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'Fugitive Friday': Collinsville Police Seek Whereabouts Of Man

3 weeks 6 days ago
COLLINSVILLE — The Collinsville Police Department announced in its weekly "Fugitive Friday" social media post that Alec A. Bill has an outstanding felony warrant for Aggravated Unlawful Use of a Weapon and Possession of a Controlled Substance after missing a scheduled court date. The department is seeking assistance from the public in locating Bill and encourages anyone with information about his whereabouts to contact them anonymously at 618-344-2131, extension 5209. In a social media post, the police department said, “Alec! If you see this post, turn yourself in to any police department.” The post also noted that individuals who fail to appear for court may have their photos posted online as part of the department’s effort to encourage compliance. These charges and statements made herein are based upon probable cause. The defendant is presumed innocent unless proven guilty.

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Migrant Children Are Being Added To A Criminal DNA Database Just Because

3 weeks 6 days ago
Each day adds another layer of fucked-upness to this country’s anti-immigration efforts. We, as a nation, are now involved daily in extrajudicial renditioning of migrants to countries they’ve never lived in. We’re all implicated in nearly daily rejections of court orders and any remaining shred of human decency. We’re treating human beings like trash to […]
Tim Cushing

Alton Motor Boat Club Marks 84 Years of Community

3 weeks 6 days ago
ALTON - The Alton Motor Boat Club is celebrating its 84th anniversary in the Riverbend. Established in 1941, the Alton Motor Boat Club is a community of boaters and river enthusiasts. They currently have around 420 members. Member Scott Mifflin shared that the club has welcomed “generations” of boaters over the years, and he loves watching newcomers interact with longtime members and share their love for the river. “It was the first motor boat club in the area. What we do is just provide a location and a community for boaters,” he said. “It’s pretty exciting for us to have all the traditions and customs and courtesies that we’ve tried to keep alive since back then. The river changes all the time, but the boaters don’t, necessarily, so it’s been an honor for us to be able to maintain those customs and courtesies of the river and to bring in older people and newer people. There’s new people that start boating every day,

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Trump’s proof of citizenship elections order blocked for now in federal court

3 weeks 6 days ago
WASHINGTON — A Massachusetts federal judge on Friday blocked President Donald Trump’s executive order requiring states to mandate voters in federal elections provide documents proving their citizenship, ruling the measure would cause a significant burden to states and potentially harm voters. U.S. District Judge Denise J. Casper issued a preliminary injunction stopping the order from […]
Ariana Figueroa

What to Expect at Next Month's Alton Midwest Nationals F1 Powerboat Championship

3 weeks 6 days ago
ALTON - The Alton Midwest Nationals F1 Powerboat Championship returns to Alton next month, and organizers couldn’t be more excited. On July 18–20, 2025, community members can enjoy the second annual powerboat races on the Alton riverfront. Tickets are available now and families are encouraged to come by, check out the local vendors, enjoy the racing and have a great weekend on the river. “Riverfront Park is an absolutely beautiful facility coupled with the amphitheater right there,” said Tim, one of the organizers. “We want to be able to get the families out there.” The fun starts on Friday afternoon, July 18, with a test-and-tune session on the river. The racers will begin testing at 2 p.m., and this is completely free to attend and watch from Riverfront Park. The testing will be followed by a meet-and-greet street party with the racers from 6:30–8:30 p.m. on July 18 at Mac’s Downtown. Kids and fans alike can interact with

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How to watch military parade on Trump's birthday

3 weeks 6 days ago
The US Army's 250th anniversary parade will take place in Washington, D.C. on Saturday and will be livestreamed through the Army's social media platforms, as well as on several networks. It will feature 6,700 soldiers and a variety of military equipment.
Elizabeth Crisp

Journalists under attack in LA

3 weeks 6 days ago

Dear Friend of Press Freedom,

It’s the 80th day that Rümeysa Öztürk is facing deportation by the United States government for writing an op-ed it didn’t like. Meanwhile, aggression from law enforcement at protests in California have landed journalists in the hospital. Read on for more press freedom news.

