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On our live show, David, Maureen Tkacik, and James Baratta discuss the transforming of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau into an agency in name only.

The St. Louis Board of Police Commissioners will meet on July 17, 2025, at 9:00 a.m. at Police Headquarters located at 1915 Olive Street, St. Louis, Missouri, 63103. Click here to view the July 17, 2025, agenda meeting.

The post Board Meeting: July 17, 2025 appeared first on St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Branden Leachman, 21, pleaded guilty Friday to second-degree murder, armed criminal action and first-degree robbery.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

Prosecutors are pursuing baseless criminal charges against two Red Bank, New Jersey, journalists for refusing to remove a police blotter entry from a news website, as the Freedom of the Press Foundation’s U.S. Press Freedom Tracker first reported.

The defendants are Redbankgreen publisher Kenny Katzgrau and reporter Brian Donohue. They’re alleged to have engaged in disorderly conduct by revealing the existence of an arrest, knowing that the arrest record has been expunged or sealed, in violation of New Jersey Revised Statutes Section 2C:52-30. They’re represented by Pashman Stein Walder Hayden P.C., who have moved to dismiss the ridiculous charges. (Read their motion to dismiss below.)

On Sept. 18, 2024, Redbankgreen published the August 2024 blotter provided by the Red Bank Police Department, which contained information about the arrest. The arrest was later expunged on March 27, 2025. The blotter published by the Redbankgreen includes an update that the arrest was expunged, as well as a note that arrests in general are not determinations of guilt.

Freedom of the Press Foundation (FPF) Advocacy Director Seth Stern said:

Prosecuting journalists for declining to censor themselves is alarming and blatantly unconstitutional, as is ordering the press to unpublish news reports. Any prosecutors who would even think to bring such charges either don’t know the first thing about the Constitution they’re sworn to uphold, or don’t care. Failure to immediately correct and apologize for this inexplicable error would put prosecutors’ competence in doubt and warrant investigation of whether they should keep their law licenses.

The Supreme Court has held over and over that journalists are entitled to publish truthful information they lawfully obtain, in cases dealing with matters as sensitive as closed juvenile court proceedings and identities of rape victims. The Supreme Court of New Jersey has also upheld the right to publish expunged information. There is no exception for expunged arrest records and any state law that says otherwise violates the First Amendment. Any first-year law student should know that.

Journalists don’t work for the government and can’t be compelled to do its bidding. In the rare instances where the government is allowed to keep records from public view, it is the government’s responsibility, not the media’s, to ensure that they aren’t disclosed.

This is the latest in a string of egregious press freedom violations by local police and prosecutors across the country. Virtually all of them have failed and left taxpayers on the hook for needless legal fees, settlement payments, or both.

Earlier this year, Clarksdale, Mississippi, officials got a judge to order a newspaper to take down an editorial critical of the mayor. After national headlines about their frivolous antics led to public ridicule, they dropped the case.

Last year, the city of Los Angeles was forced to pay a settlement to journalist Ben Camacho after it sued him for publishing public records. Authorities in LA are also facing a lawsuit over an unconstitutional investigation of a journalist who obtained police disciplinary records.

In 2023, prosecutors in Atmore, Alabama, charged a journalist and news publisher for reporting on grand jury proceedings. The case was thrown out after becoming a national embarrassment, and a lawsuit is pending.

And most famously, the same year, authorities in Marion, Kansas, raided the newsroom of the Marion County Record as part of an investigation premised on the absurd notion that reporters violated computer crime laws by accessing a public website to confirm a news tip. The ordeal has led to multiple settlements and lawsuits, and even criminal charges against the ex-police chief who orchestrated it.

This is also, unfortunately, not the first recent instance of authorities harassing journalists over lawful reporting on arrests. Last year, San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu threatened civil penalties against a journalist, Jack Poulson, who reported on a sealed report of tech executive Maury Blackman’s arrest for domestic violence. A judge held that the California law that Chiu referenced to threaten Poulson was unconstitutional and, in a separate proceeding, a lawsuit brought by Blackman against Poulson was dismissed.

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He is wanted for a shooting on May 20, 2025 in the 2600 block of N. Jefferson.

The post PHOTOS: Suspect Wanted for Jeff-Vander-Lou Shooting appeared first on St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department.

Today on TAP: Trump may succeed in isolating Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell and taking over the Fed himself, but the result would crash the economy.

Mick Jagger’s contribution to Burna Boy’s new album is out now.The Rolling Stones frontman offers his vocals to the track "Empty Chairs,” featured on Burna Boy’s just-released album No Sign…

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Last year, Panera began to quietly shutter its fresh dough facilities, which make the dough used for bread, pastries and bagels in locations around the country.

Dispatch audio has surfaced from the critical hours before a deadly flood hit its height in Kerr County, helping piece together the timeframe local officials have yet to provide amid public scrutiny of their decisions on July 4.

Damon L. Hampton, Jr. and Daron Wilson have been charged with first-degree murder following a shooting incident on July 1.

As a postpartum doula, Dawn Oliver does her best work in the middle of the night. During a typical shift, she shows up at her clients’ home at 10 p.m. She answers questions they may have about basic infant care and keeps an eye out for signs of postpartum depression. After bedtime, she may feed […]

A representative of Rothschild St. Louis wouldn’t confirm that a women’s sports specific sports bar is moving into the former Boogaloo space in Maplewood. He did say that the Sports Bra franchise has announced that a St. Louis location would open, but a specific location wasn’t announced. The rep did say that Rothschild has talked […]

GREENBELT, Maryland — U.S. District Judge Paula Xinis seemed inclined during a Friday hearing to grant a temporary restraining order to block the Trump administration from deporting Kilmar Abrego Garcia if he is released from pretrial detention next week. Xinis said if she granted a temporary restraining order, it would be narrow and would prevent […]

The Missouri Ethics Commission now has enough members to begin hearing cases again.

You can now relive the glory of Pearl Jam's Dark Matter tour in one convenient place.The grunge rockers have announced a new box set collecting recordings of every one of…

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Techdirt has just written about how people are using Ring doorbell cameras to warn others in the area about the presence of ICE agents and the risk of possible ICE raids. That’s a good example of using existing technology to monitor the increasingly widespread and brutal activities of ICE teams. But driven by a desire […]

Visual Studio Professional 2022 is a fully featured development environment that developers around the world know and love. The 64-bit IDE makes it easier to work with even bigger projects and more complex workloads. Enhance your productivity, write high-quality code, and re-imagine collaboration with an advanced suite of tools and built-in integrations to tackle the […]

No new cases have been diagnosed in the state since May 22nd, and two full incubation periods of 42 days has elapsed since the last confirmed case, allowing the Illinois Department of Health to declare the outbreak over. 

Nearly four hours into Thursday night’s meeting at Collinsville City Hall, the city’s planning commission voted to table a development plan that raised concern among many nearby residents.