It's six o'clock on a Thursday evening at the Heavy Anchor, the friendly south city dive bar and music venue on Gravois just down the road from Bevo Mill. A handful of tipplers are scattered around the place — one at the bar, one at a table, one at a booth — drinking out of the Heavy Anchor's signature Mason jars far below the room's pop-fly-high ceilings and surrounded by the nautically themed paintings that cover the walls. Those paintings — ocean waves, squids, narwhals, sailboats, lighthouses — were commissioned by the Heavy Anchor's co-owners, thirtysomething married couple Josh and Jodie Timbrook, who opened the bar in 2011.
On tonight's episode of Nine PBS' Donnybrook, longtime panelist Ray Hartmann made a surprising announcement: He is retiring from the show — and journalism, too. The Riverfront Times' founder and longtime columnist before starting his St. Louis Insider Substack, Hartmann seldom, if ever, misses a week on the show he helped to launch. Of the five current panelists, he and Post-Dispatch columnist Bill McClellan are the only two who were there at the show's debut in 1987.
The St. Louis pediatrician who last week was accused by federal prosecutors of swapping prescription pills for sex has now been indicted by a grand jury and is facing a slew of additional charges. Craig Spiegel, 67, now faces 17 counts of illegal distribution of controlled substances and six counts of making false statements related to health care matters. As the RFT previously reported, federal authorities claim that since 2014 Spiegel has been writing bogus prescriptions to women in exchange for sexual favors and nude photographs.
A window nearly killed her, but now, after several weeks of intensive treatment and recovery, a rare falcon has been released back into St. Louis skies (amid tornado watches). The World Bird Sanctuary in Valley Park announced on Thursday (that’s 314 day to all who celebrate) that patient #24-087 — a Merlin falcon — was released back into the wild after receiving care. This patient is one of only five Merlin falcons treated at the sanctuary’s Kathryn G. Favre Foundation Raptor Hospital in the past decade, according to the organization.
St. Louis will once again have a chance to prove it’s indeed a football town when the United Football League plays their inaugural season's championship game here in St. Louis. It’s the Super Bowl of the UFL — now coming to a city that was robbed by the UFL’s arch rival, that other league, the NFL.
There’s something about Manileño that has us really hoping it does well. It might be the smiley faces of the family who runs it; it might be the grit and determination behind the realization of a dream, and it could much more simply be the food. This Filipino restaurant opened in mid-February at 3611 Juanita Street, just off South Grand Boulevard, in the Tower Grove South neighborhood of St. Louis.
Chris Bertke has a tendency to look frazzled, but if you watch him at work in his new open kitchen on the high-trafficked crook of Morgan Ford and Gravois, there's a grace and calm about him. He's delicate with his herbs, he slices his subs and breads gently.
Pop star and Gen-Z idol Olivia Rodrigo just became more iconic and Republicans are pissed. Rodrigo, 21, is making good on her promises to support reproductive rights. She allowed abortion rights advocates to pass out emergency contraceptives at her concert in St. Louis last night.
The U.S. Department of Transportation announced it will match local funding to construct a greenway bridge in Midtown for bikers and pedestrians. The bridge will be between the I-64/40 decks at Spring Street, according to an official release from the department.
The super-sold-out Olivia Rodrigo concert Tuesday night at Enterprise Center proved one thing for sure: When it comes to concert audiences, nothing compares to teenage girls. It’s a tale as old as rock music itself, going back to when girls shrieked themselves into conniptions when Elvis shifted his pelvis and when they screamed so loud at Beatles concerts that no one could hear the Fab Four at all. But now we are solidly in the era of arenas (or stadiums) filled with teen girls who caterwaul not just when their pop heroes materialize on stage but who stand, dance and scream along to every word of every song in a full-throated squall for the entirety of the show.
Congresswoman Cori Bush (D-St. Louis) doesn't often agree with former President Donald Trump, but they currently find themselves aligned on at least one issue: TikTok. This morning, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would force the social media app's parent company, the China-based ByteDance, to either spin TikTok into its own entity with a non-Chinese owner or have the app banned in the United States. The bill passed 352 to 65 with broad support from both sides.
Batten down the hatches: Severe thunderstorms are likely coming for St. Louis tonight. The National Weather Service says there will be two rounds of severe scattered thunderstorms in St. Louis — one from 5 to 11 p.m. on Wednesday, March 13, and the next Thursday afternoon and evening. The first is largely centered in central and northeast Missouri (yep, that's us), as well as west central Illinois.
A five-year-old boy was struck and killed by a car in the city’s Bevo Mill neighborhood. Now the community is asking for donations to help his family with funeral expenses. On Sunday, March 10, Oliver Luna Diaz was playing outside during a family gathering, according to a GoFundMe started for the family.
Thursday 3/14 From the Lou and Proud
The Gateway City's very own homegrown holiday, 314 Day, is finally upon us — and St. Louis is ready. Terrell "Young Dip" Evans and Tatum Polk created 314 Day back in 2006 with the hopes of bringing the city together and showcasing the positive things happening here, and the now region-wide holiday is increasingly a big deal, celebrated by individuals, organizations and businesses throughout the metro.
Days after the viral video of a brutal beatdown of a Hazelwood East student shocked the region, another tragedy has occurred near a different school in north St. Louis County. Fourteen-year-old Justin Brooks has died after being stabbed next to Rose Mary Johnson Jennings Junior High School. Police say the stabbing occurred on Tuesday, March 12, at 3:05 p.m. on Hord Avenue, and school resources officers quickly provided medical treatment to the young teen.
When State Senator Holly Thompson Rehder (R-Sikeston) first heard about the idea to legalize psilocybin for therapeutic use, she was adamantly opposed to it. But the more she learned about the drug and studies on its uses, the more intrigued she became. “I was so impressed,” Rehder tells the RFT, “and just amazed at the outcomes that these other studies were showing for people who had chronic depression, substance use disorder, PTSD — it's amazing.”
If humankind and Mother Nature are in a long-term relationship, then humans are akin to an emotionally unavailable, exploitative partner who hasn’t planned a date in decades yet still expects their long-suffering counterpart to put dinner on the table every evening at seven sharp. So often we treat the natural world as a commodity at our disposal rather than a life-sustaining force with which our fate is intertwined.
A Belleville Area Humane Society stray turned therapy cat, Rorschach, has the chance to become a superstar in next year’s Cadbury commercial, but he needs St. Louis’ help. “So this is actually the second year I entered him,” explains Paige Krisby, Rorschach's owner and handler. “He doesn't mind anything, so I was like, ‘Why not give it a go?’”
Jeffrey Ricker and his partner Michael Wallerstein lived happily in the City of St. Louis for 18 years. Then things in Jefferson City took a turn. In February of 2022, Ricker and Wallerstein moved from their home in Botanical Heights across the river to Collinsville, Illinois.
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