RFT 📰

Fields of polka dots. A cryptocoin — or actually two. A Louis Vuitton bag, actually a collection, actually two collaborations.

The Cardinals totally knew you were going to drop the ball this Valentine's Day so they planned a flash sale of baseball tickets to kick off at 9 a.m. this morning. You can buy a ticket to any 2023 home game happening Monday through Thursday for only $6. In addition to that low price, the ticket comes automatically loaded with $6 of Cardinals cash that can be used at any concession stand.

At least two times this past weekend, chunks of concrete mysteriously struck the cars of St. Louis drivers on Interstate 64 near the Hampton Avenue overpass. The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department is investigating but says it is not clear that the incidents are the result of rocks being thrown onto the highway. One incident occurred Sunday night around 6 p.m. when a piece of concrete struck a red Nissan as it passed under Hampton while headed eastbound on I-64.

South Park's 26th season kicked off last week with a nod to St. Louis's own Big Boss Vette and her viral song "Pretty Girls Walk," which has a trending dance on TikTok. Probably even more popular than Megan Trainor's "Made You Look," it is hard to scroll through TikTok without seeing people earnestly performing the strut-heavy dance or parodying it. So naturally when South Park characters Tolkien and Kyle get TikTok famous at school, they shoot a viral video to the track in front of their lockers.

If you watched Rihanna's halftime performance during Super Bowl LVII yesterday and you're from St. Louis, you had just one thought: Becky! Rihanna's floating stage had many people across the world making Aladdin jokes, but here in St. Louis all we saw was Becky, Queen of Carpet.

Holy shit, holy shit, a new music festival that is definitely not LouFest will come to St. Louis during the same season and in the same location as LouFest.  After LouFest’s abrupt, penniless downfall in 2018, St. Louis has been without a premier music festival in Forest Park.

Steve’s Hot Dogs has announced a hot dog special for Valentine’s Day. But this isn’t your regular old heart-shaped hot dog. This is the “Vitamin D” hotdog, also known as the “Lord Aporkalypse," also known as an “🆇-🆁🅰🆃🅴🅳” hotdog.

Police are searching for two suspects believed to be behind three carjackings in south St. Louis, including two last night in the Holly Hills neighborhood. According to SLMPD incident reports, around 11:15 p.m. Sunday, a 19-year-old in a 2013 Acura TL was on Bowen Street when a gray Volkswagen Jetta suddenly pulled in front of him.

Lucas Kunce, the affable and fresh-faced candidate working to unseat the fist-raising insurrectionist-boosting-turned-insurrectionist-fleeing Senator Josh Hawley, introduced his new bride, Marilyn (Martinez) Kunce over brunch at Benton Park Cafe on Saturday. His senior advisor, Connor Lounsbury, arranged the meeting, and told me he would be joining us. “You’re flying in just for brunch?” I asked during our call.

A glorious flavor vehicle not nearly as persnickety to cook as its reputation otherwise suggests, eggplant has been low-key livening up the menus at some of the area's restaurant hot spots over the past year. Here are a handful of ways to get your fix.

MONDAY, FEBRUARY 6 Beginning at 7 a.m., thieves steal four cars in an hour — and Fox 2 reports that in every case, the victims left their cars running while, say, stepping out to pick up coffee or dropping a pet at doggie daycare. People!

This year's legislative whoring for the gun lobby started out innocently enough in Missouri. The main focus of Missouri Republican politicians was to be an attack on Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner.

Safer streets may soon be on the horizon for St. Louis city. A proposal to spend nearly $65 million of pandemic-aid relief money on street and sidewalk improvements passed the Board of Aldermen with 25 of the 28 aldermen voting in favor of the measure today.

After hundreds of Afghan refugees settled in St. Louis over the past year, the International Institute of St. Louis held a grand opening for its most recent initiative on Friday: a community center. The center, located in an office space at 3611 South Grand Boulevard in Tower Grove South, will offer a wide range of services for Afghan immigrants resettling in St. Louis.

Promoters have finally figured out that people just want to dance and have a little fun before we all die, and they’ve started booking events with this in mind. Case in point: tonight at Red Flag (3040 Locust Street, redflagstl.com) they’re having a "Bikini Bottom Rave." Yep, it’s a SpongeBob SquarePants-themed dance party, and you can go even if you don’t live in a pineapple under the sea.

Full-service, indoor dining is returning to Grove BBQ mainstay BEAST Butcher and Block next week Thursday. But BEAST chef and pit master David Sandusky is giving diners even more reason to skip the take out and instead get back in his restaurant for dine-in. "Starting Thursday we're going to light the fires at five o'clock for dinner," he told the RFT.

What makes Lola Jeans’s pizza different is the crust. Thick and focaccia-like, it gives the pizza a nice fluffy texture, without sacrificing the crunch. That special pie is the latest effort from owners Russell Ping and Emily Ping, who opened up shop at 5400 Nottingham Avenue on January 11 in the former home of Lola Jean’s Giveback Coffee.

Three Missouri agencies are investigating a multidisciplinary care center in St. Louis catering to transgender children and adolescents after a former employee detailed her experience as a case manager. The whistleblower, Jamie Reed, provided a sworn affidavit about her time at the Washington University Transgender Center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital earlier this week to Missouri Attorney General Andrew Bailey’s office.

In past months, catalytic converters have been stolen from the federal government, from bakery trucks and from a scrapyard that itself was buying converters. Now add to that list Schnucks parking lots in broad daylight.

Daniel Murphy spent  31 years of his life in Philadelphia, “born and bred” to support Philly sports. He grew up pronouncing water as “wuder,” eating real cheesesteaks on that Philly hoagie roll, reciting the Eagles fight song and watching the Eagles, Sunday after Sunday after Sunday.