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Democrats have used President Donald Trump’s unpopularity to expand the midterm map, and analysts project the party carries momentum heading into the final two weeks of the election cycle, even as Democrats are expected to flip fewer U.S. House seats than wave elections this century. The Cook Political Report with Amy…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed an executive order Monday establishing a Women’s Health Division within the National Institutes of Health. The new division is set to work with the agency’s existing Office of Research on Women’s Health, which was established in 1990 and “has served as the focal point for…
WASHINGTON — Immigrants living in the United States with humanitarian status from Ukraine and Sudan will retain their deportation protections and work authorizations for now, the Department of Homeland Security said over the weekend. More than 100,000 Ukrainians and roughly 2,000 Sudanese with Temporary Protected…
Missouri Republicans’ advantage among voters has narrowed sharply this year, but that shift may do little to change the state’s congressional delegation on Nov. 3. An August St. Louis University/YouGov survey showed Missourians were just about evenly split between Republicans and Democrats on a generic congressional…
Six years ago, when we launched The Missouri Independent, I made what was probably a pretty lousy sales pitch. Don’t trust us. Not yet, anyway. I asked Missourians to judge us by our work. To hold us accountable for our promises. To make us prove that we really were, as legendary investigative reporter Wayne Barrett
Organizers launched more than 2,500 No Kings events across all 50 states and the District of Columbia Saturday, this time focusing their efforts on the midterm elections. From roadside rallies to letter-writing campaigns and protest songs, this round of demonstrations aimed to get people to the polls early. In the…
For more than three decades, the federal government released an annual comprehensive report on the state of hunger in America. But that ended in 2025 when the U.S. Department of Agriculture announced it would no longer produce Household Food Security reports. While the report has disappeared, hunger clearly hasn’t. In…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump has a flurry of travel on deck in the final frantic weeks leading up to the end of the midterm elections, in which the GOP is vying to maintain its control of both the U.S. House and Senate. But that outlook looks increasingly less favorable for Republicans, as analysts say
WASHINGTON — More than 100,000 Ukrainians and roughly 2,000 Sudanese immigrants are bracing for the possibility they’ll lose their humanitarian protections by Monday. Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin has not indicated if he will renew protections for Ukrainians, who first received Temporary Protected…
WASHINGTON —Suddenly there’s hope for cutting the reams of red tape that can make getting new energy projects a seemingly endless slog. Top Republican and Democratic senators have unveiled a 417-page bill to overhaul the approval process, a pathway for what’s known as “permitting reform.” A debate is likely when…
The sheer size of investment in data centers is drawing concern as it surpasses all other historical booms and crowds out other more job-creating ventures. Until now, no industry had driven the U.S. economy with such force since the railroad expansion of the late 1800s, when titans battled one another to lay the…
WASHINGTON — The No Kings movement that has brought millions to the streets across the United States three times since the start of President Donald Trump’s second term is staging its next event at the polls. Organizers across hundreds of advocacy groups will pull together thousands of events nationwide Saturday to…
A new Missouri-based nonprofit has dropped $2.9 million into a campaign hoping to reinstate an abortion ban. Her Health Her Future Missouri was incorporated in September and is now the top donor to Her Health, Her Future PAC, the campaign aimed at passing Amendment 3. If approved by a majority of voters, it would…
AUSTIN, Texas — It was a good day for the defense. Standing in front of a judge in Austin’s Blackwell-Thurman Criminal Justice Center, attorney Matthew Shrum secured a ruling that spared his client from serious punishment on a shoplifting charge. In the hallway immediately afterward, the defendant thanked Shrum with…
When MyPillow founder Mike Lindell visited the Missouri Capitol in January 2023, the conversation was focused on election security. Lindell, a Donald Trump ally who has repeatedly promoted false claims that the 2020 presidential election was stolen, offered a suggestion to lawmakers and activists: Contact your…
When I considered practicing in Missouri in late 2020, I expected the licensing process to evaluate my education, training, experience and professional credentials. What I did not expect was to be asked to reconstruct more than three decades of my personal preprofessional history. After six months of unemployment due…
Editor’s Note: This story is part of Gen Z at the Ballot Box, a collaboration between States Newsroom and The 19th. Boise State University senior Cade Syvock opposes abortion. As president of the school’s chapter of the conservative group Turning Point USA, the organization founded by the late activist Charlie Kirk…
