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The Solid Sound Collective, a music project of the St. Louis nonprofit Action Art Collaborative, celebrates the long and living legacy of community activism. Three of its producers and musicians – Colin McLaughlin, Ryan Marquez, and Alicia Revé – talk about original songs commissioned for the project and the role of interviews in creating music that addresses social and economic inequities. The collective premieres its music at an event on June 2 at Work & Leisure in Midtown St. Louis.

Michael Anthony says he never got to reconnect with Eddie Van Halen before his passing in 2020. The two rock stars had a falling out after Eddie replaced Michael in Van Halen with…

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Engineering and computing professionals in St. Louis will soon have local access to several Missouri S&T master’s degree programs, certificates and quick courses. “After thorough market analysis and discussions with our industry partners in St. Louis, it’s evident that introducing S&T’s high-quality engineering and computing programs is key to filling critical gaps in specialized education […]

President Joe Biden, pictured here with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in Israel in 2016, should condemn Israel’s seizure of equipment from The Associated Press and demand its immediate return. Vice President Joe Biden visit to Israel March 2016 by U.S. Embassy Jerusalem is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Israel must immediately return camera and broadcasting equipment belonging to The Associated Press that it seized earlier today, and the Biden administration must strongly condemn Israel’s escalation of its attacks on the free press.

“If Israel wants to claim the mantle of ‘the only democracy in the Middle East,’ it needs to act like it. Banning broadcasters because Israel disagrees with their coverage is the hallmark of an authoritarian state, not a democracy. Seizing equipment from the AP just for supplying a news outlet with video footage is disgraceful,” said Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Deputy Advocacy Director Caitlin Vogus.

In April, Israel passed a new censorship law that allows its government to ban foreign media organizations, a move that many saw as a transparent attempt to silence Qatari broadcaster Al Jazeera and its coverage of the Israel-Gaza war. Weeks later, Israel used the law to ban Al Jazeera and raid its offices in Jerusalem.

At the time, FPF warned that the law was a pretext for silencing criticism of the war and that Israel wouldn’t limit its use to Al Jazeera.

Now, Israel has seized equipment from the AP, one of the world’s largest news agencies, after accusing it of violating the foreign media law by providing a live video feed of northern Gaza to Al Jazeera, as the AP does for thousands of other clients.

“All Americans should be outraged that Israel seized equipment from a U.S. news outlet and stopped it from broadcasting video footage of Gaza. Israel’s actions against the AP strip millions of people of a view into Gaza at a time of war and mass atrocities,” said Vogus. “President Joe Biden must condemn Israel’s seizure of the AP’s equipment and insist on its immediate return. While he’s at it, President Biden should demand Israel stop killing journalists in Gaza and allow foreign journalists into Gaza to report.”

“Israel is going after The Associated Press for doing exactly what it’s supposed to do: provide truthful information to the world,” said FPF Advocacy Director Seth Stern. “A few weeks ago, Israel banned Al Jazeera. Today, it seized AP equipment and stopped its video feed from Gaza. What news outlet will be the next target?” Stern added.

“If it wasn’t already clear, Israel’s seizure of the AP’s equipment proves that laws that give the government the power to ban media outlets in the name of ‘national security’ can and will be abused to go after any member of the press that the government dislikes,” said Stern. “The U.S. should take note of how quickly Israel began abusing its foreign media law and stop passing its own laws empowering the government to shut down or censor the media, like the purported TikTok ban which actually opens the door to broad censorship of online news.”

Once strong and tight-knit, Clayton’s Black community was almost entirely wiped out by urban renewal policies that drove Black families away during the 1950s and 60s. A new historical marker commemorates those who were pushed out. Historian and retired Clayton High School teacher Donna Rogers-Beard discusses the history of the community, which dates back to the 1880s. Derek Novel recalls his memories of growing up in Clayton and how displacement changed the community.

