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A Little Hi, a mini version of the popular St. Louis burger joint, will open Sunday on Manchester Road.

This story was originally published by the Kansas City Beacon.  On Oct. 7, a terrified 22-year-old Black woman escaped from a home in Excelsior Springs. She told police she had been locked up there for about a month, after being abducted from Prospect Avenue in Kansas City by a man who lives in the home. […]

The post Spotlight is on Kansas City and its problem of missing black women appeared first on Missouri Independent.

There’s a new record for most dogs at a movie screening — and it took place in nearby Litchfield, Illinois. On Saturday, the Litchfield Skyview Drive-In, about 45 minutes from St. Louis, welcomed 199 dogs at its showing of A Dog’s Way Home. It trampled the previous record of 120 dogs in attendance, set in 2019 in São Paulo, Brazil, at a screening of Pets 2.

ST. LOUIS - The storefront of Steve's Hot Dogs was smashed early Friday morning. The incident happened at about 3:18 a.m. Surveillance video showed three men who appeared to be armed entering the store looking for cash. The employees had locked everything away like they were supposed to, and the criminals left empty-handed. Steve's Hot [...]

Police discovered a criminal gang wanted for a train heist holed up in St. Louis tenement during the World's Fair.

ALTON – As part of its continuing recognition of breast cancer awareness month, OSF HealthCare Saint Anthony’s Health Center in Alton, Illinois, has two public events this week to educate women about the disease.On October 20 from 4-8 p.m., the OSF Saint Anthony’s mammography team enjoyed a “girls night out” event. Attendees can get a screening mammogram and enjoy food, drinks, vendors and prizes. On October 31 from 12-1 p.m., the hospital will host a “lunch and learn” with guest speaker Manpreet Sandhu, MD, oncologist at OSF Moeller Cancer Center on the OSF Saint Anthony’s campus. Dr. Sandhu will share insights on breast cancer treatment and more. Attendees will receive a box lunch. People interested in attending these events should RSVP by calling (618)-474-6791. To attend the “lunch and learn,” please RSVP by October 28. “It’s vitally important that women know how to catch breast cancer early through self-checks

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The clinic is available to anyone ages 6 months or older.

CARL JUNCTION, Mo. — Watching 11-year-old Eli Schultz play football, you might assume he's just your average sports-loving kid. Although he has a love for the game, Eli isn't your typical boy. Currently a 5th grader at Carl Junction, Eli has faced more challenges than most people go through in an entire lifetime. A native [...]

Gregory S. Eason and Kimberly A. Giggs were thrown out of the Ford Escape when the car ran off the road, went airborne and hit a ditch.

The agency provided gross pay records to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch on Wednesday, nine months after the original request was sent.

With the fall foliage and crisp fall weather, this season is an ideal time to visit the string of distilleries for bourbon connoisseurs and beginners alike.

This commentary was originally published by Investigate Midwest.  For the last several years Big Agriculture has tried, with some degree of success, to bamboozle the public into believing it’s all in when it comes to combating climate change when in fact it ain’t. It’s nothing new. Big corporations have been playing the misinformation game for […]

The post Big Ag has misled the public when it comes to fighting climate change appeared first on Missouri Independent.

ST. CHARLES COUNTY, Mo. - A drive-thru clinic is happening Friday in St. Charles County for anyone looking to get a flu shot, but spots are filling up fast. The clinic will be from 2:30 p.m. to 7 p.m. Friday at St. Charles Community College on Mid Rivers Mall Drive in Cottleville. The shots will [...]

A major reason why I decided to make St. Louis my home back in August 1990 was the complex street grid and the buildings that neatly fit into it. One of the finest examples of fitting into our decidedly non-orthogonal street grid is the former St. Liborius Church complex, bounded ...

Composting could be the solution.

ST. LOUIS - A bar and grill was broken into early Friday morning in south St. Louis. At about 4 a.m., burglars broke the glass of the front door of Exotic Bar and Grill located in the 2800 block of Cherokee Street. FOX 2’s Nissan Rogue Runner reporter Nic Lopez was at the scene. FOX [...]

A person started a fire at a north St. Louis building early Friday morning.

by Karim Doumar and Cynthia Gordy Giwa

Sign up for ProPublica’s User’s Guide to Democracy, a series of personalized emails that help you understand the upcoming election, from who’s on your ballot to how to cast your vote.

It’s time to talk about misinformation. You already know it’s all around us, but understanding how to spot it and defend against it is one of the most important parts of being an informed and active voter.

What Is the Difference Between Disinformation and Misinformation?

• Disinformation is false information that is deliberately created and shared by people to knowingly cause harm — like, say, Russian actors trying to meddle in a U.S. election.

