RFT 📰

St. Louis will be in the path of totality for a blood moon lunar eclipse on Sunday, May 15. The eclipse starts at 8:30 and is expected to be at its peak at 11:11 p.m. 

Throughout the month of Ramadan, leaders at the Bosnian Islamic Center have been raising funds for a youth center. The donation drive started in 2021, and even though progress has been delayed by the pandemic, a concrete foundation has been poured, and the construction of walls is under way. “Pricing for material has gone up, as you know,” says Denis Nasufovic, who is on the board of the youth center.

On April 26, U.S. Representative Ann Wagner (R-Ballwin) tweeted the following: “Anti-semitism of all forms must be condemned. All members of the Jewish community must know we stand with them.”

Over the weekend, CBS News and Harper’s Bazaar published stories in praise of the Regional Logistics Center, a partnership between Planned Parenthood of the St. Louis Region and the Hope Clinic For Women, that helps patients across the Midwest have access to abortions. The idea for the Regional Logistics Center was born out of necessity. In May 2019, the last remaining abortion clinic in Missouri, St. Louis’ Planned Parenthood, nearly closed.

A southeast Missouri man is facing federal hate crime and arson charges for burning down a Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints last year in Cape Girardeau. Christopher Scott Pritchard, 46, also faces state charges of arson, burglary and property damage motivated by discrimination. Court records list Pritchard as homeless.

Friday in federal court, a 63-month prison sentence was handed down to one of the men involved in a romance scam that bilked dozens of senior citizens out of nearly $1 million. The length of the sentence was the maximum of the 51- to 63-month range Judge Sarah Pitlyk could impose. Pitlyk said that the stiff punishment was due in part to both the "very serious harm to many people" that the defendant, 43-year-old Bonmene Sibe, was responsible for as well as his disruptive and contemptuous conduct during court.

Thursdays, with their it’s-not-Friday-yet-and-still-there’s-so-much-to-do energy, often need a little help in the unwinding department. With this week proving no exception, I meandered over to the Gustine Market, my neighborhood corner shop, after work to see what goodies it had on offer in its chill-out department.

It may not be the Rihanna news we wanted (a new album) but it’s the Rihanna news the singer knew we needed: A Savage x Fenty store is opening right here in St. Louis. The brand announced its plans to expand its retail locations in an Instagram post on May 4. Along with St. Louis, the lingerie business is expanding to Detroit, Michigan; Chicago, Illinois; Long Island, New York; Newark, Delaware; and Atlanta, Georgia.

To explain how authentically Greek Olympia Kebob House & Taverna is, co-owner George Nicholas points to the restaurant's seating: rows of old, sawed-in-half wooden church pews. It's not only the fact that they came from some of St. Louis' oldest Greek Orthodox Churches — it's how they were acquired. "Back in the day, my father would ride around with this old Greek Orthodox priest who was so big he had to take the driver's seat out of the car and fix something up so the priest would fit," Nicholas says.

Justin Enoch’s musical act EKSE defies household categorization. “[It’s] Midwest Bonk, a hardcore variant — or Ponk, Pineal Punk — a Midwest offshoot of Italian harsh bouncy, pineal bounce and UK Donk,” they say.

This evening the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office announced that a jury found 58-year-old Tommie Coffer Jr. guilty of first degree murder for killing Geneva Richardson, 94, at her home in Florissant, Missouri. The murder happened in December 2017 when Coffer was working in Richardson's home providing night-shift elder care. Over the course of that month, Coffer wrote $7,000 in Richardson's personal checks to himself.

On Thursday, May 5, St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones signed a bill that will direct millions of American Rescue Plan funds to businesses in north St. Louis. Board Bill 82 channels $37 million of federal pandemic relief funds into grants for small businesses, nonprofits and community-enhancement projects within 11 commercial corridors and surrounding neighborhoods in north St. Louis city. An additional $2 million will go toward St. Louis' Americans with Disabilities Act implementation plan to make neighborhoods more navigable for people with disabilities.

Missouri's so-called "trigger law" could quickly make abortion illegal in Missouri if Roe v. Wade is overturned. But legal experts say that the trigger law would affect much more than what most people commonly think of as abortion. University of Missouri–Kansas City law professor Yvette Lindgren tells the RFT that the way Missouri's trigger law is written, combined with recent decisions by the Supreme Court of the United States, means that if Roe v. Wade is overturned, women who use IUDs, couples struggling to have children and women having miscarriages will be impacted.

As a young cook working under the late chef Robert Uyemura at Yia Yia's Euro Bistro many years ago, Alex Henry dreamed of owning his own fine-dining restaurant. Like many up-and-comers, he envisioned a quintessential modern eatery based on the food and techniques he'd picked up working for chefs in conventional upscale kitchens. But Uyemura saw something different for Henry.

Just in time for Cinco de Mayo, Eat This, Not That!, a national food news outlet, has decreed one of Missouri’s own as the top place to get a margarita. Mission Taco Joint (multiple locations including 398 N Euclid Avenue, 314-930-2955) snagged a spot on the national list as Missouri’s best margarita, a first for the business' cocktail. “It's the perfect balance of tart and sweet while still very tequila forward,” Tanya Edwards writes for the magazine.

It’s been a tough couple of days for U.S. Representative Cori Bush (D-Mo.). When news leaked of the Supreme Court’s draft decision to overturn Roe v. Wade and Planned Parenthood v. Casey the Democratic congresswoman says she didn’t believe it at first. “I was broken,” Bush said Wednesday at a news conference with reporters.

Could our volatile Midwest spring be turning into our volatile Midwest summer? In the famous 11 seasons of Midwestern states, St. Louis has been going through the stages as predicted. We have passed winter, fool's spring, second winter, spring of deception, third winter, and seem to be in mud season.

It's a busy weekend — celebrations for two holidays take hold in St. Louis. Cinco de Mayo celebrations will hit Cherokee Street, while Mother's Day activities also take up space over the weekend. The Laumeier Art Fair is also returning to an in-person format for its 35th year.

Stop in to your favorite comic-book shop to participate in Free Comic Book Day. We'll continue to update this list as more events come in.

Several organizations are advocating for ranked-choice voting as a statewide alternative to the current winner-takes-all system that’s the default in United States elections. The political action committee Better Elections faces an upcoming deadline of less than a week to gain 170,000 signatures to get the vote in on the November ballot. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that it’s unclear if the PAC will achieve that goal in time.