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Jan. 4 is recognized as National Missouri Day, according to the Missouri Department of Revenue.

WOOD RIVER - Five Below announced on Thursday, Jan. 4, 2024, that it will open its doors in Wood River next to the Walmart Supercenter in Wood River Plaza on Friday, Feb. 9, 2024. Considerable excitement has brewed regarding the Five Below opening in Wood River, Mayor Tom Stalcup said. “It is like a Dollar General type of store with merchandise that is $5 and below,” the mayor said. “It will be in the right section of where Walmart is located. There was a pizza place in that area and they agreed to move down a few doors to accommodate Five Below.” Five Below also plans to open an Alton location in the old Shop 'N Save area . Five Below Inc. is an American chain of specialty discount stores that prices most of its products at $5 or less, plus a smaller assortment of products priced up to $25. Founded by Tom Vellios and David Schlessinger and headquartered in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, the chain is aimed at tweens and teens.

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Since legal sales of medical marijuana started in Missouri in 2020 and adult recreational cannabis in 2023, business around all things marijuana has become a billion-dollar business. Missouri Independent journalist Rebecca Rivas talks about her recent coverage of Missouri’s cannabis industry, including a 60,000-product recall – and how lawsuits and politics could shape the industry in 2024.

The Soulard Art Gallery presents the artwork of the Jacoby Arts Center's resident artists along with small works by local St. Louis artists. The Jacoby Arts Center resident artists represent […]

The post Jacoby Arts Center and Small Works Exhibit appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

The Who’s Tommy is set to return to Broadway in March, and the cast for the musical has just been revealed. This version features a brand new staging, directed by original Tommy director Des McAnuff. It debuted…

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Super-utility man Tommy Edman is recovering from offseason surgery, but he's expected to be ready by the start of spring training, according to new reports Thursday.

In the fall of 2022, a Missouri law went into effect that opened school officials to possible criminal charges if they provide “explicit sexual content” to students. That has had a chilling effect on librarians, and it resulted in Missouri removing the third highest number of books from library shelves, following Florida and Texas. STLPR reporter Kate Grumke talks with Mernie Maestas, the lead librarian for the Wentzville School District in St. Charles County.

D-BAT will feature 13 batting cages for youth, collegiate and other baseball and softball players and offer camps, private events and team practice space.

ALTON - The old team at Alton’s The Pasta House Co. will meet again at an upcoming reunion party. Previous Pasta House employees, friends and customers are invited to The Lovejoy at 6 p.m. on Saturday, Jan. 13, 2024, to reminisce and celebrate. There will be a cash bar and Matt Taul will play from 7–10 p.m. “I think it’s going to be a great time,” said Greg Franklin, who organized the reunion with Roland DeGregorio. “Just the idea, everybody was so enthusiastic about it. You talk to somebody and say, ‘Hey, what do you think of this idea?’ And they would be like, ‘Man, that’s going to be such a good time.’” Franklin remembers having a lot of fun as a Pasta House employee. The restaurant opened on Aug. 4, 1986, and Franklin worked there from 1988–1993. He said he “learned a lot” and he is excited to see his old coworkers again. “It was fantastic, actually. It was old-school, a lo

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The rapidly rising number of reported cases and hospitalizations suggests more precautions are necessary to avoid strain on the healthcare system.

Missouri in 2023 ranked 28th among U.S. states for growth, according to moving giant U-Haul, off from its 13th-place ranking in 2022.

Missouri’s second-longest serving member of Congress announced Thursday he will not seek a ninth term. U.S. Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, a Republican who turns 72 this year, said in a social media post that he made the decision to leave Congress “after a lot of thoughtful discussion with my family.” With the announcement, Luetkemeyer joins about […]

The post Blaine Luetkemeyer opts out of another term in Congress appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Renovations would include a new visitor entrance for the 450,000 people who visit the Capitol each year.

The Illinois State Board of Elections had yet to set the petition for hearing Thursday afternoon, spokesperson Matt Dietrich said. The board is set to hear 32 other objections to the proposed ballot at its Jan. 11 meeting.

"J. Edgar Hoover Building - FBI" by Gareth Milner is licensed under CC BY 2.0.

Project Veritas’ future looks uncertain after its CEO resigned last month, calling the right-wing group an “unsalvageable mess.” But if the end is near, Project Veritas’ most enduring legacy might arise not from its infamous hidden camera stings but from a court case over the alleged theft of Ashley Biden’s journal — and its potential impact on constitutional protections for gathering news. 

There are plenty of reasons people don’t like Project Veritas. We’re not shedding tears for them either. But the lack of transparency surrounding the case threatens to chill reporting by all sorts of news outlets, including ones far more respectable than Project Veritas.

FBI agents raided the homes of Project Veritas employees in late 2021 as part of a criminal investigation over the theft of the journal. Project Veritas admits it bought the journal from a source but denies having anything to do with the theft. It’s seeking to end the probe and get back materials seized during the raids, arguing that the First Amendment protects its newsgathering and that investigators have no basis to comb through its privileged records. 