• Misinformation is also false information, but the people sharing it don’t realize it’s fraudulent — like, say, your uncle sharing a questionable meme on Facebook. Systematic disinformation campaigns can become misinformation when users go on to accept and share false messages without knowing it.

Top Trends in Misinformation and Disinformation in the 2022 Midterm Elections

As the COVID-19 pandemic first swept across the country in 2020, state and national election administrators scrambled to change rules to make voting as safe and accessible as possible. Voting by mail exploded. Early voting took off. In the fast-paced environment, misinformation flourished.

After the vote, lies about a stolen election spread like wildfire. When rules change quickly, it can be genuinely difficult to keep up with what is and isn’t allowed — and people who spread lies count on that.

The misinformation and disinformation leading up to the midterms falls into two broad categories, lies about elections themselves and lies about candidates’ and party’s platforms:

• Lies about voter fraud and election integrity continue to spread, even though voter fraud is extremely rare. Conspiracy theories about rigged voting machines, fraudulent votes, stuffed ballot boxes and more have led to confused voters inundating election officials with misinformed questions, according to a New York Times review of 2022 misinformation trends and consequences. These lies are thriving on platforms like TikTok, and the Brookings Institution reports that increasingly sophisticated misinformation and disinformation campaigns on social media platforms can suppress voting rights. A House Committee on Oversight and Reform report this year said that election officials are working hard to address misinformation and disinformation but need more resources and funding to do so effectively.

• Distortions about actual policy positions of candidates and parties spread, too. This is a tale as old as time. As long as there have been elections, folks have lied to voters and misled them about their opponents in order to get elected. Experts especially fear that Spanish-language misinformation and disinformation could sway Latino voters in the 2022 midterms.

How Can I Tell If Something Is Fake News?

Here are some tips and tools that can help you assess content online.

Do some research. There are a number of reliable places for you to fact-check things you see on- and offline. Some are standalone projects, like:

• Snopes
• FactCheck.org
• PolitiFact

While others are directly associated with trustworthy news sources, like:

• AP Fact Check
• Fact Checker from The Washington Post

ProPublica also runs the Politwoops database, which lets you look up U.S. politicians’ deleted tweets.

Consider the publication. If you see an inflammatory political article from a news site you’ve never heard of before, these are some of the things you can look for to tell whether or not the site is legit:

• Does it have an about us page?
• Does it have a mailing address at the bottom?
• Does it have a Wikipedia page?

Run a reverse image search. If you see a photo online of a ballot box in the back of a random van or an image claiming to be proof of voter fraud, go to images.google.com, click the camera icon and paste in the image link or upload the photo. This should give you information on where else the image has been posted.

Practice emotional skepticism. You are more likely to believe a false story that confirms your beliefs about the world than a false story that doesn’t. This may sound obvious to you, but many folks are susceptible to fabricated content because of our biases, and false content usually tries to play to our emotions.

Misinformation especially flourishes during elections. In past elections, ProPublica and its partners found:

• Numerous Facebook accounts sharing “outright lies” about voting by mail.

• An image circulating on Twitter appearing to show an immigration officer arresting someone in line to vote, which was determined to be a hoax.

• A YouTube video compilation claiming to show Democrats stuffing ballot boxes — videos that were all actually filmed in Russia.

• Tweets that promote wrong information about the voting process, such as nonexistent voter ID requirements.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions has created a checklist for identifying fake news. Keep it handy as the election nears and wild claims start to flow freely.

The International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions misinformation checklist. (International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions) Misinformation and Disinformation Thrive During Confusion, Like When States Change Voting Laws

According to a report by First Draft and the Brennan Center for Justice, more than half of all U.S. states passed laws to restrict or expand voting access since the beginning of 2021, including “laws that limit mail voting access, shrink drop box numbers, create harsher voter ID requirements and eliminate same-day voting registration.” The risks here, according to the report, are that voters could mistakenly believe the laws respond to voter fraud risks that don’t actually exist and that new rules and unfamiliar conditions create a window for bad actors to sow confusion.

On an individual level, the best defense against this is to educate yourself about your state’s voting rules. The news outlet FiveThirtyEight has compiled an excellent resource to help you understand how election law has changed in your state and specifically if voting is becoming harder there.

What Are the Different Types of Misinformation and Disinformation?

In 2018, First Draft News, an organization of social newsgathering and verification specialists, classified seven distinct types of misinformation and disinformation swirling around our information ecosystem, from satire or parody to fabricated or manipulated content:

First Draft’s 2018 graphic guide defines different types of misinformation. (Claire Wardle)

Twenty years ago this Saturday, Santana followed up their massively successful 1999 comeback album Supernatural with another chart-topping and collaboration-filled record: Shaman. Released on October 22, 2002, Shaman debuted at #1…

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