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ST. LOUIS COUNTY, Mo. - A man has been charged after stealing more than $18,000 in equipment from a parking lot at Schnucks in Vinita Park. The St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney's Office charged Steven Baker, age not provided, with stealing $750 or more. According to the Overland Police Department, the theft occurred on Oct. [...]

A wide-ranging education package backed by Missouri Gov. Mike Kehoe collapsed in the final days of the legislative session after negotiations over school accountability became a fight over which communities should be opened to charter schools. The breakdown killed legislation that would have shaped Kehoe’s push for an A-F grading system for public schools, one […]

The High Low Gallery presents a new exhibition, Night Comfort, featuring works by St. Louis artist Jeremy Rabus, opening Friday, March 27 and running through Sunday, June 14. Night Comfort explores nostalgia through […]

The post Night Comfort appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

Dear Friend of Press Freedom:

ABC seems to have found its spine, but whether attorney and judicial watchdogs will follow suit when lawless lawyers harm the free press remains an open question. Meanwhile, a major government transparency win temporarily ensures that presidential records can’t be destroyed or locked away. Here’s more on what we’ve been working on to protect press freedom.

Complaint: Judge angled for federal gig while hearing Trump’s Pulitzer suit

A new complaint filed by Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) with a judicial ethics commission argues that Jeffrey Kuntz, chief judge of a Florida appeals court, violated his ethical duties by ruling in President Donald Trump’s favor in a defamation lawsuit while simultaneously seeking a nomination from Trump to the federal judiciary.

Kuntz failed to recuse himself from Trump’s frivolous defamation lawsuit against the Pulitzer Prize Board or disclose his conflict of interest to the parties. Two weeks after he ruled for Trump, the White House Counsel’s Office interviewed Kuntz for a judicial vacancy. He’s since been nominated to the federal bench.

“Trump can’t win his SLAPP suits on the merits, so he finds ways to corrupt the court system instead,” said Seth Stern, FPF’s chief of advocacy. “Attorney disciplinary commissions are notorious for inaction, often functioning more like protection rackets for lawyers and judges than regulators. That said, we hope the commission will rise to the moment and do the right thing.”

• Read the complaint

Press groups rally behind ABC as FCC targets ‘The View’

The American Broadcasting Company is (finally) living up to its name by standing up for a vital American value.

This week, a coalition of press freedom groups led by FPF joined an open letter in solidarity with ABC, which recently took a stand against the Federal Communications Commission, accusing the agency in an FCC filing of attempting to “chill critical protected speech.”

“Corporate owners only invite more bullying when they capitulate,” said FPF Deputy Director of Advocacy Adam Rose. “But history shows that fighting back is a winning formula.”

• Read the full letter here

Court orders Trump team to preserve presidential records

A federal judge has temporarily ordered the Trump administration officials to follow the Presidential Records Act and preserve text messages, including Signal messages, related to its work. The judge issued the order in response to a motion filed in a lawsuit brought by FPF, Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, the American Historical Association, and American Oversight.

As FPF Daniel Ellsberg Chair on Government Secrecy Lauren Harper said, the court’s order “takes an important step in ensuring that presidential records remain exactly what they have been for nearly 50 years: public property.” For more on the lawsuit, subscribe to FPF’s newsletter on government secrecy, The Classifieds.

• Read more

Paramount, Ellisons silent on Trump CNN threats

Our shareholder demand to Paramount earlier this month focused on CEO David Ellison trading journalistic independence for merger approval. Ellison reportedly promised Trump “sweeping” changes at CNN if he buys its parent company, Warner Bros. Discovery.

It made headlines, but one issue it raised deserves more attention, as FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm explained in a recent video. Last month, Trump took to Truth Social and announced a criminal investigation after CNN quoted an Iranian statement he didn’t like. Any investigation would be totally frivolous, but the president personally threatening a company you’re seeking to buy is a big deal.

But David Ellison and his centibillionaire father and financier Larry haven’t said a word — either about the threat’s materiality to the transaction or in defense of the rights of the journalists they hope to soon employ. That’s how little they care about both their shareholders and press freedom.

• Watch more

New bill seeks to curb abusive subpoenas

Administrative subpoenas allow the government to demand records from big tech and phone companies, in secret and without ever going before a judge. So it’s no surprise that the Trump administration has been caught exploiting them to target its online critics and watchdogs.

A new bipartisan bill in Congress, the Subpoena Abuse Prevention Act, would rein in those abuses. That’s good news for journalists, whose phone records have been targeted by both Democratic and Republican administrations.

