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Key takeaways: When working through a difficult conversation, choose a goal and find the right time. Use “I messages” rather than putting the blame on others. Be an active listener. Don't get distracted by devices. “I deserve a raise!” “Son, your grades are slipping.” “Honey, we’re not spending enough time together.” Difficult conversations come up more often than you’d think. Luckily, there are time-tested ways to navigate them, says Sara Bennett, a psychotherapist at OSF HealthCare. Choose a goal. Figure out what you want out of the talk, whether that’s the raise you’re after at work or just a better understanding with someone close to you. Also plan how you may react to responses. “Hopefully that goal is to not be right. Hopefully it’s to come to some kind of resolution or share some information. Maybe you’re seeking advice,” Bennett says. In other words, yo

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WASHINGTON – U.S. Senate Majority Whip Dick Durbin (D-IL) today joined U.S. Senator Brian Schatz (D-HI) and 16 colleagues in introducing the End the Threat of Default Act , legislation that would permanently remove the threat of a default by repealing the national debt ceiling, an arbitrary limit restricting the amount that the United States Treasury can borrow to pay its debts. In June 2023, President Biden signed legislation that suspended the statutory debt ceiling until January 2, 2025. “Defaulting on the debt would send the economy into a tail spin, leading to catastrophic consequences for Americans. Using the threat of default as a political tool is fiscally irresponsible. We cannot afford to have our economy held hostage,” said Durbin. “I’m joining my colleagues to introduce legislation that would stop this brinksmanship and end the threat of default for good.” A default would be catastrophic and would likely trigger a recession.

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From St. Louis Public Radio:  Federal and state governments on Wednesday filed a civil lawsuit against the city of East St. Louis, accusing it of allowing untreated sewage to spill from its infrastructure despite two orders from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to address the problem in 2022 and 2023. The EPA, along with the […]

From St. Louis Public Radio:  St. Louis’ Community Development Administration formally presented a large $4.8 million check on Tuesday to Jubilee Community Development Corp. for the transformation of a vacant elementary school in the city’s Fairground neighborhood. Representatives from Jubilee, the city’s development arm, Jubilee Community Church, the mayor’s office and local residents stood outside […]

EDWARDSVILLE - Lainey McFarlin is a junior forward for the girls' basketball team at Edwardsville High School, and has helped the Tigers get off on the right foot this season with a 4-2 start. Edwardsville lost their first game of the season on Dec. 5 41-24 to Alton at Lucco-Jackson Gym, a game where the Tigers held the Redbirds to a 10-10 halftime tie, but the Redbirds went on an 11-1 third-quarter run to take control of the game, and eventually win. O'Fallon beat Edwardsville 34-31 on Tuesday. After the game, McFarlin felt disappointment about the outcome, but knew the Tigers had the ability to bounce back quickly. Lainey is a Spencer Homes Female Athlete of the Month for Edwardsville. "We worked really hard in practice this week, and the thing we worked on, it didn't follow into the Alton game, and I feel like our energy just got low," McFarlin said. It's still a good start for the Tigers now at 4-2, and she felt positive about how things have gone in the early part of the campaign

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WASHINGTON, D.C. — On Thursday, Dec. 12, 2024, Congresswoman Nikki Budzinski (IL-13) spoke from the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives to recognize two Illinois state championship football teams from the Metro East – the East St. Louis Flyers and the Belleville Althoff Crusaders. On November 28th, the East St. Louis Flyers won their eleventh Class 6A State Championship with a 48-28 victory over Geneva. The Belleville Althoff Crusaders won their first Class 1A title since 1990 after beating Lena-Winslow 57-14. Dierre Hill Jr., who was recently named the 2024 Illinois Gatorade Player of the Year, led the Crusaders to victory. The Belleville senior has committed to play for the University of Oregon next year. Budzinski’s remarks can be found below: “I rise today to recognize two state champion football teams in my district - the East St. Louis Flyers and the Belleville Althoff Crusaders. Under Coach Darren Sunkett’s leadership,

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The cast of the Bob Dylan film A Complete Unknown, including star Timothée Chalamet, perform all the music seen in the film, which amounts to more than 50 onscreen music…

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Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) on Dec. 12 launched a “starter pack” for press freedom organizations active on the social media platform Bluesky. We did so to curate a unified feed dedicated to press freedom, facilitate mutual following among community members, and contribute to the health of the conversation on the nascent platform.

What is Bluesky and why do we like it?

FPF joined the microblogging social media platform in July 2023, just a few months after Bluesky launched as an invite-only service in February 2023. The site opened registrations publicly in February 2024 and has seen exponential growth since the U.S. presidential election in November. Its user base is now inching toward 25 million, with daily active users increasing rapidly.

Bluesky was established in 2019 as a research effort within the company formerly known as Twitter to explore open communication protocols, and developed what later became known as the Authenticated Transfer Protocol as a result, which was released publicly in 2022.

