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Some who provide emergency shelter in St. Louis said that occupancy was at or near capacity

The law firm of Carmody MacDonald PC has renewed its lease in downtown Clayton and will renovate the office space, a project made easier because the owner of the PNC Center added an amenities center to the 18-story building.

A Northwoods, Missouri, man appeared in federal court on Tuesday and pleaded not guilty to child sex trafficking.

Thanks to dogged reporting and unnamed sources, we know that as of last week, the Trump administration has sent nearly 100 migrants to the U.S. military base at Guantánamo Bay, Cuba, where at least some are being held in the same military detention facility as terrorism suspects.

Yet much remains unknown by the press and the public about the migrant operation at Gitmo. As Freedom of the Press Foundation Senior Advocacy Adviser Caitlin Vogus wrote in The Daily Beast, the government’s detentions at Gitmo are happening largely out of sight of the American people — seemingly by design.

Vogus wrote:

“We shouldn’t have to rely on reporters’ tenacity and commitment to the fourth estate to gain basic information about what the government is up to. Sending deportees to Gitmo doesn’t just signal that the Trump administration is cracking down on immigration—it’s cracking down on the public’s right to know, too.”

Read the whole op-ed here.

Walgreens is closing a north St. Louis location near the end of next month as part of a larger, three-year cost-cutting effort.

This latest snowstorm will wind down, but flurries will persist through Wednesday. Temperatures will stay in the teens for highs, with gusty winds making it feel much colder.

JEFFERSON COUNTY, Mo. -  With winter watch underway, FOX 2 is also preparing for more snow, as the icy conditions continue to move into the region.

From Popular Information:  The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) has ordered the digital and physical destruction of 18 publications on workplace safety practices, according to an internal February 7 email obtained by Popular Information. The email says the publications have been removed from the OSHA website and tells staff that any physical copies should […]

Plows have been busy in St. Charles County, with MoDOT highway signs advising motorists to stay off the roads if they don’t have to be out and about.

We’ve all probably had this experience at some point: a news story discusses a government document the reporter has managed to obtain and that we’d like to read as well. But, after scouring the article for a link to said document, it becomes clear that it’s not there.

This used to be a minor annoyance. Why not let people see public source material for themselves? No matter how thorough journalists may be, they often don’t have room to tell us all the document might. Plus, as law professor Sarah Fackrell noted, reporters might miss something about a court filing a lawyer would pick up on, something about a public health document a doctor might catch, and so on.

But the stakes are higher now, as government websites and records disappear, agencies are haphazardly folded, lawless oligarchs shield their shady quasi-governmental operations from view, and the future of the National Archives is uncertain.

It’s on all of us to preserve the public domain. Everyone should be getting into the habit of archiving any government record they access online so it’s not lost. But the press should help lead the charge. Or, at the very least, when they obtain government documents, they should let news readers share the wealth.

That means news stories should include links to public documents (hosted somewhere other than government sites from which they might disappear). It also means not paywalling them.

Ideally, we’d like to see news outlets not paywall any government records-based reporting (if a small independent outlet like 404 Media can do it, others can too). It’s a problem that misinformation is free and real news isn’t. But if that’s not economically feasible, at least let people access the records themselves for free. They’re public records, after all.

News isn’t just any business, it’s a constitutionally protected public service. And the moment calls for the Fourth Estate to do whatever it can to preserve transparency.

News outlets could even take it a step further: proactively post all newsworthy public records they find during their reporting, whether online, through the Freedom of Information Act, or otherwise. We’re not asking them to forfeit scoops: They can wait till they’ve either reported on the records or decided they’re not going to anytime soon.

We get it: News outlets expend significant resources in pursuit of government records, sometimes litigating FOIA cases for years before finally getting what they’re after. Why should people get to piggyback off those efforts for free?

Well, because news isn’t just any business, it’s a constitutionally protected public service. And the moment calls for the Fourth Estate to do whatever it can to preserve transparency.

But beyond that, what’s to say that sharing public records is bad for business? What’s more likely to entice someone to subscribe: brief previews of articles that offer no assurance that the rest is worth reading, let alone paying for? Or the clearly newsworthy — but often dense — records the articles explain?

Most people don’t want to read, synthesize, and contextualize public records themselves — they rely on journalists for that. If journalists show them what records they’re digging up, they might gain respect for the work reporters do and want to know what they have to say about them.

Over the next few years, a lot of people and industries will have to put aside assumptions and norms from a bygone era and do what’s needed to preserve American democracy (or at least a record of what once was). Sharing public records with the public is one low-cost, low-risk strategy for journalists to do their part. Who knows, it might even be profitable.

From Webster-Kirkwood Times:  The Webster Groves City Council on Feb. 4 held a public hearing on a conditional use permit for a banquet facility at Webster’s Yorkshire Village. Applicant Desirra McFadden wants to transform the former Ravens Ridge MMA site to an event center for weddings, receptions, showers, small parties and more. Council members evaluate […]

The NYPD is proving it’s impossible to fix an entity that doesn’t want to improve. It has engaged in more than a decade of straight-up ignoring court-ordered reforms of its stop-and-frisk program. The program’s original form was declared unconstitutional in 2013. Since then, it has only marginally improved. And much of that improvement is probably […]

From First Alert 4:  Trade careers aren’t always what people think of when they hear about high school education, but that’s exactly what Ritenour School District is hoping to provide through a new program supported by green energy companies and local unions. “This is a lot of exploration, cause I don’t know exactly what I […]

Most schools have closets for students to hang coats. But a closet to give away coats? That’s another story, one that plays itself out at nearly three dozen schools in seven different districts in the St. Louis area.

It's unclear what county and city initiatives are affected by the order.