WASHINGTON — Democrats are touting an ambitious legislative agenda centered on affordability and accountability if they take back the U.S. House or Senate — or both — in November. A slew of pressing policy debates are on tap for Democrats, including healthcare, immigration, voting rights, the war in Iran, oversight…
Inflation grew to a 3.7% annual rate in September, according to an Oct. 14 report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, up from 3.4% in August. In the last consumer price inflation report before midterm elections, with voters already fed up with higher prices, September’s number was the highest since May, when it…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump Thursday announced that the execution of a man convicted of the Fort Hood shooting will not be livestreamed, a reversal after Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth said last week that Nidal Hasan’s death by firing squad would be public. “I think streaming the execution for all to see might…
WASHINGTON — U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection need to improve oversight and guidance for federal immigration officers’ use of body-worn cameras, according to a Wednesday report from independent federal investigators. Officials with the Department of Homeland Security…
The U.S. Department of Justice is demanding California not count ballots from voters it says are suspected noncitizens, a move by the Trump administration to apply last-minute pressure as voting begins in the midterm elections. The Justice Department on Tuesday gave California election officials 48 hours to remove…
WASHINGTON — The Social Security Administration announced on Wednesday that recipients will receive a 3.6% increase in benefits in 2027. The cost-of-living adjustment, or COLA, will begin for 72 million Social Security beneficiaries in January. It will apply for Supplemental Security Income, or SSI, recipients…
Over five consecutive elections from 1974 through 1982, Missouri Democrats elected supermajorities — more than two-thirds of the 163 members — to the Missouri House. The party drew its strength from rural voters, union households and Black-majority urban districts. The supermajority ended as rural voters, who had…
Most Missourians probably could not name a member of the State Board of Education. Most could not explain why board members serve eight-year terms or why Missouri’s Constitution limits the number of members from the same political party. That is understandable. The State Board was never intended to be a political…
In December 2022, a surgeon at NKC Health removed Karrie Krause’s gallbladder. Three years later, a lawyer representing the hospital took her to court over her unpaid bill. The middle school English teacher is far from alone. As the price of getting sick or injured keeps growing and the cost that patients are forced to
As candidates debate public safety ahead of the midterm elections, a new assessment of the nation’s historic homicide decline suggests there is no single explanation for the drop — and that some widely discussed enforcement strategies may have played little role. A survey of nearly 50 crime scholars convened by the…
As the nation’s physician shortage worsens, some fear the Trump administration’s immigration policies will dissuade or prevent doctors who earned their medical degrees in foreign countries from practicing in the United States. Among all U.S. doctors, an estimated one quarter were educated abroad. But they make up an…
WASHINGTON — A federal judge late Tuesday extended a block on a Trump administration ban of press passes for three news organizations, which will allow them to continue to enter the White House grounds while a legal challenge to the ban, including a Wednesday appeal filed by the administration, plays out. U.S…
WASHINGTON — As partisan tensions rise in advance of the fast-approaching midterm elections, students will test their knowledge Wednesday in a field that’s long enjoyed bipartisan support: civics. Fifty-two middle school students hailing from all 50 states, Washington, D.C., and American Samoa, will compete at the…
Missouri voters are being asked on Nov. 3 to fundamentally rewrite the balance of power between themselves and the state lawmakers they elect. If Amendment 6 passes, future legislatures could no longer change laws enacted by voters through the initiative process on their own. Instead, at least 80% of both the House…
I did not leave the Republican Party, and I am not going anywhere. But I am tired of watching most of my party’s leaders in Washington behave as if abandoning Ukraine to Vladimir Putin is simply the price of loyalty to this president. President Donald Trump has never hidden his instinct to accommodate Putin, and
Three weeks before Election Day, the Trump administration’s sprawling project to send sensitive personal information on millions of voters to the Department of Homeland Security has been declared illegal by a federal judge. The blistering court decision comes after the Department of Justice pressured or sued states…
