RFT 📰

Date of sighting: March 2 at 7:46 a.m. Location: Chippewa Street and Hampton Avenue

In 1995, St. Louis County prosecutor Doug Sidel won a life sentence against Gary Muehlberg for murdering an acquaintance named Kenneth “Doc” Atchison whom Muehlberg lured to his house under the pretense of selling him a car. At the time, Sidel had no idea he was putting away an infamous serial killer. At the time prosecutors had no information tying Muehlberg to other crimes, a court spokesperson says.

Much like my exes, the Saint Louis Zoo has decided it cannot handle a strong-willed individual and decided to part ways with Ben the Andean Bear. Ben, who escaped his enclosure twice during his time in St. Louis, will be moved to a zoo in Texas. The zoo is citing his “unique personality” as a reason for the move, which is code for too much to handle.

It was opening weekend for the new City Winery at the Foundry STL, capped by a Sunday night performance from renowned blues singer Shemekia Copeland.  Copeland hit the ground running with a slinky cover of Ray Wylie Hubbard’s “Barefoot in Heaven,” one of six songs she played from her Grammy-nominated new album Done Come Too Far. 

The Midwest's largest oyster festival returns to St. Louis this weekend. Schlafly's Stout and Oyster Fest will kick off this Friday and Saturday at the Schlafly Tap Room (2100 Locust Street, 314-241-2337) in Downtown West. This annual event features thousands of oysters and "star shuckers" from around the country, making it the largest event of its kind in the region.

Legislators in the Missouri Senate approved two bills this morning related to transgender minors in the state. One would prevent Missourians under 18 from accessing gender-affirming health care and the other would prevent transgender student-athletes from playing on teams that do not match the sex on their birth certificate.

The one-mile trek to QT was an endless hell that I’d wish on no one.  It’s not like anyone pressured me to roam through The Hill after consuming 60 mg of THC.

If biblical bodies give you the tingles, check out the Sexy Jesus Pageant at Aurora STL (7413 South Broadway, aurorastl.com). The South Broadway establishment has been making a reputation for itself lately with interesting, unique shows.

Laynee Knipmeyer has created what may become the St. Louis answer to the Green Bay Packers' famous Cheeseheads. You know, those enormous cheese block hats that everybody wears in Wisconsin? Yeah, St. Louis does it better (of course).

With the past weekend's cold, today may not feel like the first day of spring, but it is. Before you know it, St. Louis will be back to its humid, 90-degree summer days. But in between now and then, savor what makes St. Louis spring glorious. There's few better ways to do so than strolling around Missouri Botanical Garden (4344 Shaw Boulevard) to see cherry blossoms in their vibrant bloom.

It was a night for frozen asses. Like those of the CITY SC fans downtown.

Missourians are pretty evenly split on their opinions of Senator Josh Hawley. Just as many, if not more, voters view him unfavorably as favorably, according to a copy of a memo from Change Research obtained by the RFT. The San Francisco-based polling firm compiled data from 1,267 Missouri voters, 43 percent of whom said they viewed the Republican senator unfavorably.

Playwright Bess Wohl’s Grand Horizons is a thoughtfully complex story of love and aging and of the skewered perspectives between parents and their children. The sharp-witted script is also often laugh out loud hilarious with a few unexpected and impactful twists.

This story was produced in partnership with the River City Journalism Fund. St. Louis CITY SC made history Saturday at CITYPARK, becoming the first Major League Soccer expansion team to start a season with four wins.

The upcoming aldermanic election gives Ward 14 candidate Rasheen Aldridge a sense of deja vu. Aldridge’s ascent to public office began after he quashed incumbent Rodney Hubbard Sr. to win election as the Fifth Ward Democratic Committeeman in 2016. His victory came only after a lawsuit filed against Hubbard and his wife, then state representative Penny Hubbard, sparked a rare election re-do.

Over the course of one week last month, there were 414 filings for evictions in St. Louis city and county courts, a level of evictions not seen since at least the start of the pandemic. This is according to data from the Eviction Lab, an organization of researchers who study housing. Jacob Haas, a research specialist at the Eviction Lab, says that the number of eviction filings in St. Louis last month was about 20 percent higher than the pre-pandemic average.

MONDAY, MARCH 13 In St. Charles County, prosecutors kick off the capital murder trial of Shawn Kavanagh. Saying, "I just wanted to be with my wife on Valentine's Day," Kavanagh killed two of his wife’s friends and one of their seven-year-old sons before stabbing said wife. She survived, but the Post-Dispatch says she endures “lifelong injuries.”

Remember when a hot mic captured President Joe Biden muttering under his breath that a reporter questioning him was a "stupid son of a bitch"?  Josh Hawley just had a similar faux pas — as the senior senator from Missouri was caught on leaked footage berating a St. Louis news reporter for nearly three cringe-worthy minutes before their formal interview began. The reporter's sin? He'd tweeted critically of Elon Musk, then joked about whether or not he was sober when tweeting.

This morning, numerous media outlets reported that the sheriff of Iron County and two of his deputies had been arrested for taking part in an attempted kidnapping plot, making them the three most recent law enforcement officials from Missouri to wind up on the wrong side of the law. According to the Post-Dispatch, prosecutors allege that Sheriff Jeff Burkett, deputy Matthew Cozad, deputy Chase Bresnahan and a fourth man from Washington County named Donald Gaston comprised a "criminal street gang" that attempted to kidnap Gaston's daughter after Gaston got into a fight with the girl's mom over a bottle of liquor.

The St. Louis region’s public transit agency plans to “improve customer service” by making cuts to its paratransit system serving those with disabilities. It’s a move disability rights advocates have decried as a “cruel” solution to a real problem.