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Police on Wednesday identified the man who they say fired at police and then shot himself Sunday afternoon after a brief foot chase outside of a strip mall here.

BETHALTO - Through a diligent joint investigation that involved the FBI and the Bethalto Police Department, the Bethalto Police were successful in identifying possible suspects in the second attempted ATM theft. Evidence collected during the investigation was presented to the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Illinois, which successfully obtained an indictment in the case for Conspiracy to Commit Bank Larceny. Today the suspect indicted in connection with the event is in custody on the associated warrant and other unrelated matters in Livingston, LA. He is identified as: Goldie L. Jones Age: 28, of Houston, Texas. "As you all know I like to keep our community updated on the department’s efforts, to both keep you apprised of what type of crime is occurring in the Village and to hold ourselves accountable for solving those crimes," Bethalto Police Chief Mike Dixon said. "For those of you who follow our page, you know our Village was targeted

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St. Louis City SC Sporting Director Lutz Pfannenstiel talks team building, management and the upcoming MLS transfer window.

Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander (NHPI) became part of the official designation of May as Asian American, Native Hawaiian and Pacific Islander Heritage Month in 2022. U.S. Census Bureau numbers from 2022 show less than 1% of folks who live in the Metro St. Louis area home identify as Native Hawaiian or Pacific Islander. Edwardsville educator, social worker, and writer Stephanie Malia Krauss, her mother Laurie Nalani Kilstein, and her two boys are among those "onlys." Krauss and Kilstein share what that's like, and talk about ways they maintain and build strong cultural ties to a vital part of their personal, family, and community identity.

  Behind the Scenes Nights For More Muny Magic  The Muny and the award-winning Classic 107.3 announced a partnership for programming. The partnership will begin on Monday, June 12, 2023. Two separate shows are planned for 2023-2024. First on the schedule, to coincide with The Muny’s 2023 Season, is “Muny Post-Show Conversations,” a half-hour program […]

The post Muny partners with 107.3 For Behind the Scenes shows appeared first on flovalleynews.com.

The Missouri Historical Society uncovers hidden history in the Chinese American Collecting Initiative and is also asking the public for help.

A proposed bike trail that would connect Cottleville and St. Peters to the Katy Trail is the focus of a survey conducted by Great Rivers Greenway organization

BJC said Wednesday that the systems have signed a nonbinding letter of intent to form an integrated, academic, health system.

SESSER, Ill. - A 12-year-old riding a bicycle was struck by a pickup truck driver Monday afternoon near Sesser, Illinois. Officers were called to the crash on at around 2:15 p.m. They found the 12-year-old suffering from severe injuries. He was flown from the scene by a medical helicopter to get treatment and later died [...]

Beautiful Pere Marquette State Park is once again the setting for this free event that is open to the public. No experience or equipment is needed!

We're learning more about Tuesday night’s deadly shooting at St. Louis Kitchen, a Chinese cuisine restaurant in the Academy neighborhood of north city.

Police on Wednesday identified the 24-year-old man who was shot Monday morning in the city's O'Fallon neighborhood.

Novvia Group, a St. Louis-based rigid container and life sciences packaging distributor, has acquired an Illinois-based distributor of rigid packaging products serving a variety of sectors.

A new Queen photo exhibit is set to open in London this week. Queen Will Rock You in 3D will open at London’s Proud Galleries on June 2 to coincide with the return…

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Police on Wednesday identified the 42-year-old man who was found shot dead early Monday near Laclede's Landing.

This is just a cranky aside, but I keep seeing liberals mocking Republicans as "hostage takers who didn't even know what to do with the hostage." In this telling, the debt ceiling deal was an ongoing fiasco of dealing with terrorists willing to blow up the economy for reasons they themselves didn't even fathom. Give ...continue reading "Republicans were never a mob of idiot hostage takers"

Frontier Airlines offers a new fall and winter all-you-can-fly pass following the success of its similar spring and summer pass.

A school board member's Facebook post about an LGBTQ book display at a Pennsylvania high school library similar to the one pictured here led to a public records case that could make it harder to access public official’s social media posts.

AntoniaGreen, via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0

If a public official or employee in your town posted racist comments about students at the school where they work, an offensive rape joke when discussing the president, or an expletive-laden rant in response to a constituent, wouldn’t you think you have a right to know about it? Unfortunately, if you live in Pennsylvania, it just got harder to exercise your right to learn about — and report on — public employees’ social media activity. A recent decision by a Pennsylvania appellate court raises the bar for public records requests for social media posts made on officials’ personal accounts, even when they are about public business.

