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The kitchen will use traditional flavors of Creole food with modern twists

For 1,573 games in a row, St. Louis Blues fans have heard Tom Calhoun's iconic voice.

Robyn Harrison helped clean the car belonging to the victim and Tyeishia Adail removed the victim's license plates.

With his appointment announced Monday morning, Cal Harris joins a growing group of Black leaders finding their voice in the region’s local governments.

Missouri state employees counting on seeing a big raise in their February paychecks may be disappointed, as lawmakers fiddle with a $5.4 billion spending bill pushed by Gov. Mike Parson. When the Republican governor in December proposed a 5.5 percent pay raise for all state workers, he said he wanted it in effect by Feb. […]

The post Parson pay raise plan in limbo as $5.4 billion spending bill awaits vote appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Lee Enterprises (NYSE: LEE), the Iowa-Davenport-based parent of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, on Monday asked shareholders to help it defeat a takeover bid from Alden Global Capital, a West Palm Beach, Florida, hedge fund.

Firefighters on Jan. 9 held a prayer vigil for Chief Kevin Cremer outside Mercy Hospital in Jefferson County where he had been admitted to the ICU.

In the Maplewood City Council, Ward 3 council member Jenny Schmidt is not running for reelection. Two residents filed for the seat and will be on the ballot on April 5. They are Nick Homa and Mary Killian (see her info here). Both have sent information to 40 South. This is information that Nick Homa […]

In the Maplewood City Council, Ward 3 council member Jenny Schmidt is not running for reelection. Two residents filed for the seat and will be on the ballot on April 5. They are Mary Killian and Nick Homa (see his info here). Both have sent information to 40 South. This is information that Mary Killian […]

The discontinuation of President Joe Biden’s administration’s monthly payments of the child tax credit could leave millions of American families without enough food on the table, according to a new study …

Three elephants at the St. Louis Zoo recently celebrated their 50th birthday. It’s a remarkable milestone, and zoological manager Katie Pilgram-Kloppe explains how the zoo provides specialized care for its “golden girls.”

CC BY-SA 4.0, Tamanoeconomico on Wikimedia Commons

The fight to free PACER, the federally managed database of public court records that has sat behind a paywall since its inception, has stretched on for more than a decade now. These efforts may finally pay off in 2022 with a bill poised for the Senate floor that achieves many of the aims of the "free PACER" movement.

The Open Courts Act of 2021 was approved by the Senate Judiciary Committee last month with no recorded opposition, clearing the path for the bill to go to the full Senate. Not only that, nearly all of the committee members have now co-sponsored the legislation — a clear indication of the bill's popularity. If passed, the Open Courts Act would standardize search and filing mechanisms between different federal courts and eliminate fees for all but the highest-volume users (those who are currently spending more than $25,000 a quarter) and federal agencies.

That matters because under the current system, people who want to access court records on PACER are first charged 10 cents for search results, and then 10 cents per page of document downloaded — despite the fact that every single record is part of the taxpayer-funded court system. Because of its clunky and non-standardized interface, it’s not unusual to rack up fees just in the searching step. This arrangement is wildly hostile to transparency, and the result is a dramatically diminished public understanding of what is actually happening in American courts.

Predicting the course of legislative proceedings is always a challenge, and has become even more complicated with such a tightly divided partisan split. Fortunately, this bill seems to transcend typical partisan divides, attracting support from both sides of the aisle. The current House companion to the bill was introduced with bi-partisan sponsors, and an earlier version passed easily through the House.

What opposition there is comes mostly from representatives of the court system itself. Earlier this month, Judge Roslynn R. Mauskopf published a letter to House and Senate leaders calling for delays in action. Indeed, pushback from the judiciary, which estimated last year that it would take in $142 million in fees for access to the public records, was instrumental in earlier efforts to stall legislative action.

Their arguments remain unpersuasive. Unrestricted access to public records is essential, both for the practice of journalism and for the cultivation of an informed public. Court records shape the law itself. Fortunately, activism and advocacy in this space, including the efforts of rogue archivist Carl Malamud to publish state laws online — a practice that was upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court — have successfully moved the needle on these questions.

Beyond the basic press freedom principles at stake, this issue hits close to home: Aaron Swartz, the online activist who founded the SecureDrop project we now maintain, was also an early contributor to RECAP, the paywall-free alternative to PACER that today makes tens of millions of documents freely available.

We urge the full Senate to take up the Open Courts Act, and for the House to pass it as well. The barriers to access for PACER constitute a challenge to a free press, and lawmakers must remove those restrictions as soon as possible.

Sammy Hagar and his current group The Circle have unveiled plans for a 14-show U.S. trek dubbed the Crazy Times tour featuring special guests George Thorogood & The Destroyers that…

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A previous push to redevelop the historic structure fell victim to the pandemic, a developer said, as costs skyrocketed.

Last month, Green Day shared an Instagram post which shows the punk trio recording at RAK Studios in London.  That tease featured the year "1972" very prominently.  Now, the band…

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Grab your leashes and get ready to head to Clayton because Le Meridien St. Louis Clayton (7730 Bonhomme Avenue) is putting on a date night for “your one true love: Your dog,” the organization announced in a press release.

The Doggy Date Night package, taking place on February 5, is a one-night event that features room service with a special gelato for your pup’s dessert, a complimentary “yappetizer” at the bar’s “Yappy Hour” and a caricature drawing of you and your dog.  The bar’s “Yappy Hour” from 4 to 6 p.m. includes bites and drinks for both human and furry companion; a portion of the proceeds made from the “Yappy Hour” will be donated to the APA of St. Louis.

The doggy date night is just a piece of the hotel’s mission to treat your dog as part of its own family.…

Speedskater Ian Quinn heads to the Winter Games in Beijing on Thursday. He discusses his humble beginnings as an 8-year-old kid in St. Louis and the changes he made to win a spot on the Olympic team after two previous attempts.