Journalists under attack in LA

Our U.S. Press Freedom Tracker has been hard at work documenting the growing list of attacks on journalists — from shootings with crowd-control munitions to detainments to unlawful searches.

It’s a situation that is likely to get worse and spread to other cities, with local law enforcement emboldened by the administration’s rhetoric and federal agents being haphazardly thrown into situations they’re not trained to handle.

We worked with partner organizations in California to send letters to the Department of Homeland Security, Los Angeles law enforcement agencies, the Marines and National Guard informing them of their obligations under the First Amendment, and in the case of the local authorities, California law.

Of course, strongly worded letters are not nearly enough for situations like these, and there’s plenty more work to do. But in the meantime, we’re not going to stay silent. Read the letters here, here and here.

Superstar lawyers join our effort to stop Paramount settlement

As reported in the Los Angeles Times, we’ve got a legal all-star team behind our effort to stop Paramount Global from capitulating to President Donald Trump by settling his frivolous lawsuit over an edited “60 Minutes” interview with then Vice President Kamala Harris.

Abbe Lowell, a highly respected litigator who has handled countless high-profile cases, Norman Eisen, a former ambassador to the Czech Republic and White House ethics advisor and their respective teams sent a formal demand letter to Paramount’s directors on our behalf outlining our plans to file a shareholder derivative suit if Paramount tanks its reputation and furthers America’s democratic backslide by caving.

This is an expensive endeavor, and we don’t get a dime if we win — whatever we recover from rogue Paramount directors and officers goes back to Paramount. Read more here and support us if you can.

FPF takes State Department to court over Öztürk secrecy

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) is taking the government to court over its refusal to disclose information about the arrest of Tufts graduate student Rümeysa Öztürk for exercising her constitutionally protected right to coauthor an op-ed the government didn’t like.

FPF, represented by Loevy and Loevy, filed a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the State Department in the District Court for the District of Columbia to force the release of two documents that will shed light on the government’s targeting of Öztürk. Read more here.

Documenting 10 years of Trump’s anti-press social media tirades

61,989. That’s how many social media posts by President Donald Trump over the past decade Tracker journalist Stephanie Sugars has single-handedly reviewed (at least as of yesterday).

Monday will mark 10 years since Trump famously descended a golden escalator at New York City’s Trump Tower in 2015 and launched his first winning bid for the Oval Office. The Tracker is marking the occasion by launching its Trump Anti-Press Social Media Tracker, a comprehensive database of Trump’s attacks on the press on Truth Social, X and elsewhere.

Read former Voice of America press freedom reporter Liam Scott’s article about Sugars and the database here.

What we’re reading

Supreme Court press corps asks chief justice to livestream court’s opinions (NPR). There’s simply no good reason for the Supreme Court to refuse to livestream its opinion announcements.

Woman arrested after interview by St. Paul journalist (Monitor). Federal authorities must promptly explain both their basis for arresting Isabel Lopez and how they knew where and when she’d be talking to reporters. Surveilling journalists is unacceptable.

Lindsey Graham thinks it should be illegal to identify ICE agents (Techdirt). It’s bad enough to ban identifying ICE agents, but notice how Graham slips in “other federal law enforcement officers involved in covert operations.” It’s part of a pro-secret police movement. And it’s bipartisan. Ask the taxpayers of LA.

Condemning SFPD’s detention of Daily Cal staffers and suppression of student journalism (The Daily Californian). Detaining journalists, even for a minute, prevents them from covering events of public concern, and violates their rights. The San Francisco Police Department and other police departments around the country need a crash course on the First Amendment.

DeSantis administration blasted for ‘chilling’ Florida press with cease and desist letter (Naples Daily News). Florida Gov. Ron Desantis is baselessly accusing the press of “coercing” people to say negative things about his wife’s initiatives. We assure you that no one is coercing us to say that Ron DeSantis is an anti-speech, wannabe authoritarian.

Small-town newspapers are dying because no one wants to run them (Columbia Journalism Review). Succession planning doesn’t usually make the list when people talk about the challenges facing the press, but Liam Scott explores the consequences of local newspaper publishers dying and retiring with no one there to take over.

Freedom of the Press Foundation