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The annual parade was held in downtown St. Louis.

EDWARDSVILLE – The Edwardsville Police Department is seeking organizations willing to volunteer for the City’s long-running Adopt-A-Highway program, a public service campaign to help keep area roadsides clean. The City has 13 routes of approximately a mile each that are in the Adopt-A-Highway program. The program is governed by an Illinois law that allows adoption of only those sections of road that are deemed safe for public litter pickup. Several of the City’s routes have been adopted, but Officer Jason Hunter, who oversees the program for Edwardsville, said at least five routes remain available. Any group that wants to do volunteer work is eligible, but all individuals must be at least 18 to participate. Over the years, the effort has included church groups, college organizations, businesses and nonprofit groups. Hunter said participation dropped off in the years since the coronavirus pandemic, but he’s hoping to revitalize the program. “This is an

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John Mellencamp is set to join Steve Earle at Earle’s ninth annual John Henry’s Friends Benefit, taking place December 3 at Town Hall in New York City. The event will feature performances by…

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Arryon McGee, 18, is facing charges of first-degree murder and armed criminal action in the death of 21-year-old Tyrell Survillion on Feb. 24 in the city's Greater Ville neighborhood.

WASHINGTON — Congress on Monday appeared to be on the edge of approving another short-term government funding bill this week, though several hurdles remain if lawmakers want to stave off a partial government shutdown when the current funding law expires at the end of the week. Democratic leaders and President Joe Biden expressed some skepticism […]

The post Congress nears another government shutdown deadline on Friday at midnight appeared first on Missouri Independent.

A subcontractor struck a natural gas line. The gas leak was later contained.

Aerosmith’s Steven Tyler is featured on the just-released live covers album from Zac Brown Band. From the Road, Vol. 1: Covers features 13 performances recorded in various iconic venues over the past 10 years, including the…

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ALTON - Tucker Gehrig has created his own path during his career at Alton High but has also followed in the footsteps in carrying on a family legacy as a Redbird. Tucker is the Art Fahrner-Edward Jones Remarkable Redbird of the Month. While taking all honors classes and carrying a 4.75 GPA, Tucker is also extremely proud to be leading the Alton High Scholar Bowl team this year. He is a three-year captain of the team. As a sophomore, Tucker led his team to a regional championship. During his junior year, Tucker moved the needle even higher as he not only led the Redbirds to another regional championship but also was recognized as an All-State performer. This award is given out to 20 students per year and there are currently 500 high schools in the state that participate in Scholar Bowl in the Illinois High School Association. The season is still young as the Scholar Bowl team has only had 1 match at the time of this writing, but Tucker shares that team coach, Dr. David Hurley, has encouraged

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States can’t figure out what to do about cash bail. The system — in which an arrested suspect pays cash to avoid sitting in jail until their court date and gets the money back when they appear — is deeply entrenched in the nation’s history as a way to ensure defendants return to face justice. […]

The post Cash bail policies are facing fresh scrutiny in multiple states appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The Franklin County Sheriff's Office identified the man as Donald Stickler of Lonedell.

House Budget Committee members are launching hearings on next year's budget more than a month early.

EDWARDSVILLE - Bella Milano celebrated two decades of business in Edwardsville with a 20th anniversary party on Friday, Nov. 10, 2023 at the Lewis & Clark N.O. Nelson Campus in Edwardsville. The event capped off months of promotions celebrating this milestone and featured live music from the Robert Parry Band, several longtime employees and customers, and much more. Tom Guarino, director of Sales and Hospitality for Bella Milano, said at the event that there were 200 people in attendance, including long-time customers and employees who were “having a wonderful time” celebrating and reminiscing on the past 20 years. “200 people … want to come and spend their time and money to celebrate our anniversary with us, and I just can’t tell you want an amazing feeling that is - to have people love Bella Milano as much as we do and want to celebrate it with us,” Tom said. He added that it “couldn’t be done” without Bella Milano’s

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EDWARDSVILLE - The Edwardsville Community Unit School District #7 (ECUSD7) will hold a Special Board of Education Meeting at 6 p.m. on Monday, Nov. 13, 2023, at Liberty Middle School in Edwardsville. The Board meets once a month for a regular meeting but has scheduled a special meeting, including an hour-long closed session. They will discuss the middle school language arts program, the tax levy and school achievement/school report card findings. They will also talk about a GIS spatial analysis of ECUSD7. Several action items are up for consideration, including the approval of resignations, retirements and employments. The board will also vote whether or not to approve a resolution that will provide approximately $6,196,573 of funding to several schools in ECUSD7, including $1,793,355.50 to Edwardsville High School for a new roof. Another resolution on the agenda will, if voted for, authorize and provide approximately $13,000,000 to “complete solar panel installations”

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by Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott, Brett Murphy and Alex Mierjeski

Update, Nov. 13, 2023: This story has been updated throughout.

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

The Supreme Court on Monday released a code of conduct governing the behavior of the country’s most powerful judges for the first time in its history. But experts said it was unclear if the new rules, which do not include any enforcement mechanism, would address the issues raised by recent revelations about justices’ ethics and conduct.

The nine-page code, with an accompanying five pages of commentary, was signed by all the sitting justices and covers everything from the acceptance of gifts, to recusal standards, to avoiding improper outside influence on the justices. The step followed months of reporting by ProPublica detailing undisclosed gifts to Supreme Court justices from wealthy political donors.

The code does not specify who, if anyone, could determine whether the rules had been violated.

