Two things come to mind when St. Louisans think of Sauget, Illinois: weed and nightclubs. The small village directly across the river is the land of smokestacks, strip joints and minor league baseball, with a population of just a few hundred people.
Last May, the Missouri public defenders office sought a restraining order against the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, seeking to prevent it from publishing information based on an accused cop killer's mental health evaluation. Attorneys for the public defenders office argued in court today that the restraining order is necessary because the report contains information that they say would be “extremely prejudicial” to the alleged murderer — and contains specific statements he’s made about the crime he'll stand trial for in January.
Thursday 08/17 Old Habits Die Hard
Surely you've seen the 1992 Whoopi Goldberg classic that serves as the source material for the Sister Act musical, a riotous romp that features Goldberg's Deloris Wilson joining the witness protection program and hiding out in a San Francisco convent after seeing her gangster boyfriend kill an informant.
St. Louis drivers are notoriously crappy. But if you're as frustrated about it as one south city man, here's a story about justice being served that will leave you flush with civic pride. St. Louis Hills resident, who declined to give us his name so we're calling him "Tom," recently got fed up with drivers parking in his sister's officially designed handicapped spot.
Brent Nichols worked for the Fields Foods near Forest Park for the grocery store's entire life. He was hired to be the lead cashier at an employment fair not long before the store opened in February. And then he worked right up until the point he arrived at the store on July 31 to find the doors locked.
Missouri’s booming cannabis industry will soon welcome new players. But far fewer people will be allowed to enter than the large number looking for a way in.
All across America, summer is the season for festivals, and late summer sees its peak. In St. Louis, late summer includes one of my favorites: the St. Louis Fringe Festival, a multi-disciplenary arts festival continuing through Sunday, August 20, in the Grand Center Arts District.
To say St. Louis has a slightly contentious relationship with traffic signs is, perhaps, putting it mildly. When we're not ignoring them, we're often outright defying them — flipping U-turns where no U-turns are permitted and failing to yield when yielding is the law. Commands to "stop" generally get the worst treatment of all.
A civil lawsuit stemming from the 2018 shooting death of an 18-year-old by a police officer working private security in the Shaw neighborhood appears to be headed for settlement soon. Almost nine years ago, VonDerrit Myers Jr. was killed in the Shaw neighborhood of St. Louis city by Jason Flanery, a St. Louis city police officer who was working a private security job in the neighborhood.
Ever since he could understand the notion — and probably before that — Tyler Garcia was supposed to take over his parents' beloved market and restaurant, La Tejana. And, for just as long, he was being prepared to execute that plan; his childhood and adolescence were spent working in the family's St. Ann tienda, learning the business and recipes in preparation for the day he would take the mantle.
Pete E. Parisi, known affectionately as “Pep,” charmed the St. Louis area in 1985 with the first episode of his public-access TV show, World Wide Magazine. Parisi’s humor and his oddball cast of characters, including the Feeney Brothers and the Mad Russian, exposed a side of St. Louis that hadn’t been depicted before. World Wide Magazine released an episode once a month for 15 years, and its legacy lives on today thanks to the dedicated diehards who refuse to let the memories fade.
More than four years ago, an Illinois man was charged with pushing his new wife off a parking garage in the shadow of Busch Stadium — an incident that ended with the woman plummeting to her death. Now attorneys for Bradley Jenkins are seeking to have video evidence taken by his wife in the moments prior to her death be ruled inadmissible if the case goes to trial.
If you ask the organizers of the Evolution Festival — the two-day music, bourbon and BBQ bash coming up on Saturday, August 26, and Sunday, August 27, in Forest Park featuring headliners Brandi Carlile, the Black Keys, the Black Crowes and Ice Cube — this thing is going to be huge, an amazing experience for attendees and a new St. Louis institution for years to come. And we have every reason to believe them, given the credentials of the event's two executive producers.
On the heels of the near-universally lauded second iteration of Grand Center's Music at the Intersection festival, organizers have a clear guiding principle moving into the event's third outing: If it ain't broke, don't fix it. It's an understandable position.
Missouri courts may send parents to jail if their children miss too much school, the state's highest court ruled today. In its 6-0 decision, the Missouri Supreme Court found that current state law is not "unconstitutionally vague," as the public defenders for two moms jailed under the statute had alleged. Justice Robin Ransom wrote, "[S]ufficient evidence existed to find Parents knowingly failed to cause their children to attend school on a regular basis after their children were enrolled."
University City wants to change a city ordinance meant to curb its own greenhouse gas emissions — a move that would allow it to renovate its city hall and an adjacent building more cheaply. The St. Louis suburb is considering a bill that would exclude “major remodels” of municipal buildings from a nine-year-old city ordinance that requires new or remodeled municipal buildings to be built in an environmentally-conscious way.
Hip-hop celebrates half a century in existence this year, and the Saint Louis Art Museum (1 Fine Arts Drive, 314-721-0072) is joining the celebration with an entire exhibit based on the emceeing, DJing, breakdancing and graffiti that make up the pillars of hip-hop. Its exhibit The Culture: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art in the 21st Century looks at the history of hip-hop worldwide, and includes paintings from artists such as Jean-Michel Basquiat, Mark Bradford, Julie Mehretu, Carrie Mae Weems and more; fashion from Virgil Abloh’s Louis Vuitton collection and streetwear brand Cross Colours; and plenty of other “music ephemera,” as it’s described in promotional materials. The exhibit opens at noon on Saturday, August 19, with the SLAM Block Party, a free festival that will be held in SLAM’s parking and will feature performances by a bevy of St. Louis’ finest hip-hop artists, including Run the Jewels DJ Trackstar, who will be joined by the likes of Rockwell Knuckles, Daemon & T-Dubb-O; Preacher in the Trap, a collaboration between Blvck Spvde and Tef Poe; the Beat Street DJs and many more.
On Monday morning, neighbors of Grace United Church of Christ in Holly Hills woke up to find someone had spray painted “White Lives Matter” in large letters across the church's red brick wall. The slogan, which came to reactionary prominence in the wake of the 2014 Black Lives Matter movement, is described by the Anti-Defamation League as a white supremacist phrase.
No entertainment strip of bars and restaurants is truly complete until there is at least one establishment serving up amazing pizza. The Grove has Pie Guys.
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