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The St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department Tuesday released security video from a gas station showing one of the suspects of five crimes over three days.

Gateway Studios is building a $130 million music production facility in Chesterfield

Missouri is continuing to see record daily coronavirus infections, near-peak COVID-19 caseloads in hospitals and threats from Attorney General Eric Schmitt that he will sue school districts that require masks or send students home when they are infected or exposed to the virus. In a statement issued Tuesday morning, Schmitt said school mask rules and […]

The post Missouri attorney general renews threat to sue schools over mask, quarantine rules appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Nathaniel Reid Bakery worker said he was walking from the nearby North Kirkwood Middle School parking lot when three men pointed guns at him.

The Missouri House overwhelmingly rejected efforts Tuesday to draw a Congressional map that would have reconfigured a Democratic seat in Kansas City in the GOP’s favor, and instead gave initial approval to a map that maintains the current party divisions. By a vote of 84 to 60, House members gave initial approval to a map […]

The post Missouri House votes down 7-1 congressional map during redistricting debate appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Dr. Lauren Mitchell and Dr. Jennifer Allen explain why they’ve joined estimated 30-plus Missouri physicians by establishing clinics outside the insurance-based system. Direct primary care clinics charge monthly fees, but doctors say they are overall more affordable and more flexible for patients.

The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (130 Edgar Rd, Webster Groves; 314-968-4925) joins the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Saint Louis Science Center and the Missouri History Museum in rearranging its schedule as a result of COVID-19.

In a press release sent out today, the Rep said it is temporarily closing curtains on its productions and adjusting the remaining programming of its season “in response to the rising COVID-19 rates in the St. Louis community.”

An email from the Rep’s Box Office said this:

“Our primary focus during this public health crisis remains the safety and well-being of our artists, staff and audiences.…

Christian Hospital announced Dr. Olaronke Akintola-Ogunremi, or just Dr. Akintola as she is known at the hospital, was elected chief of the medical staff for 2022, effective Jan. 1.

On Monday, 145 COVID-positive people were admitted, down from 200+ last week. Task force leaders have said 40 admissions per day represented a "red line" of concern.

Five new restaurants ranging from late-night hot spots to coffee shops get Sauce Magazine's nod this January.

Vernon Mitchell Jr. said it would have been "easy to be cynical about politics in general," but he pursued a job doing equity and inclusion work with the city of St. Louis anyway. "I do think this is an opportunity to create something sustainable that allows the city — and all the people who live in the city and the surrounding region — to benefit from policies that will include everyone," he said.

The developer's new office, a $14 million renovation of a former industrial warehouse within the larger mixed-use development, opened Jan. 12.

Jackie Matthews admitted that the handcuffed man was not a threat when he struck him in the face.

Completing his years-long metamorphosis to political cockroach, St. Louis police union spokesman Jeff Roorda is joining the Republican Party and launching a campaign for a 2022 state Senate seat in Jefferson County.

Making the announcement in Tuesday in an interview with FM NewsTalk 97.1's Marc Cox, Roorda declared his candidacy while touting his record of "standing up for law and order and a safe community" — even though Roorda's history suggests his principles have less to do with community needs and more with making sure police officers can do whatever they want without consequences.…

Community advocates had publicly opposed First Mid Bank & Trust’s plans to purchase St. Louis-based Jefferson Bank. Now they’ve dropped their opposition after reaching a community benefits agreement with First Mid that includes the opening of two new bank branches to serve low-to-moderate-income and minority communities.

Ticket sales plunged under limited seating capacities as MU athletics operated at a deficit for the fifth straight year.

The restaurant's Saint Louis Galleria location, which opened its doors in March 2018, does not appear on the chain's website and is identified as permanently closed on OpenTable and Yelp. The company did not immediately return a request for comment Tuesday.

by Alexis Marshall and Meribah Knight, Nashville Public Radio, and Ken Armstrong, ProPublica

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Nashville Public Radio. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Update, Jan. 18, 2022: This story was updated to reflect that Judge Donna Scott Davenport will step down this year rather than seek reelection.

Donna Scott Davenport, the juvenile court judge at the center of a controversy over the arrest and detention of children in Rutherford County, Tennessee, has announced that she will step down this year rather than run for reelection.

