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Firefighters are battling a house fire on Forest Valley Court in St. Charles, which has caused significant damage to the home and no injuries have been reported.

It may seem like it’s always been a part of America, but Tuesday is Medicare’s 59th birthday. We should pause, celebrate its success and commit to stopping the corporations who are pilfering it for their own profits. Health care in the United States remains unaffordable and inaccessible despite costing Americans $4.7 trillion a year.  Medical […]

The Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis is opening a new facility in north St. Louis County, donated by the Centene Corporation, which will serve as a hub for services and programs to help North County residents.

The less we listen to people who know what they are talking about, the more we listen to people like this.

A circuit court judge ruled Monday that state Sen. Mike Moon is immune from questioning in a legal challenge of Missouri’s restrictions on gender-affirming care that he sponsored in 2023. Wright County Circuit Court Judge Craig Carter, who is stepping into Cole County for the case, agreed with the Missouri Attorney General’s Office that Moon […]

There’s exactly one week to go before election day, and U.S. Representative Cori Bush and her primary challenger are in the final sprint for votes. Bush, who spent the weekend fundraising in Chicago, dropped an emotional new campaign spot on Saturday, while St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell has been pressing the flesh all over town.

St. Louis City fire crews responded to a fire in an abandoned warehouse on Brooklyn Street, just off North Broadway, which was contained in the loading dock area.

Unlike many other states, the lieutenant governor in Missouri doesn't run on a ticket with the governor. Instead, voters elect the state’s second-in-command. As Noah Taborda reports, five Republicans are trying to distinguish themselves enough to capture the nomination despite the position's limited authority.

Top afternoon temperatures are expected to be in the upper 90s each day, with heat index values as high as 110. There is little relief overnight, as humid air will keep temperatures from cooling off much.

St. Clair County officials signed a flood disaster declaration after dozens of water rescues and damage to homes and government buildings.

Two bills aimed at regulating the psychoactive hemp product didn't pass in the last legislative session, but the fight isn't over for many who want it regulated.

by Justin Elliott, Robert Faturechi and Alex Mierjeski

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This month, former President Donald Trump’s media company announced it was making its first major purchase: technology to help stream TV on Truth Social, its Twitter-like platform.

There was a mystery at the center of the deal: One of the companies on the other side of the transaction, which went unmentioned in Trump Media’s press release but was named in securities filings, is an obscure entity called JedTec LLC. Based in a North Louisiana village, the company has virtually no public footprint and no website, and it is unknown to streaming technology experts.

Interviews and public records reveal that the man behind JedTec is Louisiana energy magnate James E. Davison. A major Republican donor, he is known for his immense influence in state and federal government, including personal friendships with past presidents, and for using his wealth to benefit people in politics.

The acquisition will put Trump’s company in a business relationship with someone with numerous interests before the federal government. Davison, for example, owns a major stake in Genesis Energy, a large oil pipeline and mining firm. A trade group representing Genesis and other publicly traded pipeline firms previously lobbied the Trump administration and lawmakers for a tax break and on environmental issues. Davison’s family also has a stake in a regional bank and owns a small defense contractor. And Davison could benefit if the 2017 Trump tax cut provisions, which expire after next year, are extended.

Davison also has a record of influence with the Trump White House, successfully leveraging connections there in 2019 to win a $17 million federal grant to build roads, according to one Louisiana official.

The streaming deal crystalizes the sort of conflicts that Trump’s business interests pose as he vies for a second term.

Before his first term, Trump rejected calls to divest from his business. Trump’s years in the White House were marred by controversy as political groups and foreign governments spent millions of dollars at his properties.

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Do you have any information about Trump Media or its partners that we should know? Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240. Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217.

But his stake in Trump Media, created after he left office, has the potential to eclipse those concerns. His shares of the company, a meme stock that has soared despite the company generating almost no revenue, are valued at more than $3 billion. That makes up more than half of his estimated net worth. Ethics experts have warned that advertisers, vendors or investors who have political agendas could try to use Trump Media to curry favor.