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump this week will journey out West in an effort to galvanize support for Republican candidates three weeks before the midterm elections and convince voters to support his party amid low presidential approval ratings. As the deeply unpopular war in Iran enters month eight, resulting in…
For pregnant women living north of Interstate 70 in central Missouri, there weren’t many places to deliver a baby. Fitzgibbon Hospital in Marshall was one of them. Now it isn’t. Fitzgibbon delivered 252 babies in 2025. In April, the hospital filed for bankruptcy protection and began sale negotiations for its 60-bed…
WASHINGTON — Democratic leaders in the U.S. House condemned a “deeply disturbing” raid early Monday at the District of Columbia home of Rep. Ilhan Omar, a Minnesota Democrat who has long been a target of verbal attacks by President Donald Trump and Republicans. House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., Democratic…
The Trump administration’s order to allow import of Russian diesel violates a 2022 law banning Russian energy imports while the country’s war with Ukraine is ongoing, according to a bipartisan group of U.S. senators. Following an Oct. 9 call between President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin, the U.S…
Missouri energy leaders are all in on nuclear power. A new state energy plan from Missouri’s Department of Natural Resources prioritizes new nuclear plants, as well as energy independence and grid reliability. Missouri uses eight times more energy than it produces, a statistic state energy leaders want to change by…
As a local, Black-led, community-based nonprofit, Coalition with STL Kids spent months talking to hundreds of parents about the troubling state of St. Louis Public Schools (SLPS). We wrote and spoke to the Missouri state auditor’s office and pleaded for an audit of SLPS. We raised concerns about the district’s…
President Donald Trump on Friday appeared to leave open the possibility that the federal government won’t livestream a military execution planned for December that Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth had said would be public. But Trump also told reporters at the White House that he had “absolutely” approved livestreaming…
In the course of a single election cycle, the backlash against data centers has grown from an issue at local planning commission and city council meetings to become a flashpoint in state and federal races across the country. Candidates who once touted data centers as an economic boon have backtracked, and voters in at…
Measles cases for the calendar year surpassed 4,000 for the first time in decades, with as many as five deaths in Pennsylvania, as the federal government steps in with financial help for states but also fans vaccination fears and skepticism. A weekly report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention showed…
Missourians will vote next month on a proposal to set aside and invest state money that could remain untouched for more than a century, with the eventual goal of generating enough earnings to eliminate state taxes. Amendment 7 will ask voters if they would like to enshrine in the state’s constitution a “permanent…
A former Cornell University student’s allegations of gang rape in 2024 have renewed attention on a difficult area of sexual assault law. A person can be awake, responsive and even able to move during a sexual encounter while still being so intoxicated or impaired that they cannot understand what is happening or make…
Missouri is headed toward a potentially painful budget reckoning as state spending continues to outpace revenue growth. The two leading candidates for state auditor agree that should be a major concern for the office. They disagree over what the auditor can — and should — do about it. Republican incumbent Scott…
Andrew Bailey has been back in Missouri for about two weeks, and he already has a message. Speaking to a recent gathering of Boone County Republicans, the former attorney general said there’s “a real disconnect right now between where the people are and where some of our leadership is.” He said lobbyists and political…
The growing attention being given to Missouri’s child welfare system offers a critical opportunity to address not only the challenges with the system, but the circumstances that bring families to a point of crisis — and into contact with the system in the first place. Children’s Division Director Sara Smith has made…
On Friday morning, the prediction market platform Kalshi gave the Democratic candidate in Minnesota’s U.S. Senate race an 87% chance of winning. The volume of trading on the outcome exceeded $1.8 million. This is exactly the type of activity Minnesota and numerous other states want to shut down. “They jeopardize…
President Donald Trump has formed a White House committee to investigate Federal Reserve Governor Lisa Cook, escalating even further a lengthy feud with the Federal Reserve Board member. The three-member committee will seek evidence that Cook made false statements in obtaining a mortgage and will hold a closed-door…
WASHINGTON — Rebecca Myers lives in one of the nation’s most hotly contested congressional districts, and tariffs were on her mind as she voted early and in-person in Suffolk, Virginia in late September. The 44-year-old trained social worker said she and her husband, who recently retired after 25 years in the U.S…
