only protects abortion up until viability or when the patient is endangered, but that even the restrictions Amendment 3 allows on later abortion are unnecessary. Women who don’t want to be pregnant want to have abortions as early as possible, while would-be parents who have complications far into wanted pregnancies need time to figure out what to do.

I told him my story – that an abortion restriction had almost resulted in my kid on the swings not having a twin brother. When I was pregnant in New York in 2017, there was an inflexible 24-week cutoff in place that nearly forced us to terminate one fetus to save the other before the severity of an anomaly could be known. We fought through that and today have two healthy kids, but other aspiring parents were not so fortunate before New York reformed its law in 2019.

“I’m glad you didn’t kill your baby,” the man said.

I was stunned. I know how proponents of abortion criminalization see women like me, but it’s different to have someone tell you to your face.

When he’d first come up to me, I’d asked him the question I always wish I had the opportunity to ask of “reasonable” conservatives who think criminalizing abortion is reasonable: if abortion is wrong, why can’t you convince women of that? Why do you need to use the law to force a woman to carry a pregnancy to term against her will?

I think about this question even more than I used to since the news that abortions have increased since the fall of Roe.

Someone who does not want to be pregnant will walk over hot coals to end her pregnancy. A ban can punish her with having to travel out of state for a later abortion that is more invasive, medically involved, and expensive. It can make her stay pregnant, which for some of us means very ill, for weeks. A ban can take her away from her kids, job, school. Or force her to have a legally gray self-managed medication abortion without local medical support.

The Amendment 3 opponents have to know that they are making life more difficult and dangerous for women who need abortions without stopping them for the most part. Yet, they march on, vilifying women who need later abortions in the quest to keep it impossible to have an early one in this state.

The man answered my question as to why we should be forced to continue pregnancies unwillingly, no matter how early, with an honesty that I haven’t heard from the anti-Amendment 3 campaign: “Because it’s a human being.”

This is something Right to Life, Jay Ashcroft, Andrew Bailey, Mary Elizabeth Coleman, Mike Kehoe et al prefer not to state so plainly in defense of Missouri’s current abortion ban. Instead, they keep coming up with new ridiculous interpretations of Amendment 3 in an attempt to portray it as extreme, no matter how many times the courts explain these claims are unfounded.

They tweet, write up fliers, and file lawsuits alleging dental hygienists will be performing abortions, human cloning will be legal and malpractice laws won’t apply. Horrible women will stay pregnant for nine months only to demand abortions “the very last second that the last toenail leaves the birth canal,” as Ashcroft put it in an evocative encapsulation of their contempt for women who have abortions.

I am telling you now: they don’t believe the things they are saying about Amendment 3 and this will be proven as soon as it becomes law. They will flip flop completely (just like their compatriots in Ohio did) in order to argue that Amendment 3 actually does next to nothing to bar them from enacting and enforcing the kind of endless obstacles that made it nearly impossible to have an abortion in Missouri even before the Dobbs decision.

They make up these wild stories about what Amendment 3 will do in order to obscure what they do believe but don’t say as straightforwardly as the man on the playground: from “the moment of conception” the state of Missouri must be able to dictate what happens to a potential life rather than its potential mother. Once an egg is fertilized I am just “a birth canal.” I am a container that cannot be trusted to decide whether or not to bring a child into the world, and must be forced to do so.

And if the law causes harm or even death to the container, that is unfortunate but justifiable in service to the higher purpose of protecting potential life.

After the man walked away, my son got off the swing and asked, “Mom, why were you talking to that man for so long?”

Good question, kiddo. It was foolish to think I might convince him that I am a human being, too.

The Department of Justice on Friday unsealed an indictment detailing a yearslong hacking scheme by Iran that targeted the 2024 presidential campaign of former President Donald Trump. In this photo, Trump speaks on May 28, 2022 in Casper, Wyoming. (Chet Strange/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — U.S. law enforcement on Friday announced charges against three Iranians who allegedly stole materials from former President Donald Trump’s campaign and tried to pass them to news media and Democrats in an attempt to influence the 2024 election.

The Department of Justice unsealed the indictment detailing a yearslong hacking scheme by Iran that targeted the email accounts of U.S. government officials, journalists, think tank experts, and most recently the 2024 presidential campaigns.

“The defendants’ own words make clear that they were attempting to undermine former President Trump’s campaign in advance of the 2024 U.S. presidential election,” Attorney General Merrick Garland said at a Friday press conference. Prosecutors believe the defendants acted from Iran and were never in the U.S.

“We know that Iran is continuing its brazen efforts to stoke discord, erode confidence in the U.S. electoral process and advance its malign activities for the (Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps), a designated foreign terrorist organization,” Garland said.

The unsealed indictment in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia came three days after Trump’s campaign revealed the former president was briefed by the U.S. intelligence officials about “real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him,” according to a statement Tuesday from Steven Cheung, the campaign’s communications director.

“Big threats on my life by Iran,” Trump, the Republican presidential nominee, posted on X Wednesday. Trump suggested at a campaign stop in Mint Hill, North Carolina, that Iran could be responsible for two assassination attempts on him.

The U.S. Office of the Director of National Intelligence has not published a statement on the matter. Its most recent press release focuses on the Iranian plot to hack Trump’s campaign.

‘It takes two to tango’ 

Global politics continued to top the U.S. presidential election headlines Friday when Trump welcomed Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to Trump Tower after announcing the invitation late Thursday at a meandering press conference where he promised, if elected, to strike a peace deal between Ukraine and Russia “quite quickly.”

The pair met behind closed doors in Trump’s New York City skyscraper on the sidelines of this week’s United Nations General Assembly, and one day after Zelenskyy traveled to Washington to meet with Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, President Joe Biden and bipartisan lawmakers.

“After November we have to decide, and we hope that the strengths of the United States will be very strong, and we count on it. That’s why I decided to meet with both candidates,” Zelenskyy said during brief joint comments alongside Trump ahead of the meeting.

Trump, who refused during a live presidential debate to say whether he wanted Ukraine to win its war with Russia, detoured from that stance and hinted Friday that he wants a victory for the Western ally.

“I think the fact that we’re even together today is a very good sign, and hopefully we’ll have a good victory, because (if) the other side wins, I don’t think you’re gonna have victories with anything to be honest with you,” Trump said during the joint remarks.

During the exchange, Trump highlighted his “very good relationship” with Putin and said he could settle the war “very quickly.”

“But you know, it takes two to tango,” he said.

Harris at the border

Harris traveled to the U.S. southern border Friday to stump for a bipartisan border security deal that collapsed in early 2024 shortly after Trump publicly lambasted it.

Harris was scheduled to deliver what her campaign billed as a major speech in the border town of Douglas, Arizona, where she planned to talk about setting and enforcing new immigration rules at the border, according to a senior campaign official.

“Donald Trump cares more about self-interest than solutions. He wants a problem to run on, not a fix for the American people,”  Harris campaign spokesperson Ammar Moussa said in a statement Friday.

“When he was president, Trump created chaos at the border, taking our already broken immigration system and making it worse – leaving behind a mess for the Biden-Harris administration to clean up. Americans deserve a president who puts national security over their own self-interest – that’s Kamala Harris,” the statement continued.

Trump is attacking Harris over border crossings into the U.S. — his central campaign issue — and calling her by the dishonest nickname “border czar” and claiming she caused the “worst border crisis in the history of the world.”

“When you look at the four years that have taken place after being named ‘border czar,’ Kamala Harris will be visiting the southern border that she has completely destroyed,” Trump said at his Thursday press conference.

Biden, in February 2021, tasked Harris with strategizing ways to fight the “root cause” of migration from Central American countries, including economic insecurity, government corruption and gender-based violence.

Trump has historically painted with a broad brush the complex issue of immigration at the U.S. southern border, announcing his first presidential campaign in 2015 by describing Mexican immigrants as “rapists.” During his own presidency in 2018 he warned of immigrant “caravans” crossing into the U.S. from Mexico. He has promised mass deportations if elected in November.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security publicly releases numbers of border encounters, apprehensions and expulsions.

Back on the trail

The presidential and vice presidential candidates are scheduled to make the following appearances:

• Harris will deliver a speech in Douglas, Arizona, Friday.
• Trump is scheduled to deliver remarks in Walker, Michigan Friday, followed by a town hall in Warren, Michigan.
• Trump is expected to attend the Alabama-Georgia football game on Saturday in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama, as confirmed by States Newsroom last week.
• Not to be outdone on the college football scene, Harris’ running mate Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz is scheduled to attend the Michigan-Minnesota football game Saturday in Ann Arbor, Michigan.
• Harris will head to Las Vegas, Nevada, Sunday for a campaign rally.
• Trump will also host a rally Sunday, this time in Erie, Pennsylvania.

(Getty Images).

A rural Missouri fire district near Kansas City committed so many violations of the Missouri Sunshine Law that listing them separately wasn’t the best way to present them, attorney Jim Layton told Western District Court of Appeals during oral arguments.

Under questioning from Presiding Judge Thomas Chapman, Layton said he counted 46 violations committed in 11 meetings of the Western Cass Fire Protection board. The appeal brief gives a narrative of events, seeking to show a multiplicity of violations at any particular meeting, rather than individually enumerated violations for each meeting.

“We have to look at it and weigh the evidence in each one of these instances, and it just seems like it kind of was a shotgun approach on these,” Chapman said.

The nature of the appeal led to the format he chose, Layton said. Cass County Circuit Judge R. Michael Wagner entered a judgment against his client, Citizens for Transparency and Accountability, when he concluded his portion of the case during a June 2023 trial.

Wagner didn’t give any reasons for his decision in his judgment. The appeal is of that single act, so a narrative is the correct format, Layton said.

“I will confess that I struggled with how to draft points relied on in this case as much as I ever have on an appeal because of the nature of how this was decided below,” Layton said.

Wednesday’s hearing at the appeals court is just the latest round in battles, in and out of court, involving the fire district, based in Cleveland, that serves about 2,600 homes. The battling factions of the board have made numerous headlines, and the appeal drew the attention of three important voices for open government.

Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office, the Missouri Press Association and the Freedom Center of Missouri all wrote briefs urging the court to overturn the trial court. The issues involved are some of the most fundamental aspects of what constitutes proper notice of a meeting, how much can be added to an agenda after it is posted, and what information must be presented about an item to be considered.

“If you can obscure the matters that are actually going to be discussed and decided at a public meeting, then you can kind of slip under the public’s radar and address matters that otherwise members of the public would very much like to have input,” said Dave Roland, litigation director of the Freedom Center of Missouri.

