Aggregator

“The stakes could not be higher as tens of thousands of Roundup cases are pending in state and federal courts..." a Bayer spokesperson said.

A fire caused a partially collapsed vacant house on the 4900 block of St. Louis Avenue in north St. Louis' Kingsway East neighborhood, with no injuries reported.

Jones has to win back the progressive South Side wards that flipped to Spencer and boost turnout in largely Black north St. Louis, which barely showed up last month.

Voters in St. Louis can watch a final live debate at 6 p.m. Monday. Polls open at 6 a.m. Tuesday.

Police found the woman dead with stab wounds after a neighbor said they hadn't seen her for about two weeks.

Soman Chainani is on a mission to get kids to read. And not just one of the millions of books he’s sold as a children’s author – he wants to get kids into any book. As he shared with Laura Spencer from the Kansas City Public Library, the St. Louis author’s debut graphic novel taps into a childhood passion for horror.

MASCOUTAH - State Representative Kevin Schmidt (R-Millstadt) is proud to announce Wisper ISP as his “Business of The Month” for March. Rep. Schmidt presented an official certificate to CEO Nathan Stooke while visiting his company for a meeting and tour. In 2003, Nathan Stooke helped his neighbor obtain internet access and realized several others around his rural area were in demand too. Twenty-one years and six states later, Wisper is still connecting those that need reliable, high-speed internet. “Wisper ISP is an honest company that strives to deliver affordable and reliable services to individuals who need high-speed internet, specifically in rural locations,” said Schmidt. “Nathan Stooke basically started his company from scratch over twenty years ago and now he has created good paying jobs in Mascoutah. The company’s success comes from their core values of focusing on solutions, serving one another, and becoming life-long learners.”

Continue Reading

A woman was injured in a shooting overnight Monday morning in north St. Louis, during a fight between two men and women, and is currently suffering from non-life-threatening injuries.

The price tag for a tax cut poised for passage in the Missouri General Assembly is likely many times bigger than estimated, and lawmakers should learn more before voting, the research director of the left-leaning Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy said last week. On Monday afternoon, the state Senate Fiscal Review Committee will hold […]

The imminent return of the St. Louis Metropolitan Police to state oversight is rooted in the belief that policing remains a crucial force for crime reduction. Safer streets, in turn, fuel business growth and community development. These legislative developments — and the changes that come with them — will undoubtedly affect ongoing crime reduction initiatives. […]

The Monroe County Sheriff's Department said a deputy shot a man who allegedly pointed a gun at deputies.

Schlafly handed over the operation of the Metro East location to local chef and restaurant operator Oscar Farina.

ST. LOUIS – Good riddance to the rain. But in its wake, we have a couple of colder days to content with and the concern about a freeze, especially for Tuesday morning. A chilly to cold start to Monday, but overnight clouds and some residual moisture in the atmosphere are keeping a lot of the [...]

by Mark Olalde

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

President Donald Trump’s executive orders shrinking the federal workforce make a notable exception for public safety staff, including those who fight wildland fires. But ongoing cuts, funding freezes and hiring pauses have weakened the nation’s already strained firefighting force by hitting support staff who play crucial roles in preventing and battling blazes.

Most notably, about 700 Forest Service employees terminated in mid-February’s “Valentine’s Day massacre” are red-card-carrying staffers, an agency spokesperson confirmed to ProPublica. These workers hold other full-time jobs in the agency, but they’ve been trained to aid firefighting crews, such as by providing logistical support during blazes. They also assist with prescribed burns, which reduce flammable vegetation and prevent bigger fires, but the burns can only move forward if there’s a certain number of staff available to contain them. (Non-firefighting employees without a red card cannot perform such tasks.)

Red-card-carrying employees are the “backbone” of the firefighting force, and their loss will have “a significant impact,” said Frank Beum, a board member of the National Association of Forest Service Retirees who spent more than four decades with the agency and ran the Rocky Mountain Region. “There are not enough primary firefighters to do the full job that needs to be done when we have a high fire season.”

ProPublica spoke to employees across the Forest Service — which manages an area of land nearly twice the size of California — including staff working in firefighting, facilities, timber sales and other roles, to learn how sweeping personnel changes are affecting the agency’s ability to function. The employees said cuts, which have hit the agency’s recreation, wildlife, IT and other divisions, show the Trump administration is shifting the agency’s focus away from environmental stewardship and toward industry and firefighting.

But notwithstanding Trump’s stated guardrails, the cuts have affected the Forest Service’s more than 10,000-person-strong firefighting force. Hiring has slowed as there are fewer employees to get new workers up to speed and people are confused about which job titles can be hired. Other cuts have led to the cancellation of some training programs and prescribed burns.

“It’s all really muddled in chaos, which is sort of the point,” one Forest Service employee told ProPublica.

“This agency is no longer serving its mission,” another added.

The employees asked not to be named for fear of retribution.

Get in Touch

ProPublica is reporting on the federal public lands grazing program. Do you work on grazing in the Forest Service? Reach out directly via Signal to Mark_Olalde.13 or email mark.olalde@propublica.org. Or find details on more ways to send us tips securely.

