Aggregator

The council's move to block swimming access to a dangerous part of the Big River was accompanied by a vote to seek funding for new projects on the river.

Washington University in St. Louis has plans to transform the historic Goodwill complex into a startup hub for bioscience companies.  The $100 million project, known as Catalyst: Powered by WashU, will include a renovated seven-story building with a new four-story addition.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. - Lawmakers in the Missouri House passed two measures Tuesday outlined in Republican Gov. Mike Kehoe’s call for an extraordinary session. The Republican-controlled state House passed a controversial proposal that would redraw the state’s congressional maps to give the GOP a chance to flip one of the two Democrat-held seats. The new [...]

GODFREY — Mathew David Fields, a 37-year-old man from Godfrey, died this past Wednesday evening after being struck by a vehicle on Martin Luther King Boulevard, according to Madison County Coroner Nicholas P. Novacich. The incident occurred around 9:22 p.m. Sept. 3, 2025, approximately a half mile south of Godfrey Road on U.S. 67. Emergency responders, including the Godfrey Fire Department and deputies from the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, arrived promptly at the scene. Investigator Samuel Stone from the Madison County Coroner’s Office pronounced Fields dead at 10:15 p.m. on Sept. 3, 2025. The Madison County Sheriff’s Office requested assistance from the Metro East Crash Assistance Team to aid in accident reconstruction. The cause of death is pending the results of a forensic autopsy and toxicology testing. The investigation remains active and involves the Madison County Sheriff’s Office, the Metro East Crash Assistance Team, and the Madison County

Continue Reading

Bills creating a gerrymandered congressional map and making it virtually impossible to change the state constitution through the initiative petition process are on their way to the Missouri Senate. The Missouri House gave final approval to both proposals Tuesday after two days of contentious debate.  Gov. Mike Kehoe called the legislature back into session after […]

Marine Lance Corporal Jared Schmitz was honored at a White House ceremony on the anniversary of his death, and his parents met with President Trump, while his father declined to sing the Pledge of Allegiance at a city council meeting, citing that he was "Trumped".

The ULI St. Louis Real Estate Diversity Initiative (REDI) is now accepting applications for its 2025 program, a two-phase curriculum designed to expand opportunities for women and professionals of color in real estate development. The program runs 14 sessions in total and provides participants with hands-on experience developing a project plan, financial pro forma, and […]

The post ULI Real Estate Diversity Initiative Opens Applications for Fall 2025 Cohort appeared first on Construction Forum.

Police arrested man last week for shooting a person who stabbed his brother.

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 our stories in your inbox every week.

A Connecticut Department of Motor Vehicles working group will examine portions of the state’s towing law, potentially leading to more extensive reforms than those passed by the legislature last session.

The 10-member committee, which met for the first time Monday, must report its recommendations to lawmakers by February. It was originally tasked with examining a more narrow piece of the Connecticut law that requires proceeds from sales of towed cars to be remitted to the state, but members said they also want to study the way vehicles are valued by towing companies and other aspects of the sales process.

The move comes after a yearlong investigation by The Connecticut Mirror and ProPublica found that the state’s laws favored towing companies at the expense of low-income residents.

The committee, which is chaired by DMV Commissioner Tony Guerrera, includes three towing company owners, two consumer advocates and other DMV officials. The group discussed several issues still plaguing the towing industry and vehicle owners after the legislature overhauled the state’s more than 100-year-old law in May.

That legislation, which passed with bipartisan support and takes effect Oct. 1, makes it harder to tow vehicles from private property and easier for drivers to retrieve their vehicles after a tow. The law also constrains practices that had allowed towing companies to start the sales process for some vehicles after 15 days.

The bill also created the DMV working group to study how towers handle profits from sales of towed cars. Under the law, towing companies can sell a vehicle if the owner doesn’t reclaim it, but they are required to hold onto the proceeds for a year so the vehicle owner can claim the money. If the owner never comes forward, companies are required to turn over the proceeds to the state after subtracting their fees.

This year, Guerrera told lawmakers the DMV never set up a system for this process and wasn’t aware of any money being remitted to the state by towers. He said that the DMV has been reviewing the issue and that the committee would be prepared to address it in the report.

Guerrera said Monday that the working group should expand its mission to study broader changes that make it easier for low-income residents to get their cars back.

“There’s got to be a way, too, to make sure that people know what’s going on when their car gets towed,” Guerrera said. “That’s important because that $1,000 vehicle is a lifeline for them, and they need to get it back. So how can we get it back in a way that doesn’t keep accumulating more fees?”

Committee members discussed creating a new way to monitor who owns a vehicle by having the DMV require the owner to submit a record of sale. Currently, towers try to reach the last registered owner of the vehicle, but several people told CT Mirror and ProPublica that they were never informed their car would be sold because they had just bought it and weren’t required to register it yet. The new legislation does allow the vehicle owner to submit a title or bill of sale instead of registration documents to get their car back.

“A huge part of the problem is the fact that we can’t get ahold of the owner of the vehicle,” said Sal Sena, owner of Sena Brothers and Cross Country Automotive in Hartford. “People are buying a car, they don’t register them, it gets towed, and everything’s going back to the last person that owned it a few years ago.”

The committee also tackled several other issues, such as developing a standardized process to determine the value of a car that has been towed. If a towing company deems a vehicle worth $1,500 or less, it can sell it more quickly.

