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The Board of St. Louis Public Schools is suing the state to try and stop a new charter school from opening in the city.

County Executive Sam Page nominated longtime federal probation expert Kito Bess to run the jail following years of director turnover.

Even during his reign atop the Missouri political world, former House Speaker Rod Jetton’s life was a looming disaster. He’d lost the discipline of his Southern Baptist upbringing and his Marine training. He was drunk on Southern Comfort and power, and it is not hard to see how both inebriations impaired his judgment.   Over a […]

The post Why I think a scandal-plagued speaker is wise to hire a scandal-scarred former speaker appeared first on Missouri Independent.

The big news out of Tuesday’s elections was wins for Democrats and for reproductive rights in Ohio, Virginia, Kentucky and Pennsylvania. But small “d” democracy also had a good night: Virginians elected pro-voting majorities in both chambers, stymieing efforts to pass restrictive new voting laws. Ohioans turned out in large numbers to pass two popular […]

The post State, local elections offer good news for democracy appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Ahead of Veterans Day, Biden administration officials said Friday the Department of Veterans Affairs will expand health care coverage for certain groups of veterans and their families and create new programs meant to make care more accessible. The VA will make coverage of certain toxic burn pit-related conditions available sooner than anticipated. Family members of […]

The post Veterans’ health care coverage expanded by Biden administration appeared first on Missouri Independent.

by Brandi Kellam and Louis Hansen, Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

A Virginia state representative has called for creating a legislative commission to examine public universities’ uprooting of Black neighborhoods following reports of the racial impacts of one local college’s expansion.

Delegate Delores McQuinn said in an interview that a commission is needed to research Black communities that were displaced by Virginia universities and to examine cases of families who say they were forced to sell their homes. Separate legislation sponsored by McQuinn in 2020 established a commission studying the impact of slavery and racial discrimination in Virginia, which is expected to issue a preliminary report in January.

McQuinn also urged colleges to explore potential redress for displaced families, such as free tuition. “Universities should take it upon themselves to revisit and address these inequities and injustice that occurred at monumental levels,” said McQuinn, a Democrat who represents part of the city of Richmond and adjoining counties. “Many universities have profited for years based on the injustice that prevented Black families from progressing financially.”

Along with McQuinn, other state legislators, a U.S. representative, and municipal and academic leaders said they were troubled by a recent series of articles by ProPublica and the Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism. The series detailed how Virginia universities have dislodged Black families, sometimes through the use of eminent domain, to make room for dormitories, parking lots, laboratories and other facilities, thereby exacerbating the racial gap in home ownership and the loss of Black-owned land.

For example, the city of Newport News seized the core of a middle-class Black community in the early 1960s for the site of what is now Christopher Newport University. Although less expensive locations were available, the Shoe Lane neighborhood was close to an all-white country club and residents were planning to develop more housing for Black families. Newport News leaders decided to erase what they called the “Black spot,” according to former CNU President Anthony Santoro. The city paid homeowners 20% less than the property value set by an independent appraiser. After Black families began to resettle around the university, Christopher Newport expanded its boundaries and bought most of the remaining homes. The university used eminent domain as leverage to force at least one homeowner to sell in 2005. That year, the school’s governing board approved the tactic’s use for three other properties that Christopher Newport said it ultimately acquired without resorting to eminent domain.

In a September message to faculty and staff, Christopher Newport President Bill Kelly acknowledged that the university’s progress “has come at a human cost, and we must continue to learn about and understand our complicated history.” This “important chapter … is appropriately receiving renewed attention,” he added in an apparent reference to our Sept. 5 article.

The school has erected a plaque and an exhibit chronicling the 1960s seizure of the community. In response to ProPublica and VCIJ’s reporting, Kelly, a retired rear admiral who became CNU’s president this year, will lead a neighborhood walk next week with CNU faculty and students as well as state and city leaders and law enforcement officials, according to university spokesperson Jim Hanchett. Although one purpose of the walk is to explore the university’s history, the tour will bypass two of the streets most affected by CNU’s expansion into the former Black neighborhood. “The route was chosen because it was the safest option” in terms of traffic and sidewalk width, Hanchett said. “We are listening and learning … so that actions pursued by the university are thoughtful and effective.”