Urban hospitals are closing at roughly the same rate as rural ones, and the shuttered hospitals are more likely to have served communities with high poverty rates and fewer transportation options, according to a new study published Thursday in the journal JAMA. Researchers at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public…
SPRINGFIELD — Melanie Stinnett and Betsy Fogle have more in common than their political affiliations might suggest. Both came to politics after careers helping Missourians navigate a complicated healthcare system. Both have made improving access to services for people with disabilities a priority. And both worked this…
A perfect storm of harsh immigration enforcement, aging journeymen and a building boom for data centers is wreaking havoc on the nation’s supply of skilled trade workers. Automakers and construction contractors say they need more access to workers through accelerated training, steady immigration and a cultural shift…
LEE’S SUMMIT — Marching up and down the front steps of split level homes in a Lee’s Summit neighborhood on a recent Monday evening, Democratic state Rep. Keri Ingle was not the first to tell residents about the upcoming election. As her bright pink tennis shoes reached the stoop of the first house on her
I am Jane Doe. I was a freshman in college, second semester, when I got a call from my mom that my dad was in the hospital. I should find my older brother and we should come home. In the hour and a half it took me to locate my brother on campus (landlines, kids),
WASHINGTON — The top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee is demanding his colleagues across the aisle apologize to former special counsel Jack Smith after Missouri Republican Sen. Eric Schmitt launched false accusations at a recent hearing and called the former Justice Department official a “dirtbag.” Committee…
WASHINGTON — A federal judge will rule in the coming days on whether the Trump administration can legally rescind White House press passes for journalists at three news organizations, or if those reporters will be able to continue accessing the grounds while the case continues. U.S. District Judge for the District of…
WASHINGTON — Leading immigration advocates and experts sounded the alarm Wednesday on the Trump administration’s sweeping efforts to undo state laws allowing some immigrants to pay in-state college tuition in the states where they reside. The U.S. Department of Justice has sued 24 states, Washington, D.C., and the…
The Department of Homeland Security obtained tens of millions of unspecified records as part of a sweeping nationwide effort to find voter fraud, according to internal DHS reports, and weighed using undercover agents to investigate voter registration efforts by nonprofit groups. The reports from May and June by…
WASHINGTON — Nearly all of the U.S. senators elected this year will be in office when Congress debates how to restructure Social Security to prevent an automatic drop-off in retirement benefits in 2032. Very few candidates in competitive races, however, have policy proposals on their campaign websites and many, when…
Jamie Reed stood before a room full of Republicans in St. Louis County in September, clicking through a presentation about pediatric gender medicine. The former caseworker at a St. Louis transgender clinic described puberty blockers and hormones in stark terms and warned of what she sees as lasting harm to children…
For most people, the AI debate began with tools such as ChatGPT and questions about jobs, academic integrity, misinformation, and privacy. But AI is increasingly becoming a physical presence as well, through massive data centers, new demands on the electric grid, infrastructure investment and decisions about who bears…
Current and former Lincoln University students are suing the State of Missouri for nearly $550 million to address what they allege are decades of inequitable funding that they say has hurt the college’s academic programs and facilities. In a complaint filed Wednesday in the U.S. District Court for the Western District…
Household water bills are increasing faster than inflation and income, according to a new analysis. The environmental advocacy nonprofit Food and Water Watch analyzed water bill data among the nation’s 500 largest community water providers. Those systems serve a collective 155 million people — nearly half the nation’s…
A leading Democratic campaign committee is projecting confidence in U.S. Senate toss-up races four weeks before Election Day, though it has yet to commit resources to the reddest states that have recently entered the Senate map. Senate Majority PAC, which is run by allies of Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer of…
As President Donald Trump refuses to rule out taking extreme action in the midterm elections, voting rights advocates and civil rights leaders are bolstering their voter protection efforts in anticipation of possible federal interference. The focus by activists comes amid uncertainty among advocates and election…
WASHINGTON — The number of women in the U.S. Senate is unlikely to increase and may decline following the November midterm elections, though there are still opportunities for candidates to make history in the upper chamber. Kelly Dittmar, director of research at the Center for American Women and Politics, said on a…