The Forest Service did not respond to questions about the impact of cuts other than to clarify the number of terminated employees. The Forest Service spokesperson said about 2,000 probationary employees — typically new staff and those who were recently promoted, groups that have fewer workplace protections — were fired in February. Others with knowledge of the terminations, including a representative of a federal union and a Senate staffer, said the original number of terminated employees was 3,400 but that decreased, likely as workers were brought back in divisions such as timber sales.

The White House and a representative from the Department of Government Efficiency did not respond to requests for comment.

In early March, an independent federal board that reviews employees’ complaints compelled the Department of Agriculture, the Forest Service’s parent department, to reinstate more than 5,700 terminated probationary employees for 45 days. During their first weeks back on the payroll, many, including Forest Service personnel, were put on paid administrative leave and given no work.

The administration and DOGE continue working toward layoffs amid court challenges to their moves. Word circulated throughout the Forest Service in March that departmental leadership had compiled lists containing the names of thousands of additional Forest Service employees who could be soon laid off, according to some workers.

Additionally, understaffing in the agency’s information technology unit is threatening firefighting operations, according to an agency employee. In December, the branch chief overseeing IT for the agency’s fire and aviation division left the job. The Department of Agriculture posted the job opening, describing the division as providing “support to the interagency wildland fire community’s technical needs.” This includes overseeing software that firefighting crews use to request equipment — everything from fire-resistant clothing to hoses — from the agency’s warehouses so first responders have uninterrupted access to lifesaving equipment.

The day after Trump’s inauguration, the Department of Agriculture removed the IT job posting. The position remains unfilled, according to an employee with knowledge of the situation.

The hiring of new firefighters has also bogged down amid the deluge of sometimes-conflicting orders from the administration and DOGE, Forest Service staffers said.

“We are really, really behind onboarding our employees right now,” a Forest Service firefighter told ProPublica.

The staffing issues exacerbate challenges that predate the second Trump administration. To address a massive budget shortfall, the Forest Service under President Joe Biden last year paused the hiring of seasonal workers, except those working on wildfires. (Firefighters did see a permanent pay increase codified by Congress in its recently approved spending bill.)

Still, many permanent employees, including many firefighters, work on a seasonal basis and are placed on an unpaid status for several months each year when there is less work. Uncertainty within the federal government has led many of these employees to give up on government work and look elsewhere.

“Some of our people have taken other jobs,” one Forest Service employee told ProPublica. “People aren’t going to wait around.”

Cuts to the agency’s legal department will also curb its ability to care for the nation’s forests and fight wildfires, an employee told ProPublica. Large prescribed burns and other vegetation-removal projects require environmental review, a process that is often targeted with lawsuits, including by green groups concerned that the efforts go too far in removing trees.

A smaller legal staff could lead to fewer prescribed burns, increasing the risk of catastrophic fires, according to a lawyer for the Department of Agriculture who worked on Forest Service projects. The lawyer was fired in the mid-February purge of probationary employees.

“Every time we lose a case out West, it means the Forest Service can’t do a project, at least temporarily,” the lawyer said.

“They’re going to get sued more, and they’re going to lose more,” said the lawyer, who was reinstated in March following the board ruling that the Department of Agriculture’s mass firings were illegal.

The employee received back pay but was immediately put on administrative leave. Because of the cuts to support staff, it was several weeks before many of the returning employees were reissued government laptops and badges and allowed to do any work.

“Government efficiency at its finest,” the lawyer said.

The upcoming two-part documentary about Billy Joel is set to open the 2025 Tribeca Festival. The world premiere of Billy Joel: And So It Goes will happen on June 4…

Source

Fifteen years ago, I wrote that Democrats couldn’t build things anymore, and that Dems needed to better balance regulation with production.

5 On Your Side caught up with brides and business owners at a wedding expo in St. Peters about navigating the rising costs.

The administration is vindictively hacking away at veterans’ benefits.

Republicans in two states failed to twist the ballot initiative process to their ends. But the fight is far from over.

by Dave Altimari and Ginny Monk, The Connecticut Mirror

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

This year, the head of Connecticut’s Department of Motor Vehicles made a startling public admission, telling lawmakers that the agency, which regulates the towing industry, has never enforced a century-old law meant to protect drivers whose cars are towed.

Under that law, if vehicle owners don’t reclaim their towed cars or can’t afford the fees, towing companies can sell them, but they are required to hold onto the proceeds for a year so the vehicle owner can claim the money. Tow companies are entitled to subtract their fees. But, even if the owner still doesn’t come forward, the companies aren’t supposed to pocket the profits and must turn over any remaining money to the state.

DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera told lawmakers the agency had never set up a process to accept deposits and wasn’t tracking whether any money had come in.

In fact, the DMV commissioner said he wasn’t aware of that part of the statute until The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica brought it to his attention last fall as part of an investigation into how Connecticut’s laws favor towing companies at the expense of drivers. After the story’s publication, the state treasurer’s office audited its deposits and determined that no tow truck company or the DMV had ever turned over money from sales in the history of the law.

In a statement, Guerrera said, “This law has been in effect since the 1930’s, yet unfortunately, there has never been a system in place to effectively monitor its implementation.”