“For journalists in particular, phone records can expose sensitive information about communications with confidential sources,” FPF Senior Adviser Caitlin Vogus explained. “This legislation would strengthen protections for those communications and help ensure that journalists cannot be targeted with subpoenas for doing their jobs.”

• Read more

What we're reading The Trump administration arrested this journalist. She says the censorship is ongoing The Washington Post

The government’s baseless criminal charges against Minnesota-based journalist Georgia Fort are discouraging her from speaking to sources. They should be dropped immediately, along with the cases brought against other journalists who covered the St. Paul church protest.

Trust no one in the ‘Mangionista’ debate over who is doing real journalism in NYC Hell Gate

Chris Robbins, who had to sue the New York City Police Department so Gothamist could get press passes after eight years of waiting, gets it right: “Don’t we want to keep the definition of ‘journalist’ as wide as possible? Isn’t the alternative an invitation to the government to start pulling the ladder up on who gets to be a reporter?”

PSC reverses student magazine decision after blocking publication of LGBTQ stories WEAR News

It’s good that Pensacola State College changed course, but it’s outrageous that it ever happened. Don’t colleges have professors and lawyers on hand with the minimal level of familiarity with the First Amendment needed to spot the constitutional problems here?

Democratic senators demand release of U.S. report on killing of Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh Haaretz

It’s been more than four years since Palestinian-American journalist Shireen Abu Akleh was shot dead in the West Bank. It’s time for the U.S. to open up its investigation into her death.

How a landlord tried to silence tenants and stop a Shelterforce story Shelterforce

A landlord threatened a tenants’ union for speaking to the press before they’d settled a case and agreed to refrain from making public statements. That’s wrong. “The public deserves to know what’s going on in their communities economically [and] socially. If people are afraid to talk to reporters, we are poorer as a society for it,” FPF’s Rose explained.

Notre Dame pro-abortion-rights professor ordered to pay $200k in fees in failed libel lawsuit against student newspaper The Volokh Conspiracy

SLAPPs, or strategic lawsuits against public participation, targeting journalists are always wrong, but it’s especially galling for a professor to try to use the legal system to silence a student newspaper. Hopefully this fee award will deter others who try to bully student journalists.

On a recent spring morning, workers spread shredded Provel cheese on deluxe pizzas that rode a conveyor belt in Dogtown Pizza’s 113,000-square-foot Jeff-Vander-Lou warehouse.

Late last year we wrote about a new startup that was flooding the internet with AI-generated podcast slop. Featuring fake hosts having fake discussions, the startup proudly stated it was creating about 3,000 new AI-generated podcasts every single week. The owners of the startup (who called critics of AI slop “Luddites,”) stated that because they […]

The North County Police Cooperative, which patrols Velda City, said the man was stabbed around 9 p.m. Thursday in the 7000 block of Claremore Drive.

Philadelphia is poised to launch the nation’s first city-sponsored retirement plan for workers whose employers don’t offer them. Voters on Tuesday sanctioned the city council’s PhillySaves program by adopting a change to the city charter. The move will require employers without retirement benefits to enroll their workers in the new plan. Unless workers opt out, […]

Begin Again: Wak'a Garden is the second installment in Laumeier’s Begin Again series, honoring the Park’s 50-year history of collaborating with artists and supporting new commissions and exhibitions. The organic, amphitheater-shaped sculpture, built […]

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Begin Again: 50 Years and Counting marks Laumeier’s 50th anniversary by celebrating five decades of artist commissions and exhibitions. Featuring hundreds of artists and rarely seen works from Laumeier’s collection, […]

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ST. LOUIS – The Power of Two is live in your neighborhood, downtown St. Louis. FOX 2’s Mike Colombo and Blair Ledet visit downtown St. Louis, highlighting the people, places, and stories that make the area special. Visit FOX 2’s YouTube channel to check out the locations the duo visited while in downtown St. Louis.

Aurora officials are investigating after the city lost nearly $1.1 million from city payroll accounts to a fraud scheme.

The Peoria City/County Health Department has detected the first West Nile Virus positive mosquito sample of the year in Peoria County, and people are advised to take preventive measures to protect their health.

HIGH HILL — A $5 million federal pandemic recovery grant helped Montgomery County prepare a rural industrial site along Interstate 70 for major development. Two years later, Amazon and Google are building data centers on nearly 2,000 acres near New Florence — and local officials are preparing to offer Google a 70% personal property tax […]