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If you are ready to welcome a bold and bright little boy into your family, Gideon has more than enough energy to go around!

Anthony Tobias-Haywood, a Tennessee man wanted for a 2024 murder, was arrested over the weekend after a brief police pursuit ended in a crash in St. Louis, Missouri.

On Monday, President Donald Trump approved a major disaster declaration request for the affected Missouri counties during the May 16 tornado, opening applications for federal assistance.

Marquette Catholic High School 2025 Spring Honor Roll/High Honor Roll High Honor Roll Seniors: Ava Albers, Izabela Albers, Lily Berkenbile, Samantha Booth, Sophie Borman, Rose Brangenberg, Matthew Cain, Alyssa Coles, Quinn Copeland, Lily Covert, Payton Crane, Jordyn Dase, Cassidy Eccles, Nola Effinger, Sophia Elliott, Marian Elmendorf, William Fahnestock, Addison Groshans, Caleb Harteis, Carter Harteis, Radley Hoener, Nicholas Koeller, Lucia Lonero, Paul Marturana, Alayiah Misuraca, Karson Morrissey, Addison Pranger, Jackson Pruitt, Brooke Rister, Chloe Roberts, Kel'C Robinson, Tyler Roth, Erin Schwartz, Grace Schwegel, Ania Sneed, Chloe Steele, Maya Stephan, Davin Thomas, Eleanor Tiemann, Claire Varble, James Wacker, Summer Watson, Tyra Wells, Elliotte Williams, Taelor Williams, Andrew Zacha, Rodger Zawodniak Juniors: Carson Bauer, Cali Bequette, Adelaide Bryson, Caroline Cain, Elizabeth Callahan, Karly Davenport, Laila Davis, Isabel Downey, Sharon Dugas, Jessica Eales,

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ST. LOUIS - The outlook for commodities and the barge industry were front and center June 5 during a virtual FreightWeekSTL panel session hosted by the St. Louis Regional Freightway. Ken Eriksen, Managing Member and Strategic Advisor at Polaris Analytics & Consulting, highlighted the economic value of the Mississippi River Ship Channel and its significance to the freight industry and the St. Louis region. Eriksen also provided an overview of the evolving landscape of agriculture and barge transport, underscoring the region’s critical role in global trade. Eriksen provided preliminary insights on the soon to be released Mississippi River Ship Channel market study commissioned by the Big River Coalition and funded by the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development. He explained the vital importance of the Mississippi River Ship Channel -- which stretches from Baton Rouge into the Gulf of America to the Southwest Pass -- to global trade. Findings show that vessels loaded

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A Bunker, Mo., motorcyclist died Sunday afternoon after striking a vehicle head-on while in a no-passing zone on Highway 21.

Witnesses reported someone setting fire to vacant homes nearby.

There are always the same 24 hours in a day, but somehow when we hit spring, it can seem like we get some extra time. With more daylight and warmer weather, the days can just feel like they’re expanding. And with that shift can come a boost in our energy and motivation to tackle lingering projects on our to-do lists: Rearranging cluttered closets, cleaning out junk drawers and more. But outside of classic spring-cleaning tasks, this can also include some important — and often pretty simple — steps to improve our health. For many of us, health screenings may be the most common items on this list. These tests can help find risk factors and diseases earlier when they’re easier to treat or prevent. They include the types of screening tests that may first come to mind — a mammogram looking for breast cancer, a colonoscopy looking for colon cancer or a CT scan looking for lung cancer. But they also include other types of screenings for conditions that increase

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Twice last week, the National Weather Service issued tornado warnings in the St. Louis region without a tornado watch officially in place - a scenario that perhaps left some residents surprised or concerned.

