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ALTON - Sophia Kumagai is a senior at Alton High School and is Art Fahrner's Remarkable Redbird of the month. Sophia has excelled since she has been attending AHS as she is currently ranked 12th in the senior class and is on track to be graduating as a Platinum Alpha. She is involved in a variety of activities, clubs, and organizations. Sophia also holds a leadership position as vice president in Mu Alpha Theta Math Society. She has earned many academic awards including being an Illinois State Scholar and also a member of National Honors Society. Sophia was also an Alton-Godfrey Rotary Club September student of the month. Sophia's main focus over the course of her four-year career as a Redbird has been on language. With having parents of both American and Japanese speaking ability, and being loyal to her heritage, Sophia took the initiative to become literate in both English and Japanese. With no formal Japanese language offered in the high school curriculum, Sophia learned Japanese

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The bill banning certain eviction moratoriums received first-round approval in the Missouri House.

Bentley’s Law, mandating drunken drivers contribute financially to children they orphan, was preliminarily approved by lawmakers.

EAST ALTON - An Alton man pleaded guilty on Wednesday to sexually assaulting an 8-year-old after he claimed the act was consensual. Deven Brazier, formerly of the 2300 block of LaSalle Drive told an officer that there was a “mutual relationship” with the 8-year-old girl. The East Alton “relationship” was between Nov. 25, 2016, and Nov. 25, 2017. He also admitted to an attempted sexual act with an 11-month-old girl in Alton in May of 2021. Brazier was sentenced to 37 years in prison for the predatory sexual assault of the 8-year-old girl in East Alton. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for attempted criminal sexual assault of a child in relation to the crime committed in Alton. Had he been convicted at trial, he could have been sentenced to natural life in prison. In exchange for his plea in the East Alton case, the state agreed to a sentence of 37 years in prison. He will have to serve at least 85 percent of that sentence. The state also agreed

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For the first time since October 2011, Albert Pujols played a game as a St. Louis Cardinal. Here's what he looked like in his first spring game of 2022.

Police have not released details on a cause or manner of death but described the circumstances as “suspicious.”

EDWARDSVILLE - Edwardsville Community Foundation Adds Two New Board Directors The Edwardsville Community Foundation has appointed two new board directors, Andrea Miracle and Karen Schoenthal. Miracle has volunteered for ECF’s Education Committee for the last five years and is currently a volunteer at the Neighbors Bakery, a member of the City of Edwardsville’s Planning Commission and the Ordinance & Land Use Committee. She brings a wealth of community service experience with 20-plus years of volunteering in the community, including leadership positions at the Edwardsville Arts Center and Edwardsville High School booster clubs. "After assisting with scholarship interviews the last few years, I was looking for an opportunity to serve the Edwardsville Community Foundation in a more meaningful and significant way," Miracle said. Miracle currently lives in Edwardsville with her husband Trent. The couple has three children, Hannah, Ethan and Brynn. Andrea and her family have

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Federal authorities on Wednesday accused the former owner of a large St. Louis construction company of orchestrating a scheme in which participation in minority business enterprise programs was falsified.

ELDRED - It was Clay Hansen’s lucky night Tuesday at the Eldred American Legion when he pocketed the top prize of $500,000 at the Queen Of Hearts Drawing. Hansen was surrounded by well-wishers after he won the coveted prize and was extremely happy and probably a little bit stunned at what had just happened. He didn’t have any immediate plans for the large prize, but “to pay off debt” and he did plan to return to his construction work on Wednesday morning. The crowd was extensive for the event, more about the night itself in a related story. Hansen said he had only purchased tickets for the Eldred Queen of Hearts drawing at the previous large event multiple years ago, but he was glad he returned this time around.

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John “JT” Thomas was an otherwise healthy 20-year-old when he was diagnosed with kidney failure in 2012. He discusses a life-changing kidney donation alongside his living donor, Niki Nickeson, a former high school acquaintance who felt compelled to give a kidney.

Three decades ago, the Shawnee National Forest was the focus of fierce battles over commercial logging on public lands. A new documentary by filmmaker Cade Bursell revisits that history and calls attention to new efforts to preserve the forest. Bursell discusses the film alongside longtime environmental activist John Wallace.

Just a reminder that the "MusiCares: Music on a Mission" virtual benefit event, which will feature a previously unseen performance by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, will be livestreamed tonight,…

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A construction executive used front companies to fraudulently claim minority-owned businesses were working on his projects, federal prosecutors said.

Missouri will officially transition from treating COVID-19 as a public health crisis to treating it as endemic, much like the seasonal flu, Gov. Mike Parson announced Wednesday.  That shift will be complete on April 1, Parson said. The change, which was first reported by the Documenting COVID-19 project and The Independent in February, comes as […]

The post Missouri governor declares end to ‘COVID-19 crisis,’ state will treat virus as endemic appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A bill that would make it a felony to donate fetal tissue from abortions for research or therapies won first-round approval in the Missouri House on Tuesday, but lawmakers blocked …