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A midweek winter storm brought snow and cold temps, shuttering many businesses, schools, museums and institutions.

Crews worked to mitigate the snow accumulation, but couldn't make progress clearing the roads until the snow stopped falling.

The Metro East Humane Society put out a call for families to foster animals ahead of the snowy weather.

Federal and state courthouses in the region closed as a winter storm dumped varying amounts of snow over the past two days.

Metallica's ongoing deluxe reissue campaign is set to continue with Load and Reload, and, once again, the band is asking for your help. In an email to members of their…

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Missourians who had to drive today (or who chose to drive today) were met with terrible conditions across the state.…

Families took part in the snow day tradition of sledding down Art Hill

Cops lie. It's just something they do.

It's something all people do. We just expect cops to do less of it because they're entrusted with enforcing laws, which suggests their level of integrity should be higher than that of the policed. Unfortunately, the opposite often tends to be the case.

There are many reasons cops lie. All of them are self-centered. They lie to cover up misconduct, salvage illegal searches, deny deployment of excessive force, and ensure narratives are preserved when challenged in court.

They also lie to obtain confessions from criminal suspects. There is nothing illegal about this act. Whether or not it crosses constitutional lines tends to come down to the judgment of the judges handling civil rights lawsuits. There's no hard and fast rule as to which lies are unconstitutional so cops do a lot of lying when trying to fit someone for a criminal charge.

Up until recently, it was okay for the Virginia Beach Police Department to use a particularly nefarious form of lying when trying to coax confessions from criminal suspects. While cops will routinely claim evidence and statements point to the person as the prime suspect, very rarely do they actually show this fake evidence to people being interrogated. Not so in Virginia Beach, where fake documents were just part of investigators' toolkits.

Police in Virginia Beach repeatedly used forged documents purporting to be from the state Department of Forensic Science during interrogations, falsely allowing suspects to believe DNA or other forensic evidence had tied them to a crime, the state attorney general revealed Wednesday in announcing an agreement to ban the practice.

This practice was inadvertently exposed by a prosecutor who asked for a certified copy of a report faked up by police investigators. The state's Department of Forensic Science told the commonwealth's attorney no such report existed, leading to an internal investigation by the PD. That happened last April. The following month (May 2021), the Virginia Beach police chief issued an order forbidding the use of this tactic. Since then, the PD has uncovered five times fake forensic documents were used during investigations.

But it wasn't just limited to investigators trying to convince suspects to admit their guilt. One of these fake documents made its way into court, used as evidence (!!) during a bail hearing.

Now, there's a statewide ban on using fake or forged forensic documents during interrogations, thanks to Virginia's Attorney General. There's been no statement made yet suggesting the prosecutions tied to use of fake documents will be examined further to determine whether their use was coercive, and the Attorney General's office has not said whether it will notify convicts who were subjected to this form of police lying.

The PD's apology is somewhat less than authentic:

The Virginia Beach Police Department said in a statement that the technique, “though legal, was not in the spirit of what the community expects.”

There are a lot of things that are technically legal but that most people would find to be an abuse of power. The key is to not engage in questionable practices just because no court has declared them unconstitutional. No doubt the investigators that used fake documents to secure confessions were aware the community at large would frown on such obviously devious behavior. But they did it anyway because winning at all costs is standard MO for most law enforcement agencies. While it's good this discovery led to swift action, the investigation should really be expanded to see what other unsavory techniques are being deployed to extract confessions.

While Chief Kenneth Gregory has led the St. Louis County Police Department in an interim capacity for several months, his permanent appointment came last month. He’s now ready to dive into the gig, tackling issues and improving the department.

In defending his pick for state health director, Gov. Mike Parson has prompted a whole new round of criticism.

Hugh D'Andrade, EFF

It seems like every other day there’s a new shocking story about the shadowy company NSO Group and its notorious hacking tool, Pegasus — which has been used by authoritarian governments to spy on the phones of activists, politicians, and dozens of journalists around the world.

Every new story is a stark reminder to support not only the journalists reporting the facts, but also the brave whistleblowers who bring them to light.

This week, the Guardian and Washington Post reported on a new whistleblower coming forward, who alleged NSO Group offered “bags of cash” in exchange for access to U.S. telephone networks, so it could more easily spy on its clients’ targets. From the Post:

The surveillance company NSO Group offered to give representatives of an American mobile-security firm “bags of cash” in exchange for access to global cellular networks, according to a whistleblower who has described the encounter in confidential disclosures to the Justice Department that have been reviewed by The Washington Post.

NSO Group (sort of) denied the charge in a somewhat bizarre statement, saying its co-founder “has no recollection of using the phrase ‘bags of cash’, and believes he did not do so. However if those words were used they will have been entirely in jest.” The Post also revealed the Justice Department has a criminal investigation open against NSO Group.

Last week, a long New York Times investigative piece revealed that the FBI had bought a license to NSO’s hacking tool well after Pegasus was alleged to have been used in the lead up to the Saudi government’s gruesome murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi. According to the Times, the CIA had “arranged and paid for the government of Djibouti to acquire Pegasus to assist the American ally in combating terrorism, despite longstanding concerns about human rights abuses there, including the persecution of journalists and the torture of government opponents.” (Maybe the Justice Department should also look into that!)

Then, last month, we also learned “the phones of a majority of staffers” at the El Salvadorian news outlet El Faro had been hacked using Pegasus software as well. (We’ve joined a broad coalition of civil society groups condemning this disturbing use case.)

These stories are only the tip of the iceberg. For many years now, huge teams of journalists have worked to expose NSO Group and its disturbing surveillance around the world. While the reporters doggedly uncovering this story have done incredible work, it’s important to remember these investigations would have been impossible without many brave whistleblowers who spoke out despite the fear of reprisals from the company or governments.

Gary Miller, the whistleblower at the center of the new stories, has bravely come forward to reveal his name. In doing so, he exposes himself to great legal and extralegal risk. Whistleblower Aid, the nonprofit legal group, is running a crowdfunding campaign to support the legal expenses of Miller. It’s a worthy cause, as what happens in these cases can often dictate whether more whistleblowers will come forward and what the consequences will be if they do.

“It’s very stressful to become a whistleblower,” John Tye, Whistleblower Aid’s executive director told Freedom of the Press Foundation (Tye is also a one-time whistleblower himself). “You can get sued, you can get hacked, often you need to find a new job or even a new career. We started working with Gary in December 2020, 14 months ago. It took us that long to tell this story in a way that minimized the risks to him.”

In the wake of Tuesday's announcement of the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame's nominees for induction in 2022, some of the artists shared their feelings about the good news…

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PLEASE TAKE NOTICE that on Monday, February 7, 2021 at 5:00 PM, the Soulard Community Improvement District (the “District”) will hold a public meeting to consider and act upon the matters on the following tentative agenda and such other matters as may be presented at the meeting and determined to be appropriate for discussion at […]