Tony Guerrera, the commissioner of the Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles, told lawmakers the state doesn’t have a system to ensure that towing companies turn over the unclaimed profits from car sales. (Shahrzad Rasekh/The Connecticut Mirror)

This failure has hurt both vehicle owners and the state itself: Owners don’t have the opportunity to get money back that the law says should be theirs, and the state is missing out on both the potential payments and any interest or investment income that would accrue from the deposits.

The unenforced law is another example of how the DMV has failed to oversee the towing industry, which sells thousands of cars following tows each year. In an extreme case, reported by the news organizations last month, a DMV employee was found to be part of a scheme to undervalue cars and sell them for thousands in profit, according to an internal DMV investigation. The employee denied he did anything wrong and still works at the DMV.

In another, criminal court records show, a Norwalk towing company owner was caught driving a Mercedes-Benz he had towed, racking up nearly 6,000 miles in 22 months. The tower was charged with larceny and participated in a diversion program, after which his record was expunged. CT Mirror and ProPublica have spoken to dozens of people who had their cars towed and never saw them again. Many said they weren’t notified that their cars would be sold.

Legislators are now aiming to create a system to make sure car owners — or eventually the state — get that money. A wide-ranging bill to overhaul the entire towing statute would require towing companies to submit documentation to the DMV of the sale price, any towing and storage fees they incurred and information on the vehicle and its owner within 15 days of a sale.

The bill would also reform the process of “escheating,” or remitting money to the state. After reviewing the sale document, the DMV would require the tower to send a certified letter notifying the owner or lienholder of the sales proceeds. Instead of the general fund, leftover money would be sent to the state’s unclaimed property fund and appear on a publicly posted list.

Guerrera said the DMV recently added more staff charged with overseeing the sales system and added a section to its website this year to ensure tow companies are aware of the requirement to turn money over to the state.

During an interview late last year, Guerrera said that implementing the process wasn’t the DMV’s responsibility and that doing so was up to the state treasurer’s office. But the treasurer pushed back on that in a statement, saying it fell under DMV rules. After the initial CT Mirror and ProPublica story was published, Guerrera took more ownership.

“I am glad this has been brought to my attention and I am more than prepared to address this issue, ensuring that it is now being handled properly and in accordance with its intended purposes,” he said in a statement.

The Transportation Committee approved the bill on March 19, sending it to the House. Some lawmakers opposed it, arguing the bill was intended to target a “few bad apples” but adds unnecessary regulations on all towing companies.

House Speaker Matt Ritter, D-Hartford, said he expects lots of debate as the bill winds its way through the legislature, but he said the escheating process needs to be addressed.

“There’s got to be some accountability and transparency on that for sure,” Ritter said. “This is people’s property.”

Timothy Vibert, president of Towing and Recovery Professionals of Connecticut, said a past association president asked DMV officials about how to return funds to the state but received no answers.

He said tow companies rarely make back their towing and storage fees when they sell cars and questioned why any tower would ever give the state money.

“There might have been a little bit of a windfall with one car or another, but there’s been a whole lot of losers, so why does the state get a chance to take it?” asked Vibert, who owns Farmington Motor Sports.

He added that many towers would rather return the cars.

“What the towers are doing is keeping those cars and then just getting rid of them for $500 or $600,” Vibert added. “So we’re keeping the cars for, I’m going to guess 45 days, maybe sometimes 50, depending on the paperwork, and then we’re just disposing of them because they’re not worth anything.”

House Minority Leader Vincent Candelora, R-North Branford, said he thinks there usually isn’t money left over after fees. “I think, frankly, what usually happens is the tow companies wait for the towing and storage fees to exceed the value, so it never ends up going to the state or back to the individual,” he said.

Kristianne Hall experienced the fees piling up firsthand while she was bartending in downtown New Haven. The job posed a delicate balance. She had to work her shift and offer sufficient service to get good tips. But she also had to keep the parking meter fed. There were a few times Hall couldn’t get to the meter, and parking tickets stacked up.

Kristianne Hall said she should have received thousands of dollars after her car was towed and sold, but she never got anything. (Octavio Jones for ProPublica)

In 2015, her car got booted and then towed when she couldn’t afford to pay the $500 to get the device taken off. By the time she had that money saved, she said, the towing company quoted her $2,000 to get the vehicle back from its lot.

Hall couldn’t afford that and never saw the car again. She estimated the 2008 Chevrolet Aveo was worth about $5,000, which is supported by a Kelley Blue Book report, thousands more than what the towing company told her she’d need to pay to get it back.

“Why was I not entitled to the rest of that money if I own that car outright?” she asked.

After the tow, Hall struggled to get to and from work. She had to take an Uber home because the city bus stopped running before her shifts ended. She quickly ran low on money and had to turn to her roommates to help her pay bills before she eventually moved in with her grandparents in Florida.

“I felt like a failure because I couldn’t hack it,” Hall said. “It was a really, really hard and almost traumatic situation.”

Has Your Car Been Towed in Connecticut? Share Your Story and Help Us Investigate.

Asia Fields contributed reporting.