Guerrera questioned how towers come up with their estimated values. “If you’ve got a car that’s three grand or four grand, next thing you know, it’s valued under $1,500, how did that happen?” he asked.

Connecticut Legal Services attorney Rafie Podolsky said how towers value cars has long been an issue for consumers.

“I’m hopeful that either the department or the industry will have data that will allow us to kind of make some comparisons between the presumed value of the car and the dollar amount that comes in on a resale,” he said.

Towing industry representatives said another priority should be modernizing the DMV’s process for getting permission to sell someone’s vehicle. Eileen Colonese of Farmington Motor Sports said towers spend weeks sending paperwork back and forth through the mail to the DMV and vehicle owners.

“There’s portals out there for all kinds of things. Why is there not a portal for this?” Colonese said. “Everyone can submit everything electronically and have access to a more standardized and modernized system.”

The working group must submit a report to the legislature’s Transportation Committee by February, and Guerrera said it’s important to produce something that all members support.

“If we go to the legislature with a piece of information that says we have met with the industry on both sides, and this is what we’ve come up with, we’re in good shape,” Guerrera said. “If we bog down now again, you know, now it’s in the hands of the legislature and we don’t know what could happen.”

The parents of a 14-year-old City of St. Charles High school student say he was concussed after a physical altercation with a school resource officer at a Friday football game.

The “fresh hell” administration keeps on rolling. There’s no need to actually ask what fresh hell awaits. You need do nothing more than exist and a new fresh hell will be delivered, almost daily. Here’s the freshest: the US military decided to blow up a boat traveling in international waters — one carrying eleven people, […]

The death of Jeremy Blair Clemons has not been ruled a homicide but police are considering it suspicious.

CHICAGO – Attorney General Kwame Raoul co-led a multistate coalition in opposing proposed changes to the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights’ (OCR) biennial Civil Rights Data Collection. The proposed changes would halt data collection on nonbinary students, remove “gender identity” and “sex characteristics” from the OCR’s definitions of harassment and bullying on the basis of sex, cease collection of data on harassment and bullying on the basis of gender identity, and remove “harassment on the basis of actual or perceived sex” from the definitions of “rape” and “sexual assault.” The impacts of failing to collect this data are significant. The OCR’s Civil Rights Data Collection is the largest and, in some instances, the only source of nationwide publicly available civil rights education data. The data is a critical resource for OCR, federal agencies, policymakers, researchers, educators

Continue Reading

Splunk is a powerful data platform used to gather information from multiple sources and index it for efficient access. You can then use collected data to create visualizations, analytics, and a variety of automated and security-related functions. With its web-style interface, Splunk is easy to use and is utilized by many companies worldwide. The 2025 Complete […]

SPRINGFIELD - Building on a strong team of diverse experts in their fields, Governor JB Pritzker announced the following appointment in his administration: Chicago Transit Authority Board Reverend Dr. L. Bernard Jakes will continue to serve as a Member of the Chicago Transit Authority Board.* Jakes currently serves as Vice-Chairman and Chairman of Finance and Budget on the Chicago Transit Authority Board, overseeing fiscal strategy and governance. Jakes is also Senior Pastor of West Point Baptist Church in Chicago, where he has preached for over 23 years. Additionally, Jakes serves as Trustee for Elmhurst College, and he was inducted into the Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Board of International Preachers of Morehouse College. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Elmhurst College, his Master of Arts from Garrett-Evangelical Theological Seminary at Northwestern University, and his Doctor of Ministry from United Theological Seminary. *Appointment pending confirmation by the Illinois

Continue Reading

CHICAGO – The Illinois Commerce Commission (ICC) is partnering with Governor JB Pritzker, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the National Association of State Utility Consumer Advocates (NASUCA), and the National Association of Regulatory Utility Commissioners (NARUC) to promote Digital Connectivity and Lifeline Awareness Week this September 7-13, 2025. The FCC’s Lifeline program offers monthly discounts to help eligible residents access voice or broadband services. “Staying connected is crucial when looking for jobs, scheduling healthcare services, or calling 911 in an emergency. The FCC’s Lifeline program makes it easier for low-income customers to afford their phone and broadband bill,” said ICC Chairman Doug Scott. Under the federal Lifeline program, low-income customers who participate in certain public assistance programs, or qualify based on income can receive monthly discounts up to $9.25 a month for broadband or bundled phone and

Continue Reading

CHICAGO – The Illinois Department of Insurance (IDOI) released today 2026 Plan Year rates for the Get Covered Illinois Marketplace . Similar to national trends impacting states across the country, Illinois’ average rate increase is rising due to the devastating impacts of Trump’s budget bill, which will result in the loss of the federal enhanced premium tax credits (ePTCs) as well as a much higher rate of uninsured Illinoisans, thereby increasing the cost of care. While health plan availability and rates vary based on where consumers live, the statewide weighted average rate increase for individual plans is 28.8 percent compared to last year. These increases could be substantially reduced if Congress decides to extend the federal enhanced premium tax credits (ePTCs) which have played a pivotal role in lowering costs and driving enrollment increases nationally. Preliminary estimates would place the average rate increase in Illinois at approximately 10 percentage point

Continue Reading

On average, it took less than two weeks for a governor's request for a presidential disaster declaration to be granted in the 1990s and early 2000s.