Andrew Bailey, the former Missouri attorney general who left his post at the FBI last week, told fellow Republicans Tuesday night that he vowed to continue holding wrongdoers, whether criminal or political, to the letter of the law. “The cornerstone of prosperous communities is the criminal justice system and holding…
In early August, Missouri voters decisively rejected two efforts to rewrite some of the basic rules of state government. Although Republicans hold supermajorities in the Senate (24-10) and House (111-52), Amendment 4 would have required citizen-led constitutional amendments to win both statewide and in all eight…
A St. Louis jury awarded $10 million Tuesday to three plaintiffs in a sprawling ownership battle over six Missouri cannabis licenses involving more than 20 businesses and individuals. Over a week of testimony, jurors heard about a tangled series of business agreements and allegations that partners went behind one…
With Election Day less than a month away, lawmakers in several states are suspending gas taxes or rolling back regulations on diesel fuel as voters grow increasingly frustrated with rising fuel costs amid President Donald Trump’s war with Iran. On Tuesday, Trump issued an executive order to expand access to tax-free…
As the political prospects for Republicans worsen ahead of November’s midterm elections, the GOP is increasingly playing defense over its yearslong grip on state governments. That’s particularly true for gubernatorial elections, as Democrats could win a majority of governorships for the first time since 2010…
WASHINGTON — Democrats expect they’ll gain a majority of seats in the U.S. House following November’s midterm elections, giving the party a platform to serve as a check on the president’s power. Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Suzan DelBene said during an interview Monday that curbing the war in Iran…
President Donald Trump wants to sharply curtail mail ballots. He’s called them “inherently corrupt” and baselessly condemned them as a major source of fraud. But with Republicans falling behind in the polls, the president is now urging his supporters to vote in the midterm elections any way they can, including by…
A state task force created by Gov. Mike Kehoe to recommend changes to Missouri’s child welfare system convened for five hours Monday to begin developing clearer common standards for determining whether a child is safe that can be used by abuse and neglect investigators, the courts, juvenile officers and others across…
I am riding on the front of a train barreling into a distant land. Physically, I am at home, in an inflatable pool cushioned by warm water, entering birthland. As my son emerges, I am in awe. We are surrounded by nothing but love: my husband, my certified nurse midwife (CNM), and doula. I feel whole, and present.
When Homeland Security Secretary Markwayne Mullin declared in September that Immigration and Customs Enforcement could serve warrants on individuals at polling places this fall, officials in Denver, a liberal city where roughly 14% of residents are foreign-born, quickly sued. “Every day we find new things to be…
A court battle that began when conservative-led states sued to block protections for transgender people has ended in a rollback of protections for people with disabilities — a result disability advocates have feared for months. At the end of August, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services joined the handful…
Kalshi, Polymarket and the Coalition for Prediction Markets have spent at least $3 million this year on lobbying and campaign contributions across the federal and state levels, according to a new report from the government watchdog group OpenSecrets. Prediction market platforms say they are like commodity markets that…
WASHINGTON — This summer, arrests of immigrants in the United States soared to the highest levels since President Donald Trump returned to office. An unprecedented increase in cooperation between local and state law enforcement and federal immigration officers through collaborations known as 287(g) agreements helped…
Missouri will not use optional federal exemptions designed to help low-income people keep Medicaid coverage when they are hospitalized, travel for medical care or live in areas affected by disasters or high unemployment. The exceptions are optional in the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which starting Jan. 1, 2027 will…
There are plenty of ways to tell when a political party is worried heading into an election. One is polling. President Donald Trump’s approval rating fell to 32% in a September Reuters/Ipsos poll, the lowest of his career, and sits in the mid-30s in national polling averages. Voters are especially unhappy about the…
As a high school teacher and parent, I see many things to change about our educational system, from funding and curriculum to choice. A strengthened focus on financial literacy while re-thinking foreign language requirements should be also at the top of any reform list. Most American universities and colleges desire…
