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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.

Charles Littlejohn was sentenced today to five years in prison for stealing the tax returns of Donald Trump and thousands of other rich people. But Trump himself has been silent about this. Why isn't he crowing? That's easy. Littlejohn didn't work for the IRS. He was a Booz Allen Hamilton contractor. He was caught by ...continue reading "Trump has no comment about prison sentence of guy who stole his tax returns"

The Department of Justice (DOJ) is investigating Rep. Cori Bush (D-Mo.) for her campaign’s spending on security services, the congresswoman confirmed on Tuesday. She said she is “fully cooperating” with the probe and denied any wrongdoing. “First and foremost, I hold myself, my campaign, and my position to the highest levels of integrity. I also [...]

From NPR:  Southwest Airlines will now carry the opioid overdose-reversal drug naloxone on flights. Ballwin resident John Gaal and other advocates have been lobbying the airline to carry naloxone, which is also called Narcan, to protect passengers from opioid overdoses since Gaal witnessed an apparent overdose on a Southwest flight in October 2022. “This stuff’s […]

The Ritz-Carlton’s Casa Don Alfonso (100 Carondelet Plaza, Clayton; casadonalfonsostlouis.com) announced today that Eduardo Marquez is its new executive chef.  Casa Don Alfonso, which opened in March of 2021, honors the culinary heritage of the Campania region and the recipes of restaurateur Mario Iccarino’s family, who also operates Don Alfonso in Sant’ Agata, Italy.

From St. Louis Post-Dispatch:  The city is eyeing new powers to spur redevelopment around the nearly complete National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency campus, and it’s being frank that it may need to push aside the area’s largest landholder to do it. That owner, Paul McKee’s NorthSide Regeneration, has been a thorn in the side of City Hall […]

Two teens told police they were walking down Robin Avenue when they heard gunshots.

From St. Louis Business Journal:  A developer is planning a new warehouse complex in St. Charles County. Wabash Center, a new four-building industrial development, is under consideration in O’Fallon, Missouri, city records show. The project, to be developed by Tempest Properties on 9.25 acres the company owns at T.R. Hughes Boulevard and East Wabash Avenue, […]

The House Special Committee on Education Reform approved a measure that would expand charter schools into St. Charles and St. Louis counties and Columbia.

CHICAGO (AP) — Illinois’ election board on Tuesday kept former President Donald Trump on the state’s primary ballot, a week before the U.S. Supreme Court hears arguments on whether the Republican’s role in the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol disqualifies him from the presidency. The board’s unanimous ruling comes after its hearing [...]

From The Intelligencer:  The village has undergone substantive changes in the past year: Two sizable retail and mixed-use areas have been carved out of former farmland and a tree nursery to become Meridian Plaza and Orchard Town Center (OTC), respectively. For 2024, Glen Carbon Mayor Bob Marcus expects that kind of growth to continue. According […]

McDonald's is turning this burger chase into a nationwide game. Spot the Burgercuda, scan its code, and you're in for a treat.

From NEXT STL: By Richard Bose:  In September SSM Health officials announced plans for a new Cardinal Glennon Children’s Hospital at the corner of Grand and Chouteau in the Tiffany neighborhood. It would replace the current facility further south on Grand. They submitted a $300M building permit application last week. They plan to have it […]

GODFREY - The Madison County Highway Department invites community members to share their thoughts on a proposed construction project on Humbert Road that will reduce the number of traffic lanes, create a designated turn lane and add sidewalks. County Engineer Adam Walden explained that the project aims to reduce the number of accidents on Humbert Road. There have been 180 accidents in the past five years, including one fatality. By creating a turn lane and reducing the number of lanes, the Highway Department hopes to “calm traffic.” “We’re trying to serve the public, serve the citizens and ultimately deliver a safe roadway for citizens,” Walden said. “Primarily, people are afraid that traffic’s just not going to work. But that’s why we hired some experts. That’s why we brought CBB on to collect the data, do the modeling and tell us, does it work? And, preliminarily, we think it will.” The County decided to pursue this

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The U.S. Department of Justice is investing Democratic Rep. Cori Bush of St. Louis over the misspending of federal security money, according to a report from Punchbowl.