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The Missouri Department of Transportation closed the Bates Avenue exit ramp of I-55 last night, as well as a portion of Michigan Avenue, due to what they describe as a "pavement collapse." The sinkhole was in evidence while crews worked on site this morning and appeared to be more than a few feet deep. In a short press release, MoDOT said it was "evaluating the situation at the base of the ramp and will determine what actions need to be taken before the ramp can safely be reopened."

Atrios says this about Joe Biden's efforts to pass immigration legislation: If you concede the issues that the other side have made their own are important, you have conceded that the other side is, in fact, correct, and that what they say is important is, in fact, important. Immigration is especially fraught as there is ...continue reading "Can we ever satisfy conservatives?"

Missouri Republican Senate leaders on Tuesday won confirmation for all of Gov. Mike Parson’s pending appointees to state office as members of the Freedom Caucus backed down from a demand that the upper chamber approve initiative petition changes as the price for confirmation. For almost 16 hours, members of the caucus and their allies held […]

The post Deal on initiative changes, Parson appointees ends overnight Missouri Senate filibuster appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A Jefferson County, Missouri, man appeared in federal court on Tuesday to be sentenced for selling drugs and guns in St. Louis and Fenton.

Hey, everyone makes mistakes. Ring certainly did. Amazon’s home surveillance acquisition realized there was no one in the residential space willing to slavishly cater to cops. Ring decided it would provide this supposed “public service.” It gave cops cheap/free cameras and urged them to hand them out to as many private citizens as possible. The […]

Here is our January update for 1,000 Books Before Kindergarten! 

The Saint Louis University Billikens now sit dead last in the Atlantic 10. It's a spot where they have only finished a season once since joining the conference and relatively unfamiliar territory under head coach Travis Ford.

A bill that would allow students to enroll in neighboring school districts won initial approval in the Missouri House for the fourth year in a row Tuesday on an 83-69 vote.  It is the first bill to be debated by the full House this legislative session. It must be approved one more time by the […]

The post Open enrollment legislation wins initial approval in Missouri House appeared first on Missouri Independent.

You probably already know the benefits of learning a language, so let’s focus on the app. Right off the bat, let’s be clear about one thing: When we say “app” we don’t mean that you’re limited to using Babbel on your phone. You can use Babbel on desktop, too, and your progress is synchronized across […]

Immigration hawks say that Joe Biden has cut back on deportations. Biden partisans say he's been tougher on deportation than anyone in recent history. Who's right? Both! Here are the stats: In his first three years, Trump deported 408,000 migrants. Biden deported only 385,000. But—in FY23 Biden deported 236,000 migrants, the highest total ever and ...continue reading "Raw data: Deportations under Trump and Biden"

The U.S. Department of Justice is investigating St. Louis Congresswoman Cori Bush over spending on security.  Punchbowl News broke the story this morning, citing "six sources familiar with the investigation."

Cortez A. McCullough, 19, pleaded guilty Monday to involuntary manslaughter, which was reduced from a charge of second-degree murder.

The university has reapplied for accreditation to the Council for the Accreditation of Educator Preparation, which it had held since October 2017.

He was set to go to trial next week, but pleaded guilty.

The New York Times and other news organizations say the Justice Department has subpoenaed congressional records as part of probe into Bush and her spending on security services.

Laclede’s Landing just got a little more delicious. A new barbecue joint, Smokestaq Lightning, from Shaw’s now-departed Five Aces Bar-B-Que, is in its soft launch at 724 North 1st Street. 

EyeCare Partners, a St. Louis-based network of ophthalmology and optometry practices, has hired a new chief executive.

by Heather Vogell

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

A group of senators are set to introduce legislation Tuesday that would make it illegal for landlords to use algorithms to artificially inflate the price of rent or reduce the supply of housing.

The proposed law follows a ProPublica investigation that found software sold by Texas-based RealPage was collecting proprietary data from landlords and feeding it into an algorithm that recommended what rents they should charge. Legal experts said the arrangement could help landlords engage in cartel-like behavior if they used it to coordinate pricing.

The software is widely used by competing landlords. In Seattle, for example, ProPublica found that 10 property managers oversaw 70% of all multifamily apartments in one neighborhood — and every single one used pricing software sold by RealPage.

“Setting prices with an algorithm is no different from doing it over cigars and whiskey in a private club,” said Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Ore., one of the leading sponsors of the new bill. “Although it’s my view that these cartels are already violating existing antitrust laws, I want the law to be painfully clear that algorithmic price fixing of rents is a crime.”

Lawyers for RealPage and other defendants have called the idea that the company and landlords formed a conspiracy “implausible.” In legal filings, they pointed to a company FAQ that said the recommendations from the software “may be followed, modified, or ignored by an apartment provider.”

After ProPublica’s investigation ran in 2022, tenants filed dozens of federal lawsuits against scores of the nation’s biggest landlords alleging violations of antitrust law. Congressional lawmakers called for an investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice, which later backed the tenants’ lawsuits. At a Senate hearing in October 2023, a former federal prosecutor encouraged lawmakers to consider antitrust enforcement reforms to close gaps that have occurred as technology has evolved.

The bill set to be proposed Tuesday, sponsored by Democrats including Wyden, Peter Welch of Vermont and Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, would make it illegal for property owners to contract with companies that coordinate rent prices and housing supply information. The legislation would also bar two or more rental owners from coordinating on such information. Mergers between two information-coordinating companies that reduced competition would also be banned.

A statement released by Wyden’s office called out RealPage and a second property management technology company, Yardi, by name.

“Companies like RealPage and Yardi brand themselves as providing ‘property management software,’ but in reality they facilitate collusion by landlords to charge above-market rent,” the statement said. “This is exactly how a price-fixing cartel operates, but instead of using code names and secret meetings, the price-fixing is offered as a service.”

Algorithms are helping housing providers collude in the midst of “a crisis of housing availability and affordability” in which rents have risen by double digits since 2020 and homelessness is up, according to the statement. It said the proposed law — dubbed the Preventing the Algorithmic Facilitation of Rental Housing Cartels Act — would strengthen future legal cases, as well as prevent mergers that could push rents higher.

RealPage and Yardi did not immediately respond to requests for comment.

The tenant lawsuits have been consolidated in federal court in Nashville, Tennessee, into a case that involves nearly 50 large landlords. RealPage and the other defendants have said that the complaint doesn’t show direct evidence of a conspiracy, such as “smoking gun” documents or recorded phone calls. “In sum, Plaintiffs have not alleged a plausible horizontal price-fixing conspiracy,” their legal filing said.

RealPage and the other defendants sought to have the cases dismissed. The court in December agreed to allow the main case involving rental apartments to proceed, but dismissed a related complaint involving student housing.

Diane Yentel, president and CEO of the National Low Income Housing Coalition, said in a statement that if enacted the proposed law would “provide an important tool to stop predatory landlords from colluding with one another by using rent-setting software and algorithms to further inflate rents.”

Burglars used a crowbar to break into a south St. Louis smoke shop and convenience store overnight.