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Our food columnist bought a new refrigerator, and he's glad it isn't smarter than he is.

The Delmar divide can be seen from above - there are fewer trees in lower-income, majority-Black neighborhoods in St. Louis. In recent years, nonprofits have been working to even things out. The May 16 tornado changed that work overnight.

The Trump administration has taken its first step toward restricting access to abortions for veterans who are covered by the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ medical benefits, reversing a 2022 rule. Former Democratic President Joe Biden’s administration enacted the rule following the U.S. Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision, which ended federally protected access to abortion. More than […]

ALTON – In preparation for the annual Duck Pluckers Ball, Alton Memorial Health Services Foundation is hosting an online raffle. The event website where raffle tickets maybe be purchased is auctria.events/DUCKPLUCKERS The featured item is Wild Pig Helicopter Hunt for two. There will only be 150 chances available for that raffle. Cost is $100 per ticket. Other online raffle items will include: Wheelbarrow of Booze: A wheelbarrow filled with a variety of liquor donated by area bars and restaurants. Freezer of Meat: Donated by B&M livestock, Fritz Meat and Processing and AMHSF. Bourbon collection: A variety of rare bottles of bourbon donated by Colman’s Country Campers and Barry and Gaye Julian. Tickets for these three raffles are $20 each. You must be 21 years or older to win and present a valid state-issued ID to collect your winnings. Winners will be drawn at the annual Duck Pluckers, Deer Skinners & Fish Hookers Ball scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 13 at NIL

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Police are investigating after multiple vehicles were found burned in Clayton, with at least three vehicles affected and yellow crime scene tape set up around the area.

ST. LOUIS - Watching for some spots of fog this Tuesday morning; otherwise, it is a quiet start. Warmer and more humid conditions continue to gradually build back into the St. Louis region this week. Tuesday will bring one more day with highs in the mid-80s before we get back close to 90 F for [...]

by Lisa Song

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It was meant to be a routine discussion on pollution. One by one, delegates at the United Nations expressed support for a new panel of scientists who would advise countries on how to address chemicals and toxic waste.

But the U.S. delegate took the meeting in a new direction. She spent her allotted three minutes reminding the world that the United States now had a “national position” on a single word in the documents establishing the panel: gender.

“Use of the term ‘gender’ replaces the biological category of sex with an ever-shifting concept of self-assessed gender identity and is demeaning and unfair, especially to women and girls,” the delegate told the U.N. in June.

The Trump administration is pushing its anti-trans agenda on a global stage, repeatedly objecting to the word “gender” in international resolutions and documents. During at least six speeches before the U.N., U.S. delegates have denounced so-called “gender ideology” or reinforced the administration’s support for language that “recognizes women are biologically female and men are biologically male.”

The delegates included federal civil service employees and the associate director of Project 2025, the conservative blueprint for Trump’s policies, who now works for the State Department. They delivered these statements during U.N. forums on topics as varied as women’s rights, science and technology, global health, toxic pollution and chemical waste. Even a resolution meant to reaffirm cooperation between the U.N. and the Association of Southeast Asian Nations became an opportunity to bring up the issue.

Insisting that everyone’s gender is determined biologically at birth leaves no room for the existence of transgender, nonbinary and intersex people, who face discrimination and violence around the world. Intersex people have variations in chromosomes, hormone levels or anatomy that differ from what’s considered typical for male and female bodies. A federal report published in January, just before President Donald Trump took office, estimated there are more than 5 million intersex Americans.

On at least two occasions, U.S. delegates urged the U.N. to adopt its language on men and women, though it’s unclear if the U.S.’ position has led to any policy changes at the U.N. But the effects of the country’s objections are more than symbolic, said Kristopher Velasco, a sociology professor at Princeton University who studies how international institutions and nongovernmental organizations have worked to expand or curtail LGBTQ+ rights.

U.N. documents can influence countries’ policies over time and set an international standard for human rights, which advocates can cite as they campaign for less discriminatory policies, Velasco said. The phrase “gender ideology” has emerged as a “catchall term” for far-right anxieties about declining fertility rates and a decrease in “traditional” heterosexual families, he said.

