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Leisure, 78, was found guilty in 1987 of the 1980 car-bombing of alleged mobster Jimmy Michaels Sr., arguably the most infamous mob hit in St. Louis history.

Ahead of the release of his memoir Brothers on Tuesday, Alex Van Halen has released the full version of “Unfinished,” a previously unreleased track that was the last song he wrote with his…

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The man is suspected of stealing at least 28 checks from six church mailboxes.

Police said Jeremiah Woods left a gun within reach of the child in a Normandy living room.

EDWARDSVILLE - The Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Mechanical and Mechatronics Engineering Department is preparing for its 35th anniversary celebration. This anniversary is not just a celebration but a chance to reflect on the department’s achievements since its inception in 1989. The event will be held in the Enterprise Holdings Foundation Atrium in the Engineering Building on Oct. 24, 2024 from 5 to 8 p.m. Chris Gordon, PhD, Associate Dean in the School of Engineering at SIUE stated, “This is an excellent opportunity to celebrate the strides that the Mechanical and Mechatronics Department has made over the years. In 35 years, the department has become one of the largest in the School of Engineering, and both faculty and students have been nationally recognized for their contributions.” With more than 2,000 alumni, this department has helped foster learning for generations of innovative problem solvers. Gordon remarked, “Through this event, we celebrate

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ALTON - Join Senior Services Plus (SSP) in fundraising for United Way of Greater St. Louis by participating in a 50/50 raffle! Participants can win 50% of the total ticket sales, and the other half will benefit United Way. The winner will be drawn on Halloween, Oct. 31, 2024 and announced live on Facebook. The winner does not need to be present to win, Senior Services Plus will be in contact with the winner following the drawing. Raffle tickets are available for purchase online at SSP United Way Fundraisers (seniorservicesplus.org) or visit the front desk at Senior Services Plus. Tickets are $5 each and will be on sale through October 30th, 2024. Individuals must be 18 years or older to play. SSP is an aging services leader in the community and region and a United Way Safety Net Agency. For more information, please reach out to Sydney Peckham at speckham@seniorservicesplus.org or call 618-465-3298 ext. 116. Tickets can be purchased online at SSP United Way Fundraisers ( seniorservicesplus.org

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U.S. lawmakers have spent months focused on speculative risks that China will use TikTok to surveil and propagandize Americans. They’re so concerned that they passed legislation to ban the platform, ignoring the Pentagon Papers case’s clear instruction that vague national security fearmongering is not sufficient to justify censorship.

But while our government was distracted by panic over young people reading about wars it finances on TikTok, The Wall Street Journal reported on a “catastrophic” actual security breach known as Salt Typhoon. The hack, which seems to have taken the lawmakers supposedly protecting us from China by surprise, may have given the Chinese government monthslong access to U.S. wiretapping systems used by internet service providers.

On Global Encryption Day, Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Senior Advisor Caitlin Vogus wrote for Tech Policy Press that Salt Typhoon should refocus Congress’s energy on serious measures to combat cyberattacks — like strengthening end-to-end encryption, as opposed to unconstitutional stunts like the TikTok ban.

Salt Typhoon should be a wake up call for Congress: Rather than pushing to expand the openings that adversaries can exploit — for example by requiring backdoors be added into end-to-end encrypted messaging services — lawmakers should start looking for ways to close or narrow them.

…

Perhaps if senators and representatives were less worried about grandstanding and more worried about confronting the actual national security threats that China poses to our country, they would have taken a serious look at the backdoors that are threatening Americans’ private data, rather than wasting time on a TikTok ban.

Read Vogus’s article here.

BETHALTO - The Illinois Secretary of State has upgraded its Bethalto DMV to a “One-Stop-Shop” design, improving the customer experience through reduced wait times and increased efficiency. The renovation also includes updated signage to create a more logical flow and help customers know where to go, Secretary of State Alexi Giannoulias announced today. The Bethalto DMV, located at 20 Terminal Dr., Ste. 103, East Alton, is among the first to undergo the “One-Stop-Shop” transformation and is now re-opened following extensive renovations to allow customers to access services at one single station. As a part of the Secretary of State’s ongoing modernization efforts, the new DMV experience will save customers considerable time and several steps by offering both vehicle and driver services at a single service counter. “Since taking office, I have made it a top priority to provide exceptional customer service and reduce lines and wait times,” Giannoulias

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SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois Department of Employment Security (IDES) announced today that nonfarm payrolls were up +7,100 while the unemployment rate was unchanged at 5.3 percent in September, based on preliminary data provided by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), and released by IDES. The August monthly change in payrolls was revised from the preliminary report, from +800 to +6,700 jobs, while the revised unemployment rate was 5.3 percent, unchanged from the preliminary August unemployment rate. The September payroll jobs estimate, and unemployment rate reflect activity for the week including the 12th. In September, the industry sectors with the largest over-the-month job gains included: Private Education and Health Services (+4,600), Leisure and Hospitality (+3,600), and Government (+2,800). The industry sectors with the largest monthly payroll job declines included: Financial Activities (-3,000), Professional and Business Services (-3,000), and Construction (-1,300).

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The largest electric utility in Kansas and western Missouri will add two natural gas plants by the end of 2030, the company announced Monday. Evergy, which serves 1.6 million customers in the two states, plans to build combined-cycle natural gas plants — each with a 705-megawatt capacity — in two Kansas counties in 2029 and […]

New York Times reporter Jeremy Peters said today that Kamala Harris has a clarity problem. Liberal Twitter is aghast: I get it: Trump is famous for long, meandering paragraphs of word salad that are sometimes incomprehensible. But even if Peters is wrong in a technical sense, he's right in every practical sense that matters. Trump ...continue reading "Yes, Kamala Harris really does have a clarity problem"

Police said they followed the sound of screams in the rescue of a 6-year-old girl last week in north St. Louis City.

