Aggregator

Chancellor Beth Stroble stepped down in 2023 amid the school's mushrooming financial crisis.

What’s been noted before has been confirmed yet again: there is no widespread concern about the books kids have access to in public libraries. Instead, there’s just the concerted, but effective, efforts of a small group of people who feel everyone else’s rights end where their morality begins. Something that was just the occasional blip […]

When journalists at The Oregonian started reporting on a sexual harassment lawsuit against Nike, they knew that sealed documents in the case could provide vital information. Little did they know that going to court to get them could mean undercutting their First Amendment rights.

A recent decision from a federal appellate court related to the Oregonian’s quest for access means that journalists who intervene in court cases to try to unseal court records could subject themselves to “prior restraints,” or judicial orders barring them from reporting news related to the case.

That’s why Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) joined a coalition of media companies and press freedom groups to file an amicus brief supporting the Oregonian’s request that the full appeals court reconsider this unprecedented decision.

Fight for access to Nike lawsuit records

In 2022, The Oregonian moved to unseal certain documents from a lawsuit brought by four former female employees at Nike who claimed the sportswear company fostered a “culture of unequal compensation and sexual harassment.” Of central interest to the news outlet were the individuals named in internal company documents about allegations of discrimination and harassment.

Around the same time, an Oregonian journalist met with the lawyer for the plaintiffs as part of their reporting on the case. During the meeting, the lawyer inadvertently sent the reporter confidential documents from the lawsuit.

It can’t be right that journalists who go to court to vindicate the public’s First Amendment right of access to court records have fewer First Amendment protections than journalists who don’t.

Typically, when journalists receive secret documents, they want to report on them—and the First Amendment protects their right to do so. But in this case, the court ordered The Oregonian to return or destroy the documents and prohibited it from publishing any information obtained from them.

The Oregonian objected, but a panel of judges from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled that the news outlet could be required to return or destroy the documents. The appeals court said that The Oregonian became a party to the case when it intervened in the lawsuit to seek the unsealing of the records and, as a result, it could be restricted from publishing them without violating the First Amendment rights it would enjoy as a nonparty news outlet.

Losing First Amendment rights by exercising them

The Court of Appeals’ decision is yet another example of courts ignoring key precedent on prior restraints. The Supreme Court has made clear time and again that prior restraints can be justified in only the most extreme circumstances.

If the court didn’t approve of a prior restraint on publication of the Pentagon Papers — which the government claims contained national security secrets — it seems obvious that it wouldn’t approve of a prior restraint on documents describing sexual harassment complaints at a shoe company.

But perhaps even more worrying than the court’s ignorance of prior restraint precedent is its position that The Oregonian forfeits its First Amendment right to publish the documents because it intervened in the lawsuit to vindicate another First Amendment right — the right of access to judicial documents.

Journalists move to unseal court records all the time. While the First Amendment gives every member of the public the right to access court records and proceedings, the Supreme Court has specifically noted the special role journalists play in exercising that right and using it to inform the public.

But as the attorneys from Davis Wright Tremaine wrote in the amicus brief we joined, the appeals court’s decision “effectively penalizes news outlets that intervene to unseal court records while also gathering information on the same topic through other reporting methods.”

To understand why this punishes journalists, imagine if The Oregonian had never intervened in the Nike lawsuit to try to unseal documents. If everything else still played out the same — its reporter met with a lawyer and the lawyer inadvertently sent the reporter sealed court records—there would be no question that the reporter would have a First Amendment right to publish those documents.

But if the appeals court’s decision stands, journalists who go to court to unseal documents won’t have the same First Amendment right to publish documents they independently obtain through interviews, public records requests, or even anonymous leaks.

That’s a problem because, as our brief explains, many important news stories, from the Miami Herald’s reporting on the Jeffrey Epstein case to The Boston Globe’s Spotlight investigation of child sexual abuse by the Catholic Church, relied on both unsealing court records and shoe-leather reporting.