An example from the Western Cass case is the Aug. 3, 2022, meeting, where the notice included an item called “special considerations,” with no more detail. What board members Kerri VanMeveren and Darvin Schildknecht didn’t know, and found out only when the agenda item was reached that evening, was that “special considerations” meant booting them off the board.

“I asked at the start of the meeting, before we adopted the agenda, ‘can you please explain what special considerations mean?’” VanMeveren said in an interview with The Independent. Board president “John Webb would not answer the question. And I kept saying, ‘I think the public has a right to know,’ and he just would not answer it.”

Defending the judgment on Wednesday, attorney Aaron Racine told the court that any violations that may have occurred were inadvertent, due to inexperience of new members.

Judge Alok Ahuja was skeptical of that as he looked at the Aug. 3, 2022, meeting agenda.

“What does special considerations mean?” he asked. “Special considerations of weather? Special considerations of finances? Special considerations of personnel?”

Even the phrasing of particular agenda items can be traced to inexperience, Racine said.

“I think those are the mitigating or exigent circumstances, and that you had an inexperienced board trying to comply with the law,” he said.

Origins of the dispute

VanMeveren won election to the district Board of Directors in 2020, running for the position after a brush fire spread onto her property in 2018 and she felt the tactics employed showed poor training.

“It was just kind of a clown show,” VanMeveren said.

When she became district treasurer, she said, she found that tax rates for a bond issue had been improperly calculated, bringing in excessive revenue.

A state auditor’s report in 2021, prepared in response to a residents’ petition, found problems with bidding procedures, budget information and Sunshine Law compliance. VanMeveren recruited new board members, including John Webb, a conservative Republican who unsuccessfully challenged then-U.S. Rep. Vicky Hartzler several times in the 4th Congressional District GOP primary. 

But she and Webb were soon battling over issues that included payroll expenses for contractors and a contract for lawn care at the firehouse, the Kansas City Star reported. In the late summer and early fall of 2022, three departments in Belton, Dolan-West Dolan and West Peculiar canceled their mutual aid agreements.

VanMeveren resigned as treasurer in May 2022 but remained on the board. A lawsuit was filed by the board to oust her and Schildknecht. It was dismissed when a recall effort began that succeeded in removing VanMeveren and Schildknecht in August 2023.

VanMeveren and Schildknecht formed Citizens for Transparency and Accountability and filed a countersuit, the case now in the hands of the Western District Court of Appeals.

They testified in the spring in favor of a bill that gives the State Auditor new power to investigate wrongdoing in local government. Instead of a time-consuming petition process, the auditor can now open a full audit if investigation of a complaint shows problems that require more attention. 

And the cost of the audit would be borne by the auditor’s office instead of taxpayers in the political subdivision being examined.

The new power is an important tool to help taxpayers, Schildknecht testified in a Missouri House hearing. 

“Over the years some people who come on the board who do want to try and do the right things, but I have also seen others who realize there is no outside agencies monitoring fire districts and take advantage of this, knowing there is nobody watching that they follow the laws,” he said.

The meaning of “tentative”

Widespread issues the case will address brought amicus, or friend of the court, briefs from the attorney general’s office, the press association and the Freedom Center of Missouri.

“Several issues raised in this appeal are brought to this office’s attention with increasing frequency in complaints filed by citizens against local public governmental bodies, in question-and-answer sessions during training programs, and phone call inquiries from the public and public governmental bodies,” Assistant Attorney General Jason Lewis wrote. “Unfortunately, many of these issues have not yet been conclusively addressed by Missouri’s appellate courts.”

Those questions include what an agenda must have when a meeting notice is posted and what can be added later.

“All public governmental bodies shall give notice of the time, date, and place of each meeting, and its tentative agenda, in a manner reasonably calculated to advise the public of the matters to be considered,” the law states. 

The fire district board used the word tentative in the broadest sense. At one meeting in November 2022, Layton’s appeal brief states, the board approved “a contract for a medical director; creating and sending a newsletter throughout the district; adopting a program that would allow firefighters to reside at the fire station; changing the bid solicitation for one of the fire stations; an insurance rider for proof of loss; barring one director from taking photographs at the fire station; having and paying for a party; and purchasing a generator battery.”

None of those items were on the agenda.

No violation occurred when items were added, Racine told the judges.

“Tentative means what tentative means, and absent some statutory or court guidance as to what tentative means, we have to look to its plain meaning, which is subject to change going forward,” Racine said.

All three of the amicus briefs argued that tentative means subject to change for unforeseen reasons, such as a storm that prevents the meeting from being held or the absence of someone essential that prevents an item from being considered.

It cannot mean that new items can be added at will because the public, and their watchdogs, deserve full notice of the items to be considered, attorney Jean Maneke wrote for the press association.

“Reporters recognize that they cannot be everywhere at once and the agenda gives them the information they need to make the best use of their time,” Maneke wrote. “Like the public, the reporters rely on the agenda to inform them regarding which activities/issues will be addressed at each public meeting.”

Other meeting notice issues the appeal addresses are the amount of information that must be provided. Fire district notices often gave the least possible information, appellants argue, such as a resolution number and no other details under the heading “Banking” on the July 20, 2022, meeting.

During the same meeting, while on the agenda item with the heading “reports,” the board adopted changes to the duties of some personnel without any indication that was the intent.

“It’s crucial that public governmental bodies not be able to shoehorn in agenda items at the last minute, and that’s why they need to provide an acceptable level of specificity when it comes to what they’re going to be considering and voting on,” Roland said.

The attorney general’s brief also argues that notices must provide details that show the intent of the action. 

“That means that a public governmental body cannot hide an elephant in a mouse hole by using vague or excessively broad terms to hide what the body intends to do,” Lewis wrote. “The tentative agenda must be specific enough for the public to be able to make an informed decision about whether to attend the meeting.”

The court could create a test that would help agencies in the preparation of meeting notices and agendas, Lewis wrote.

“The Attorney General’s Office is eager for resolution of these issues at the appellate level,” Lewis wrote, “which will provide both this office and the public with significant guidance in resolving citizens’ Sunshine Law complaints, providing education to local public governmental bodies, and seeking enforcement when appropriate.”

With many 2017 tax cuts expiring and cost of living a major challenge for Americans, tax policy has become a central issue in the 2024 presidential campaign. (Phillip Rubino/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — With the clock ticking on former President Donald Trump’s signature 2017 tax law, and high housing, food and child care costs darkening Americans’ mood, tax cuts have become the star of the 2024 presidential contest between Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.

Trump wants to overall extend his tax provisions beyond the 2025 expiration date and then some, promising to lower the corporate tax rate even further and lift the cap on the state and local taxes deduction.

He argues the loss in federal revenue will be made up by imposing steep tariffs on imported goods.

Tariff is a “beautiful word,” he told a crowd in Savannah, Georgia, Tuesday night, “one of the most beautiful words I’ve ever heard.”

“We will take in hundreds of billions of dollars into our treasury and use that money to benefit the American citizens,” he said.

Harris is running on an “opportunity economy” platform that keeps the Biden administration’s promises to not raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 and enact a “billionaire” tax.

The vice president has also vowed to give tax deductions and credits to budding entrepreneurs and first-time homebuyers, and permanently expand the Child Tax Credit.

“Under my plan, more than 100 million Americans will get a middle-class tax break that includes $6,000 for new parents during the first year of their child’s life,” Harris said Wednesday at a campaign speech in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Whoever wins the Oval Office will need a cooperative Congress to enact these policies — with the exception of tariffs, over which the president enjoys wide latitude.

What would it cost?

The barrage of proposals has kept economists busy with near-constant and evolving analyses of how much the tax cut promises would add to the nation’s ballooning federal deficit and change the economy.

Both candidates’ plans come with a price tag in the trillions of dollars, though Trump’s is the more expensive of the two.

Models released in late August by the Penn Wharton Budget Model project Trump’s plan would add up to $5.8 trillion to the deficit over 10 years, while Harris’ plan would increase the deficit by up to $2 trillion over the same time period.

“I think that both candidates are missing the mark when it comes to fiscal responsibility and economic responsibility,” the Tax Foundation’s Erica York told States Newsroom in an interview Monday.

“Neither of them have really outlined a plan that would get us on a sustainable path in terms of debt and deficits, nor that would boost growth and opportunity in the economy. Both are likely to have a negative impact on the economy,” said York, senior economist and research director for the foundation, which generally favors lower taxes.

Promise: No taxes on tips, overtime

Trump, followed by Harris, has proposed to nix taxes on tipped workers — though Harris has suggested limiting the benefit to workers in the service and hospitality industries who earn less than $75,000.

She has also said the tax break would not apply to payroll taxes, meaning the contribution workers pay toward Social Security and Medicare. Trump has not detailed any limits on his proposal for tipped workers.

Economists across the board warn Trump’s plan could incentivize more tipped work. They also question whether Trump and Harris’ proposals would actually benefit low-income workers.

After all, tax benefits for lower income workers who have children phase in as the person earns income. Reporting less income means those taxpayers could ultimately see less help from the Child Tax Credit or the Earned Income Tax Credit.

“If you work and you report income, you get these provisions. But if you don’t, you don’t get these provisions. Well, you add exemptions into the tax code that reduces the amount of earned income that you report to the IRS, you could potentially reduce the value of these credits for very low-income households,” Kyle Pomerleau, senior fellow at the conservative-leaning American Enterprise Institute, told States Newsroom in an interview Monday.

For instance, a tipped worker who has one child and earns $24,000 annually, half of which comes from tips, could see a $300 decrease in refundable tax credits under this policy, Pomerleau and senior AEI fellows Alex Brill and Stan Veuger wrote in August.

The same principle for lower income taxpayers applies to Trump’s recent promise to eliminate taxes on overtime.

“There could be a negative effect there, depending on how this is structured,” Pomerleau said Monday.

The nonpartisan watchdog Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates an elimination of taxes on all overtime would cost the country $1.7 trillion in lost revenue over 10 years. With no guardrails preventing workers switching from salaried to hourly, the price tag could reach up to $6 trillion in the most extreme case, CRFB estimates.

Promise: No taxes on Social Security

Economists monitoring the nation’s Social Security coffers continue to sound alarm bells on the program’s solvency — with little reaction on the campaign trail.

The fund that provides money to senior citizens and people with disabilities is on track to be depleted by 2035, and recipients would face an immediate 17% cut in benefits, as the Tax Foundation’s Alex Durante wrote Tuesday.

Trump has mentioned Social Security during campaign rallies and on his social media platform, but in the context of eliminating taxes on the benefit payments.