In 2021, Seattle-based Bluesky became an independent company primarily owned by its 33-year-old chief executive, Jay Graber. Despite its ownership model, the key difference between current mainstream social media platforms — like Meta, X, and TikTok — is that Bluesky is based on an open communication protocol for distributed, or decentralized, social networks. The goal is, essentially, to shield the platform from being owned and controlled by just one person or group (like an enthusiastic, Trump-supporting, free speech-hypocrite billionaire), a concept that we hugely admire here at FPF.

What else are we doing?

Since the site allows independent developers to build apps and extensions on top of Bluesky's network, we will be exploring and experimenting with various ideas, including creating a custom press freedom feed. Feeds allow the site’s users to search for and save a stream of posts around a specific subject to their account without having to follow individual accounts. We hope to share more in 2025 about our work on this.

What can you do?

In the meantime, if you are on Bluesky or plan on creating an account, follow us and our press freedom reporting project and database, the U.S. Press Freedom Tracker. You can also follow the accounts on our press freedom starter pack, plus FPF’s staff, board members, and projects on this separate starter pack.

And if you are a press freedom organization on Bluesky, verify your domain, if you own one, for a couple of reasons. First, doing so confirms your identity on the platform, and second, it makes it easier for other members of our community, journalists, and the public at large to find you there. We did our best to locate press freedom organizations and add them to the starter pack, but if you are active on the platform and not in our press freedom pack, send us a message or contact us here and we will add you.

We are not leaving X anytime soon, because we think it’s still important to reach users there, but we’re excited to deepen our presence on Bluesky. We hope others will join us there in facilitating the conversation around press freedom and other issues critical to our democracy.

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ALTON - Persnickety by Jen Farley, a new store in downtown Alton, offers an “eclectic blend” of vintage, antique and contemporary products for every household. “I like to say my pieces find me so I can help them find their owners,” said owner Jen Farley. “I always wanted a shop. I grew up here in Alton. I went to Marquette. I spent a lot of time on Broadway back in the old days when it was all the antique shops, and I just always wanted to have one of my own.” Located at 303 E. Broadway inside of Mineral Springs Mall, Persnickety was started by Farley earlier this year. Melissa Bland of Honeybee Vintage and Kim Tanner of Strangelovely encouraged her to open Persnickety, and she has loved being a part of downtown Alton. She noted that the area has “a great vibe,” and she is excited to see its revitalization. As a store, Persnickety sells a wide variety of items. Farley finds most of her inventory at estate sales, vintage

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April Bingham pleaded guilty in September to receiving illegal amphetamine prescriptions from Dr. Craig Spiegel and, on some occasions, selling the pills to others.

From St. Louis Business Journal:  St. Louis real estate developer and architectural firm Urban Improvement Conglomerate (UIC) said Tuesday it is merging with a construction firm based in Iowa. UIC, 1536 Tower Grove Ave., will join forces with Davenport, Iowa-based Bush Construction in a deal the two firms said will strengthen their design-build capabilities and […]

From Architectural Record:  Interdependence is the key ingredient of On Olive, a development at the edge of downtown St. Louis that cultivates semi-communal living as an art form. The project’s first phase of 17 houses is a collaboration between the philanthropist Emily Pulitzer, who is intent on city-building through art; the architect Tatiana Bilbao, who […]

Ollie’s Bargain Outlet, a closeout and overstock merchandise chain, has opened four stores in the St. Louis region in the last 18 months with plans for a fifth.

From West Newsmagazine:  The Reserve at Wildwood development will be allowed to proceed after all. At the Nov. 4 Planning and Zoning (P&Z) Commission meeting, a vote to recommend the site plan subcommittee’s favorable report on the project was denied by a vote of 5-3. It required six votes to pass. Chair David Beattie, Cindy […]

EAST ST. LOUIS – A jury has found Evette B. Osuegbu, 62, guilty of conspiring to commit arson and fraud, marking a significant development in a case involving multiple properties in Illinois and Missouri. The conviction was announced following a trial that revealed Osuegbu's involvement in setting fire to her apartment in St. Louis on Dec. 31, 2022, with the intent to collect insurance benefits. Osuegbu was convicted on multiple charges, including one count of conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud, two counts of mail fraud, ten counts of wire fraud, one count of conspiracy to commit arson, and one count of using fire to commit a federal felony. Her sentencing is set for April 23, 2025. Co-defendant Rufis A. Jefferson, 47, from Venice, pleaded guilty to related charges in January and is scheduled for sentencing on Feb. 6, 2025, at the federal courthouse in East St. Louis. U.S. Attorney Rachelle Aud Crowe said, “The pair are guilty of conspiring together to commit

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A wedding venue hopes to add a campground with cabins for year-round lodging in St. Charles County.

Fourteen people are accused of helping fund North Korea’s nuclear weapons program.

  This week St.Louis Mayor Tishara Jones and Board of Alderman President Megan Green released their plan for the use of the approximately $277 million in Rams settlement money. The Transform STL Act was filed this week by Ward 7 Alderwoman Alisha Sonnier and splits the money into 6 independent funds addressing various needs including…

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