RFT 📰

As the insane temperatures dip away this week (at least for the moment), a flurry of fantastic events follow in their wake and, maybe someday, fall color as well. You can get outside this week with an Oktoberfest celebration or Story Collider or stay even cooler indoors with an Andrew Sean Greer book reading or yoga in the planetarium.

Warning: The following story contains a graphic description of a domestic assault. The domestic assault charges filed yesterday against acclaimed St. Louis chef Anh Huy "Tony" Nguyen, co-owner of the popular Tower Grove South restaurant Snō, include allegations of a 10-year pattern of abuse. According to a probable cause statement filed by St. Louis Metropolitan Police officer Kim Hayes, Nguyen's wife (named "J.N." in the report) told police on September 19th that "she and her husband ... got into an argument that turned physical when Nguyen put a pillow over J.N.'s face and told J.N. 'I should kill you.'

St. Louis' new soccer stadium has never hosted a game, despite the club's developmental team being slated to play there Sunday. Now, a scheduled match for this weekend has also been moved to a new venue.

Sexually transmitted infections are rising in the St. Louis region. Over the last six years, STIs have increased by over 1,000 cases, from 3,866 in 2015 to 5,119 in 2021, according to data from the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.

Here, again, is every newly announced show for the week! Click through and start planning ahead.

Last week, St. Louis Post-Dispatch Editor in Chief Alan Achkar did the one thing newspaper editors are cautioned never to do unless they're ready for a pitched battle: He messed with the funny pages. As Achkar explained in a front-page story on September 13,  the daily was switching to a model in which comics are chosen by its corporate owners in Iowa, not local editors. "Our company, Lee Enterprises, is moving to a uniform set of offerings for its newspapers, with new strips and columns that you haven’t typically seen in the Post-Dispatch," Achkar wrote.

Chef Tony Nguyen, co-owner of the white-hot Tower Grove South restaurant Snō, is currently being held without bond at the St. Louis City Justice Center on felony charges of domestic assault. Nguyen was arrested at 4:30 p.m. on September 19. Charges filed on September 20 consist of second-degree domestic assault and third-degree domestic assault, both felonies, as well as fourth-degree domestic assault, a misdemeanor, and unlawful use of a weapon.

By a ratio of almost three to one, Missourians are enthusiastic about legalizing recreational marijuana in the state. The SurveyUSA poll was released earlier this week. It was sent out mid-September and included responses from 1,000 Missourians, 830 of whom identified as registered voters.

Soul food restaurant Sweetie Pie's Upper Crust will be closing its doors on September 25, owner Robbie Montgomery announced on Instagram on Tuesday. The Sweetie Pie's restaurant chain was at the center of the reality TV show Welcome to Sweetie Pie's.

This story originally appeared in the Missouri Independent. The Missouri Senate gave first-round approval Tuesday to a $335 million income tax cut over objections from liberal members who saw fiscal problems ahead and conservative members who wanted deeper cuts.

Halloween events are ramping up and with them comes the announcement that a horror film festival is happening in St. Louis in October. The 2nd Annual Haunted Garage Horror Festival will be held at the Westport Playhouse (635 West Port Plaza Drive, WestportPlayhouse.com) from October 7 through October 9.

This story originally appeared in the Missouri Independent. Eighty open cases of child abuse and neglect sat on Matt Cordova’s desk in 2017 during the height of the “hole I found myself buried in,” he remembers. Twenty open cases would have been a lot to handle; 80 was impossible.

Liberal, Missouri, was founded as an “atheist utopia” in 1880 by George Walser, a lawyer and Missouri state legislator. The town was named after the nearby Liberal League, to which Walser belonged, and advertised itself to atheists across the country as a community that “has neither God, Hell, Church, nor Saloon.” Walser created a school system that removed the influence of Christian theology and promoted instructional classes on Sundays to replace religious services.

There is more to this week's Savage Love. To read the entire column, go to savage.love.

A Poplar Bluff woman says that on Saturday she did in two hours what local authorities hadn't been able to finish in seven years: bring her murdered son’s remains home. Butler County Coroner Jim Akers confirmed to the RFT that over the weekend, Edward Goodwin’s remains were recovered from a pond northwest of Poplar Bluff, near the intersection of State Highway T and County Road 572. Connie Goodwin, 57, tells the RFT that her family drained the unnamed pond themselves with rented machinery after five years of local law enforcement delaying a complete search of the pond.

A day after his mid-concert fall in St. Louis, Post Malone is taking his now-viral tumble in strides. The rapper fell through an open trap door midway through his concert in St. Louis on Saturday. He fell through the hole that stored his guitar.

A University City man who made "terrorist threats" in the Delmar Loop while dressed as the Joker received a 60-day jail sentence last week. University City Police arrested Jeremy Garnier, 51, in March 2020 after bystanders heard him livestream threats while "in character" as the Joker. See also: Watch the "Joker" Get Arrested for Making "Terrorist Threats" in the Loop

There will be a new comedy television show — and it will take place in St. Louis. The new show, Most Talkative, is named after and based on the 2012 best-selling Andy Cohen memoir of the same title, according to Deadline. Now NBC will take the book, and St. Louis, to an even larger audience.

This story was originally produced by Kaiser Health News. Health insurance giant Centene Corp. has agreed to pay $165.6 million to Texas to resolve claims that it overcharged the state’s Medicaid program for pharmacy services.

Eat Crow (1931 South 12th Street, 314-934-1400), the new concept from the owners of the popular Maplewood bar and restaurant The Crow's Nest, may have a different name than its sister concept and a couple of extra dishes, but co-owner Kenny Snarzyk insists its essence is the same. "If you walked in here and didn't know we were related to The Crow's Nest, you'd figure it out pretty quickly," Snarzyk says. "Either that, or you'd think we were ripping them off pretty badly."