While low-income recipients do not pay taxes on their benefits, others do and are projected to contribute $94 billion this year back into the fund.

Nixing those taxes could speed up Social Security’s insolvency by one year, according to an analysis by the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Promise: New corporate tax rates and tariffs

Trump’s 2017 Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which cleared Congress strictly along party lines, permanently lowered the top corporate tax rate to 21% from 35%.

Harris has vowed, if elected, she will bump the rate up to 28%. Analyses from the CFRB, the Tax Foundation, Penn Wharton and the Yale Budget Lab estimate the increase would raise roughly $1 trillion to $1.2 trillion in federal revenue over the next decade.

The former president wants to cut the rate even further to 15%, a level not seen in the U.S. since the 1930s. Economists estimate the cut would reduce revenue anywhere from $460 billion to $673 billion over 10 years.

“Here is the deal that I will be offering to every major company and manufacturer on Earth: I will give you the lowest taxes, the lowest energy costs, the lowest regulatory burden and free access to the best and biggest market on the planet, but only if you make your product here in America,” Trump said in Georgia Tuesday.

Trump has big plans for products imported into the U.S. He’s planning to impose up to 20% tariffs on most imports, reaching as high as 60% on Chinese goods and 100% on countries that turn away from the U.S. dollar.

That could cost the typical American household about $2,600 a year as costs on consumer goods would shift to the customer, particularly affecting those with lower incomes, according to economists Kimberly Clausing and Mary Lovely at the Peterson Institute for International Economics.

Speaking at a farming roundtable in Pennsylvania Monday, Trump publicly warned John Deere that if the company moves manufacturing to Mexico, he’ll impose a 200% tariff on tractors coming back over the border.

Experts warn another downside is that the policy invites foreign retaliation.

“So if we are, say, exporting Kentucky bourbon to China, China may say, well, to retaliate for the 60% tax on imports, we’re going to place taxes on this export, and that’s going to have a direct impact on the incomes of Americans and make us poorer,” Pomerleau said.

Promise: A billionaire tax

A familiar refrain from Harris and the Biden administration is that billionaires and wealthy corporations should pay their “fair share.”

The U.S. individual tax rate already progresses with an earner’s income, meaning that the higher your income, the higher your tax rate.

Both Harris and Trump want to keep individual tax rates that were lowered across the board in the 2017 law, but Harris is seeking to increase taxes on long-term capital gains, and levy a minimum tax on unrealized capital gains for very high earners.

For those earning upwards of $1 million a year, Harris proposed raising taxes to 28%, up from 20%, on profits made from the sale of an asset, like stocks, bonds, or real estate, that have been held by the owner for more than a year.

The vice president also proposes quadrupling the stock buyback tax to 4%, up from 1%.

For ultra-wealthy households that have more than $100 million in assets, Harris follows Biden in proposing a 25% tax rate — sometimes referred to as the “billionaire tax.”

Those high-wealth individuals would need to calculate their regular income tax liability and compare it to their total net worth, meaning income plus unrealized capital gains, multiplied by 25%.

“Whichever is greater you pay,” Pomerleau explains. “So if you are in a situation where you have a low effective tax rate relative to this broader definition of income, the minimum tax will kick in and you’ll start paying increments.”

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates the plan could raise $750 billion in revenue over ten years.

Promise: No SALT cap

Ahead of a mid-September campaign rally on Long Island, New York, Trump pledged to abandon the cap in his 2017 law on the state and local tax deduction — simply known in tax parlance as SALT.

As the law stands now, taxpayers can only deduct up to $10,000 of their state and local tax bill from their federal tax liability.

A full SALT deduction is more valuable for higher income taxpayers, and prior to the 2017 cap, 91% of taxpayers who claimed it lived in California, New York, New Jersey, Illinois, Texas and Pennsylvania, according to an analysis by the Tax Foundation.

Eliminating the cap would cut taxes by an average of more than $140,000 for the highest earning 0.1% of households, according to modeling by the Tax Policy Center, a collaboration between the left-leaning Urban Institute and Brookings Institution.

The Committee for a Responsible Budget estimates the move could cost $1.2 trillion over a ten-year budget window.

An employee adds a stack of mail-in ballots to a machine that automatically places the ballots Wednesday in envelopes at Runbeck Election Services in Phoenix, Arizona. The company prints mail-in ballots for 30 states and Washington D.C. (Rebecca Noble/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — United States Postal Service Postmaster General Louis DeJoy testified before Congress on Thursday that voters can “absolutely” trust their mail-in ballots will be secure and prioritized, though he emphasized they must be mailed at least a week ahead of the various state deadlines to be delivered on time.

DeJoy’s testimony to House lawmakers became heated at times, as members questioned whether delays in general mail delivery and previous issues with mail-in ballots in swing states could disenfranchise voters this year.

DeJoy also brought USPS’s facilities into question, calling them “ratty” twice during the hour-long hearing.

His various comments about the management of the USPS and how the agency plans to handle election mail appeared to frustrate some members of the House Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Subcommittee.

For example, in response to a question from Wisconsin Democratic Rep. Mark Pocan about the pace of mail delivery in his home state, DeJoy responded that “the first rockets that went to the moon blew up, OK.”

Pocan then said: “Thanks for blowing up Wisconsin,” before DeJoy gave a lengthier answer.

“We’re going to do a series of transactional adjustments and service measurement adjustments and service metric adjustments as we move forward with this that are going to get your service to be 95% reliable,” DeJoy said.

Millions of ballots in the mail

The hearing came as state officials throughout the country are preparing to, or have already, sent out millions of mail-in ballots that could very well decide the results of elections for Congress and potentially even the presidency.

Mail-in voting surged during the COVID-19 pandemic as a central part of the 2020 presidential election and has remained a popular way for voters to decide who will represent their interests in government.

Voters can also cast ballots in person during early voting and on Election Day.

Lawmakers focused many of their questions during the hearing on how USPS keeps mail-in ballots secure and whether the agency can deliver them on time, though several members voiced frustration with DeJoy’s plans to change operations at USPS.

When asked specifically whether Americans could trust in USPS to handle their election mail, DeJoy said, “Absolutely.”

“I don’t know why you wouldn’t,” he testified. “We’ve delivered in the heightened part of a pandemic, in the most sensationalized political time of elections, and … we delivered it 99 point whatever percent, I mentioned earlier.”

DeJoy had previously said USPS delivered 99.89% of mail-in ballots within seven days during the 2020 election.

DeJoy wrote in testimony submitted to the committee ahead of the hearing that not all state laws consider the speed of the USPS when deciding when voters can request mail-in ballots and when those are sent out.

“For example, some jurisdictions allow voters to request a mail-in ballot very close to Election Day,” he wrote. “Depending on when that ballot is mailed to the voter, it may be physically impossible for that voter to receive the ballot mail, complete their ballot, and return their ballot by mail in time to meet the jurisdiction’s deadline, even with our extraordinary measures, and despite our best efforts.”

‘I see horror’

DeJoy brought up the state of USPS facilities on his own at several points during the hearing, implying that they aren’t clean or up to his standards as a work environment.

“I walk in our plants and facilities, I see horror. My employees see just another day at work,” DeJoy said.

Following a question about whether USPS employees had the appropriate training to handle and deliver mail-in ballots on time, DeJoy said leadership was “overwhelmingly enhancing our training,” before disparaging the facilities.

“We’re on a daily mission to train over 600,000 people across 31,000 ratty locations, I might say, on how to improve our operating practices across the board and at this time most specifically in the election mail area,” he testified. “We’re doing very well at this, just not perfect.”

No members of the panel asked DeJoy to clarify what he meant by “ratty” or followed up when he said separately that he was “sitting on about $20 billion in cash.”

A USPS spokesperson said they had nothing to add to DeJoy’s characterization when asked about the “ratty” comment by States Newsroom.

“If you are listening to the hearing, you just heard him describe the condition of postal facilities further,” Martha S. Johnson wrote in an email sent shortly after DeJoy made his “horror” comment. “I have nothing to add to that.”

Deliveries for rural Americans

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Matt Cartwright questioned DeJoy during the hearing about how plans to “consolidate resources around regions with higher population densities” under the so-called Delivering for America plan will affect delivery times overall for rural residents.

DeJoy disagreed with the premise of the question, saying he believed it was “an unfair accusation, considering the condition that the Postal Service has been allowed to get to.”

DeJoy said the USPS had committed to a six-day-a-week delivery schedule and pledged that it would not take longer than five days for mail to arrive.

“It will not go beyond five days, because I’ll put it up in the air and fly it if I have to,” DeJoy said.

Cartwright mentioned that 1.4 million Pennsylvania residents requested to vote by mail during the 2022 midterm elections, a number he expected to rise this year.

The commonwealth has numerous competitive U.S. House districts, a competitive U.S. Senate race and is considered a crucial swing state for the presidential election. Several of those races could be determined by mail-in ballots arriving on time.

Ohio Republican Rep. David Joyce, chairman of the subcommittee, asked DeJoy about issues with the Cleveland regional sort facility during the 2023 election. The secretary of state, Joyce said, found that some mail-in ballots sent as early as Oct. 24 didn’t arrive until Nov. 21.

“These voters are disenfranchised because of the USPS failures,” Joyce said. “How specifically have you enhanced the all clear procedures you referenced in response to the National Association of Secretaries of State? And can you assure us that these procedures will ensure that that doesn’t happen in this upcoming election?”

DeJoy responded that he would “need the specifics of Cleveland,” but said that USPS procedures are “extremely enhanced.”

Georgia primary problems

Georgia Republican Rep. Andrew Clyde, who isn’t on the panel, submitted a question for DeJoy about how a new regional processing and distribution center in Atlanta had “a negative impact” on mail delivery just weeks ahead of the GOP presidential primary earlier this year.

DeJoy said the USPS was investing more than $500 million into the region, but conceded “what went on in Georgia was an embarrassment to the organization, okay, and it should not have happened.”

“We are correcting for it aggressively,” DeJoy said. “Specifically with regard to the primary election, we got through that because I put a whole bunch of people down there and a whole bunch of double-checking processes in place.”

DeJoy added that “the performance was good on election mail for Georgia” and that USPS would deliver Georgia’s mail-in ballots in the weeks ahead “just fine.”