The new Supreme Court code’s lack of any apparent enforcement process is “the elephant in the room,” said Stephen Vladeck, a law professor at the University of Texas who studies the court. “Even the most stringent and aggressive ethics rules don’t mean all that much if there’s no mechanism for enforcing them. And the justices’ unwillingness to even nod toward that difficulty kicks the ball squarely back into Congress’ court.”

Nevertheless, some leading observers of the court described the creation of an explicit, written code as a landmark in the court’s 234-year history.

“The Supreme Court’s promulgation of a code of conduct today is of surpassing historic significance,” former federal appellate judge J. Michael Luttig told ProPublica. “The court must lead by the example that only it can set for the federal judiciary, as it does today.”

A statement released by the court on Monday accompanying the code said it was formulated to dispel “the misunderstanding that the Justices of this Court, unlike all other jurists in this country, regard themselves as unrestricted by any ethics rules.” It said the code “largely represents a codification of principles that we have long regarded as governing our conduct.”

A series of ProPublica stories this year detailed a pattern of behavior by Supreme Court justices that legal ethics experts said was far outside the norms of conduct for other federal judges. ProPublica disclosed that Justice Clarence Thomas has accepted undisclosed luxury travel from Dallas billionaire Harlan Crow and a coterie of other ultrawealthy men for decades. Crow purchased Thomas’ mother’s home and paid private school tuition for a relative Thomas was raising as his son. Thomas also spoke at donor events for the Koch network, the powerful conservative activist group. Separately, ProPublica revealed that Justice Samuel Alito accepted a private jet trip to Alaska from a hedge fund billionaire and did not recuse himself when that billionaire later had a case before the court.

Reporting from other outlets, including The Washington Post and The Associated Press, has added to the picture. The New York Times revealed that Thomas received a loan from a wealthy friend to purchase an expensive RV. A Senate investigation later found Thomas did not repay the loan in full.

Federal judges below the Supreme Court have long been subject to a written code of conduct, the foundations of which were set down a century ago following a major ethics scandal in the judiciary. Lower court judges are subject to oversight by panels of other judges, who review allegations of misconduct.

The high court’s new code of conduct is separate from an existing federal law that requires all federal judges including the justices on the Supreme Court to annually report income, assets and most gifts on a publicly available disclosure form. The law, which passed after the Watergate scandal, has been at the center of the controversies involving Thomas’ undisclosed gifts. Thomas and Alito have argued they were not required to disclose the luxury travel, and Thomas’ lawyer has said that “any prior reporting errors were strictly inadvertent.”

The new document largely echoes the code that applies to lower court judges. Many of its prescriptions are lofty but vague. It requires the justices to “act at all times in a manner that promotes public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of the judiciary.” It prohibits justices from soliciting gifts, practicing law or sitting on cases where their “impartiality might reasonably be questioned.” It states that the justices should not engage in “political activity,” but it does not define what that means.

Court observers are likely to spend weeks parsing the differences between the new code and that of the lower courts. Small changes were made without explanation. For instance, lower court judges are prohibited from lending “the prestige of the judicial office to advance” their own private interests. The justices are merely prohibited from “knowingly” doing so.

Whether any of the conduct that sparked the push for a formal ethics code would now be prohibited seems to remain open for interpretation. Take Thomas’ appearances at Koch network events. A federal judge told ProPublica that if he’d done the same as a lower court judge, it would’ve violated prohibitions against fundraising and political activity and he would’ve been subject to a disciplinary proceeding. It’s unclear if the high court’s new code would bar such activities or if each justice would answer such questions for him or herself.

Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I., who has introduced a bill that would require the Supreme Court to adopt an enforceable code of conduct, said in a statement that the new code fell short of what is needed.

“The honor system has not worked for members of the Roberts Court,” he said. “This is a long-overdue step by the justices, but a code of ethics is not binding unless there is a mechanism to investigate possible violations and enforce the rules.”

Whitehouse’s bill advanced out of the Senate Judiciary Committee in July, but it has since stalled in the face of GOP opposition. It would create an enforcement mechanism for the court’s code of conduct and set up a process where panels of appellate judges would investigate potential ethics violations.

It’s unclear whether the court’s release of the code will affect the ongoing Senate investigations into justices’ relationships with businessmen and others involved in undisclosed travel and gifts. For months, the Senate Judiciary Committee has been seeking information from Crow and others about undisclosed gifts to Thomas.

Last week, Senate Judiciary Democrats deferred an effort to subpoena Crow in the face of intense Republican opposition on the committee. Sen. Dick Durbin, D-Ill., the panel’s chair, said last week the committee would continue its efforts to authorize subpoenas in the near future.

The court’s new ethics standards are in many ways more lenient than those governing employees of the executive and legislative branches. There are still few restrictions on what gifts the justices can accept. Members of Congress are generally prohibited from taking gifts worth $50 or more and would need preapproval from an ethics committee to take many of the gifts Thomas and Alito have accepted.

Jeremy Fogel, a retired federal judge in California who had publicly called for the Supreme Court to adopt an ethics code, said Monday that he was “heartened to see that the justices unanimously have recognized the need for an explicit code of conduct.”

“Whether it will make a difference in the justices’ day-to-day actions or in public perceptions of the court remains to be seen,” Fogel said.

Under the pretense of a computer crime investigation, the Marion County PD — led by then-Chief Gideon Cody — raided the offices of the Marion County Record, as well as the home of its 98-year-old co-owner, Joan Meyer. Joan Meyer died one day after the raid, one she strenuously objected to while her home was […]