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The chief clerk of the Missouri House said Dean Plocher threatened her job.

Severe storms are possible Wednesday evening, but the threat returns for Thursday. Thunderstorms are likely with damaging hail and wind expected in spots. Flooding and tornadoes can't be ruled out.

Democrats derailed business in the Senate after the sponsor of a plan to make constitutional amendments more difficult floated the idea of trying to force through a controversial version.

Justin Brooks loved football and was a leader on the field, said two people who knew the teenager through the city's recreational football league.

The music venue will celebrate its one year anniversary with a concert by local legend Steve Ewing.

United States Steel Corp. shares dropped more than 12% Wednesday in the hours after two British news outlets reported President Joe Biden would release a statement expressing concern about its $14.9 billion sale to Nippon Steel Corp.

A Republican running for the Missouri House says he’s being sued by state Rep. Justin Hicks, the lawmaker he’s hoping to replace, for publishing information on a campaign website about a 2010 order of protection issued when a woman accused Hicks of choking her. Hicks is leaving the legislature to run for Congress. The lawsuit […]

The post GOP candidate says Missouri lawmaker is suing him over disclosure of court records appeared first on Missouri Independent.

After moving to a larger location in South City, the brand is relaunching as a full-service restaurant, and it's building out an event space with its own commissary kitchen.

SLU must become a program that is top-tier in its conference — annually. Every undergraduate student should experience at least one trip to the NCAA Tournament while enrolled.

The decision to delay final approval of two developments, Pinewoods Park Apartments and Interstate Crossing, came at the request of developers during Wednesday's meeting of the Wentzville Board of Aldermen.

About 10,000 people showed up at The Arena on March 14 to buy tickets to the April 15 Led Zeppelin concert.

by Justin Elliott and Ken Armstrong

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

Arise Virtual Solutions, a work-at-home customer service company, will pay $2 million to workers in the District of Columbia to settle a lawsuit alleging the company failed to pay minimum wage and overtime.

The company, which did not admit wrongdoing, will pay an additional $940,000 to the District of Columbia in civil penalties and stop operating there.

The lawsuit by the D.C. attorney general was sparked by a 2020 ProPublica investigation that revealed how Arise required workers to pay for the company’s training as well as monthly fees in order to take customer service calls on its “platform.” The workers, who are mostly women and work from home, answer customer calls for major corporations such as Comcast and Disney, which contract with Arise.

The company classifies the workers as “independent contractors,” like Uber drivers. Such classification allows the company not to pay minimum wage or offer other labor protections. Customer service representatives told ProPublica, however, that the idea that they were independent was largely a fiction. Arise and the large corporations for whom they answered calls maintained a high level of control over their jobs.

“This settlement puts more than $2 million into the pockets of workers Arise took advantage of in a misclassification scheme — an illegal practice that is, unfortunately, all too common in the District,” D.C. Attorney General Brian Schwalb said.

That money will be distributed among more than 250 workers in the district. Specific payouts will depend on several factors, including how much unpaid time each person worked.

Arise, which is based in Miramar, Florida, is owned by private equity giant Warburg Pincus. In a statement, an Arise spokesperson said: “While we disagree with the office of the Attorney General’s allegations, and their efforts to deprive business owners in the District of the economic opportunities that the Arise Platform provides, we are pleased to have resolved this matter and we will continue to move our business forward outside of the District.”

The company is facing a separate lawsuit filed by the U.S. Department of Labor in federal court in Florida last year. The government accused Arise of misclassifying more than 22,000 employees as independent contractors. The Labor Department’s lawsuit, which asks the court to force Arise to pay those workers back wages and damages, “may be the largest misclassification case in its history,” an agency news release says.

A Labor Department spokesperson said the agency had no comment on the case, saying it’s still in litigation.

In its complaint, the Labor Department recounts much of the litigation history against Arise that ProPublica reported on in its initial story, noting, for example, that two separate arbitrators have found that the company treated employees as independent contractors. One agent in the Arise network who won in arbitration, Tami Pendergraft, paid about $1,500 for home office equipment, paid for a background check and training, devoted 44 unpaid days to passing a certification course, and then worked three weeks fielding telephone calls from AT&T customers. After all that, she got a single paycheck for $96.12.

Arise, in court records, denied the Labor Department’s allegation that it misclassifies workers. Referring to the agents as “service partners,” Arise says they are independent contractors who “control their service schedules and have flexibility to provide customer support services to clients whenever and wherever they want to service.”

“This independent contractor model,” Arise writes in court records, “has benefitted many groups who have been poorly served by a regimented employment model, including disabled individuals, veterans, caregivers, and others who particularly benefit from such flexibility.”

The Arise spokesperson said the company disagrees “with the Department of Labor’s efforts to take away the opportunities that the Arise Platform provides. We have and will continue working with the Department of Labor to answer questions and illustrate how we appropriately use the independent contractor relationship to protect flexibility and increase economic opportunity.”

There’s something about Manileño that has us really hoping it does well. It might be the smiley faces of the family who runs it; it might be the grit and determination behind the realization of a dream, and it could much more simply be the food. This Filipino restaurant opened in mid-February at 3611 Juanita Street, just off South Grand Boulevard, in the Tower Grove South neighborhood of St. Louis.

Chris Bertke has a tendency to look frazzled, but if you watch him at work in his new open kitchen on the high-trafficked crook of Morgan Ford and Gravois, there's a grace and calm about him. He's delicate with his herbs, he slices his subs and breads gently.

ST. LOUIS -- To mark "314 Day" the St. Louis Cardinals are offering fans tickets at a steep discount. The flash sale will take place on Thursday, March 14, 2024, with tickets for just $3.14. This 12-hour flash sale, running from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m., will allow fans to buy tickets for select Cardinals [...]

ST. LOUIS -- Two separate shootings occurred in North St. Louis, resulting in one woman's death and another woman being injured. As of now, authorities have not identified any suspects in connection with either incident. The first shooting took place on the 4600 block of Pope in the Penrose neighborhood. Police were called to the [...]

One month ago today, Kansas City was shaken when the Chiefs Super Bowl celebration turned into a mass shooting. Since then, people around the country have donated millions to aid the victims. Now, the community needs to figure out the landscape of need.

Storms look to redevelop mid- to late afternoon and continue through the evening hours. All modes of severe weather will be possible. Storms look to exit the region by midnight, with maybe just a few lingering sprinkles.