As part of its “listening and learning” campaign, the university hosted a panel discussion Wednesday at its fine arts center, where faculty members, local historians and clergy spoke to an overflow crowd about the significance of the campus’s location and the effects of expansion on the surrounding community. While acknowledging the event as a first step, associate professor Johnny Finn, chair of the sociology department, said that the university should go beyond symbolic actions and consider “very real and very material things that we can do,” such as paying reparations or offering scholarships to descendants of families who were pushed out of their homes.

“I hope that this is indeed a starting point and not an ending point,” Finn said.

Christopher Newport University (Christopher Tyree/Virginia Center for Investigative Journalism at WHRO)

Several other universities in Virginia and elsewhere have sought to make amends for shattering minority communities. Part of the Lamberts Point neighborhood in Norfolk, Virginia, was leveled in the 1960s and 1970s, when it was a predominantly Black neighborhood, to make room for what is now Old Dominion University’s main campus.

ODU officials said they have long recognized the need to improve relationships with their neighbors in Lamberts Point. In the past three decades, through community outreach and changes to admissions policies, students of color have increased from 21% to 54% of ODU’s enrollment. ODU has awarded $310,000 in scholarships to 137 students from Lamberts Point and nearby neighborhoods since 1999, according to university records. The school also has run free summer camps for Lamberts Point children since 1992 and offers seasonal jobs to high school students.

The University of Virginia also has acknowledged its role in displacing Black residents, appointing two executive commissions within the last decade to study its historical support for racist policies. The school’s president, Jim Ryan, set a goal of building up to 1,500 affordable homes and apartments by 2030 for Charlottesville residents on property owned by the university or its affiliates.

Some public and private universities outside Virginia are directing scholarships to residents of communities that were diminished by campus expansions. The bustling, largely Hispanic neighborhood of Auraria in Denver was chosen in the early 1970s as the site for a satellite campus of the University of Colorado. An urban renewal project razed all but 13 cottages and a grocery store, scattering 343 families. In the 1980s, the University of Colorado at Denver set up a Displaced Aurarian Scholarship program to eliminate fees and tuition for students from families who lived there between 1955 and 1973. Last year, the university expanded the program to include all future direct descendants of the displaced families. Overall, the school has handed out more than 600 Aurarian scholarships worth $3.4 million.

Nolbert Chavez, an administrator at the University of Colorado at Denver and former Colorado state lawmaker, said community lobbying helped secure an additional $2 million in scholarship funds from the state legislature in 2022. The Aurarian community’s struggle for recognition is similar to that of other Black and Hispanic neighborhoods displaced by universities across the country, he said.

“The thread is all the same — the communities were all traumatized,” Chavez said. “Until that is dealt with, these communities can’t move on.”

One such community is seeking financial reparations. About 50 families in Linnentown, a small Black neighborhood in Athens, Georgia, were displaced when their homes were acquired, mainly through eminent domain, and razed between 1962 and 1966 to clear space for University of Georgia dormitories. The financial losses caused by the seizures cost Black families $5 million in current dollars, including $4 million in underpayments and $1 million in foregone increases in property values, according to a study by University of Georgia researchers.

In 2021, commissioners in Athens-Clarke County, where the school is located, passed a resolution supporting redress for Linnentown families through economic development projects in underserved communities. Commissioners also earmarked $2.5 million to build affordable housing and a community center.

Linnentown families who say they were paid less than fair value for their properties have sought compensation from the university. But a university spokesperson said the Georgia Constitution prohibits the school from using state funds for voluntary payments to third parties.

“However, the university leads a wide range of successful initiatives and partnerships that contribute to UGA’s nearly $500 million economic impact on the Athens-Clarke County community,” spokesperson Greg Trevor said. The school dedicates 10 need-based scholarships to residents of the county, he said.

In an interview with VCIJ, Newport News Councilperson Tina Vick raised the possibility of reparations for families uprooted by the establishment and expansion of Christopher Newport University. Scholarships for their descendants aren’t adequate compensation, she said. “If somebody disrupted my whole family, business and wealth, free tuition would not be enough for me.” She said the council has informally discussed the ProPublica/VCIJ articles but hasn’t decided what, if anything, to do.

State Delegate Jeion Ward, a Christopher Newport graduate whose General Assembly district includes part of Newport News, said Virginia universities need to enhance their investments in Black communities through scholarships, affordable housing initiatives and development programs. The treatment of Black property owners by universities highlights “how the loss of generational wealth has been systemically sustained in our society,” she said.