At the U.N., the administration has promoted other aspects of its domestic agenda. For example, U.S. delegates have demanded the removal of references to tackling climate change and voted against an International Day of Hope because the text contained references to diversity, equity and inclusion. (The two-page document encouraged a “more inclusive, equitable and balanced approach to economic growth” and welcomed “respect for diversity.”)

But the reflexive resistance to the word “gender” is particularly noteworthy.

Advocates for LGBTQ+ rights said the U.S.’ repeated condemnation of “gender ideology” signals support for more repressive regimes.

The U.S. is sending the world “a clear message: that the identities and rights of trans, nonbinary, and intersex people are negotiable,” Ash Lazarus Orr, press relations manager at the nonprofit Advocates for Trans Equality, said in a statement.

Laurel Sprague, research director at the Williams Institute, a policy center focused on sexual orientations and gender identities at the University of California, Los Angeles, said she’s concerned that other countries will take similar positions on transgender rights to gain favor with the U.S. Last month Mike Waltz, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to the U.N., told a Senate committee that he wants to use a country’s record of voting with or against the U.S. at the U.N. as a metric for deciding foreign aid.

In response to detailed questions from ProPublica, White House Deputy Press Secretary Anna Kelly said in a statement: “President Trump was overwhelmingly elected to restore common sense to government, which means focusing foreign policy on securing peace deals and putting America First — not enforcing woke gender ideology.”

A clash between Trump’s administration and certain U.N. institutions over transgender rights was almost inevitable.

Trump’s hostility to transgender rights was a key part of his election campaign. On his first day in office, he issued an executive order called “Defending women from gender ideology extremism and restoring biological truth to the federal government.” The order claimed there were only two “immutable” sexes. Eight days later, Trump signed an executive order restricting gender-affirming surgery for anyone under 19. Federal agencies have since forced trans service members out of the military and sued California for its refusal to ban trans athletes from girls’ sports teams.

In June, the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights criticized American government officials for their statements “vilifying transgender and non-binary people.” The human rights office urges U.N. member states to provide gender-affirming care and says the organization has “affirmed the right of trans persons to legal recognition of their gender identity and a change of gender in official documents, including birth certificates.” The office also supports the rights of intersex people.

“Intersex people in the U.S. are extremely worried” that they will become bigger targets, said Sylvan Fraser Anthony, legal and policy director at the intersex advocacy group InterACT.

“In all regions of the world, we are witnessing a pushback against women’s human rights and gender equality,” Laura Gelbert Godinho Delgado, a spokesperson for the U.N.’s human rights office, said in an email. “This has fueled misogyny, anti-LGBTI rhetoric, and hate speech.”

The Trump administration’s insistence on litigating “gender” complicates the already ponderous procedures of the U.N. Many decisions are made by consensus, which could require representatives from more than 100 countries to agree on every word. Phrases and single words still under debate are marked with brackets. Some draft documents end up with hundreds of brackets, awaiting resolution at a subsequent date.

At the June meeting on chemical pollution, delegates decided to form a scientific panel but couldn’t agree on crucial details about whether the panel’s purpose included “the protection of human health and the environment.” A description of the panel included brackets on whether it would work in a way that integrates “gender equality and equity” or “equality between men and women.”

The U.S. delegate, Liz Nichols, reminded the U.N. at one point that it “is the policy of the United States to use clear and accurate language that recognizes women are biologically female and men are biologically male. It is important to acknowledge the biological reality of sex to support the needs and perspectives of women and girls.”

Career staffers like Nichols are hired for subject-matter expertise and work to execute the agenda of whichever administration is in charge, regardless of personal beliefs. Nichols has a doctorate in ecology from Columbia University and has worked for the State Department since 2018. When asked for comment, she referred ProPublica to the State Department.

A State Department spokesperson said in a statement, “As President Trump’s Executive Orders and our public remarks have repeatedly stated, this administration will continue to defend women’s rights and protect freedom of conscience by using clear and accurate language and policies that recognize women are biologically female, and men are biologically male.”