The deal with Davison poses just that potential for undue influence, said Virginia Canter, a former government ethics lawyer.

It could give Davison access to a future president and an advantage in extracting favors from Trump, Canter said. “It puts them in a more favorable position to get their perspectives before the president or other members of his administration.”

The Trump Media deal suggests an ongoing business relationship between the companies: It calls for the full price — roughly $170 million in cash and shares, at the stock’s current value — to be paid out based on a series of milestones. It’s difficult to assess whether the price being paid by Trump Media is fair because the companies involved are little known in the industry and the filings don’t offer much detail about the technology and services they’ll be providing.

Filings don’t disclose what portion of the purchase price will go to JedTec, the Louisiana company involved in the deal. Business records show Davison as the person behind JedTec. And interviews and records show that Davison has a longtime relationship with one of Trump Media’s board members. But in a brief call with ProPublica, Davison denied he personally played a role in the sale, before hanging up.

“I’m not really involved with that,” he said. “I haven’t been part of it.”

Davison didn’t respond to follow-up questions sent in writing.

Trump hasn’t said whether he would divest from Trump Media & Technology Group if elected, but his spokesperson has said he would “follow ethics guidelines.”

A Trump Media spokesperson declined to answer detailed questions about the deal with Davison, saying that the company “believes its partners can deliver the best technology for TMTG’s platform, encompassing a unique, uncancellable tech delivery stack for streaming.”

The spokesperson also suggested that the company might take legal action in response to this article: “The assertions and insinuations in this story, including of any ethical improprieties whatsoever or any material omissions from TMTG’s disclosures, are false, defamatory and a textbook example of a fake news story that will land the left-wing shills at ProPublica in court.”

Davison turned down a job offer out of college, instead helping his father at his small trucking company in rural North Louisiana. Over the years, he transformed the company from a two-truck operation to one with hundreds of trucks, hundreds of employees and business lines across the energy industry, including petroleum storage, fuel procurement and refining operations that removed sulfur from sour gas streams.

As Davison’s business empire grew, so too did his political influence.

In Louisiana, he is known as a philanthropist for local institutions and is considered a political kingmaker. “Members of Congress, governors, state lawmakers, they’re sitting in front of him asking for his support, asking for his advice, asking if they should run or not,” said Rick Hohlt, former publisher of the Ruston Daily Leader, the newspaper for Davison’s hometown. “He’s a powerhouse.”

His influence extends beyond Louisiana. Davison, now 86, has counted presidents as friends, including both Bushes. He would “refer to presidents by their number,” one associate recalled. “‘I was spending time with 41 the other day.’” Davison helped lead fundraising efforts in the state for Jeb Bush’s 2016 presidential campaign.

In 2019, when Trump was president, the mayor of Ruston credited Davison’s influence with the White House for securing the $17 million federal grant to build roads in the city. “He is well connected in D.C. He knows everybody that’s a player,” the mayor, Ronny Walker, said in an interview with ProPublica, adding that he flew with Davison on the businessman’s private jet to Washington for lobbying trips.

Davison has donated an estimated $3 million to federal Republican candidates and causes in the last decade, including more than $90,000 to Trump committees for his previous two campaigns.

Davison’s connections to people in politics have sometimes raised ethical questions. Last year, after the state’s now-governor was questioned about not disclosing private flights provided by campaign donors, the state Republican Party disclosed several such trips, including from Davison. In 2014, a Louisiana congressman’s chief of staff was arrested for driving drunk. The aide was reportedly driving a Mercedes registered to one of Davison’s businesses.

Davison’s business interests are vast. In 2007, Genesis Energy, a Houston-based pipeline company, bought Davison’s trucking company and other businesses in a deal worth about $560 million. The Davison family got a large stake of Genesis as part of the deal, and both Davison and his son are on its board.

The trade group that represents publicly traded pipeline businesses including Davison’s lobbied during the Trump presidency on its signature tax legislation. The industry won a carveout in the 2017 legislation that allowed its investors to get a large tax break.

That tax break is set to expire after 2025, when Trump, if he wins the election, would be in his second term. Trump has promised to extend the tax law.