It can’t be right that journalists who go to court to vindicate the public’s First Amendment right of access to court records have fewer First Amendment protections than journalists who don’t. The full Court of Appeals must reconsider this case and right this backward decision.

Mötley Crüe and Def Leppard are headlining the inaugural Rock the Tides, a new destination festival taking place Nov. 7-9 in Riviera Maya, Mexico.The bill also includes Poison's Bret Michaels, Extreme,…

Source

USA Today searched across the country with a panel of experts to nominate the best public playgrounds across the U.S. and one St. Louis site ranked high as voted on by USA Today readers.

ALTON - Elizabeth Blackmon is a senior attending Alton High School and is the daughter of Yeberzaf Yigzaw and the late Barnard Blackmon. She wants to begin by sincerely thanking the Alton-Godfrey Rotary Club for selecting her as one of April’s Students of the Month—she believes that this is truly an honor. Over the past four years, it’s been her personal goal not only to excel academically but also to make a meaningful impact through service. She walked into Alton High as a freshman with a vision. And thanks to God, her mother, siblings, and teachers, she is proud of what she’s accomplished. She currently has a 4.688 weighted GPA and will graduate as a Platinum Alpha Scholar. She’s received recognition from the College Board as a National African American Scholar and a First-Generation Student, and she’s proud to be an Illinois State Scholar, awarded for her GPA and test scores. She also received the Silver Medallion Medal for being in the top 8% o

Continue Reading

Voting is open for the four companies moving forward in St. Louis Inno's Inno Madness competition for 2025. We'll crown a winner after next week's final voting round.

GRANITE CITY – Two incidents of domestic battery within days of each other have led to a Granite City man’s arrest and detention. Brandon M. Payne, 24, of Granite City, was charged with a Class 2 felony count of aggravated battery and a Class 4 felony count of unlawful restraint. He was additionally charged with Class A misdemeanor counts of domestic battery and criminal trespass to a residence. On March 28, 2025, Payne allegedly strangled a household or family member and unlawfully prevented them from leaving a Granite City residence. Three days later on March 31, 2025, he reportedly bit the same victim and trespassed at a different Granite City residence. According to a petition to deny Payne’s pretrial release, officers observed bruising on the victim’s neck consistent with their description of the first incident on March 28. When the victim attempted to leave the residence, “the defendant continued to grab her, stopping her from leaving.”

Continue Reading

City jail employee James Short, 26, was previously charged with leaving his service weapon unattended in a separate case in St. Louis County.

Foreign students at nearly every St. Louis-area college or university have seen their legal statuses changed in the past few weeks as the Trump administration cracks down on immigration.

Over the past four years, Seana Grey, an Alton High School senior, has worked hard to challenge herself academically and grow as a student and a leader. Seana is an Alton-Godfrey Rotary Club Student of the Month for April 2025. She is proud to have been recognized as an Illinois State Scholar, a Silver Medallion recipient, a Platinum Alpha Award winner, and an AP Scholar. She is also honored to be a member of the National Honor Society and to serve as Vice President of Mu Alpha Theta, an honors math club. Beyond academics, Seana has been fortunate to take part in several extracurricular activities at Alton High School that have brought her joy and helped shape who she is. She has loved being part of the Marching 100, Biology Club, and Fellowship of Christian Athletes. She also serves as treasurer of the Alton High School HOSA chapter (Health Occupations Students of America), sergeant-at-arms for the Student Council, and as a senior representative for Alton High School on the RiverBend

Continue Reading

TierPoint, a St. Louis-based provider of information technology services, has raised $500 million in financing to support its ongoing data center expansion.

The St. Louis law firm that's been taking on big universities and corporations over retirement plans just scored another major win at the highest court in the land.

This is the first in a series of profiles of independent journalists who use public records to hold local governments accountable. The second, about Hannah Bassett's investigation of Medicaid fraud in Arizona, is here.

Lisa Pickoff-White fell in love with — and experienced the hurdles of — records reporting as a journalism graduate student at the University of California, Berkeley, where she participated in a project to investigate and report on the 2007 murder of Oakland Post editor Chauncey Bailey.