Claudia Kline, an organizer for Our Voice, Our Vote Arizona, speaks to a group of canvassers before they set out to knock on doors Thursday in 106-degree weather in Phoenix. The organization is part of a coalition that vowed to knock on 3 million doors by November. (Gloria Rebecca Gomez / Arizona Mirror)

As former President Donald Trump worked to scuttle a bipartisan border deal in Congress because it threatened to derail his campaign’s focus on immigration, Republicans in Arizona unveiled a plan to empower local officials to jail and deport migrants, decrying the federal government’s lack of solutions.

“Arizona is in a crisis,” state Senate President Warren Petersen said in late January. “This is directly due to the negligent inaction of the Biden administration.”

What followed were months of GOP lawmakers in Arizona making use of Trump’s border security rhetoric, employing xenophobic language to cast immigrants and asylum-seekers as criminals. But there was strident opposition to the plan, too, from many Latino and immigrant Arizonans who traveled to the state Capitol to protest the legislation.

Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris offer starkly different plans for the future of the 11 million people who live in the United States without legal status. Harris, in a bid to stave off accusations that she’s soft on the border, has sought to establish a firm security stance. To that end, she has vowed to bring back and sign the torpedoed bipartisan border deal.

On the campaign trail, Trump has taken a far more hawkish approach, promising mass deportations. He has offered few details, other than that he would be willing to involve the U.S. National Guard. President Joe Biden, Trump and other recent presidents have deployed the National Guard or military troops to support Border Patrol actions, but not in direct law enforcement roles.

Immigration has consistently ranked high among voter concerns nationwide, following heightened political rhetoric and a record-breaking number of unlawful border crossings in late 2023. Those numbers have since plummeted to a three-year low, but the U.S. border with Mexico remains a key talking point for Republican politicians.

But immigration is a far more complex topic than border security alone, and strategists may be miscalculating by failing to consider some key voters and their nuanced perspectives, recent polling shows.

Growing populations of new and first-generation citizens in the swing states — with the power to sway elections — are transforming demographics and voter concerns.

In Arizona, Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs vetoed the legislation that would have allowed local law enforcement to usurp federal authority on immigration, but Republicans repackaged it as a ballot initiative called the “Secure the Border Act.” In a state that Biden won by fewer than 11,000 votes four years ago, and where political strategists anticipate high voter turnout, the ballot measure serves as a test of whether the GOP’s immigration position will drive people to the polls in a swing state.

While many Republicans hope the immigration issue boosts their chances in down-ballot races, progressive organizations are working to mobilize voters in opposition through canvassing and voter registration drives.

Living United for Change in Arizona was established in the aftermath of the state’s controversial “show me your papers” law — SB 1070 — passed 14 years ago by Republican lawmakers. LUCHA Chief of Staff Abril Gallardo derided this year’s Secure the Border Act as the latest iteration of that law.

“Arizonans are sick of Republicans trying to bring back the SB 1070 era of separating families, mass deportations and children in detention centers,” she said. “We’re here to say, ‘Not on our watch.’”

The ballot measure has been widely criticized as greenlighting discrimination. Among other provisions, it would make it a state crime for migrants to cross the southern border anywhere except a legal port of entry and punish first-time offenders with six months in jail. Local police officers would be authorized to carry out arrests based on suspicion of illegal entry, and Arizona judges would be empowered to issue orders of deportation, undermining court rulings that have concluded that enforcing immigration law is the sole purview of the federal government.

Gallardo said that LUCHA is focused on engaging with voters to ensure the proposal fails. The organization is part of a coalition of advocacy groups committed to knocking on more than 3 million doors before November.

“They can try to ignore us, but come Election Day and beyond, they will hear us, they will see us, and they will feel the strength of our movement,” she said.

An August UnidosUS and BSP Research survey asked Latino voters in Arizona about their top priorities on several issues related to immigration policy. The results show strong support for protecting longtime residents from deportation and offering them a path to citizenship — along with cracking down on human smugglers and drug traffickers. Policies centered on building a wall or mass deportation ranked near the bottom. In recent years, Latino voters in the state have helped reject virulently anti-immigrant candidates.

Latino voting strength

In 2020, Latinos made up about 20% of the state’s electorate, and they largely favored Biden over Trump. Then, two years later, a record-breaking number of Latinos voted in an election that saw Democrats win statewide offices. Today, 1 in 4 Arizona voters is Latino, and a new poll from Univision estimates that more than 600,000 will cast their ballots in the state’s November election.

The Grand Canyon State is far from the only swing state with both impactful Latino and new-citizen voting blocs.

Still, campaigns might be ignoring these voters. The UnidosUS poll showed 51% of Latino voters in Georgia hadn’t been contacted by either party or any campaign, even though 56% say they’re sure they’ll vote.

“This is, I think, a wake-up call for both parties to reach out into the Latino community,” said BSP senior analyst Stephen Nuño-Perez in a Georgia Recorder story. “There’s still not a lot of education out there on why Latinos should be voting for one party or the other.”

The numbers hovered right around there in other swing states. In Pennsylvania, that was true for 50% of the people polled. In North Carolina, it was 49%. In Nevada, 53%. In each case, a higher percentage said they plan to vote.

Influence grows in dairy country

The number of Latino voters in Wisconsin is a fraction of the electorate that lives in states closer to the U.S.-Mexico border but no less impactful. There are roughly 180,000 eligible Latino voters who call the Badger State home. Biden carried Wisconsin in 2020 by a margin of just 21,000 votes, less than 1 percentage point.

Christine Neumann-Ortiz is the executive director of Voces de la Frontera, a civil and workers rights organization that advocates on behalf of immigrants. She said that over time, the Latino vote has become increasingly sought after by politicians looking to gain office.

“If you don’t get it, you don’t win it,” she said.

Neumann-Ortiz said that the rise of the Latino electorate has translated into political power. The group has been a longtime backer of driver’s licenses for Wisconsinites without full citizenship status, and occupational licenses for recipients of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, a federal policy that grants temporary work permits and protection from deportation to people who arrived in the country as minors.

Nineteen states and the District of Columbia allow people without citizenship status to obtain driver’s licenses. And just 12 give DACA recipients the opportunity to obtain medical or legal licenses.

Legislation in Wisconsin to open up access to either license was blocked by the GOP legislative majority, though the movement behind the proposals drew support from top officials, including Democratic Gov. Tony Evers, who backed driver’s licenses for all as a policy priority last year. Influential lobbying organizations, such as the Wisconsin Farm Bureau Federation and the Dairy Business Association, both of which lean conservative, also threw their weight behind the push for universal driver’s licenses.

Neumann-Ortiz attributes that support to the fact that immigrants make up a large part of the state’s dairy and agricultural industries. And in rural areas where dairy operations and farms are located, public transportation is sparse. United Migrant Opportunity Services, a Milwaukee-based farmworker advocacy organization, estimates that as much as 40% of the state’s dairy workers are immigrants. Other estimates indicate they contribute 80% of the labor on dairy farms.

Despite being over 1,000 miles away from the U.S.-Mexico border, immigration and border security are key issues for Wisconsinites, and their positions appear mixed. In a September survey from Marquette University’s Law School, 49% said they agreed with deporting all immigrants who have lived in the country for years, have jobs and no criminal record, while 51% opposed it.

Newly minted citizens stand to break new electoral ground

Laila Martin Garcia moved to the United States with her husband and infant son eight years ago. November will be the first time she casts her ballot for a U.S. presidential candidate since she became a naturalized citizen two years ago in Pennsylvania, and she’s elated.

“The main reason for me to become a citizen was to vote,” she said. “You know, this is home. This is where my husband is, where my son is being raised, and I wanted to make sure that I was using my voice in any way possible.”

She’s part of another segment of the electorate that will have a chance to respond in the voting booth to the election-year emphasis on immigration: newly naturalized voters. In fiscal year 2023, just over 878,000 immigrants became naturalized U.S. citizens, according to the Migration Policy Institute, a nonpartisan think tank. That number represents a slight decline from the previous fiscal year, when a little more than 969,000 people achieved naturalization –— the highest number of new citizens in a decade.

Newly naturalized voters can close the gaps in swing state races, according to Nancy Flores, who serves as the deputy director of the National Partnership for New Americans, a coalition of immigrant and refugee rights organizations.

Every presidential election year, the coalition partners with local organizations to assist eligible immigrants as they embark on the naturalization process and help newly naturalized citizens register to vote. New citizens, Flores said, are a great investment, because once they’ve made a commitment to vote, they will likely continue to do so. And naturalized voters appear to cast their ballots at higher rates than U.S.-born citizens. In the 2020 election, about 66% of the general electorate turned out to vote, compared with nearly 87% of naturalized voters surveyed by the organization.

This year appears on track to repeat that trend: As many as 97.3% of naturalized voters residing in states polled by the National Partnership for New Americans — including in the swing states of Arizona, Georgia, Michigan and Pennsylvania — reported that they plan to vote this fall.

“For a lot of folks, reaching the point of citizenship is really a lifetime achievement,” Flores said. “And we see that folks really don’t take that lightly.”

And while Flores noted that naturalized citizens don’t fit one single voter profile, most of them do share an immigrant background and so are sympathetic on the issue.

“New American voters are not a monolith,” she said. “Folks that are naturalized are doctors, professors. We have folks that are naturalized that are picking the fruit that we eat. It really runs the gamut, but the common thread is the immigrant experience.”

A poll conducted by the organization found that naturalized voters share many of the same concerns as other U.S. voters, including worries about inflation and the economy. But, Flores added, candidates who are looking to attract naturalized voters are likely to be most successful with the demographic group when they present a positive view of immigration.

“Looking at immigration as an asset to our country, looking at how it can benefit the economy, looking at how we can provide pathways [to citizenship] that are humane — those things resonated with voters,” she said.

Similarly, Martin Garcia’s experiences as an immigrant have colored her views as a voter. Immigration reform, she said, is at the top of her priorities. Originally from Barcelona, Spain, Martin Garcia arrived in the U.S. in the middle of Trump’s first campaign, and she said she saw firsthand what his anti-immigrant rhetoric and policies wrought.

In her work as an advocate, she frequently helped families torn apart by deportations, and in her personal life, while trying to share her language and culture with her son, she dealt with nativist hostility. During one incident at the grocery store, while she was helping her toddler identify items in Spanish, a stranger accosted her.

“I remember he came up to me and said, ‘We’re in America, speak American,’” she recalled. “Now that I think of that moment, I have so many things to say to that person. But at that moment, I was so scared. I just took my child, left my cart there with half of my groceries, and left the shop.”

Today, she recalls that incident, and the rallies and protests during Trump’s presidency, as catalysts for her civic engagement. Martin Garcia said she views the 2024 election as an opportunity to look out for the immigrant community’s needs.

