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The boil advisory was issued for parts of St. Louis following a main break late Thursday night at Market and 11th streets.

Historian Chad Pearson talks about the violent enforcers of business rule before World War I.

This holiday season, anyone seeking a little nostalgia should check out these diners with a 50s vibe.

World Wide Technology (WWT) and United Way of Greater St. Louis recently partnered on a volunteer project to recently assemble 1,500 reading kits to deliver to several local nonprofits and children throughout the region.

Celebrate the holiday season in downtown Kirkwood!   Santa Claus will arrive at the Kirkwood train station at 9 a.m. and will stay until 12:30 p.m. to pose for photos.

The post Downtown Kirkwood Holiday Walk appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

This featured exhibition in the Great Hall of the St. Louis Public Library – Central Library explores how iconic characters both reflect and influence American culture from the 1960s to

The post America’s Monsters, Superheroes and Villains: Our Culture at Play appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

CLAY COMMUNITY CENTER Present:  Fatimah Muhammad, Donna Lindsay, Constance Siu, Brian Krueger, Charles Bryson, Bobby Bonner, Doug Eller, Dayna Kriz, Laura Ginn, Chad Warner, Eva Wilson, Deneen Jaighs, Lance Knuckles, Veronica Ross-Micken, Alderman James Page, Alderman Brandon Bosley, Cindy Mense, Regina Dennis, Katherine Mathaus, James Sykes, Brendan Fahey, Brittany Hubbard, S. Gail Guelker Fatimah Muhammad […]

CLAY COMMUNITY CENTER Present:  Fatimah Muhammad, Donna Lindsay, Constance Siu, Brian Krueger, Charles Bryson, Bobby Bonner, Doug Eller, Dayna Kriz, Laura Ginn, Chad Warner, Eva Wilson, Deneen Jaighs, Lance Knuckles, Veronica Ross-Micken, Alderman James Page, Alderman Brandon Bosley, Cindy Mense, Regina Dennis, Katherine Mathaus, James Sykes, Brendan Fahey, Brittany Hubbard, S. Gail Guelker Fatimah Muhammad …

HYDE PARK NEIGHBORHOOD ASSOCIATION COMMUNITY MEETING NOVEMBER 19, 2022 Read More »

EDWARDSVILLE — The Madison County Board on Wednesday approved a $181.1 million fiscal year 2023 budget, along with a $30.75 million property tax levy. The board voted, 26-0, to approve the upcoming spending plan that starts on Dec. 1. The board also approved for the sixth year in a row, a zero-growth property tax levy. “The county board once again kept the property tax levy flat,” Chairman Kurt Prenzler said. Prenzler said the board worked to balance the budget and keep the levy request the same. The levy is the amount requested from property taxes used to help finance the county’s budget. He said taxes are the No. 1 concern of both the board and property owners. “For the past five years we’ve managed to hold the levy at $30.8 million,” he said. “During my first year as chairman the county board lowered the levy by $1.8 million and it’s stayed flat since then.” The budget includes 11 funds — the general fund, along

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by Madison Hopkins, The Kansas City Beacon

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Kansas City Beacon. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

Earlier this week, we published a story about sheltered workshops in Missouri — facilities where it’s legal to pay employees less than the minimum wage because they have intellectual, developmental or physical disabilities. More than 5,000 disabled adults work in Missouri’s sheltered workshops, some earning less than $1 per hour.

Across the country, disability rights advocates have lamented these facilities and their low wages, calling them discriminatory and exploitative. At least 14 states have banned subminimum wages, and advocates are ramping up pressure on the federal government to repeal the more than 80-year-old law authorizing them nationwide.

So when my reporting for this story got underway in April — part of a yearlong collaboration between The Kansas City Beacon and ProPublica — I expected to hear similar sentiments in Missouri.

Instead, one of my early findings surprised me: Disabled adults and their families in Missouri seemed to strongly support sheltered workshops. They didn’t focus on the low pay or the dearth of other opportunities. Most said they were simply grateful for the jobs that the facilities offered.

