RFT 📰

The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. helped change the world with his iconic “I Have a Dream” speech, delivered during the March on Washington in 1963. And as one of the most notable leaders of the U.S. civil rights movement, the Baptist minister and activist played a key role in the movement for civil and economic equality for African Americans from the mid-1950s until his assassination in 1968. 

The private drone surveillance company that wanted to conduct a "beta test" in St. Louis’ Gravois Park neighborhood now says that test is off. However, the drones may still be coming to a neighborhood near you. 

In October 2021, 49-year-old Marion Jones robbed a Footlocker store in south St. Louis. He might have gotten away with the crime, too, if he'd only used some earbuds.

When Riley Holtz was a teenager, he ran the backroads of Neosho, the "City of Springs" or the "Gateway to the Ozarks," as Neoshoans like to call it, deep in southwest Missouri, a few clicks below Joplin. Neosho is best known for its La-Z-Boy manufacturing plant and its proximity to the fabled Spooklight, a floating ghost light that, legend has it, floats supernaturally at the end of a gravel road out in the sticks, although Holtz himself never saw the Spooklight despite his teenage attempts to spot it.

Fast-casual pasta restaurant Sauci Pasta will open in spring 2024 at 1990 First Capitol Drive in St. Charles. The restaurant is owned by the same family as Fratelli’s Ristorante, which has been a fixture in St. Charles for the past four decades.

Boba tea shop Honey Bee Tea opened its fourth location at 5658 Telegraph Road, Suite A, in Oakville in mid-December 2023. Owned by Hai Tang and his wife Moon Duong, the couple opened the first shop at 429 Lafayette Center Drive in Manchester in early 2022 and expanded the business to include shops in St. Charles, at 2039 Zumbehl Road and at 8558 Eager Road in Brentwood in early 2023.

The CEO of a private drone surveillance company that hopes to set up shop in St. Louis says he’ll sue if the city does not back off from a cease-and-desist issued against his company earlier this week.  Joe Johnson and his company, SMS Novel, began to draw public concern last month when they announced plans to beta test surveillance drones in the skies above the Gravois Park neighborhood by the end of January.

A St. Louis area psychiatrist and medical doctor were both federally indicted yesterday on charges related to what prosecutors say were "illegal ketamine infusions" administered at a south county clinic. Mohd Azfar Malik, a psychiatrist, and Asim Muhammad Ali, a medical doctor, are now facing a combined 22 counts, with charges including conspiracy to illegally distribute controlled substances, maintaining a drug-involved premises and conspiracy to commit medical fraud.

Listen up, Swifties — are you sure you’re ready for it? The Taylor Party is making its way to St. Louis on January 13 at the Pageant (6161 Delmar Boulevard, thepageant.com).

A group of Republican lawmakers raised concerns about the death penalty and advocated for legislation that would abolish it in Missouri during a Tuesday press conference at the state Capitol — characterizing it as an issue of restraining government overreach and protecting life.  Rep. Chad Perkins, a Republican from Bowling Green, has filed legislation to abolish the death penalty and sentence those on death row instead to life in prison without parole.

You'd have to be high AF to think the suburban landscape of St. Peters, Missouri, has anything in common with St. Petersburg, but hey, that's Afroman for you. The rapper (and First Amendment hero) is best known for his single "Because I Got High," and the title of that track almost surely explains his recent suggestion that he's coming to St. Petersburg this Friday ... not boring old St. Peters.

An out-of-town company's plan to fly surveillance drones around south St. Louis as a public safety measure has drawn broad pushback from privacy advocates, politicians and city residents. However, the founder of the company claims that drones have been in the air for "close to two months" and residents "haven't noticed anything."

Six people who disappeared in August after sharing a house in Berkeley, Missouri, had ties to an alleged cult run by a social media influencer currently in prison for child molestation. The missing six include four women, two from St. Louis: Mikayla Thompson, 25, and Ma’Kayla Wickerson, 36, as well as Wickerson's 3-year-old daughter, Malaiyah, and another child. 

The 21c Museum Hotel St. Louis penguins have been known to go places. It's not uncommon to find the bright orange, roughly three-foot-tall plastic sculptures basking in the floral glory of the hotel's stunning Fallen Fruit staircase, or marveling at the massive, 18,000-pound water-filled orb that greets guests in the main lobby.

KDHX critics and former volunteer DJs got a boost from a group of St. Louis business owners today. More than 50 business owners signed onto a statement supporting the DJs who were ousted from the station last year. Co-written by Parker’s Table owner Jon Parker and the Royale’s Steve Smith, the statement, at slightly less than a page, covers everything from the importance of the independent radio station to St. Louis to harsh criticism of what the writers see as the flaws in the “top-down” management to a call for change. 

A Missouri teacher who fled the state to evade statutory rape and child molestation charges has been busted in Texas. Hailey Clifton-Carmack was arrested by the Garden City Police Department in Garden Ridge, Texas, on January 5. The department said in a Facebook post she was brought in without incident and booked into the Comal County Jail.

Rebirth Brass Band 8 p.m. Thursday, January 11.

Thursday 01/11 Art for Arf's Sake The Foundry Art Centre (520 North Main Center, St. Charles) has officially gone to the dogs, with an art exhibition curated and designed specifically for our favorite four-legged companions.

For most of my life, I had just assumed that every little brown bird was the same kind of bird. Even when they were in my direct line of sight, my brain barely registered that they were even there.

Luvwoo Bar opened late last year at 12965 Olive Boulevard in Creve Coeur. Owned by spouses Zyi Li and Jenny Wu, the establishment serves cocktails, mocktails, desserts and hosts live music.