This week Forum drone photographer Louis Kelly, owner of Drone Eagle, LLC, captures progress on the Avenir apartment complex currently under construction at the intersection of Delmar and I-170. Gray Design Group is the architect and Holland Construction Services is the general contractor on the 330,000-sq.-ft. complex. Located in University City Avenir is a four-story […]

Severe storms are expected to hit the St. Louis region after 8 p.m. Tuesday night. Here's why the timing heightens the danger.

Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson speaks outside the U.K. High Court in 2022. "Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson talks about Assange's extradition hearing" by alisdare1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The U.K. High Court decision granting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leave to appeal his extradition shows just how far America has fallen when it comes to press freedom.

After the High Court ruled that the United States’ assurances were insufficient to appease the justices’ concerns over whether Assange could rely on the First Amendment in U.S. courts, Caitlin Vogus and Seth Stern of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) wrote in The Guardian that it's "painfully ironic" that a U.K. court is defending the First Amendment against U.S. overreach:

“Not so long ago, the roles were reversed. In 2010, the US passed a law to protect American publishers from UK courts. The Speech Act, enacted in response to a wave of libel lawsuits in the UK targeting Americans, prohibits American courts from enforcing foreign defamation judgments that don’t comply with the first amendment.

But much has changed since 2010. Since then, the US has repeatedly dropped in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, falling to 55th out of 180 countries in 2024. The UK is still no haven for free expression, but the same judiciary that the US Congress checked in 2010 now isn’t comfortable extraditing a publisher to be tried there.”

Vogus and Stern conclude that: “The High Court’s decision should be a wake-up call for Biden: It’s not possible to prosecute Assange while claiming to be a friend of press freedom. Rather than wait for UK courts to defend the rights that America supposedly stands for, the US should drop the case now.”

You can read the full op-ed here.

As you all know, Donald Trump took reams of classified documents with him when he left the White House and then repeatedly refused to turn them over when asked. Eventually the FBI searched his home and carted away boxes of stuff. But guess what? Even after that, Trump still managed to hold on to several ...continue reading "Even yet still more classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago"

An East Alton, Illinois, man appeared in Madison County Circuit Court on Tuesday and was sentenced for orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot.

The FBI raided journalist Tim Burke's home newsroom, pictured above, last year. Now prosecutors are seeking to censor him by labeling the files they seized criminal contraband.

Photo courtesy of Tim Burke

Federal prosecutors in Florida have concocted a novel workaround to restrain journalists from publishing news: declaring the news itself criminal “contraband.”

That’s the latest constitutionally dubious argument the Department of Justice is making in the prosecution of Tim Burke, the journalist who found unaired footage from Tucker Carlson’s Fox News interview with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, where Ye went on a bizarre and antisemitic rant.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Advocacy Director Seth Stern wrote for Slate about the dangers of the government’s theory.

"What if the Nixon administration had charged the Times with, say, Espionage Act violations, seized the Pentagon Papers, and then sought a prior restraint in the guise of a discovery order to prohibit the Times from publishing them?

…

There’s already an alarming increase in prior restraints issued by courts across the United States. The DOJ, in its inexplicable zeal to punish Burke for embarrassing Fox News, risks setting a precedent that will compound the problem."

You can read the full op-ed here.

Illinois State Police have warned of a dust storm along Interstate 55 in central Illinois.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources wants to celebrate a rare double cicada brood emergence in the state with an art contest.

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Transportation – both multi-modal freight and people-moving systems – is a cornerstone of success in metropolitan areas. It influences various aspects of urban life, including economic development, quality of life, and environmental sustainability. On the morning of June 20th, the next installment of Construction Forum’s 2024 program series “Building a Strong Core: Rebuilding St. Louis […]

The St. Louis area could see severe weather between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday, says meteorologist Sean Sublette.

These days, once you're done filling up at City Foundry's food hall, you can buy a new shirt, putt-putt a glow-in-the-dark golf ball, or see a classic movie. You can catch a band at City Winery or have a drink underground at None of the Above. But it's not until this weekend that a visit to the repurposed industrial site can include admission to the Museum of Illusion, part of a fast-growing chain of private museums that might seem more at home in Las Vegas than St. Louis.