This led my editors and me to wonder: Do we even have a story to tell here, if sheltered workshop employees themselves did not see any problems with their situation?

Instead of turning away from the story, we decided to dive deeper. We began an outreach effort to connect with as many sheltered workshop employees and their families as possible, so we could better understand their sentiments and find out if they saw any downsides to working with such low pay.

To do this well, we needed to make our outreach accessible to a community with diverse abilities. We knew that some sheltered workshop employees might not have access to computers and that others could be visually impaired or have difficulty understanding our questions.

I worked with ProPublica engagement reporter Maryam Jameel to come up with a few solutions. The first was to consult a plain-language translator — an expert in writing clear and concise messages for audiences with intellectual or developmental disabilities — and have her develop a plain-language version of our outreach questions. (We also published a plain-language version of our resulting story.)

Next, we talked to several advocates, some of whom are disabled themselves, about additional ways to spread the word. To connect with people who are visually impaired or otherwise unable to read our questions, we included an option for people to call and leave voicemails with their thoughts. As a no-tech option, we crafted a much smaller printout version of our questions. I handed the copies out to sheltered workshop employees as I visited these facilities and asked my sources to share them among their networks.

The responses came flowing in. We heard from more than 90 people, most of them sheltered workshop employees and their families. And their responses dovetailed with what I had heard back in April: strong support of sheltered workshops.

The respondents told me that they would be devastated if their sheltered workshops were forced to shut down. Some family members even bypassed our outreach questions and instead sent in letters expressing opposition to any changes to the federal subminimum wage law or requesting that sheltered workshops remain open in the state. A few respondents later told me that they were encouraged to respond by their sheltered workshop managers. One sheltered workshop employee said she and her coworkers were given time at work to answer our questions online.

“This job has given people with disabilities a chance to work instead of being stuck at home,” one parent of a sheltered workshop employee wrote.

As I kept following up with the respondents, I recognized a common thread: Many felt that their choice wasn’t between sheltered workshops and regular jobs, but rather between sheltered workshops and nothing at all.

Some said sheltered workshops provided a safe place for their family members to spend their days with peers and find a sense of purpose. Others said their loved ones had previously held a regular job or could handle the demands of one, but hurdles like workplace discrimination ultimately led them to believe sheltered workshops were the only realistic option.

“There’s lots of things that can be potential barriers for people working in regular competitive employment,” said Robin Prado, the mother of a sheltered workshop employee. She said her daughter had previously spent a couple of weeks working at a local library but was fired when she didn’t pick up on her training quickly enough — a problem she believes could have been solved with a little additional help.

“I didn’t really feel like we had a lot of support,” Prado said.

A current sheltered workshop employee expressed similar feelings, saying she was “afraid of going back” to a regular job. “I’ve tried jobs on the outside, and this is the first job where I feel really supported by people,” she said.

It was clear to me that the respondents saw no real alternatives in Missouri — but it doesn’t have to be this way. I talked with several experts and advocates, including Steven Schwartz, legal director for the Center for Public Representation, who told me that many other states have proven that disabled adults can successfully move into the regular workforce. To help them with the transition, these states have been directing more funding toward breaking down the kinds of barriers that Missouri’s sheltered workshop employees and their families spoke to me about.

Missouri, however, does little to help sheltered workshop employees make that move — even though getting disabled workers ready for the regular workforce is the goal behind the federal law authorizing subminimum wages. What’s more, state officials told me that they would be unconcerned if sheltered workshop employees in Missouri do not “graduate” to the regular workforce for years, or even decades, because they view the state’s sheltered workshops as employment programs rather than stepping stones to regular jobs.

Ultimately, we decided that there was a story to tell about sheltered workshops in Missouri: The seemingly widespread support among sheltered workshop employees and their families masked the failure of the state to provide them with meaningful employment options.

