Aggregator

If you told Ben (Justin H. Min) to grow up, I imagine he’d respond with an unrelenting string of deeply personal insults kept locked and loaded in the back of his mind since the day he met you. Of course he’s grown up.

The best Streisanding is the Streisanding you give yourself, as the adage goes. The adage is even enshrined at Wikipedia, where it points to the creator of the term: Mike Masnick. Perhaps you’ve heard of him. The best thing to do to counter negative content is presenting your own side of the case. The worst […]

A Cole County judge promised Thursday he would rule quickly after a Sept. 11 trial over the language voters will see when they consider an initiative petition to reinstate the right to an abortion. At a hearing on challenges to the ballot titles written for six proposed petitions, Circuit Judge Jon Beetem told attorneys that […]

The post Trial set for Sept. 11 on ballot title for Missouri abortion rights amendment appeared first on Missouri Independent.

St. Louis nonprofit Wepower has made two new investments from its fund that provides capital to local Black and Latino entrepreneurs.

Now, as a full-time artist under the name Killer Napkins, he's "creating everything he loved as a kid." His medium: everything.

On view at the Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum until Aug. 6, African Modernism in America is the first major traveling exhibition to examine the complex connection between modern African

The post African Modernism in America appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

ST. LOUIS (WCIA) -- Harper Finn, the five-year-old girl from Altamont hurt in an accident at the Effingham County Fair, has died. The St. Louis City Medical Examiner confirmed that Finn passed away at St. Louis Children's Hospital on Wednesday at 6:49 p.m. Finn was airlifted to St. Louis after she was hurt Sunday afternoon [...]

The route emerged as a problem for Lambert amid the pandemic.

The addition of the teams – in Florida, New Jersey and Utah – raise the total assets under management at the St. Louis-based company's independent contractor broker-dealer subsidiary to $6.5 billion.

ALTON - Webster Temple Church of God in Christ invites everyone to their Vacation Bible School (VBS) next week from Aug. 10–12. They’ll mark the end of summer with games, crafts, a bookbag giveaway, free haircuts and lessons from the Bible. This year’s theme is “Twist and Turns.” Webster Temple’s VBS will be focusing on Psalms 25:4 with the slogan “Following Jesus changes the game.” “Everybody knows about Webster Temple’s Vacation Bible School. We do it up,” Rosie Brown, the church’s VBS coordinator, said. “It’s all geared towards education and learning and fun.” The church, located at 1100 Highland Avenue in Alton, will offer different groups according to age, including an adult class. Children ages 5 and up are welcome. Brown estimates that there will be approximately 80 kids who participate in the church’s VBS this year. From 6–8 p.m. on Thursday, Aug. 10 and Friday, Aug.

Continue Reading

Fred Heitert, a St. Louis alderman for 32 years and the last Republican to hold an elected office in the city, died Sunday of an illness at his home.

From The St. Louis American:  St. Louis Community College will soon confer its first bachelor’s degree, which will be another breath of fresh air for the expanding institution. On July 19, 2023, STLCC celebrated the groundbreaking of the Center for Nursing and Health Sciences at St. Louis Community College at Florissant Valley, 3400 Pershall Road, […]

Faced with growing calls for the public release of police disciplinary records, lawmakers in almost every state have grappled with how to balance revealing law enforcement misdeeds and protecting officers’ privacy and safety. Fueled by public outrage over the 2020 murder of George Floyd by a Minneapolis police officer and other high-profile incidents of police […]

The post After George Floyd’s murder, more states require release of police disciplinary records appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Happy Year of the Devil. Mötley Crüe has announced a collection of reissues celebrating the 40th anniversary of their multi-Platinum 1983 album, Shout at the Devil. The main attraction is a Limited Edition Super…

Source

Who’s that kid that can travel through time? It’s you!   Follow the adventures of three friends as they travel back in time to learn from real-life inspirational heroes when

The post Xavier Riddle and The Secret Museum: The Exhibit at The Magic House appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

Take an overseas adventure in this immersive exhibit that transports families to China, a country where a quickly changing modern lifestyle intersects with ancient values. Explore what life is like

The post Children’s China – The Magic House appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

The property has nine bedrooms and 13 bathrooms, as well as a pool and sports court.

Homeowner Jerrod Ragsdale said it happened at about 10:45 Wednesday night.

Local news organizations are the lifeblood of many communities, but decreasing revenues have caused thousands to die out in recent years.

Kamoteus (A New Beginning), via Flickr, CC BY 2.0.

After nearly a century, The Welch News in McDowell County, West Virginia, closed its doors earlier this year, leaving county residents without a local news source. The newspaper, the “heartbeat” of the community, fell prey to the same financial hardships that have led to the closure of thousands of local newspapers in America since 2005.

Now, a new bill in Congress aims to help small struggling news outlets survive these financial headwinds. The Community News and Small Business Support Act, introduced by Rep. Claudia Tenney and co-sponsored by Rep. Suzan DelBene, is a bi-partisan bill (PDF) that would give tax credits to small businesses that advertise in local media and a payroll tax credit to local news outlets that employ reporters in their communities. According to the Rebuild Local News coalition, the payroll credit could provide newsrooms with as much as $85,000 over the course of five years for each full-time local journalist they employ.

The proposed legislation is similar to the Local Journalism Sustainability Act, which Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) endorsed, but which failed to pass in the previous Congress. FPF is proud to support this new version of the bill, which attempts to address the crisis in funding for small, local news outlets through tailored advertising and payroll tax credits.

Importantly, the Community News and Small Business Support Act is carefully drafted to ensure the government can’t pick partisan favorites or otherwise influence news coverage in the outlets that would benefit from the tax credits. Instead, the criteria for qualifying for the tax benefits focuses on the size and local nature of the news outlet.

Under the proposal, the credits are available for local newspapers that employ local news journalists or for small businesses that advertise in a local TV or radio station or newspaper. A “local newspaper” includes any news publication that primarily serves the needs of a region or community and has at least one full-time journalist who lives in the community and no more than 750 employees. However, newsrooms controlled or significantly funded by advocacy groups or political organizations, like unions or political action committees, can’t qualify for the credits. This restriction is intended to “prevent wholly partisan or ‘pink slime’ outlets from cashing in,” according to one report, and it applies regardless of the political leanings of the controlling entity.

This broadly drawn definition means that a wide variety of local news outlets could receive payroll tax credits under the law, and community businesses will have leeway to support the newspapers that best serve their communities. Putting funding of news in the hands of communities like this is a smart approach.

Of course, there are still some funding problems the Community News and Small Business Support Act wouldn’t solve. For one thing, as we explained with the LJSA, providing tax credits for existing local newspapers may be less helpful to historically marginalized and underserved communities, which may not have existing news outlets. Start up (or re-start up) costs may be prohibitive. This bill will help sustain local news, but even more must be done to regrow it.

In addition, the new bill does not include the LJSA’s tax credit for individual taxpayers who subscribe to news outlets, which DelBene has said is too complicated. It's a shame for the proposed legislation to drop this idea, which could have encouraged more people to subscribe to local news and, through those subscription choices, democratized local media funding by giving individuals a say in which outlets benefit. But if simplifying the bill will increase its chances of passage, it's worth it to enact the advertising and payroll tax credits, which would make a meaningful difference to the financial state of local news by themselves.

Congress must not stand by as local news organizations continue to go dark in community after community. This new bipartisan proposal would provide a financial boost for local news outlets in a creative and constitutionally-sound way. They say that nothing is certain but death and taxes — so how about using taxes to do some good, and avert the death of local news?