Genesis Energy’s agenda is not limited to taxes. Its operations are regulated by the Environmental Protection Agency, and its fortunes can hinge on who’s in the White House. In a public filing, the company credited Trump with easing regulations related to the Clean Air Act, including on methane emissions for oil and gas companies. President Joe Biden, the company noted, restored those regulations.

When Trump Media announced the streaming TV deal July 3, the company said its plan is to host news shows and religious channels at risk of “cancellation.”

“We are rapidly pushing forward with our plans to launch a high-quality streaming service that we believe cannot be canceled by Big Tech,” CEO Devin Nunes said.

The deal announced by Trump Media involves a series of largely unknown small players. Trump Media’s disclosures about the deal describe a nesting doll of companies that leave many questions unanswered about its new business partners.

The sellers include a pair of Louisiana companies: Davison’s JedTec LLC along with another called WorldConnect IPTV Solutions.

The ultimate provider of the technology is a British firm called Perception Group, which has offices and engineers in Slovenia. The clients listed on its website are far less prominent than Trump’s social media site. They include a telecom in Slovenia, an entertainment service for crews on commercial ships and an Arabic-language streaming service in Sudan.

JedTec does not have any online footprint. Davison, in the brief phone interview with ProPublica, acknowledged he knew about the deal but said WorldConnect was behind it.

Industry experts said they had never heard of WorldConnect. The phone numbers listed on WorldConnect’s website are disconnected. The most recent press release was eight years old. One item from 2012 celebrated China Central Television, the Chinese government’s propaganda channel, launching on a streaming platform in the United Kingdom. WorldConnect listed just seven staffers on its website. (Hours after ProPublica sent the company and its executives questions, the company website was taken down entirely.)

Both its CEO, Dr. Jarrett Flood, and president, Von Boyett, are serial entrepreneurs.

In his biography, Flood describes himself as being “trained as a medical doctor and critical thinker.” Flood’s social media pages list other roles including owner of a medical center and Flood International Consulting Agency. (It’s not clear where Flood went to medical school, and searches in medical license databases for his name turn up no results.)

Boyett says in his biography he has decades of experience in multiple industries: petrochemicals; telecoms; medical equipment; and product sourcing. He cites working with Russian state energy giant Gazprom in the 1980s and brokering the Soviet Union’s first foreign TV programming deal.

Boyett and Flood are also named as executives in another company that lists just five employees but says on its website it is involved in a dizzying array of businesses, including purchasing power plants, medical technology, education and solar energy.

Boyett and Flood did not respond to requests for comment.

The Trump Media spokesperson said that the company had done “extensive beta testing and due diligence” for the deal.

A person familiar with the history of WorldConnect told ProPublica that the company entered into a joint venture with Davison in 2017 to buy the rights to sell Perception’s TV technology in the United States. Davison put up most of the money for the deal, the person said.

Both companies are private, so their finances and the details of their ownership are not public.

How Davison got involved in the Trump Media deal is unclear. But even before the deal was announced, he did have one clear link to the company.

Trump Media’s board is composed almost entirely of high-profile allies of the former president, including his son Donald Trump Jr. and former cabinet members in his administration such as Linda McMahon and Robert Lighthizer.

One board member who does not fit that profile is W. Kyle Green, a lawyer from the Ruston area with a much more modest background. According to his Trump Media biography, he runs his own small law firm. Previously, he served as Ruston’s city prosecutor for eight years “where he successfully prosecuted more than 20,000 criminal defendants.” (A longtime district attorney in the area told ProPublica that a tally of prosecutions that enormous in a city with a population of just over 20,000 likely included traffic tickets, which is in line with the kind of low-level issues that office handles.)

Green is Davison’s lawyer, Davison’s wife told ProPublica. He’s listed as the registered agent on state business filings for JedTec, and he did the legal paperwork to create the LLC in 2017. If Green has an ownership stake in JedTec, or plays a significant role in the company, Trump Media may have been required to disclose his connection in public filings. The company didn’t do this.