You can read more about what we found in the full story. We will continue reporting on sheltered workshops in Missouri, so please share our outreach questions, our phone number and the plain-language story with anyone you think would like to get in touch with us.

Help Us Learn About Sheltered Workshops in Missouri

Maryam Jameel contributed reporting.

Drop Everything is a collection of artwork that explores the history of the bathhouse within the queer community and its role as a cruising ground for gay men.   Utilizing

The post Drop Everything appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

New York state-based artist Jean Shin, Laumeier’s 2022 Visiting Artist in Residence, describes her work as “giving new form to life’s leftovers.” Her sculptures and installations transform familiar objects into

The post Jean Shin: Home Base appeared first on Explore St. Louis.

Winter is quickly approaching. For people who live in the Midwest, it may even feel like winter is already here. This time of year consists of colder weather, traveling, holiday gatherings, family get-togethers, and more time spent cooped up indoors – all of which can become the perfect storm for seasonal illnesses to brew. This year, health experts are advising individuals to be extra diligent. Flu season historically peaks between December and February each year. However, according to a recent report from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), an early increase in seasonal flu activity is happening nationwide – and it is estimated that just in the United States, there already have been at least 2.8 million cases, 23,000 hospitalizations, and 1,300 deaths. This early and drastic spike in flu cases, combined with the current spread of other illnesses like RSV (respiratory syncytial virus), COVID-19, and the common cold, has people wondering what they

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EDWARDSVILLE - Southern Illinois University Edwardsville’s nationally-recognized Office of Military and Veteran Services is committed to providing support through education and resources to military-connected students as well as civilian campus community members for the mutually beneficial growth and understanding of all. Critical to that work is raising awareness of both strengths and necessary improvements in the military. Throughout October, the Office of Military and Veteran Services brought civilians, veterans and current servicemembers together through a book group to shed light on military sexual trauma (MST). The reading and discussion came two years after the murder of Army soldier specialist Vanessa Guillen at the hands of an alleged fellow soldier. “The murder of Guillen disturbed me to my core, and still bothers me to this day,” said Telisha Reinhardt, assistant director of Military and Veteran Services, who coordinated and facilitated the MST discussions.

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WOOD RIVER - Jenny Scoggins has a love of cats and it has led to the building of Bubble Kitties Cat Grooming at 17A East Ferguson in Wood River. "I have the love and passion for their pets as if they were my own and I take time to get to know each individual pet," she said. "We are a dog-free cat-only facility. This puts less stress on the groomer and the cat. Your cat will be in a calm, quiet environment and does not have to put up with other barking dogs. We also schedule only one cat at a time. We are the only dog-free facility in the area." Jenny said she believes those who visit her place see the love she has for their pets and the knowledge she has about animals in general. "I am proud of the fact that my new clients trust me with their beloved pet cats," she said. "My favorite part of my job is getting to know the different types and personalities of each and every cat that comes through our doors. The community has been supportive and most of them are excited to see a new smal

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On Nov. 19, 1954, the South Twin Drive In Theater, the first twin-screen drive-in theater in St. Louis opened at Buckley and Lemay Ferry.

COLLINSVILLE – In response to continued high energy prices, Ameren Illinois is introducing a package of energy efficiency solutions, flexible payment programs, and financial options to help its customers manage their energy costs during the heating season. "Our customers count on us every day to deliver the electricity and natural gas they need, and no one wants to see higher energy bills," said Joe Solari, Vice President, Customer Experience, Ameren Illinois. "With our Energy Care Plan, we're providing our customers with low- and no-cost, easy-to-implement solutions to help them to take more control over their energy usage and save money." Information on energy management solutions in the Energy Care Plan is available at AmerenIllinois.com/ EnergyCarePlan. Highlights include: Home Energy Assessment – A team of energy efficiency experts will conduct a thorough examination of a customer's home to look for changes that can reduce energy usage and shave dollars off their monthl

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