If it’s true that Project Veritas merely bought the journal from the alleged thief after the fact — and that that’s the focus of the investigation — then Project Veritas is right. It should be protected from prosecution under the Supreme Court’s landmark decision in Bartnicki v. Vopper. That case held that publishers are entitled to procure and publish materials their sources obtained illegally, as long as they don’t participate in the crime themselves. It’s certainly fair to question the ethics of digging through a politician’s daughter’s diary for dirt on her father, but unscrupulous doesn’t mean illegal.

But federal Judge Analisa Torres rejected Project Veritas’ First Amendment defenses in December, stating simply that “Here, the Government is investigating whether Project Veritas participated in the theft of the Victim’s journal and the other items. Bartnicki does not protect such conduct.” 

At least Torres’ language is an improvement on a prior report by a “special master,” former federal Judge Barbara Jones, who was appointed to review materials seized during the investigation. Jones had reasoned that “Bartnicki addresses liability for publication of unlawfully obtained information (there, by a source) and does not ‘protect’ unlawful acquisition of information.” It’s quite hard to publish information without first acquiring it. 

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF), along with the ACLU and FIRE, had filed an amicus brief encouraging Judge Torres to more accurately state the Bartnicki rule, which, thankfully, she did. But she failed to elaborate on how Project Veritas allegedly participated, and other records that might shed some light are sealed from public view.  

You can’t publish what you can’t possess 

We do know that one of the government’s theories is that Project Veritas illegally possessed and transported stolen property. Hopefully that’s not the “participation” to which Torres alludes. What good is a right to acquire and publish illegally obtained documents without the right to possess and transport them? That exception would swallow the Bartnicki rule whole. 

It’s also concerning that Torres discusses the journal and “other items” interchangeably. There have been reports that, after obtaining the journal, Project Veritas asked its sources to steal more of Biden’s property to prove the journal was actually hers. If that alone were the basis for the investigation, it would be less concerning —  the “other items” were supposedly personal effects, not potentially newsworthy journalistic source materials. 

But Torres’ language implies that the theft of the journal is itself a subject of the investigation, not just a part of the backstory. That means it’s crucial to distinguish whether the government believes Project Veritas was involved in stealing the journal or whether the government considers it criminal if Project Veritas merely obtained it from someone else who stole it. 

It’s somewhat understandable why Torres is being so cryptic. The government has demanded that documents explaining the basis for its investigation — including the application in support of the search warrant authorizing the 2021 raids — remain under seal. And another judge has rejected requests to unseal them, citing Biden’s privacy interests as well as the integrity of the investigation. Torres doesn’t want to be the one to spill the beans.

But it’s been over two years since the raids — you’d hope the government had made some progress on the investigation by now. Surely it could unseal enough information to identify the conduct by Project Veritas that it believes falls outside the First Amendment’s protection, so that other journalists are clear on whether the government intends to adhere to the Bartnicki rule in future cases. That wouldn’t require the government to disclose any private information about Biden — these issues have nothing to do with the content of her diary. 

Heightened need for government transparency

We get it. Journalists are not above the law. And it’s entirely possible Project Veritas did something unlawful that Bartnicki and other legal safeguards for journalists wouldn’t protect. That now-former CEO, Hannah Giles, said the “unsalvageable mess” she left behind was “wrought with strong evidence of past illegality” might be an indication. But so far the government has provided no indication of illegality in this case.

And if all prosecutors have on Project Veritas is that it possessed and transported records someone else stole, then the public should be able to question why the government is putting their tax money, and the Constitution, at risk over such a flimsy case. This time, the subject of the investigation is Project Veritas — an unsympathetic victim — but next time it might be a more reputable news outlet. As the saying goes, bad facts make bad law. 

The investigation of Project Veritas threatens to dissuade journalists from doing important, constitutionally protected work. And, rather than justifying secrecy, that the case involves someone named Biden heightens the need for transparency. People are entitled to know if an administration that proclaims that “journalism is not a crime” makes exceptions when a case hits close to the president’s home. 

The lack of transparency is especially concerning when the government is also refusing to explain its investigation of Florida journalist Tim Burke for accessing interview outtakes on a publicly available website. A respected digital journalist, Burke carries none of the baggage of Project Veritas, but that didn't stop the FBI from raiding his home for seemingly routine online newsgathering. In both cases, the only way for the government to alleviate the chilling effect of its investigations is to publicly explain the bases for its actions.

JERSEYVILLE - The Jerseyville Public Library is gearing up for a building expansion which has been years in the making and is set to begin this spring. The large-scale expansion project will not only give the library more room for youth areas, meeting rooms and more, but also aims to make the building's current entrance more architecturally consistent with the original Carnegie building that was built in 1904. “Not only is everyone celebrating a new year, but the Jerseyville Public Library (JPL) is excited about the start of a much-anticipated expansion set to begin later this year,” the library announced in a press release. “Be sure to watch for groundbreaking news and information on how you can help by being a part of this exciting new venture.” To help fund this expansion venture, the library is hosting a Trivia Night on Saturday, March 23, 2024, at DJ’s Pub & Grill in Jerseyville. Doors will open at 6 p.m. with trivia starting at 7 p.m., and

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Anyone with information about the theft can call Detective Haussels at 314-568-7684 or call the department's communications non-emergency line at 636-529-8210.