Green didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Trump Media’s streaming deal could close as early as this month. In filings, the company said it expects to pay up to 5.1 million shares of stock — about $150 million at current market value — plus $17.5 million in cash. Its payment to the companies involved will be staggered, with roughly half of the stock in the deal — more than 2 million shares — delivered only when the streaming software is implemented at greater and greater scales.

Do you have any information about Trump Media or its partners that we should know? Justin Elliott can be reached by email at justin@propublica.org or by Signal or WhatsApp at 774-826-6240. Robert Faturechi can be reached by email at robert.faturechi@propublica.org and by Signal or WhatsApp at 213-271-7217.

Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band just finished wowing stadiums all over Europe and will soon be doing the same in the U.S. But even though they play to thousands…

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A motorcyclist was killed after crashing into the back of an SUV at South Lindbergh Boulevard and Deacon Drive.

While the SLPS Board of Education is saying it's prepared for the upcoming school year, parents are worried about students getting back into the classroom.

Could a weaponized Trump IRS wreck the progressive infrastructure by attacking the entire nonprofit ecosystem?

Her campaign has their attention on social media. Now she needs to earn their votes.

Cori Bush faces off against Wesley Bell—and millions in super PAC money. But the story isn’t that simple.

by Vernal Coleman

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up for Dispatches, a newsletter that spotlights wrongdoing around the country, to receive our stories in your inbox every week.

Some call it an “auto sear.” Less formally, it’s also referred to as a “switch” or “button.” It’s made with metal or plastic and about the size of a thimble. The device can be purchased on the internet or made with a 3D printer for a few bucks. Once installed, it transforms a Glock semiautomatic into a small machine gun, allowing a shooter to empty an entire clip in seconds.

The city of Chicago is awash in them as it endures yet another violent summer. Desperate for solutions, it has once again turned to the courts.

Chicago sued Glock Inc., the international gunmaker’s United States subsidiary, and one of the nation’s largest gunmakers, last week in state court, accusing the company of manufacturing pistols with designs that encourage modification and failing to make changes that would protect the public. The suit also names two Chicago-area retailers, as well as Glock’s Austria-based parent company, which attorneys for the city say is integral to the company’s business decisions in the U.S.

Concurrently, the city dismissed a similar suit it had filed in federal court in March against Glock’s U.S. operator. Glock had rejected the city’s legal claims in that earlier suit, claiming that federal law protects it from the criminal actions of third parties.

City police in the last two years have recovered nearly 1,200 Glock pistols equipped with auto sear devices, all associated with a range of crimes, including homicides, according to city officials. One such killing occurred in a brazen daylight shootout along a residential street in 2021. Devlin Addison, 32, was one of three people shot as he and several others exchanged gunfire with a group huddled inside a home in the Austin neighborhood on Chicago’s West Side.

Addison was hit several times and later died. Police investigators recovered two modified Glock pistols at the scene, court records show. Police recovered 70 shell casings at the scene and a Glock with the switch from beneath Addison’s body.

Chicago’s suit reflects not just concern over a stubborn public safety issue but also a shift in legal efforts against the gun industry. Cities, shooting survivors and the families of shooting victims are taking on the gun industry in new ways.

The claims in these newer lawsuits show plaintiffs are not trying to take on the whole of the industry but instead are “trying to find the right pathway within the law,” said Andrew Willinger, executive director of the Duke Center for Firearms Law.

For Chicago, the suit comes against a legal landscape shaped by industry-friendly legislation and after a succession of court failures.

Around 25 years ago, Chicago; New Orleans; Gary, Indiana; and several other cities separately sued gunmakers, claiming the industry’s policies led to the proliferation of illegally purchased guns, endangering residents.

But the industry fought back, and in 2005, amid intense lobbying by Second Amendment and gun industry advocates, Congress passed the federal Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act to reduce the legal threat. The act effectively preempts civil lawsuits against gun manufacturers over harm caused by third parties using their products.

In the decades since, the nation’s gun manufacturers have continually used the law, known as PLCAA, to beat back lawsuits by victims, cities and even states. Nearly all 23 lawsuits filed in that wave with Chicago’s were upended, some after years of legal wrangling.