“We deserve to thrive, and we will be thinking about that,” she said. “We have to make sure that our communities have the right to thrive in this election.”

What’s on the table at the federal level? 

The failed $118 billion bipartisan border plan set aside $20 billion to pay for more border barriers, expanded detention facilities, more officers for U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and Border Patrol, and legal counsel for unaccompanied children. The bill also included more than $80 billion destined for aid and humanitarian assistance overseas.

The deal would also have overhauled the asylum system and eliminated the so-called “catch-and-release” system. It would have narrowed the criteria under which people can apply for asylum, fast-tracked the processing of existing claims and given migrants work authorizations while their claims reached resolution. The president would have been granted the power to shut down asylum claims processing altogether, once a certain number of claims had come through, resulting in more migrants being automatically deported during periods when there are a lot of border crossings.

For Vice President Kamala Harris to be able to sign the deal if she’s elected president, it would have to clear both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate, which appears unlikely unless Democrats win a majority in both chambers in November.

Former President Donald Trump has said that if he’s voted back into the White House for a second term, he will oversee mass deportations in the style of President Dwight Eisenhower’s “Operation W*tback.” The 1954 policy only succeeded in removing about 300,000 people, despite government claims that more than 1 million people were deported. Discriminatory tactics led to an unknown number of U.S. citizens being deported, too.

While it might at first sound feasible and draw support from some voters, adding context quickly turns them away, said Douglas Rivlin, a spokesperson for America’s Voice, a national immigration reform advocacy organization.

“You start talking about the number of jobs we’re going to lose, and the spike to inflation, and the hit to the U.S. economy contracting that way, and a lot of people turn against mass deportation,” he said.

A May 2024 report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics estimated that immigrants made up 18.6% of the U.S. labor force — about 1 in 5 workers.

Rivlin warned that mass deportation would necessarily result in the breaking up of families, and leave millions of U.S. citizen children in the lurch. As many as 4.4 million children who are citizens in the U.S. live with at least one parent who does not have full citizenship status.

“You can’t deport 11 million people and not rip apart families, especially because 4 or 5 million children live in those families,” he said. “Are you going to deport them, too? Or are they going into foster care?”

One of the most notorious policies enacted during Trump’s presidency was his “zero tolerance” immigration initiative, which separated thousands of migrant children and babies from their parents at the country’s southern border. The policy ended after broad public backlash and federal lawsuits. More than 1,000 children remained separated from their families as of this spring, according to the most recent data available from the Department of Homeland Security’s task force on reunification.

The majority of American voters, Rivlin said, don’t want overly punitive immigration policies. Most favor opening up legal pathways to citizenship for the millions of people who’ve made their home in the U.S. A June Pew Research survey estimated that 59% of American voters believe that undocumented immigrants living in the country should be allowed to remain legally. And while there’s been an uptick in voters who oppose offering citizenship to people without legal status, they remain in the minority, with 37% supporting a national deportation effort.

In the last decade, 2,000 Walgreens pharmacies have closed, including this one at Troost Avenue and Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard. (Vaughn Wheat/The Beacon)

Less than two years ago, neighbors near Brush Creek Boulevard and Troost Avenue had choices when they needed to pick up a prescription — or a carton of milk.

A CVS pharmacy stood on the northeast corner of their intersection. Its retail rival, Walgreens, was just a block south at Troost and Emanuel Cleaver II Boulevard.

But today, a beauty supply store sits in the old CVS space. The pharmacy closed in April 2023. And the Walgreens, which had moved out five months before, remains empty. Weeds sprout through cracks in the parking lot and graffiti marks the drive-thru window.

Now people in this part of Kansas City, home to some of its poorest neighborhoods, may have to catch a bus just to fill a prescription. Even if the buses are running on time and it only takes 10 minutes at the drugstore, the round trip to the nearest CVS or Walgreens would take nearly two hours.

“When you don’t have something close to where you live,” said Alana Henry, the former executive director of the Ivanhoe Neighborhood Council, “it makes life more complicated.”

Retail pharmacies are shutting down in places like Kansas City and Wichita across the country, posing a growing worry for health experts. It’s most acute where the incomes are lower, in urban cores and small towns where pharmacies act as convenience stores of the health care system.

“When those community pharmacies close,” said Lucas Berenbrok, an associate professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Pharmacy who has been mapping closures, “communities lose critical access.”

Why losing pharmacies matters

Kansas City has lost close to 100 pharmacies in the last 10 years. CVS closed at least 11 stores, including one on Independence Avenue this summer. Walgreens shut down five, and another on East 63rd Street is expected to close at the end of the September.

Nationally, Berenbrok’s mapping shows about 7,000 pharmacies shuttered since 2019. His analysis doesn’t yet include what’s believed to be a far smaller number of stores that have opened.

“It matters that someone lost access to care,” Berenbrok said.

The closings come at a time when, an Associated Press analysis found in June, people in majority Black or Latino neighborhoods and rural residents already have the fewest pharmacies per capita. Pharmacies also tend to represent a critical source of health care — sometimes the only one.

Some chain stores even operate urgent-care clinics, where patients can get tested for strep throat or prescribed an antibiotic.

When Walgreens and CVS pulled out of their Troost locations, residents said goodbye to two important anchors in their community, said Bill Drummond, a glass artist who lives in the nearby Manheim neighborhood.

“Community health is what it was,” he said.

Yes, the prescriptions. But also a place to check your blood pressure, get a flu shot or other vaccination, get COVID tests. Most importantly, somebody there could answer medical questions.

Russell B. Melchert, dean of the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Pharmacy, said pharmacists have always filled that role. When COVID hit, that became even more clear.

Pharmacies picked up some of the work that overcrowded hospitals or temporarily shuttered doctor’s offices would normally handle. And as the shortage of primary care providers increases wait times for appointments, the need for pharmacists keeps expanding.

“We have a gap in primary care services,” Melchert said. “And that’s for people who have health insurance. What about the many hundreds of thousands who don’t? They have nothing.”

Why are pharmacies closing?

To understand why pharmacies are closing, it’s helpful to understand the terrain that has shaped them: Steep climbs in the number of prescription drugs available and deep canyons in the profits those drugs bring in.

Until the 1960s, pharmacies sold medicine directly to consumers. A patient left the doctor’s office with a prescription, took it to the neighborhood drugstore and paid whatever the pharmacy charged.

Then came prescription insurance coverage, which started small 60 years ago and quickly expanded. It reached near ubiquity in 2006 when Medicare added drug coverage. The industry helped open a flood of new drugs — and gradually determined what drugs you could get and how much a pharmacy would get from sales.

In 1950, every American took an estimated 2.4 prescription drugs each year. By 2015, that shot up to 17.3, according to a textbook written by Lawton Robert Burns, a management professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Today, just under 10% of U.S. health care spending goes to drugs. That’s out of the $4.5 trillion on all health care, or $13,493 per person. In 1970, per capita health care spending was only $353, or around $2,000 in 2022 dollars.

The money to be made on prescription drugs drew chain pharmacies like CVS and Walgreens to buy out family-owned drugstores and build new stores — often within blocks of one another.

But the chains’ building boom in the 1990s and early 2000s has been followed by retreat in the last decade. (It doesn’t help that the chains are also absorbing multi-billion dollar settlements of lawsuits over their roles in the opioid crisis. In 2022, CVS agreed to pay $5 billion, while Walgreens agreed to pay $5.7 billion.)

For reasons that involve the complicated way insurance companies reimburse pharmacies for drugs, profits from prescriptions began to fall. In many cases, they plummeted so much that pharmacists couldn’t cover their costs.

On top of that, buying habits changed. People started getting medicine through the mail and buying shampoo, toothpaste and other front-of-the-store products online.

That’s why the drugstore on your block may have closed or could be next.

The story is especially dire for small independent stores. The National Community Pharmacists  Association estimates that one independent pharmacy closed every day of 2023, and the organization expects a similar trend this year.

Even chain stores feel the pinch.

CVS has closed 850 stores since 2022. It expects to close 50 more this year. Walgreens has closed 2,000 stores over the last decade. Now it’s deciding whether to shutter an additional 2,150 that the company calls “underperforming.” That’s one in four of its remaining retail locations.

Executives with Walgreens Boots Alliance Inc., Walgreens’ owner, told analysts in a June stock earnings call that they would only stick with stores that are making money. The rest have to go.

Losing access to care

Tessa Schnelle, a pharmacist who has studied pharmacy deserts in rural Kansas, worries people underestimate the punch coming to the health care system.

Her research found that 210 Kansas towns are in a rural pharmacy desert, which she defines as having residents who live 10 miles or more from a pharmacy. On average, people within those deserts live about 13 miles from a pharmacy. But she expects that to continue to get worse as more pharmacies are forced to close.

Schnelle, past president of the Kansas Pharmacists Association, often hears people dismiss concerns about pharmacies being far away. After all, people can get drugs through the mail. Or, as is happening in limited capacity, from a pre-stocked vending machine.

But those solutions easily fall apart without much scrutiny, she said.

“What if I have an ear infection?” she said. “And they’re going to prescribe an antimicrobial? There is no place for me to get that, and it’s going to take multiple days for me to get that from the mail order. … And there’s no one to educate me if I’m getting it from a (vending machine).”

The same goes for home delivery pharmacies, which are becoming more common, Schnelle said. Even if those services can get the medication to patients, having the drugs without the pharmacist has drawbacks.

Pharmacists play a much bigger role than just counting pills and putting them in bottles, she said. They’re looking for dangerous drug interactions and allergies. Or they’re listening to a patient’s symptoms and realizing that they might be having a reaction to a medicine.

“Pharmacists are the brakes,” she said. “They’re there for a reason.”

Missouri has two counties — Knox and Schuyler, in the state’s northeast — without any pharmacy. And 16 counties in the state have only one.

James Johnston added another county to the list with zero when he closed down Knox County Pharmacy in 2022. He’d opened it a decade earlier when he was already running Johnston Drug in Clarence, Missouri.

The 38 miles between the two stores simply became too much.

“I just about wore all my people out,” he said. “You don’t get away very often and very seldom do you leave on time.”

He said the Knox County store “had a nice business.” But selling a pharmacy in the current market, when drug reimbursement rates are so low, is difficult. And selling a pharmacy in a remote town is even harder.

“No one would bite,” he said. “You are never off duty when you’re the one-man band.”

Johnston sold his patient files to a grocery store pharmacy in Kirksville, 31 miles away. But he knows that wasn’t ideal for his customers.