Gender is a crucial factor in chemical safety, said Rachel Radvany, environmental health campaigner at the Center for International Environmental Law who attended the meeting. Pregnant people are uniquely vulnerable to chemical exposure and women are disproportionately exposed to toxic compounds, including through beauty and menstrual products.

Radvany said the statement read by Nichols contributed to the uncertainty on how the panel would consider gender in its work. The brackets around gender-related issues and other topics remained in the draft decision and will have to be resolved at a future gathering that may not happen until next summer.

The U.S. has also staked out similar positions at U.N. meetings focused on gender. At a session of the Commission on the Status of Women in March, Jonathan Shrier, a longtime State Department employee who now works for the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, said the U.S. disapproved of a declaration supporting “the empowerment of all women and girls” that mentioned the word “gender.” The phrase “all women and girls” in U.N. documents has been used as a way to be inclusive of trans women and girls.

Shrier read a statement saying that several factors in the text made it impossible for the U.S. to back the resolution, which the commission had recently adopted. That included “lapses in using clear and accurate language that recognizes women are biologically female and men are biologically male.”

During the summit, Shrier repeated those talking points at an event co-sponsored by the U.S. government and the Center for Family and Human Rights, or C-Fam. The group’s mission statement says its goal is the “preservation of international law by discrediting socially radical policies at the United Nations and other international institutions.”

Shrier directed questions to the U.S. Mission to the United Nations, which did not respond. Responding to questions from ProPublica, C-Fam’s president, Austin Ruse, said in a statement that the U.S. position on gender is in line with the definitions found in an important U.N. document on the empowerment of women from 1995.

Some countries have pushed back against the U.S.’ stance, often in ways that appear subtle to the casual observer. The U.N. social and environmental forums where these speeches have been delivered tend to operate with a culture of civility and little direct confrontation, said Alessandra Nilo, external relations director for the Americas and the Caribbean at the International Planned Parenthood Federation. Nilo has participated in U.N. forums on HIV/AIDS and women’s health since 2000.

When other delegates speak out in support of diversity and women’s rights, it’s a sign of their disapproval and a way to isolate the U.S., Nilo said. During the women’s rights summit, the delegate from Brazil celebrated “the expansion of gender and diversity language” in the declaration.

Nilo said many countries are scared to speak out for fear of losing trade deals or potential foreign aid from the U.S.

Advocating an “America First” platform, Trump has upended U.S. commitments to multinational organizations and alliances. He signed orders withdrawing the U.S. from the World Health Organization and various U.N. bodies, such as the Human Rights Council and the cultural group UNESCO.

It’s rare for the U.N. to directly affect legislation in the U.S. But the Trump administration repeatedly cites concerns that U.N. documents could supersede American policy.

In April, the U.S. criticized a draft resolution on global health debated at a meeting of the U.N. Commission on Population and Development. Spencer Chretien, the U.S. delegate, opposed references to the U.N.’s Sustainable Development Goals, which provide a blueprint for how countries can prosper economically while improving gender equality and protecting the environment. Chretien called the program a form of “soft global governance” that conflicts with national sovereignty. Chretien also touted the administration’s “unequivocal rejection of gender ideology extremism” and renewed membership in the Geneva Consensus Declaration, an antiabortion document signed by more than 30 countries, including Russia, Hungary, Saudi Arabia and South Sudan. The first Trump administration co-sponsored the initiative in 2020 before the Biden administration withdrew from it.

Chretien helped write Project 2025 when he worked at The Heritage Foundation. He is now a senior bureau official in the State Department’s Bureau of Population, Refugees and Migration. Chretien couldn’t be reached for comment.

The U.N. proposal on global health faced additional opposition from Burundi, Djibouti and Nigeria, where abortion is generally illegal. Delegates from those countries were upset about references to “sexual and reproductive health services,” which could include abortion access. The commission chair withdrew the resolution, seeing no way to reach consensus.