Even when PLCAA failed to stop a lawsuit, other obstacles arose. The Illinois Supreme Court dismissed Chicago’s lawsuit in 2004, finding that the suit amounted to an attempt to regulate the gun industry, a matter the court ruled was better left to the state legislature.

In 2021, the city filed another lawsuit over gun violence, this one aimed at Westforth Sports, a notorious gun retailer the city accused of failing to take reasonable action to prevent illegal gun sales. Located in nearby Gary, the small gun shop was found to be the source of hundreds of firearms recovered by Chicago police during criminal investigations.

Chicago officials argued that negligence by Westforth led to illegal sales of guns intended for criminal use. In May 2023, a Cook County judge dismissed the lawsuit, citing jurisdictional issues. The city has appealed the decision. Westforth has since closed for business. Westforth’s longtime owner has not responded to ProPublica’s requests for comment. In a deposition for the case, he said he adhered to the letter of the law and worked hard to prevent illegal sales and keep guns out of the wrong hands.

Despite those setbacks, Chicago officials appear confident that their most recent lawsuit will have a different outcome. In part, that’s because it’s narrower in scope.

Instead of pursuing remedies against a wide range of companies over multiple allegations, it targets just one manufacturer over specific allegations of negligence and wrongdoing barred by a new Illinois law in 2023. The state’s Firearms Industry Responsibility Act restricts the way gun dealers and manufacturers can market and sell their products and subjects them to civil penalties for violations.

The act makes it easier to hold gunmakers accountable for how they design and market firearms, said Steve Kane, an attorney for the city. “That’s a big difference from where we were back in 2000,” he said.

Glock pistols are not the only firearms that can be converted to fire automatically. But attorneys for the city allege its designs make installing a particular type of switch easy, increasing its popularity among criminals. Glock did not respond to a request for comment.

Many Glock-style switch devices are equipped with “selectors” that allow a shooter to toggle between semiautomatic and fully automatic modes. (Image from amended complaint against Glock issued by the city of Chicago)

The city’s suit comes as Chicago Mayor Brandon Johnson faces scrutiny of his administration’s efforts to tamp down local gun violence. Nineteen people were shot and killed in Chicago over the recent Fourth of July holiday weekend. Johnson’s plan calls for providing funding for violence prevention and intervention programs across troubled areas of the city.

Bradly Johnson, chief community officer for BUILD, a Chicago civic group and partner in the city’s anti-violence efforts, said the reducing gun crime requires a broad strategy, including holding gunmakers accountable for how their products are misused, he said.

“Hopefully, the lawsuit will set a precedent for how we can start looking at their role in all of this,” he said.

Adam Kraut, executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation, which supports gun owners’ rights, said PLCAA remains a formidable law that will continue to protect the industry from “unreasonable” challenges. Yet he acknowledged that victories in several recent high-profile lawsuits have tested its strength.

That’s because strategies for navigating PLCAA have evolved since the law was established 20 years ago, as plaintiffs pursue legal arguments its backers hadn’t anticipated, Kraut said.

While it provides broad immunity, PLCAA is not absolute. A lawsuit brought against the industry can proceed if it meets one of six narrow exceptions built into the law. Among them: suits initiated by the United States attorney general, suits alleging an injury due to a defect in design, and suits alleging that a gunmaker knowingly broke state or federal law in selling or marketing its firearms.

Lawsuits based on those exceptions have resulted in millions of dollars in damages paid to victims of gun violence, including a settlement for families of victims in the 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, that left 20 students and six educators dead.

Attorneys for the families argued Remington’s ads for its Bushmaster rifle, which was used in the killings, broke a Connecticut consumer protection law.

The company had run ads for the rifle invoking combat and hypermasculinity on websites and in magazines that appealed to troubled young men, some with slogans like, “Consider your man card reissued.”

The ads, the plaintiffs argued, violated the Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act, which bars unethical marketing that encourages illegal activities. Remington’s attorneys moved to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing it did not align with exceptions set by federal law.