A hard profession to sell

Meanwhile, across the board, pharmacies are having a harder time finding pharmacists — particularly in rural areas.

“It’s a crisis,” Melchert said. “But let me tell you how bad it’s going to get.”

In 2023, the country had 14,000 pharmacy graduates.

“Within four years,” he said, “that number is going to be about 8,000.”

That is well below the 13,500 new pharmacists the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates will be needed annually to make up for those retiring or leaving the profession.

The UMKC Pharmacy School, which is at less than 70% capacity, is typical. Pharmacy schools across the country are seeing declining enrollment, even though pharmacists can make six figures straight out of school. Scholarships and student loan forgiveness can also get thrown in. Some chains pay signing bonuses.

Enrollment was falling off before the pandemic. COVID just made things worse. Melchert suspects some would-be students may not see the profession in a very positive light after a trip to a crowded chain store, where frazzled pharmacists may juggle telephone calls, administer vaccines and scroll through computer files.

“People just don’t know what it is we do,” Melchert said.

He and other pharmacy school deans argue that people don’t know just how big a role pharmacists play in modern health care. They are doing all they can to draw more people into the profession. That includes consulting with large corporate owners like CVS and Walgreens about how to improve working conditions, and training high school students to take jobs as pharmacy technicians.

Nate Rockers, who owns Rockers Pharmacy in Paola, Kansas, said he wouldn’t dream of asking either of his two sons to join him and take over the family store.

“I can’t envision being in business for 20 more years and retiring as a pharmacy owner,” he said. “I don’t know if pharmacy will be around as we know it in five years if we don’t do something. Once the ship sinks, it doesn’t come back up.”

This article first appeared on Beacon: Missouri and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

The Democratic National Committee announced Friday it plans to send $2.5 million to state parties. In this photo, signs marking states’ seating sections are installed and adjusted Aug. 15 ahead of the Democratic National Convention in Chicago. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

The Democratic National Committee will send $2.5 million to more than 30 of its state and territorial parties, including Missouri, in the closing weeks of the 2024 election cycle, the DNC said in a Friday statement.

With the new grants, national Democrats will have contributed to all 57 state and territorial chapters for the first time in a presidential cycle, according to the party.

“From the school board to the White House, the DNC is doing the work to elect Democrats to office at all levels of government,” DNC Chair Jaime Harrison said in the statement, given to States Newsroom ahead of a wider announcement.

“We are the only committee responsible for building Democratic infrastructure to win elections across the map, and with a new $2.5 million in grants, the DNC is delivering a multi-million dollar investment across all 57 state parties this cycle – a historic first for our committee.”

The new grants go beyond the seven swing states considered ultra-competitive in the presidential election that have gotten the lion’s share of attention and spending at the national level — and the handful with key U.S. Senate races that have also attracted a national focus.

Though some grants are relatively small, they represent a commitment by the national party to states across the country, including traditionally red states, Democrats said.

Field workers in Idaho

In Idaho, where Democrats hold just 18 of the 105 seats in the Legislature, a more-than $70,000 commitment from the national party will fund two field workers to reach Hispanic voters in two rural counties and tribal members on the Nez Perce Reservation, state party chair and state Rep. Lauren Necochea said.

Necochea, who spoke with States Newsroom in a Thursday interview ahead of the official announcement, said the funding was significant both for the symbolism of the national party’s investment in the overwhelmingly Republican state and for campaign operations this fall.

“We’re just gratified to see that this investment hit all 57 states and territories for the first time … so that no state is left behind,” she said. “We’re a traditionally red state, and that means we need the funding to fight back.”

The two organizers funded by the national money will help boost turnout in the state’s four battleground state legislative districts, Necochea said.

“This level of investment is also meaningful when it comes to winning races and getting out the vote,” she said, noting that a race in the last cycle was decided by 37 votes.

The outcomes in those races could determine which faction of the state’s Republican Party — either the hard right or the more moderate wing — will control the legislative agenda next session, she said.

The Democratic minority in the Legislature sometimes partners with moderate Republicans on legislation to fund education and health care programs, including maintaining the state’s Medicaid expansion, Necochea said.

“It is essential for state government to continue operating that we have a critical mass of Democrats in the Idaho Legislature,” she said.

Other grants

The DNC provided a partial list of the spending included in Friday’s announcement. State parties are free to use the funds as they wish, a DNC spokesman said. The national party noted some state organizations had already determined how to allocate the money.

Many state organizations planned to pursue outreach to voters of color, including in tribal communities.

Some examples of the spending and objectives, according to the DNC:

• Florida: More than $400,000 for statewide programs targeting “key coalitions.”

• Oregon: $125,000 to help the state party’s efforts in three key U.S. House races.

• Pennsylvania: $100,000 “to supercharge voter outreach” in the only presidential battleground state on the new list. A portion of the funding will target the state’s large Puerto Rican community, the DNC said.

• Minnesota: At least $100,000 to boost the state’s paid canvassing campaign. The new funding brings the total DNC allocation to the state to about $630,000, according to the party. The canvassing effort will help protect Democrats’ slim majorities in both legislative chambers.

• Missouri: “Nearly $100,000” for new organizing staff focused on breaking GOP supermajorities in both statehouse chambers and passing an abortion ballot measure.

• Maryland: $75,000 for the state party’s mail program, with a focus on reaching Asian American and Pacific Islander voters, a growing segment of the state’s voting base, the DNC said. The DNC noted its support for U.S. Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks, calling her race against former GOP Gov. Larry Hogan critical to protecting reproductive rights.

• South Carolina: More than $70,000 for a get-out-the-vote staffer, focusing on outreach to new voters.

• Maine: $61,250 for three staffers to focus get-out-the-vote efforts in rural parts of U.S. Rep. Jared Golden’s swing district.

• Arkansas: Nearly $60,000 to hire six coalition directors targeting young, Black and Latino voters, including Spanish-speaking organizers. It’s the first DNC spending in Arkansas this cycle.

• Louisiana: $55,000 for an organizer to help the state party reach voters in the new majority-Black 6th Congressional District.

• Kansas: $50,000 for paid canvassing efforts to break GOP supermajorities in both legislative chambers.

• Oklahoma: $50,000 to help the state party’s outreach to tribal communities.

• Virginia: $50,000 for the state party’s get-out-the-vote and voter contact programs, focusing on two competitive U.S. House races.

• West Virginia: $50,000 for get-out-the-vote and paid mail programs targeting “youth and minority voters” who could affect four competitive state legislative races.

• North Dakota: Nearly $40,000 for get-out-the-vote efforts and organizing in tribal communities.

• New Jersey: “Five figures” will go to get-out-the-vote operations in all state races, with a particular focus on Rep. Andy Kim’s U.S. Senate race against Republican Curtis Bashaw. It’s the first DNC spending in the Garden State this cycle.

• Tennessee: An unspecified amount to help the state party “build on the organizing momentum” it has seen in the past year.

Judge Craig Carter, a Wright County judge serving in Cole County for Missouri's gender-affirming care trial, listens to a nurse practitioner testify Thursday afternoon (Annelise Hanshaw/Missouri Independent).

After three days of battling over scientific papers and expert testimony, the trial of a lawsuit challenging Missouri’s restrictions on gender-affirming treatments on Thursday turned to the impact the law has on patients and providers.

Nicole Carr, a nurse practitioner at Southampton Community Healthcare in St. Louis, said anxiety, fear and depression first increased in transgender patients when Attorney General Andrew Bailey published an emergency rule that established barriers to care in April 2023.

“No one thinks about how these laws affect the actual people they are supposed to protect and they are supposed to serve,” she said.

Patients were crying in the clinic in fear, she testified.

“I’m trying to give them hope that they don’t have to fear being in Missouri, that they don’t have to fear coming to me as a provider, that they can move past this,” Carr said. “It’s sad because I’m referring a lot of people to therapy that, before these rules, were fine.”

She worries about youth in foster care, which she worked with frequently in a previous position. Transgender teenagers in foster care often must wait until they turn 18 to go to the doctor alone for assessment to obtain hormone-replacement therapy.

But if they are on Medicaid, as most are soon after foster care, Missouri won’t pay for the treatment.

“(The law) has impacted the quality of care I can give my patients when I know the solution to their problem is out there and I can’t do anything about it,” she said.

Carr and Southampton healthcare are among 11 plaintiffs hoping to block enforcement of a 2023 law banning gender-affirming medical treatments for minors. Other plaintiffs include parents of transgender children, transgender adolescents, other medical care providers and organizations supporting gender-affirming care.

Their attorneys began putting witnesses on the stand Monday in the Cole County Circuit Court trial scheduled to continue through next week. The lawsuit asks Judge Craig Carter, assigned to the case from Wright County, to declare the law unconstitutional, alleging violations of equal protection, due process and other rights guaranteed by the Missouri Constitution.

Although the law does not ban counseling or the continuation of treatments begun before it passed, several providers ceased all gender-affirming treatments for minors soon after it took effect on Aug. 28, 2023. First University of Missouri Health, then Washington University  in St. Louis, ended their programs, citing the threat of future litigation allowed in the law.

Neither provider is a party to the lawsuit.

Over the first three days of the trial, assistant attorney generals defending the law have repeatedly sought to discredit plaintiffs’ expert witnesses. The painstaking cross examinations have slowed the pace of the trial to two experts per day and led to a late recess on Wednesday.

Carter, however, has declined to limit the cross-examination, despite arguments from plaintiffs’ attorneys that it means the trial will exceed the time allotted to complete it.

During cross-examination, members of the defense team have read scientific articles, news articles and editorials on gender-affirming care. Almost invariably, that leads to objections that the exhibits are new.

Carter has allowed reading as a way to challenge the credibility of witnesses by  showing deficiencies in their testimony, such as bias or poor memory.

“They seem to be reading a lot of newspaper articles and a lot of opinion pieces,” Omar Gonzalez-Pagan, an attorney for plaintiffs, told reporters. “If they wanted to introduce the opinion of some random person in the United Kingdom, they could have called them.”

During one question to Dr. Armand Matheny Antommaria from Solicitor General Joshua Divine, plaintiffs’ attorney Nora Huppert objected, arguing that it was as if Divine was testifying himself.

It came as Antommaria, a pediatric hospitalist and bioethicist at Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, answered questions slowly, often with a “yes sir” or “no sir,” correcting Divine’s questions.

“If you go to the key findings, the statement you’ve pulled out is not part of the key findings,” he said, after a question in which Divine asked about a singular sentence of a scientific article. The context is important, Antommaria told him, saying the overall report was the opposite of Divine’s characterization.