During a July forum about a document on sustainable development, the U.S. delegate, Shrier, asked for a vote on several paragraphs about gender, climate change and various forms of discrimination. In his objections, he cited two paragraphs that he argued advanced “this radical abortion agenda through the terms ‘sexual and reproductive health’ and ‘reproductive rights.’”

The final vote on whether to retain those paragraphs was 141 to 2, with only the U.S. and Ethiopia voting no. (Several countries abstained.)

When the results lit up the screen, the chamber broke into thunderous applause.

Doris Burke contributed research.

Def Leppard’s Joe Elliott is showing off his piano skills in a new video posted to Instagram, and it looks like he's a little rusty."Allow us to introduce you to Sir Elton Joe,"…

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On April 1, Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield terminated its contract with University of Missouri Health Care, stripping in-network coverage from more than 90,000 patients. That’s one in every 70 Missourians suddenly cut off from their doctors, clinics and hospitals. Some patients lost access to cancer follow-up care, prenatal visits or stroke rehabilitation mid-treatment. Lawmakers […]

Capital & Main has documented nine Americans who have been held in federal custody after observing or protesting immigration raids.

Capital & Main has documented nine Americans who have been held in federal custody after observing or protesting immigration raids.

It’s only a matter of time before the drones, spy blimps, license plate readers, and motion-activated cameras come to the rest of America.

The economic impact of the immigration crackdown is quantifiable, and could be written down and sent to Washington as a demand for payment.

by Sawyer Loftus, Bangor Daily News

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with the Bangor Daily News. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

When Jasmin Belanger agreed to a plan to pay $750 in back rent, she had no idea how the decision would haunt her.

It wasn’t until 10 months later, while apartment hunting to distance herself from an ex-boyfriend she said had abused her, that she discovered an eviction on her record. She hadn’t ever been ordered to move out, having paid her back rent on schedule. But it turned out that the 2023 deal she made in court with her landlord to help her avoid eviction created a paper record that made it look like she had been evicted. That black mark kept her from finding a new place to live.

Belanger’s landlord was the Bangor public housing authority, which operates apartments for low-income residents. The U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development strongly encourages public housing authorities to offer so-called repayment agreements to tenants who have fallen behind on rent in order to help them stay in their homes. It recommends that authorities reach these deals before cases reach eviction court.

But housing authorities have flexibility as to how to design and enforce such agreements. And the way these second-chance opportunities are executed in some parts of Maine — verbally in eviction courts with little judicial oversight — has come back to harm even tenants who meet every term of their deals.

That’s because judges here don’t pause eviction cases even when tenants and housing authorities reach agreements. In fact, those judges often grant landlords possession of properties at the time that repayment deals are made — expediting the process of kicking out tenants who violate the agreements.

Some states have taken steps to prevent this, requiring landlords to return to court to evict tenants who don’t fulfill the terms of their repayment plans. Housing authorities also could choose to pause or close eviction cases if repayment agreements are made in court, but they rarely do so in Maine, said Erica Veazey, an attorney with Pine Tree Legal Assistance, a legal aid group based in Portland that represents low-income tenants throughout the state.

Most housing authorities in Maine, including Bangor’s, told the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica that they follow HUD’s guidance and try to reach agreements with tenants outside of courts. But court records show that’s not always true in Bangor, the state’s second-largest housing authority. There, 54 tenants had repayment agreements made in court, according to the newsrooms’ examination of eviction filings between 2019 and 2024. All 54 tenants ended up with eviction judgments in court records, including those who may have repaid their debts. (If a repayment agreement was made outside of court, it would not appear in any official record.)

Maine’s court system is one of the last in the country to rely on paper records, making a holistic accounting of such ghost evictions difficult. But the Bangor cases show for the first time how these repayment agreements can backfire for tenants against the intent of the HUD guidance.

Presented with these findings, Mike Myatt, executive director of Bangor’s housing authority, said he did not know public housing residents would automatically end up with evictions on their records if they entered into repayment agreements in court.

“I don’t quite understand or know how those processes may be changed,” Myatt said, “but we would certainly lead an effort or be part of an effort that would change those rules.”