Earlier on Tuesday, ProPublica and Nashville Public Radio published a story about a move by some Tennessee lawmakers to remove Davenport from her post. About an hour after that story was published on ProPublica’s website, Davenport, in an email sent by the county’s spokesperson, announced that she will not be running for reelection this year. Instead, she plans to retire when her current eight-year term expires this summer.

Davenport, in announcing her retirement, said: “After prayerful thought and talking with my family, I have decided not to run for re-election after serving more than twenty-two years on the bench. I will always look back at my time as Judge as one of the greatest honors of my life and I am so proud of what this Court has accomplished in the last two decades and how it has positively affected the lives of young people and families in Rutherford County. I wish my successor the best and hope that this job provides them the same fulfillment it has provided me over the years.”

A bill that was introduced in the Tennessee legislature sought to remove Davenport, following reporting from Nashville Public Radio and ProPublica detailing how the county’s justice system was illegally arresting and jailing children.

Since 2000, Davenport has overseen the juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, where the county jailed kids in 48% of the cases referred to juvenile court — compared with the statewide average of 5%. State Sen. Heidi Campbell and state Rep. Gloria Johnson have said they are proposing legislation that could result in Davenport’s ouster. A bill starting the process was filed in the state Senate on Friday.

In Tennessee, state lawmakers have placed narrow limits on when children can be locked up prior to a delinquency hearing. But from 2008 to 2017, Rutherford County’s juvenile jail instituted its own system, called a “filter system,” under which any child deemed a “TRUE threat” could be detained. The jail’s written procedures never defined what a “TRUE threat” was. Davenport appointed the jail’s director, who also reports to her. In 2017, a federal judge ordered the county to put a stop to the filter system’s use.

“While judges are given judicial discretion to interpret laws, they are not allowed to make up their own laws,” Campbell said in a press conference on Monday.

State Rep. Vincent Dixie said at the press conference: “This is a slap in the face to us as legislators, because she made a policy into a law. And if you can do that, if anybody can do that, then why are we even in office?”

State Sen. Brenda Gilmore, former chair of Tennessee’s Black Caucus, highlighted the racial disparities among incarcerated children in Rutherford County during the press conference. Reporting from Nashville Public Radio and ProPublica found that Black children are not only jailed at a disproportionately high rate, but that the disparity is getting worse.

Several Democratic lawmakers, including Gilmore, said they’re concerned that the issues in the county are systemic.

“The people who are in charge have failed the children, and they’re still in charge,” Gilmore said.

Johnson said Davenport exercised an “appalling abuse of power.” She added, “How can we keep a judge in place who sees herself as carrying out God’s mission, rather than carrying out the laws of this state?”

The attempted ouster is considered an extreme measure.

Under Tennessee’s constitution, a judge can be removed only upon a two-thirds vote of both legislative chambers. A state report and news clips turn up only two instances of that happening in the last half century — once for a judge convicted of sexual assault, and once for a judge convicted of perjury and obstructing justice.

Campbell said if the resolution passes, a joint legislative committee would be formed with the power to subpoena witnesses. It would file a report to the state House and Senate, which would then vote separately on whether to remove the judge.

Voters selected Davenport as Rutherford County’s juvenile court judge after the county established it as an elected position in 2000; she has been the only person to hold the job thus far. In her last reelection bid, in 2014, she ran as a Republican.

Multiple Democratic lawmakers said Davenport’s removal isn’t a partisan issue. Campbell pointed to how Tennessee’s Republican governor has called for a review of Davenport. Eleven members of Congress, all Democrats, have also asked the U.S. Department of Justice to open a civil rights investigation of the county’s juvenile justice system.

In Tennessee, a similar measure to remove a judge was introduced last year by a Republican representative. The judge had ordered increased access to absentee ballots during the August primary elections. The effort to oust her failed, but the judge has since announced she will not seek reelection.

Nashville Public Radio reached out to Davenport for comment about the legislative proposal to remove her but did not receive a response. She has previously declined to respond to questions from the news organizations.

The Clayton-based wholesale distributor of electrical, communications and data networking products has named a new chief financial officer to succeed a retiring executive.