The effort brought together newsrooms to finish Bailey’s reporting on violence and fraud in a San Francisco bakery, which the investigation revealed had long-standing ties with local politicians and police.

“That experience really opened up my eyes to both records reporting and data journalism,” Pickoff-White said. “I realized there was this whole other side of journalism that, even though I had been working in it, that I didn't even really know anything about, and it was something that I was excited to pursue. I immediately was like, ‘This is grueling, difficult work, but it’s work I really want to do.’”

Now, 15 years later, that training continues to pay off, as Pickoff-White’s California Reporting Project sends out more than 700 public records requests to law enforcement agencies each year. In fact, since its inception in 2018, the project has surpassed 3,500 records requests. Pickoff-White, the project’s director, doesn't plan on slowing down.

“One of the things that draws me to journalism is those known unknowns,” Pickoff-White said. “Like, making visible what is hard to see. Being able to connect the dots. I think systems reporting is one of the things that I love about reporting and records research. It allows you to take people’s lived experiences, back it up with data and say, this is occurring and it is occurring more than once, and to give people some context on why it might be occurring as well.”

Systems reporting "allows you to take people’s lived experiences, back it up with data and say, this is occurring and it is occurring more than once, and to give people some context."

Lisa Pickoff-White

The California Reporting Project was born after the state’s Right to Know Act was enacted in 2018, allowing the public to request police reports and reports related to law enforcement’s use of violence and other kinds of misconduct. Hosted by UC Berkeley’s Investigative Reporting Program, the project is a collaborative database with records shared from reporters at 40 news organizations across the state.

“One of the real successes of this project is we’ve already published more than 100 stories out of these records,” Pickoff-White said. “Ever since we started sending requests on January 1, 2019, people have had access to these records and have been able to report out of them. And that’s really important to me, because these are public records.”

With newsrooms increasingly cash-strapped, the cost and time it takes to make and appeal public records requests can be prohibitive. The reporting project’s database collects records obtained from records requests. It also monitors pending requests. That way, reporters can avoid duplicating efforts and instead rely on materials other requesters obtain to use for their own coverage.

“It’s really time-consuming and hard and can cost a lot to make a record request,” Pickoff-White said. “I really encourage other reporters to come together to collaborate on this, because together, we’re stronger. If you could find a way to work with people to invest in the time up front pays dividends in the end.”

ALTON - Jayden Bierman of Alton High School is truly honored and grateful to receive the Alton-Godfrey Rotary Club Student of the Month Award for April 2025, which means more to him than he can truly express. Jayden's goal has never been to seek awards or recognition for the things he’s done; it has simply been to put a smile on the face of everyone he meets, because he knows how much even a small gesture can change a person’s day. Being recognized as a Rotary Student of the Month reminds him just how powerful kindness can be, and that passing it forward really does make a difference. Academically, Jayden has always pushed himself to do his best. This year, he’s taking two math classes and Physics 2, which have challenged him to manage a heavy workload while diving deep into complex subjects. What Jayden loves most about these classes is how they’ve given him a deeper understanding of the world. That he hopes to use to solve real-world problems in creative, meaningfu

Continue Reading

BENTON – A federal district judge sentenced a Wolf Lake man to 150 months’ imprisonment after he admitted to possessing firearms as a felon. Kyle M. Bond, 41, pleaded guilty to one count of felon in possession of a firearm and one count of receipt or possession of an unregistered firearm. Following imprisonment, Bond will serve three years of supervised release. “In an effort to protect the public and help keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals, convicted felons lose their right to legally possess firearms,” said U.S. Attorney Steven D. Weinhoeft. “As this case demonstrates, the U.S. Attorney’s Office will continue to work to remove repeat criminal offenders who threaten the safety of our communities.” According to court documents, on January 5, 2023, deputies with the Union County Sheriff’s Office executed a search warrant at the defendant’s residence in Union County in connection to an investigation and located

Continue Reading