Mike Myatt, executive director of Bangor’s housing authority. He said he did not know that public housing residents would automatically end up with evictions on their records if they entered into repayment agreements in court. (Linda Coan O’Kresik/BDN)

HUD, during President Donald Trump’s first term, began urging housing authorities to reach repayment agreements before taking tenants to eviction court in July 2020 amid the coronavirus pandemic. In January, just before President Joe Biden left office, the agency reemphasized that guidance as part of new safeguards for public housing tenants; that doesn’t include a recommendation about whether evictions should be included on tenants’ records as part of such deals.

“HUD’s intent seems pretty clear: Eviction filing should be a last resort for housing authorities and not essentially a way to strong-arm tenants into agreeing to whatever terms you want to put them under,” said Hannah Adams, a senior attorney at the National Housing Law Project, a nonprofit legal advocacy center for low-income tenants and homeowners. She practices in Louisiana, where judges regularly sign off on repayment agreements without entering an eviction judgment.

Of the more than three dozen tenants contacted by the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica, only Belanger agreed to publicly share her experience about the consequences of having an eviction on her record.

An eviction, even one that never actually happened, can haunt a person’s financial record for years, visible to lenders and prospective landlords and hurting opportunities to obtain credit or rent a home, Adams said.

Asked to comment on a range of questions, including the effect of housing authorities deviating from federal guidance, HUD spokesperson Kasey Lovett issued a statement saying the Trump administration is reviewing all rules finalized during the last administration.

“Many artificially raised the cost of housing and administration of HUD programs,” Lovett said. “HUD is looking into this specific rule and considering necessary options to revise or remove this burden.”

The agency did not respond to follow-up questions about whether or how it would revise the guidance about repayment agreements.

Perils of Court-Based Deals

Belanger said she fell behind on her rent in 2023 because she was paying to stay at a hotel to live away from her ex. She had also lost income because she was no longer showing up regularly to her cosmetology job due to the stress.

An eviction notice delivered to her door in May 2023 prompted her to meet with a financial counselor at the Bangor housing authority. The counselor advised her to seek a repayment plan in order to remain in her apartment and avoid eviction court, Belanger said. But the housing authority initially refused, telling her that she could only get a repayment plan in court, according to a text message from a housing authority representative to Belanger. The text message appears to contradict Myatt’s characterization of his agency’s standard practice.

Myatt would not explain why Belanger was not allowed to enter into an agreement before court, saying he could not speak about individual eviction cases even with Belanger’s permission.

“Every eviction case is unique and has different circumstances,” he said. “We go above and beyond to help people stay in their housing.”

When her court date arrived two months later in July, Belanger said the process moved quickly. The judge called her name, and she was ushered to a conference room off the courthouse hallway where the housing authority’s attorney, Joseph Bethony, verbally offered her a deal: She could remain in her apartment if she paid her back rent. She said he never mentioned anything about an eviction going on her record. Bethony declined to comment, referring the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica to Myatt. There is no guidance on what housing authority attorneys are supposed to tell tenants when making repayment agreements, Myatt said.

“Our goal is to keep families housed and collect the very important rent we need to pay our expenses,” Myatt said. “Our counsel works with everyone to accomplish that goal.”

Belanger, who did not have an attorney, said she agreed to the repayment plan without seeing it in writing.

Maine judges typically do not review repayment agreements made in eviction court between housing authorities and tenants. (Linda Coan O’Kresik/BDN)

She returned to the courtroom, where a judge asked if she had reached an agreement with the housing authority. She responded yes and the hearing ended, Belanger said. She believed the deal had been simple: Pay what she owed, make the payments on time and the housing authority would let her stay.

The repayment agreements are drawn up by attorneys for the housing authority and are not typically reviewed by judges, according to Barbara Cardone, a spokesperson for the Maine Judicial Branch. Cardone said the court’s authority in eviction cases is limited to determining whether the landlord can take possession of the property.