Divine also asked  if Antommaria’s religious beliefs or divinity degree should disqualify him as an expert.

“Given the nature of that particular degree, that does not disqualify myself,” he said.

Dr. Johanna Olson-Kennedy, an adolescent medicine physician at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles and medical director of the hospital’s center for transgender youth health and development, testified about her research linking distress about breast development to depression and anxiety. She also discussed benefits of gender-affirming care she has seen in her clinical experience.

Hal Frampton, senior counsel with the Alliance Defending Freedom, brought one of the 11 three-ring binders prepared for the Olson-Kennedy testimony to the podium. He flipped through the approximately three-inch binder, presenting studies and articles to question Olson-Kennedy’s research and concluding with videos from talks she gave years ago.

In one talk, she said people “get worked up” about certain surgical procedures that are part of gender affirming care.

Frampton asked if she doesn’t like people that get worked up. Olson-Kennedy said she was emphasizing the difference between gender-affirming surgeries.

“The seriousness of getting a sterilizing surgery is more severe than someone who needs a chest surgery,” she said.

He also asked about an interview she gave in which she spoke about being involved in social justice efforts.

“People being able to get access to medically necessary care is an advocacy issue,” she responded.

The defense is scheduled to begin arguments Monday, with a scheduled final day of Oct. 4.

Vice President and Democratic nominee for president Kamala Harris speaks Wednesday at an event hosted by The Economic Club of Pittsburgh at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. Harris gave details about her economic platform, including ways to support small businesses and making home ownership more attainable, among other policy proposals. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images)

The Democratic presidential nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, laid out more of her economic vision Wednesday during her first one-on-one cable TV interview.

Harris and former President Donald Trump, the GOP presidential nominee, are laying out dueling economic agendas this week as the two vie for the Oval Office in an extremely close race.

“I really love and am so energized by what I know to be the spirit and character of the American people — we have ambition, we have aspirations, we have dreams, we can see what’s possible, we have an incredible work ethic, but not everyone has the access to the opportunities that allow them to achieve those things, but we don’t lack for those things, but not everyone gets handed stuff on a silver platter,” Harris told MSNBC host Stephanie Ruhle.

“My vision for the economy — I call it an opportunity economy — is about making sure that all Americans — wherever they start, wherever they are — have the ability to actually achieve those dreams and those ambitions, which include, for middle-class families, just being able to know that their hard work allows them to get ahead,” she said.

Earlier on Wednesday, Harris touted her economic plans in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at Carnegie Mellon University. During her MSNBC interview later in the day, she reiterated her plan to cut taxes for more than 100 million Americans, including $6,000 in tax relief for new parents in the first year of their child’s life.

In that first year, Harris said these parents are going to “need help buying a crib, buying a car seat, and we all benefit when they’re actually able to do what they naturally want to do to take care of their child.”

Part of her economic agenda also includes as much as $25,000 in down payment assistance for first-time homebuyers and an up to $50,000 tax break for first-time small businesses.

She also took jabs at Trump when it comes to the economy, saying he’s “just not very serious about how he thinks about some of these issues.”

The Trump campaign clapped back at her MSNBC appearance on Wednesday, saying “it was (another) reminder why she never does interviews,” and that she’s “not competent enough — and she has no plans to offer Americans.”

Trump pitched his economic plan earlier this week in Georgia, part of which includes levying tariffs on exported goods, and he vowed to place a 100% tariff on cars imported from Mexico.

Harris to visit southern border 

Harris also touched on immigration, telling Ruhle “we do have a broken immigration system, and it needs to be fixed.”

She also said she would bring back and sign into law a major bipartisan border security bill from earlier this year while pinning its legislative failure on Trump.

“He killed a bill that would have actually been a solution because he wants to run on a problem instead of fixing the problem, and that’s part of what needs to be addressed,” Harris said.

The veep is set to visit the U.S.-Mexico border on Friday for the first time since becoming the Democratic nominee. Her Douglas, Arizona, visit comes as she’s faced repeated criticism and backlash from both sides of the aisle for her efforts surrounding immigration.

In a Truth Social post earlier this week regarding her upcoming visit, Trump again dubbed Harris a “border czar,” saying “what a disgrace that she waited so long, allowing millions of people to enter our Country from prisons, mental institutions, and criminal cells all over the World, not just South America, many of those coming are terrorists, and at a level never seen before!”

President Joe Biden tapped Harris back in 2021 to help address the “root causes” of migration in Central America, but he did not give her the title of “border czar.” The Department of Homeland Security is in charge of border security.

What’s next for Harris, Trump campaigns

Harris was set to meet with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Thursday afternoon.

The meeting between the two leaders “serves as a reminder that the Vice President has been a champion for the United States, advancing our security and prosperity on the world stage and standing up to dictators and autocrats,” her campaign said in a Thursday press release.

This will be her seventh meeting with Zelenskyy, according to her campaign, which noted that as vice president, “she helped rally a global coalition of 50 allies and partners to help Ukraine defend itself.”

Trump is set to deliver remarks in Walker, Michigan, on Friday. Later in the day, he will also host a town hall in Warren, Michigan.

And in the thick of the college football season, Trump is set to attend the Alabama-Georgia football game on Saturday in Tuscaloosa, the University of Alabama confirmed to States Newsroom last week.

Harris’ running mate, Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, is set to attend the Michigan-Minnesota football game Saturday in Ann Arbor, the Harris-Walz campaign announced.

He’s also slated to campaign there and will “speak with students about the power of their vote and the importance of registering to vote ahead of the November election,” per the announcement.

Left to right, Sgt. Edward Lenz, Adams Township Police Department, Commander, Butler County Emergency Services Unit; Patrolman Drew Blasko, Butler Township Police Department; Lt. John Herold, Pennsylvania State Police; and Patrick Sullivan, former United States Secret Service agent,  are sworn in Thursday during the first hearing of the Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald Trump. (Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images)

Members of the U.S. House task force investigating the attempted assassination of former President Donald Trump on Thursday blamed the U.S. Secret Service for poor planning and breakdowns in communication and coordination with local law enforcement.

Republicans and Democrats on the House Task Force on the Attempted Assassination of Donald J. Trump at their first public hearing praised the work of local law enforcement agencies, representatives of which testified at the hearing.

Lawmakers said initial investigations showed it was the Secret Service who was responsible for a lack of planning, information-sharing and decision-making.

Thomas Matthew Crooks, the attempted assassin, at a July 13 rally in Butler, Pennsylvania, scouted the site in the days ahead of Trump’s rally and found security vulnerabilities, task force Chair Mike Kelly, a Pennsylvania Republican, said.

If those weaknesses were not apparent to the 20-year-old gunman, the entire incident may have been avoided, Kelly added.

But the shooting that injured Trump’s ear and killed one rallygoer was caused by more than one  breakdown, he said.

“It was not a single mistake that allowed Crooks to outmaneuver one of our country’s most elite” security agencies, Kelly said. “There were security failures on multiple fronts.”

The Secret Service, which is the lead agency during any event in which a person under the agency’s protection is present, did not create a sufficient plan and was not decisive on key questions, Kelly said. The agency did not manage access to sites adjacent to the rally and did not effectively communicate with state and local partners, he added.

Testimony from local agencies

Local officials told the panel they felt prepared in their assignment of assisting the Secret Service protection.

Commander Edward Lenz of the Butler County Emergency Services Unit said the Secret Service had requested help from counter-assault teams, sniper teams and a quick reaction force and that the local agency felt prepared for those missions.

“There were additional things, obviously, that probably needed (to be) covered,” he said. “But they never asked us to do that, they never tasked us with that. So given what they specifically asked us to do, we were certainly prepared.”

He added that sniper teams had not been given specific instructions for their mission.

Patrolman Drew Blasko of the Butler Township Police Department said local police executed what had been asked of them.

“With the information that we had, I believe that we did the very best that we could,” Blasko said.

No unified command

The task force’s ranking Democrat, Colorado’s Jason Crow, who is an Army veteran, highlighted a failure to communicate.

“Clear lines of communication are crucial,” he said during an opening statement. “The Secret Service must do better.”

Later, while questioning witnesses, Crow said he was surprised to learn the Secret Service did not establish a unified command center for the Butler rally.

Patrick Sullivan, a former Secret Service agent who testified in his personal capacity, said that was atypical for a Secret Service operation.

Usually, a central command post is established for the Secret Service, state and local agencies and any other assisting law enforcement, Sullivan said.

“This is very unusual, the way it turned out here in this site,” he said.

A unified command center can help relay information from disparate teams, including warning the agents closest to the president or presidential candidate of a suspicious person.

Pennsylvania Democrat Chrissy Houlahan noted that the communications breakdown between Secret Service and local authorities happened because they were not on the same radio frequencies.

“So here we were with three minutes and every second counting, and the Secret Service and the state police weren’t able to directly hear what local law enforcement actually saw, because they didn’t have that interoperability with local law enforcement frequencies and didn’t have possession of those radios,” she said.

She called for reforms to require different agencies are able to communicate with each other.

Slipped through cracks

Crooks was spotted multiple times throughout the day and identified by local police as suspicious, Kelly said.

Crooks was operating in an unsecured area “where information about him was both delayed and limited,” Kelly said.

Sullivan told Ohio Republican David Joyce that authorities could have used several methods to secure adjacent sites, suggesting the most effective way could have been to station officers there.

Local police spotted Crooks, identified him as suspicious and passed information on to the Pennsylvania State Police and the Secret Service, Lenz said.

But that information did not reach the Secret Service in time to remove Trump from the stage before the shooting began, Kelly said.

“The Secret Service could not process the information fast enough to pull the former president from the stage,” Kelly added.

The chairman wondered why Trump was allowed to go on stage after Crooks had been flagged several times.

“I’m constantly going to be wondering, at what point did somebody say, ‘We’re not sure the area is secure and safe,’” Kelly said.

First hearing

After two months of investigation, the Thursday meeting marked the first public hearing for the task force, which the House voted unanimously to form in the aftermath of the Butler shooting.

The Secret Service has borne the brunt of the blame for the shooting.

Then-Director Kimberly Cheatle resigned under pressure in the days following the attempted assassination.

Acting Director Ronald Rowe said last week the incident was “a failure of the United States Secret Service” and pledged it would spark a “paradigm shift” in how the agency operates.

The importance of Secret Service protection and the task force’s mission was highlighted again this month when a man who’d been hiding in the bushes of Trump’s Florida golf club was arrested and charged with another attempted assassination.

Members of both parties on the panel condemned targeting political candidates Thursday.

“Political violence has no place in our democracy, period,” Crow said.