GREENE COUNTY – The Greene County Health Department is proud to announce it has been awarded $50,000 in grant funding from the Illinois Department of Public Health (IDPH) to support the development and implementation of an Overdose Fatality Review (OFR) Team. This initiative is part of IDPH’s ongoing efforts to reduce overdose deaths in Illinois through collaborative, data-driven community responses. This grant will support Greene County in establishing a multidisciplinary team that will systematically review overdose fatalities in the region. The team will include representatives from public health, law enforcement, the Greene County Sheriff, the Greene County State’s Attorney, the Public Defender, emergency medical services, behavioral health, peer support teams, the Greene County Coroner's office, and other relevant stakeholders. Together, they will identify missed opportunities for prevention and recommend actionable strategies to save lives. The initiative

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The only laws the Trump Administration respects are the laws it gets to inflict on others. The rule of law, however, doesn’t mean the laws don’t apply to those who make the rules. And yet, here we are, seeing another flagrant refusal to comply with oversight laws just because the DHS and ICE feel they […]

Bell, a St. Louis County Democrat, joined U.S. Rep. Don Bacon, a Nebraska Republican, as lead writers of letter urging social media to crack down on hate speech

ALTON - At its Annual May Meeting, the Alton Community Service League announced Cathy Droste as the 2025 winner of the Silver Bowl Award. The Silver Bowl is awarded to the member who has recorded the highest number of volunteer and League hours for the year. For the 2024-2025 League Year, Cathy recorded 179 hours for League activities and 198 community hours for a total of 377 hours. The total value of her volunteer hours is $12,625.73. During the summer months, League Members will continue to deadhead roses on Mondays at the Nan Elliott Memorial Rose Garden at Gordon Moore Park. Members were also invited to sign up to assist in watering the Alton Memorial Hospital Healing Gardens. Officers installed for the 2025-2026 League Year include: Pat Cooper, President; Mary Molloy, President Elect/Membership; Deb Tchoukaleff, Recording Secretary; Debra Olinde, Corresponding Secretary; Joanne Adams, Treasurer; Nancy Johnson, Assistant Treasurer; and Cathy Droste, Past President. Committee

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The 2025 Total Microsoft SQL Server Bundle has 5 courses that let you dive into the fundamentals. You’ll learn how to create and manage databases using real-world SQL queries, install and navigate SSMS, protect your data, plan for emergencies, handle failover clustering, and much more. You’ll also learn Git and GitHub step-by-step—from installation to advanced […]

Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) has introduced legislation to raise the federal minimum wage to $15 an hour, which would take effect next year and include automatic increases to match inflation over time.

It was 40 years ago that Mick Jagger and David Bowie teamed up for their iconic collaboration on the Motown classic "Dancing in the Street." To mark the occasion, the single…

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by Sharon Lerner and Lisa Song

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

The Environmental Protection Agency has withdrawn a legal complaint filed last year against the GEO Group, a major donor to President Donald Trump that has more than $1 billion in contracts with the administration to run private prisons and ICE detention facilities.

The administrative complaint, which the EPA filed last June under the Biden administration, involved the GEO Group’s use of a disinfectant called Halt at the Adelanto Immigration and Customs Enforcement facility in California. The EPA regulates the product, which causes irreversible eye damage and skin burns, according to its label. By law, users are supposed to use goggles or a face shield, chemical resistant gloves and protective clothing.

But on more than 1,000 occasions in 2022 and 2023, the GEO group had its employees use the disinfectant without proper protections, the EPA complaint alleged. The agency alleged that GEO Group’s employees wore nitrile exam gloves that were labeled “extra soft” and “not intended for use as a general chemical barrier.” In a separate, pending lawsuit, people who were detained at the detention center alleged they were sickened by the company’s liberal use of a different disinfectant.

A hearing had yet to be scheduled before an administrative law judge. The maximum penalty for the company’s alleged misuse of Halt is more than $4 million. But a notice filed on Friday by Matthew Salazar, a manager in the EPA’s Enforcement and Compliance Assurance Division, stated that the EPA’s case against the GEO Group would be dropped. The notice did not provide an explanation.

“This is a complete surrender,” said Gary Jonesi, an attorney who worked at the EPA for almost 40 years. “If this is not due to political intervention on behalf of an early and large Trump donor who stands to gain from managing ICE detention facilities and private prisons, then surely it is at least partly due to the intimidation that career staff feel in an environment when federal employees are being fired and reassigned to undesirable tasks and locations.”