The Senate should have passed the PRESS Act months ago, after it sailed through the House in January. But despite the delay, the bill to protect journalist-source confidentiality is picking up real momentum heading into the lame-duck session.

The New York Times ran an editorial this month endorsing the PRESS Act and explaining why protecting journalists from government surveillance isn’t just about the press: “This law would effectively protect those who serve the public interest by blowing the whistle on government wrongdoing. And it would help protect all Americans, who deserve nothing less than the full truth about the officials they elect and the government they fund.”

Whistleblowers, the Times explained, are just as likely to expose corruption by Democrats as Republicans. That’s why administrations from both parties have retaliated against them and the journalists they work with. Regardless of politics, “By protecting reporters from having to reveal their sources, the bill would ideally encourage more whistle-blowers to help shine a light on government abuses.”

Now that his hometown paper (along with other New York outlets) has endorsed the bill, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, who has said he wants it on the president’s desk this year, hopefully will make it a high priority for his year-end agenda.

It’s not just the Times. The Las Vegas Review-Journal ran its own editorial, explaining: “The legislation is ideological neutral, protecting reporters and editors regardless of their politics.” It called unsubstantiated claims that the legislation compromises national security “absurd” (and the bill has exceptions for national security emergencies anyway). “A greater danger would be to erode the very freedoms that protect American citizens from the perils of government overreach while shielding the state from scrutiny,” the Review-Journal’s editorial board wrote.

Catherine Herridge, the veteran investigative journalist who has reported for everyone from CBS News to Fox News, went on Dan Abrams’ show on NewsNation to explain that “smaller newsrooms, independent journalists cannot withstand the kind of financial and legal pressure that I have been facing for over two years.”

Herridge has been held in contempt of court for refusing to burn a source, and the judge has cited the absence of a federal “shield” law for reporters like the PRESS Act. Her case is pending on appeal.

Abrams’ father, the legendary First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, has also endorsed the act, joining over 130 signers in a coalition letter Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) organized this summer. And this month, he authored an op-ed in The Wall Street Journal highlighting the need for a federal shield law so that sources can bring important news to journalists without fear of reprisal.

In addition, the Society of Professional Journalists, which represents thousands of journalists nationwide through its dozens of chapters, launched an ambitious online advocacy campaign that includes this video from FPF Executive Director Trevor Timm, who explains that the prospect of surveillance has “chilled investigative reporting and terrified sources.”

The PRESS Act, Timm added, “takes into account the modern media landscape and would protect independent journalists,” regardless of their political leanings, including by barring the government from surveilling them indirectly via their phone and email providers.

You can help too. The ACLU, one of many major national rights organizations that support the PRESS Act, has an easy-to-use form to tell your senators to advance the bill. Or you can email the Times’ editorial directly to your senators’ offices.

And if you happen to be a journalist or editorial board member, please, write about the most important press freedom legislation in modern history.

Learn more about the PRESS Act in our video below:

WATCH: The PRESS Act is the strongest shield bill we've ever seen and is imperative for journalist-source confidentiality.

Here's why the Senate needs to pass it now. pic.twitter.com/jysrKKFofF

— Freedom of the Press (@FreedomofPress) September 22, 2024

Gene Simmons made a career playing bass for KISS, but he wouldn’t consider himself a virtuoso, and he’s perfectly happy with that. He tells Guitar World that he thinks virtuosos are…

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The outcome of the case, which also focuses on GOP efforts to restrict voter registration and absentee voter outreach, will not affect Missouri voters for the Nov. 5 general election.

ST. CLAIR COUNTY - As Election Day approaches, there are a lot of options for early voting in St. Clair County. Eligible voters can vote in-person at specified polling locations. This is helpful for many people who find it inconvenient or impossible to vote on Election Day on Nov. 5, 2024. How does it work? Early voting works just like regular in-person voting. You will go to your specified polling place to cast your vote like you would in any election. However, your polling place might differ during early voting. Read on to find out where you can vote early in St. Clair County. Who can vote early? If you are registered to vote in Illinois, you are eligible for early voting. How is my vote counted? Early votes are not counted until the polls close on Election Day. Your vote is final once you cast your ballot. Where do I vote early in Belleville? You can vote at the St. Clair County Clerk’s Office, located at 10 Public Square in Belleville. Their hours

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ALTON - First Mid Bank & Trust Small Business Customers Receive Community Grants from Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago Alton, IL (October 21, 2024) First Mid Bank & Trust, a trusted partner in local business development, is proud to announce that two of its valued small business customers, both located in Alton, IL, have each been awarded a $15,000 community grant from the Federal Home Loan Bank of Chicago (FHLBank Chicago). Provided through their Community First® Accelerate Grants for Small Business program, the grants will provide critical support as these businesses continue to grow and serve their community. FHLBank Chicago offers grants of up to $30,000 to eligible small businesses to advance economic opportunity in the communities it serves. The recipients of the grants are LaMay’s Catering, Inc. (LaMay’s), a food service company providing full-service catering and event space along with food trucks and community cafes, and Broadway Performance Automotive LLC (Broadway)

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A proposal up for vote on Missouri's general election ballots next month as Amendment 7 could change the state's constitution to explicitly limit state voting rights to U.S. citizens in Missouri and ban ranked-choice voting in future elections.