The case wound through the Connecticut judicial system before landing at the state’s highest court. A panel of justices sided with the plaintiffs, allowing the suit to move forward on grounds it met exceptions to PLCAA, and paving the way for a 2022 settlement that saw the company pay the families $73 million.

More recently, survivors of a 2022 mass shooting in Highland Park, outside Chicago, have filed against Smith & Wesson, claiming that company misclassified the AR-15-style rifle used in the attack. They argued that the rifle qualifies as a “machine gun” and that by selling and advertising it as a semiautomatic firearm, Smith & Wesson violated the federal law that heavily restricts sales of automatic firearms. Attorneys for the company have countered, claiming the rifle’s classification is a question for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, not the courts. The case is ongoing.

Municipalities too have continued pursuing lawsuits against the industry, though with limited success.

Gary’s suit — the last surviving legal action from the wave of municipal suits filed more than two decades ago — is in jeopardy. In March, Indiana lawmakers passed a bill retroactively barring anyone other than the state attorney general from filing suit against the industry. Shepherded by the state legislature’s Republican majority, the bill was intended to upend the suit.

Lawyers for gun manufacturers and gun shops named in the suit immediately sought to have it dismissed following passage of the new law. An Indiana Superior Court judge could decide on that motion next month.

The suit alleged gunmakers were willfully ignoring signs of illegal gun sales. It survived, in part, because of evidence uncovered by police showing sloppy vetting of customers by area gun shops.

Using a strategy similar to Gary’s, the city of Philadelphia sued three area gun retailers last year, claiming they created a public nuisance by ignoring reasonable safeguards against illegal sales. The retailers responded with a variety of defenses, claiming that the city had not connected the sales to crimes and calling allegations that the shops are responsible for crimes committed using guns “baseless.” The lawsuit is awaiting trial.

And this year, the city of Baltimore targeted a critical legal shield for the gun industry. The city filed suit against ATF, claiming it too narrowly interprets a federal law that restricts disclosure of where guns recovered in police investigations were initially purchased. ATF has argued it has acted within the law. The city is seeking the data to better understand how illegal gun sales take place and the role played by licensed sellers.

As the legal battles over the scope of PLCAA have unfolded, state legislatures have also weighed in on the law’s scope. Since Congress approved the law, 32 states have passed laws further immunizing the gun industry from lawsuits in state courts, some by placing strict limitations on who can sue gunmakers.

Other states have taken steps to solidify residents’ ability to pursue lawsuits against the industry. Last year, seven states established laws affirming residents’ right to sue gunmakers. The two largest among them were California and Illinois.

Illinois’ 2023 law prohibits gunmakers and dealers from endangering public health or safety through unlawful or unreasonable business practices.

Chicago’s lawsuit alleges that the Glock pistols have become so synonymous with the conversion switch device that some homemade versions come printed with the company’s logo. Glock does not manufacture switch devices. (Images from amended complaint against Glock issued by the city of Chicago)

Alleging just such violations, Chicago’s expanded lawsuit names two suburban gun dealers. The retailers — Midwest Sporting Goods in Lyons and Eagle Sports Range in Oak Forest — “misrepresent” the Glock pistols by marketing them as safe products despite awareness they can be easily converted into unsafe and illegal automatic guns, the city claims.

Eagle Sports Range allegedly takes its marketing a step further, offering customers a “full auto experience” with demonstrations of Glock pistols modified into machine guns, according to the suit. “Eagle Sports Range customers can thus ‘demo’ a Modified Glock at the store’s range, purchase a semi-automatic Glock from the store’s inventory, and then easily and illegally modify their new Glock pistol at home with an auto sear purchased off the internet,” the suit states.

Both retailers are significant suppliers of guns recovered in Chicago as part of criminal investigations, according to attorneys for the city. They could not specify how many recovered modified Glocks were traced to the retailers. The owners of the retailers could not be reached for comment.

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Correction

July 30, 2024: This story originally misstated the name of the executive director of the Second Amendment Foundation. It is Adam Kraut, not Andrew Kraut.

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