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Severe storms are expected to hit the St. Louis region after 8 p.m. Tuesday night. Here's why the timing heightens the danger.

Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson speaks outside the U.K. High Court in 2022. "Wikileaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson talks about Assange's extradition hearing" by alisdare1 is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

The U.K. High Court decision granting WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange leave to appeal his extradition shows just how far America has fallen when it comes to press freedom.

After the High Court ruled that the United States’ assurances were insufficient to appease the justices’ concerns over whether Assange could rely on the First Amendment in U.S. courts, Caitlin Vogus and Seth Stern of Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) wrote in The Guardian that it's "painfully ironic" that a U.K. court is defending the First Amendment against U.S. overreach:

“Not so long ago, the roles were reversed. In 2010, the US passed a law to protect American publishers from UK courts. The Speech Act, enacted in response to a wave of libel lawsuits in the UK targeting Americans, prohibits American courts from enforcing foreign defamation judgments that don’t comply with the first amendment.

But much has changed since 2010. Since then, the US has repeatedly dropped in Reporters Without Borders’ World Press Freedom Index, falling to 55th out of 180 countries in 2024. The UK is still no haven for free expression, but the same judiciary that the US Congress checked in 2010 now isn’t comfortable extraditing a publisher to be tried there.”

Vogus and Stern conclude that: “The High Court’s decision should be a wake-up call for Biden: It’s not possible to prosecute Assange while claiming to be a friend of press freedom. Rather than wait for UK courts to defend the rights that America supposedly stands for, the US should drop the case now.”

You can read the full op-ed here.

As you all know, Donald Trump took reams of classified documents with him when he left the White House and then repeatedly refused to turn them over when asked. Eventually the FBI searched his home and carted away boxes of stuff. But guess what? Even after that, Trump still managed to hold on to several ...continue reading "Even yet still more classified documents found at Mar-a-Lago"

An East Alton, Illinois, man appeared in Madison County Circuit Court on Tuesday and was sentenced for orchestrating a murder-for-hire plot.

The FBI raided journalist Tim Burke's home newsroom, pictured above, last year. Now prosecutors are seeking to censor him by labeling the files they seized criminal contraband.

Photo courtesy of Tim Burke

Federal prosecutors in Florida have concocted a novel workaround to restrain journalists from publishing news: declaring the news itself criminal “contraband.”

That’s the latest constitutionally dubious argument the Department of Justice is making in the prosecution of Tim Burke, the journalist who found unaired footage from Tucker Carlson’s Fox News interview with Ye, formerly known as Kanye West, where Ye went on a bizarre and antisemitic rant.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Advocacy Director Seth Stern wrote for Slate about the dangers of the government’s theory.

"What if the Nixon administration had charged the Times with, say, Espionage Act violations, seized the Pentagon Papers, and then sought a prior restraint in the guise of a discovery order to prohibit the Times from publishing them?

…

There’s already an alarming increase in prior restraints issued by courts across the United States. The DOJ, in its inexplicable zeal to punish Burke for embarrassing Fox News, risks setting a precedent that will compound the problem."

You can read the full op-ed here.

Illinois State Police have warned of a dust storm along Interstate 55 in central Illinois.

The Illinois Department of Natural Resources wants to celebrate a rare double cicada brood emergence in the state with an art contest.

or both

Transportation – both multi-modal freight and people-moving systems – is a cornerstone of success in metropolitan areas. It influences various aspects of urban life, including economic development, quality of life, and environmental sustainability. On the morning of June 20th, the next installment of Construction Forum’s 2024 program series “Building a Strong Core: Rebuilding St. Louis […]

The St. Louis area could see severe weather between 10 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday, says meteorologist Sean Sublette.

These days, once you're done filling up at City Foundry's food hall, you can buy a new shirt, putt-putt a glow-in-the-dark golf ball, or see a classic movie. You can catch a band at City Winery or have a drink underground at None of the Above. But it's not until this weekend that a visit to the repurposed industrial site can include admission to the Museum of Illusion, part of a fast-growing chain of private museums that might seem more at home in Las Vegas than St. Louis.

Bon Jovi keyboardist Dave Bryan is launching a new podcast with his daughter Gabby Byran, described as a “comedic self-help series.” Let Me Ask My Dad will have the pair responding…

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The Brentwood Chamber of Commerce, which began serving businesses in the Brentwood area in 1953, shut down in 2022 after nearly 70 years due mostly to the impact of Covid-19.

The initiative calls for constructing multi-family apartment complexes in eight states, or about about $900 million in constructed-related activity in lower-income communities.

Minneapolis-based U.S. Bank has promoted a St. Louisan to head its East Market for retail home lending.

The Cardinals’ streak of poor on-field play has negatively affected Arch Apparel’s operations, said Aaron Park, the company’s founder and owner.

These are the arches that hold up the flying buttresses at the Regensburg cathedral. It's about 700 years old.