The decision in Penncrest School District v. Cagle establishes a complex three-part test for determining when social media posts made by public officials on their personal accounts are public records under the state’s Right-to-Know Law. The test requires courts to examine whether the social media account has indicators of an “official” status, whether the posts “prove, support, or evidence a transaction or activity of an agency,” and whether the public official acted in their official capacity in creating, receiving, or retaining the posts.

The case involved a request for Facebook posts and comments made by two Penncrest School Board members about LGBTQ issues and the school district. The request was spurred by school board members’ social media posts about a display of LGBTQ books at a local high school library. The display and posts were also discussed at school board meetings.

As one Pennsylvania attorney told Spotlight PA, the appeals court’s decision is a significant change to Pennsylvania law, which had previously been interpreted to presume that a record is public “anytime a public official communicates about public business.”

In contrast, the test the appellate court lays out requires records requesters to satisfy multiple factors, some of which seem contrary to the Right-to-Know Law’s presumption of openness.

For example, the appellate court identified two indicators that suggest a social media account has “official” status: if the account has the “trappings” of an official agency or if that official has a “duty” to run it. Officials may be able to circumventing public records laws, then, by purposefully using a social media account that appears personal or unofficial. Officials are far more likely to let their guards down and speak frankly on their personal accounts — especially when compared to bland talking points likely to be found on an official account — but the court’s test makes it harder to access these often highly newsworthy statements.

The appellate court also says that lower courts must consider all three of the factors laid out in its decision, but allows them to assign different weights to each factor on a case-by-case basis. This means that a court could deny a requester access to social media records even if they prevail on most of the factors, if the court decides that a single factor outweighs the others. A judge who is inclined to keep a newsworthy post out of public view can almost always find a way to do so under such a loose and subjective standard.

Making it harder for Pennsylvanians to access records of social media posts by government officials is a move in the wrong direction. There’s already a long and unfortunate history of officials attempting to evade public records laws by using personal email accounts or text messages. Thankfully, many courts and public agencies have recognized that government business conducted through personal email accounts or texts on personal devices still creates a public record subject to freedom of information laws. The same principle should apply to social media: Regardless of where government officials discuss or conduct government business, the public should have access to the records.

Of course, it may be difficult for governments to retain and produce social media posts made on officials’ private accounts. That difficulty, however, does not excuse them from their obligation to do so. Governments can address this issue by establishing social media policies that direct all employees to limit posts about government business only to official social media accounts or by requiring officials to maintain records of their personal accounts if they post about public business.

Pennsylvania is not the only state to consider whether public officials’ posts on their personal social media accounts are public records. For example, in 2018, a Washington appellate court explained that social media posts on a personal page are public records if they relate to the conduct of government and are prepared by a government employee “acting in her official capacity, conducting public business, or otherwise furthering the [government’s] interests.” This more straightforward analysis is less likely to lead to lengthy litigation that can stymie public records requests and allow governments to withhold records about the conduct of public business from the public.

Public officials’ use of personal social media accounts also raises other legal questions. The Supreme Court recently agreed to hear two cases about whether public officials can block people from their personal social media accounts that they use to communicate about government business. Both cases are about lower-level government officials, but they echo the issues in the case challenging then-President Donald Trump’s blocking of critics on Twitter, which the Second Circuit said violated the First Amendment. The Supreme Court’s decisions will have important ramifications for journalists, whom public officials sometimes block on social media, and interpretations of the First Amendment more broadly.

As more and more government business is done online, journalists will have to continue to grapple with how to cover public officials’ use of social media for government business, whether by fighting attempts to block them or wresting public records from the digital sphere. Courts, too, will have to apply the First Amendment and public records laws that were written before the advent of the internet, let alone social media, to determine what limits there are on blocking and what disclosures the law requires.

Ultimately, public records laws are meant to shed light on government, not conceal government activity. If courts won’t protect public access to officials’ online statements on government affairs, then legislatures must act to update the laws for the digital age and preserve the public’s right to know.

It's not as official as the Star Spangled Banner or the Texas state song, but St. Louis, Missouri does indeed have a musical "anthem" of sorts.