“It’s crucial for both our community and the universities involved to acknowledge and respect the sacrifices of the Black property owners who were unjustly evicted from their homes and businesses,” said Ward, a Democrat.

Rep. Bobby Scott, who has represented Newport News in the U.S. House of Representatives for 30 years, said that the seizure of Shoe Lane was typical of “some of the practices and policies intended to make life more difficult for Black Americans” during the Jim Crow era. “It is neither shocking nor surprising that one of the only thriving middle class Black neighborhoods in Newport News was selected for this treatment,” he said.

Scott added that he supported the Biden administration’s infrastructure bill, which passed in 2021 and included a $1 billion pool to be used for reconnecting predominantly minority communities that have been intentionally divided by major highway construction. Public and private universities are eligible for the grants, which require local matching funds.

“We cannot undo all the harm that has been done, but we can do more to ensure current policies are implemented with equity,” said Scott.

McQuinn, the state delegate who called for a commission to explore the racial impact of university expansions, was reelected this week. She said she hopes that “these efforts will result in solution oriented steps towards addressing past inequities.”

Reach Brandi Kellam at brandi@brandikellam.com or brandi.kellam@vcij.org and Louis Hansen at louis.hansen@vcij.org.

It’s been over 50 years since Foghat released their self-titled debut album and they are still making music. In fact, they'll release their 17th studio album, Sonic Mojo, on November 10. The album features…

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One thing led to another, and we decided to invite anybody we knew who would be alone or without their family that night to Thanksgiving dinner. It was a most heartwarming, enjoyable and memorable time.

Democrats used to be the party with drop-off voters. That has flipped.

Here are a few of our staff picks for things to do Nov. 10-16.

Clean Virginia and its opposition to the state’s monopoly utility was a hidden driver of election results.

by Logan Jaffe

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.

This month, in collaboration with The New Yorker, the ProPublica Films team published an animated documentary called “The Night Doctrine.” The film follows the investigative journey of reporter Lynzy Billing as she pieces together what happened to her own family members when they were murdered in Afghanistan 30 years ago. During her reporting, Billing began to learn of a series of other killings of Afghan civilians committed by the Zero Units, elite Afghan special forces groups backed by the U.S. That investigation, called “The Night Raids,” was published late last year.

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The accompanying film weaves together Billing’s personal story, the recent history of Afghanistan and the hauntingly recurrent nightly raids carried out by the Zero Units. I spoke with ProPublica visual journalist Mauricio Rodríguez Pons about the production of “The Night Doctrine,” which has so far been selected for screening by more than a dozen film festivals, including the Tribeca Film Festival, HollyShorts, the New Hampshire Film Festival and BIAF, among others. It is an incredible feat of animated journalism, and I encourage you to watch the 16-minute piece on our site or on YouTube. Now, on to the discussion, which has been edited for clarity and length.

Watch “The Night Doctrine” How did the idea to create an animated short documentary based off of this investigation come to be?

In the beginning, our plan was to create a three-minute video explainer. But when we started to work at the beginning with video that Lynzy [Billing] and another photographer, Kern Hendricks, took in Afghanistan, we saw the potential to create the story around it. Then we decided, OK, let’s do a nine-minute animated video about a single raid through the perspectives of a family and a soldier. And as we kept working with Lynzy, and with Tracy [Weber, ProPublica managing editor], and with Almudena Toral, ProPublica’s executive producer and co-director of the film, we discovered that Lynzy’s story was really, really hard — and really connected with the families, the Zero Units and the story of Afghanistan itself. So we started asking questions: What if we created a film that connects the three stories into one while trying to explain what happened in Afghanistan?

Part of the style of the film is the idea that everything is connected. It’s like an infinite journey. We wanted to create a journey that never ends — mimicking Afghanistan’s cycle of violence, loss and no accountability.

The transitions really are some of the biggest elements in the film. It’s not necessarily cuts between scenes; it’s fluid, you sort of slide into one scene and then another.

A phrase that we wrote on a storyboard is “infinite nightmare,” and we asked ourselves how we can represent that. I came up with this idea of creating an infinite sequence that connects with each sequence, and the whole film is like a connection. It’s like you’re always navigating the stories and the journey. I mean, Lynzy’s journey and Afghanistan’s journey is at the end of the day the same, right?