The U.S. Department of Education’s suspension this year of a comprehensive monitoring process puts billions of K-12 dollars at heightened risk of undetected waste, fraud and abuse, according to a new report by the nonpartisan U.S. Government Accountability Office. The congressional watchdog’s report also raised…
WE BUY HOUSES. CASH 4 HOMES. FA$T CA$H. The signs, text messages and mailers promise cash, quick sales and a seamless means of unloading unwanted homes. But advocates say the business of buying homes for cash can confuse vulnerable homeowners and rob them of home equity. And now, many states are cracking down…
Over the past year and a half, a dozen states have embraced a new vision for solar power: small, cheap panels that can be hung from a balcony or porch, be plugged into a standard wall outlet and take a dent out of residents’ utility bills. These systems, known as balcony solar or plug-in solar,
Nearly 100 community-based organizations have lost their federal HIV-prevention grants this week as the Trump administration redirects dollars to state and local health departments. The funding change represents a departure from the decades-old national HIV prevention strategy favored by most public health…
In December 2023, a woman living in a small community near Austin, Texas, made a $78.08 contribution through WinRed. A few weeks later, she made another. Then came four more contributions in January 2024. Those were the first six entries under her name in Federal Election Commission records stretching back decades…
As Missouri prepares to vote on whether to reinstate an abortion ban, a new information campaign by a local nonprofit is setting out to remind Missourians that regardless of what happens in November, some abortion options will remain available. The campaign launched last week and will run through Election Day, when…
The U.S. Department of the Treasury released new guidance Thursday for participating states, scholarship-granting organizations and taxpayers as the federal scholarship tax credit program prepares to take effect in January. Created through President Donald Trump’s massive tax and spending law in 2025, the Education…
Missouri drew its final round of marijuana microbusiness applicants on Sept. 9. The state received 888 applications and expects to issue approximately 77 licenses beginning in December. I want to write about the months in between, because I work in the trade that operates in them. I am a consultant. I run licensing…
WASHINGTON — U.S. senators departed Capitol Hill on Wednesday night for their campaign break, leaving numerous policy disputes unresolved. The chamber won’t return until Nov. 9 for the five-week lame-duck session, when party leaders will have to decide which bills they want to negotiate during what could be the final…
WASHINGTON — A D.C. Superior Court judge ruled Thursday that prosecutors cannot, for a second time, charge former Olympic canoeist David Hearn with damaging the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool. Judge Todd E. Edelman wrote in his ruling that “the observed damage to the Reflecting Pool was due to a contractor’s ‘rushed…
The U.S. Senate passed legislation Tuesday to make America’s National Churchill Museum a National Historic Landmark, sending the bill to President Donald Trump for his signature. The U.S. House of Representatives passed a corresponding bill in March after the legislation had been stalled in Congress for at least two…
President Donald Trump is scheduled to kick off a month-long blitz of campaign stops with a Thursday rally in deep-red Oklahoma before heading to other states with strong Republican leanings. The first events in the closing stretch of the midterm election campaign suggest his strength with swing voters is limited, as…
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Republicans did not gain any support Wednesday from Democrats as they attempted to advance a bill that mashed together two hot-button midterm issues: requiring voter ID in federal elections and limiting stock trading for members of Congress. The Republican-led bill, titled the Stop Insider…
BATON ROUGE, La. — Louisiana Attorney General Liz Murrill and the attorneys general in Arkansas and Alabama filed a lawsuit Tuesday in the U.S. Supreme Court, suing California, Massachusetts and New York to invalidate the so-called “shield laws” that have allowed providers in those states to send abortion medication…
Since receiving a letter from the Missouri Department of Social Services Sept. 1 containing “an important notice” about his federal food assistance, Andrew Dallas has struggled to ease his mind. Dallas, 63, of Arnold, who was diagnosed with epilepsy after a childhood head injury, can’t work or drive, and he depends on…
WASHINGTON — U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer indicated Wednesday that should Democrats regain control of the chamber following the elections, they plan to block judicial nominees sent up by President Donald Trump, including for any possible vacancies on the Supreme Court. “Look, the bottom line is, one of…
I was baffled when I saw that Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins, represented by Attorney General Catherine Hanaway, had asked a federal district court for an injunction against the Supreme Court of the State of Missouri. Why would they risk infuriating the court that they regularly appear before with a weird…