The housing authority said it does not give tenants the agreements to sign in court. After the hearing, the agency sends a letter to the tenant outlining the repayment agreement and terms of the court ruling. Myatt said he does not review the agreements.

The copy of the agreement that Belanger eventually received was dated seven days after the court hearing and was signed by Bethony but not Belanger, according to the document reviewed by the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica. The one-page document said Belanger had agreed that the judge ruled in favor of the housing authority, which would have the power to immediately evict her if she does not pay her rent — and back rent — on time over the next year.

She would not understand the implications until March 2024, while trying to move away from her ex, when a prospective landlord informed her she would not get the apartment because an eviction judgment had been entered against her in court. Belanger even had a reference letter from the housing authority saying that she had fulfilled her repayment agreement and her previous struggles paying rent “were due to the monies she has had to spend staying away from her apartment to be safe,” according to an email reviewed by the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica.

“I had paid off all of my debt,” Belanger said in an interview. “I would have fought this if I had known this was a consequence.”

Myatt, head of the Bangor housing authority, said he trains his staff to use court-based agreements as a last resort. He said tenants should not be punished with eviction records if they’ve fulfilled their agreements.

“If the obligations are met,” he said, “the eviction should be lifted.” There is currently no way to expunge an eviction record in Maine.

A housing complex managed by the Bangor public housing authority. It is the state’s second-largest housing authority. (Linda Coan O’Kresik/BDN)

Unlike in Maine, other places across the country have set up more guardrails around repayment agreements and evictions. Massachusetts requires all repayment agreements made in court to be in writing and approved by judicial officials. In addition, landlords can’t automatically evict tenants who don’t abide by their agreements; they must return to court to prove tenants did not uphold their side of the deals before obtaining enforceable eviction orders.

In SeaTac, a Seattle suburb, local ordinances require eviction proceedings to stop in court if a tenant and landlord agree to a repayment agreement, so tenants do not wind up with evictions on their records. In Portland, Oregon, the public housing authority allows residents to sign repayment agreements at any point before eviction hearings.

Nicole Summers, an associate professor at Georgetown Law who has extensively studied eviction settlements, refers to repayment agreements as “civil probation.” That’s because these agreements often include rules and conditions governing tenants’ behavior well beyond paying off back rent.

In Maine, Veazey said that under some agreements, violating public housing rules by failing to mow your lawn or smoking too close to the building can lead to a tenant’s forced removal without having to return to court for an eviction order.

In Presque Isle, the housing authority gave a public housing resident 48 hours to pack up and leave after she missed a rent payment. The woman, featured in a story by the Bangor Daily News and ProPublica in December, was homeless for three years after violating the repayment plan she had made in court. When there is no repayment agreement in place, landlords normally must provide tenants 30 days’ notice for most lease violations before filing eviction cases in court.

Belanger’s agreement in Bangor featured a similar trigger for eviction. She wasn’t just required to pay what she owed, she also had to make future rent payments on time for 12 months.

In the two years since Belanger agreed to the repayment deal in court, she said she has felt trapped.

Despite a positive reference from the Bangor housing authority’s director of property management, landlord after landlord rejected her rental application because of the eviction. It took the single mother of a toddler nine months to get into another apartment far away from her ex, who was out on bail after being arrested for allegedly beating and threatening to kill her. (He was later found not guilty after a trial.)

Belanger said she’s afraid to move again because the paper eviction hasn’t gone away.

“I’m probably still going to have this hassle coming along with me wherever I go.”

This story was supported in part by a grant from the Fund for Investigative Journalism.

Mariam Elba of ProPublica and Christina Wallace contributed research.

Delegates are meeting in Geneva for a sixth — and potentially final — round of negotiations.

Efforts to pass laws and advance clean energy projects can significantly reduce emissions, and at a low cost.

Ginger loves KSHE’s music & DJs! She says, “I should be in the RRA because I’ve been listening to KSHE since I was born! While growing up I listened with...

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Ghost, the popular open source competitor to WordPress and Substack, offers a new release with ActivityPub support.

Mueller, Ruth A. - O'Fallon, MO