How would you describe the film’s style and what informed your decision to animate in the way you did?

Of course, the night is kind of the main thing here. In the night, the darkness is important. We wanted to again create that infinite nightmare — and the mood, the colors, everything is connected with the night, the shadows, the blue color is also kind of like a nightmare. Everything was driven by that idea.

From the technical perspective, it’s hard to create differences in black.That’s why we wanted some light elements present like the candle at the beginning that the little kid has next to his bed, and the lanterns, and the lights of a car.

I know you mentioned that Lynzy is a photographer as well, and the film incorporates real video footage and photographs. How did you make that decision to include the source of real elements? And how did you want those elements to relate to the animation?

The security of our sources was important for us. And the access was impossible — especially after the Taliban took over Afghanistan again. We also really wanted to add some elements to communicate that this is a true story. And that’s why we decided to add real footage elements.

For example, the image that everybody saw when the United States left Afghanistan was that plane … so we wanted to use that to remind people: Remember this image? These are the stories that were around that image you saw. And at the end we show the main characters of the piece in their actual, modern environment. It’s to give some kind of truth; that this is a true story. It’s not just a fiction animated piece. We didn’t invent this.

What are your thoughts on how visuals and animation can fill in gaps of what isn’t officially recorded? And how did you think about that as you made the film?

I think the animation gives you the power not just to fill the gaps, but to fill the gaps creatively. That creativity, that freedom that the animation gives you, allows you to present not just the facts but also the sentiments that people felt. It’s something that not only animation can do, but it’s also kind of like its main role. Especially here in ProPublica, a place where we really care about facts, and with what happened and what didn’t happen, animation is a powerful tool to represent not just what happened with the families but to represent how the families felt and how Lynzy felt.

Were there any inspirations that you drew on while you were working on the piece?

The main inspiration for me came from a soundtrack that Milad Yousufi, the musician we worked with, shared with me. It was like a soundtrack of Afghan old movies and the instruments include the main instruments, the rabab and piano, we used in the film. It was really, really dark. And I played that all day for days. I don’t remember how many months; maybe eight months. I would work with that music on and kind of allowed myself to feel that darkness and the suffering of the story, of the Afghan people. I mean, how many families suffered there? For me, that’s the main thing. It's the main inspiration.

What do you hope viewers will take away from the film?

I hope viewers take away the story, and I hope they think about what the United States is doing in places like Afghanistan, and about accountability. Like Lynzy said in the film, it happened in Afghanistan, it happened in Vietnam, it happened in Iraq. That’s why I said at the beginning that this is a never-ending story. You just can’t imagine all the sad stories that are destroying families right now. I guess I just want people to consider the families that are affected. That’s the intention of the film. That’s what we wanted to represent. And I hope we can put another voice out there to try to make change.

The author of "Fire Weather," a National Book Award finalist, on the unimaginable reality of disaster.

Chiefs quarterback Patrick Mahomes listed one of his Kansas City-area homes for sale in June. The property quickly found a buyer — a KC-area media executive and private equity investor.

Rian Gilkerson of KSHE 95 became a Real Rock Hero in the Real Rock Army today

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The Riverboats at the Gateway Arch award guests one of the best views of St. Louis’ working riverfront, the Gateway Arch and the city skyline.   Narrated by the captain […]

The post St. Louis Riverfront Cruise appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

Illinois lawmakers on Thursday approved a proposal that would allow companies to develop new nuclear power generation in Illinois for the first time since 1987. House Bill 2473 does not entirely lift the 36-year-old moratorium on nuclear construction. Instead, it creates a regulatory structure for the construction of small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs. The bill limits the nameplate capacity of such reactors to 300 megawatts, about one-third the size of the smallest of the six existing nuclear…

Missouri House Speaker Dean Plocher scurried away from waiting reporters Thursday rather than answer questions about the events that have launched an ethics inquiry and caused some members of his party to ask for him to step down from his powerful post. Plocher spent most of the afternoon in a closed-door Republican caucus meeting at the Missouri Farm Bureau headquarters in Jefferson City. During the meeting, members said, he gave his defense of seeking personal reimbursement for expenses originally…