Trump said this week he will return to Butler on Oct. 5 to “finish our speech.”

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, center, walks with U.S. Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., right, and U.S. Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., left to a closed-door meeting Thursday at the U.S. Capitol. (Tom Brenner/Getty Images)

WASHINGTON — Standing alongside Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy Thursday, Vice President Kamala Harris rejected any suggestion that Ukraine should end its war by relinquishing territory to Russia.

Zelenskyy and Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, met for the seventh time during Harris’ tenure as vice president as the Ukrainian leader visited the White House and U.S. Capitol.

Zelenskyy is expected to meet in New York on Friday morning with former President Donald Trump, who said in a press conference late Thursday he would be able to “make a deal” between Ukraine and Russia “quite quickly.”

“I don’t want to tell you what that looks like,” said Trump, the GOP nominee, who is locked in a tight race with Harris for the Oval Office.

Zelenskyy’s Thursday meetings included a separate one-on-one with President Joe Biden, to shore up continued support as the United States faces the possibility of a shift in power after the quickly approaching 2024 election.

Harris proclaimed the need for “order and stability in our world,” and reiterated her pledge to work with NATO allies to defend Ukraine from Russian President Vladimir Putin, who launched a full-scale invasion in February 2022 nearly a decade after forceably annexing Ukraine’s Crimean Peninsula.

“Nothing about the end of this war can be decided without Ukraine,” Harris said in comments livestreamed on C-SPAN.

“However, in candor, I share with you, Mr. President, there are some in my country who would instead force Ukraine to give up large parts of its sovereign territory, who would demand that Ukraine accept neutrality, and would require Ukraine to forgo security relationships with other nations,” Harris continued during brief joint remarks with Zelenskyy to the press. “These proposals are the same of those of Putin.”

Harris delivered the comments one day after Trump told a rally crowd in North Carolina that Biden and Harris “allowed” the ongoing war by “feeding Zelenskyy money and munitions like no country has ever seen before.”

United Nations

Zelenskyy’s Washington visits came as the United Nations General Assembly gathered this week in New York City, where Zelenskyy again communicated to world leaders that he wants “territorial integrity” for his nation.

Zelenskyy and Biden met in the Oval Office Thursday afternoon, where they discussed the Ukrainian leader’s “victory plan,” which requests U.S. authority to launch Western missiles deeper inside Russia’s borders.

“Your determination is incredibly important for us to prevail,” Zelenskyy told Biden in front of reporters.

In brief joint remarks to the press, Biden said “I see two key pieces. First, right now, we have to strengthen Ukraine’s position on the battlefield.”

Biden announced the release of $7.9 billion that Congress appropriated for Ukraine and ordered any remaining money to be allocated by his last day in office, Jan. 20, 2025.

“This will strengthen Ukraine’s position in future negotiations,” Biden said.

Ukraine is expected to request more assistance from the U.S. in the coming months.

The U.S. has directed more than $59.3 billion in security assistance since Biden took office, the vast majority of which was committed after Russia’s invasion, according to Pentagon figures. Overall U.S. foreign assistance to Ukraine since 2022 has totaled roughly $175 billion.

Biden, Harris and Zelenskyy did not answer reporters’ shouted questions following their respective meetings.

Zelenskyy goes to Capitol Hill, again

Zelenskyy began Thursday with meetings on Capitol Hill, splitting time with Senate and House lawmakers, absent U.S. House Speaker Mike Johnson.

The meetings occurred less than 24 hours after Johnson wrote a letter to Zelenskyy demanding he fire Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S. for organizing a trip for the Ukrainian president alongside Democrats to Pennsylvania, a key swing state in the 2024 presidential election.

Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro led Zelenskyy on a tour Sunday of an ammunition plant in Scranton. They were joined by Sen. Bob Casey and Rep. Matt Cartwright, both Pennsylvania Democrats up for reelection.

“The facility was in a politically contested battleground state, was led by a top political surrogate for Kamala Harris, and failed to include a single Republican because — on purpose — no Republicans were invited. The tour was clearly a partisan campaign event designed to help Democrats and is clearly election interference,” Johnson, a Louisiana Republican, wrote.

Republican Rep. James Comer of Kentucky, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, opened an investigation Wednesday into the “misuse of government resources that allowed Zelensky to interfere in the 2024 presidential election.”

Lawmakers exiting the meetings told reporters Zelenskyy did not comment on Johnson’s letter but rather spoke about the war effort and Ukraine’s desire to use long-range missiles to target military assets farther into Russia.

Republican Sen. John Boozman, who sits on the U.S. Helsinki Commission, told reporters “the more damage we can do, the sooner, the better off we are.”

“It’s to the Russians’ advantage if this thing drags on forever,” said Boozman, of Arkansas.

When asked by reporters if Biden should give permission to Zelenskyy to strike deeper into Russia, Sen. Michael Bennet of Colorado said, “I hope he will.”

Bennet, a member of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, told reporters he would not repeat “anything that anybody else said in that room,” but said he “didn’t hear” any concern over fears of stoking Russia, a nuclear power, to retaliate against NATO allies.

Rep. Joe Wilson, chair of the U.S. Helsinki Commission, told reporters the meeting with Zelenskyy was “positive” and reiterated his support for a Ukrainian victory.

He chalked up Johnson’s absence to a possible “scheduling” issue.

Wilson, who also co-chairs the Congressional Ukraine Caucus, said he’s “confident things are going to work out” regarding Johnson’s rebuke of Zelenskyy. Wilson then quickly pivoted to praising Trump’s approval of a 2017 sale of U.S. weapons to Ukraine.

When pressed by States Newsroom on Trump’s refusal to say whether he wants Ukraine to win the war, Wilson defended the former president.

“I defer to President Trump, but I again, I have so much appreciation that it was Donald Trump that tried to avoid all of this,” the South Carolina Republican said.

Trump was impeached by the U.S. House in 2019, but acquitted by the Senate, for threatening to withhold security assistance for Ukraine unless Zelenskyy publicly announced an investigation into Biden ahead of the 2020 presidential election, which the former vice president under Barack Obama won.

Jennifer Shutt contributed to this report.

Former President Donald Trump, Republican presidential nominee, speaks to attendees during a campaign rally Wednesday at the Mosack Group warehouse in Mint Hill, North Carolina. (Brandon Bell/Getty Images)

Former President Donald Trump suggested without evidence Wednesday that Iran could be responsible for two apparent assassination attempts he has faced this year, saying foreign leaders objected to his position on tariffs.

Authorities have made no public statements to support the claim that either would-be assassin — in Butler, Pennsylvania, in July and near Trump’s Florida home this month — was aided by foreign agents or anyone else. Trump tied the two incidents to the separate hacking of his campaign, which U.S. intelligence agencies say was conducted by Iran.

“There have been two assassination attempts on my life — that we know of,” Trump, the GOP candidate for president, said at a campaign stop in Mint Hill, North Carolina. “And they may or may not involve — but possibly do — Iran, but I don’t really know.”

Trump also aired his theory on X on Wednesday, saying, “Big threats on my life by Iran. The entire U.S. Military is watching and waiting. Moves were already made by Iran that didn’t work out, but they will try again.”

The Trump campaign told USA Today in a statement on Tuesday night that “President Trump was briefed earlier today by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence regarding real and specific threats from Iran to assassinate him in an effort to destabilize and sow chaos in the United States.”

USA Today also said a spokesman for the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, or ODNI, acknowledged the briefing occurred but did not provide specifics about what was said.

In his remarks in North Carolina, Trump thanked members of Congress in both parties for approving more funding for the U.S. Secret Service, but added that if he were president when a foreign country threatened a presidential candidate, he would retaliate in the strongest terms.

“So I thank everybody in Congress,” he said. “But if I were the president, I would inform the threatening country, in this case Iran, that if you do anything to harm this person, we are going to blow your largest cities and the country itself to smithereens. We’re going to blow it to smithereens.”

The gunman in the Pennsylvania shooting, Thomas Crooks, was killed by law enforcement at the scene. In the second case, in Florida, Ryan Wesley Routh was charged on Tuesday with attempted assassination of Trump.

In the hour-long speech that included some attention to economic issues, Trump said that he was a target of foreign governments because of his plans to expand tariffs, which are taxes on imported goods.

“I’m imposing tariffs on your competition from foreign countries, all these foreign countries that have ripped us off, which stole all of your businesses and all of your jobs years ago and took your businesses out,” he said. “This is why people in countries want to kill me. They’re not happy with me. It is – it’s a risky business. This is why they want to kill me.”

Trump also said he would set a 15% tax rate on companies that produce their goods domestically.  That low rate, combined with tariffs on foreign goods, would boost U.S. manufacturing, including furniture production that was once a large industry in North Carolina, he said.

Tariffs generally lead to higher prices, which have plagued consumers since 2020.

Harris in Pennsylvania

The Democratic nominee, Vice President Kamala Harris, painted a more optimistic picture of the U.S. economic present and future in her own economy-focused speech Wednesday in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.

Harris acknowledged that prices remained too high.

“You know it, and I know it,” she said, according to a pool report.

Harris said her economic priorities were focused on the middle class, which she contrasted with what she described as Trump’s favoritism to wealthy people.

She said she would encourage innovation by boosting research in a host of technologies from biomanufacturing to artificial intelligence and the blockchain, and said her approach to the presidency would include experimenting with different strategies.

“As president, I will be grounded in my fundamental values of fairness, dignity and opportunity,” she said. “And I promise you, I will be pragmatic in my approach. I will engage in what Franklin Roosevelt called bold, persistent experimentation.”

Immigration blamed by GOP

Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance, applied their nativist immigration positions to speeches focused on the economy in their Wednesday campaign appearances. Both said immigrants in the country illegally were responsible for driving down employment and wages among U.S.-born workers.

“The jobs are going to illegal migrants that came into our country illegally,” Trump said in North Carolina. “Our Black population all over the country, our Hispanic population, are losing their jobs. They’re citizens of America, they’re losing their jobs.”

In a call earlier Wednesday touting the International Brotherhood of Teamsters’ decision not to endorse in the presidential race and an internal electronic poll showing most members supported the GOP ticket, Vance said organized labor had long sought to protect U.S. workers from immigrants.

“The American labor movement has always recognized that illegal labor undercuts the wages of American workers,” Vance said on the call. “Those are folks competing against American citizens and legal residents for important jobs and undercutting their wages in the process.”

Vance said, without citing a source, that all net job growth under Harris and President Joe Biden had gone to foreign workers, including “25 million” immigrants in the country illegally.