A spokesperson for the White House said that the GEO Group has “provided services to the Federal Bureau of Prisons for several decades” and has been a major federal contractor for many years. The spokesperson did not say whether the White House played a role in the decision to withdraw the complaint but referred ProPublica to the EPA.

The EPA said in an email that, “As a matter of longstanding practice, EPA does not comment on litigation.” The GEO Group didn’t respond to questions from ProPublica. In a filing in response to the EPA’s complaint, the GEO Group admitted that its employees used Halt but said that the disinfectant “was applied in a manner consistent with its label at all times and locations.” The company also wrote in its court filing that the gloves its employees used are chemically resistant and offered appropriate protection.

The GEO Group has had close ties to the Trump administration. Pam Bondi, Trump’s attorney general, was a lobbyist for the company in 2019. The attorney general “is in full compliance with all ethical guidance,” a spokesperson for the Department of Justice said in an email.

The firm was the first corporation whose political action committee “maxed out” on contributions to Trump’s presidential campaign. A subsidiary company, GEO Acquisition II, also gave $1 million to the pro-Trump PAC Make America Great Again. The GEO Group, its PAC and individuals affiliated with the company collectively contributed $3.7 million to candidates and political committees in the 2024 election cycle, compared with $2.7 million in 2020, according to OpenSecrets, an independent group that tracks money in politics. They donated overwhelmingly to Republicans: In every election cycle since 2016, at least 87% of their donations to federal candidates went to Republicans.

Data from the Federal Election Commission shows that George C. Zoley, the founder of the GEO Group, donated $50,000 in 2023 to a joint fundraising committee to support Republican efforts to maintain a majority in the House of Representatives. Zoley gave the maximum amount allowed for an individual per election at the time, $3,300, to Trump and House Speaker Mike Johnson’s primary and general election campaigns in 2024.

The GEO group regularly and liberally sprayed disinfectants in the ICE facility, according to both the EPA complaint and a separate civil suit filed on behalf of Adelanto detainees. The EPA complaint did not state whether employees were harmed by the pesticide; it accused the company of inappropriately handling the pesticide.

The separate lawsuit, filed by the Social Justice Legal Foundation, alleges that Adelanto detainees were sickened by the use of a different disinfectant product, HDQ Neutral, made by the same company. “Various Plaintiffs had nosebleeds or found blood in their mouth and saliva. Others had debilitating headaches or felt dizzy and lightheaded,” the lawsuit stated. “GEO staff sprayed when people were eating, and the chemical mist would fall on their food. GEO staff sprayed at night, on or around the bunk beds and cells where people slept. And on at least one occasion, GEO staff sprayed individuals as a disciplinary measure.”

That lawsuit is still pending. The allegations echo a warning letter the EPA previously sent the company accusing the GEO Group of improperly using HDQ Neutral. That letter cited complaints from detainees at Adelanto who suffered “difficulty breathing,” “lung pain” and skin rashes from the disinfectant. The pesticide was sprayed onto bedding and inside microwaves, the EPA said. The GEO Group has told reporters that it rejects allegations that it’s using harmful chemicals, and that it follows the manufacturer’s instructions. In a court filing, the company said any problems alleged by the EPA “were the result of the declared national emergency concerning COVID-19.” A judge ordered ICE to stop using HDQ Neutral in 2020. The GEO Group began using Halt “on or about” March 2022, according to the EPA complaint.

Pratheek Rebala contributed reporting.

CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul today issued a statement in support of a lawsuit California Attorney General Rob Bonta filed against President Trump, the Department of Defense and Department of Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth in response to their unlawful orders to federalize the California National Guard. “I stand in solidarity with my colleague Attorney General Rob Bonta regarding his legal challenge to Donald Trump’s unprecedented order directing the National Guard to respond to lawful protesters. The administration’s actions to federalize the National Guard are inappropriate and have escalated circumstances unnecessarily in Los Angeles. President Trump has further inflamed the situation by taking the extraordinary action of ordering Marines to be deployed on American soil. While shocking, both actions are consistent with President Trump’s other attempts to move our democracy toward authoritarianism. “Our Constitution protects the right t

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