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I recently watched hundreds of videos from the Jan. 6 insurrection. Many of the stark moments from the attack on the U.S. Capitol are well known — the battle at …

Honeymoon Chocolates began in a college dorm room with the goal of making a healthier version of chocolate.

When the speedskater heard he made Team USA and was going to Beijing, he said the feeling was unreal.

Is it a wall for a prison? Or a fortress? A wall to keep out the Others? No it’s a retaining wall for the Market at Olive anchored by CostCo that welcomes visitors to University City on Olive Blvd. We knew from the rendering it would be bad, but seeing it in real life is […]

The post Welcome to University City appeared first on NextSTL.

On the Friday before a drawn-out confirmation battle ended with his ouster from office, Missouri state Health Director Donald Kauerauf wrote an impassioned letter meant to convince conservative legislators who were on the fence about his appointment.  The message: While he believed in vaccines and data and science, he didn’t believe in vaccine mandates. Missourians, […]

The post Before ouster, Missouri health director drafted a letter to senators that was never sent appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Our Love Story: The Couple: Jonathon & Tiffany White from Dow Date Met/Started Dating: March 14, 2008 Briefly Describe First Date: Our first date was at Applebees. Date Married: May 26, 2018 Name Something You Enjoy Doing Together: We enjoy going to demo derby with our kids! Share Advice For A Happy Relationship: Always be there for one another no matter what the situation might be.

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Every February, communities across America come together to explore, learn, and celebrate influential African Americans like Harriet Tubman, Muhammad Ali, Ella Fitzgerald, and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. This celebration hasn’t always been the norm, however. The roots of Black…

EDWARDSVILLE - With dedicated passion for developing children both emotionally and intellectually and for supporting parents and caregivers, the SIUE Early Childhood Center (ECC) has been recognized by the Illinois Head Start Association Governor’s Office of Early Childhood Development with a $2,000 grant for its Parent Cafés. Parent Café workshops provide a safe space for parents and caregivers to talk about the challenges and victories of raising a family. The space is moderated by a parent specially trained to be the Parent Host. “Our work with children and families is grounded in our commitments to nurturing trusting relationships, and Parent Cafés foster our mission,” said ECC Director Rebecca Dabbs MacLean. “We are devoted to growing a deeply connected community that recognizes student potential and values parental and caregiver contributions.” “Parent Café workshops are especially valuable because they allow fo

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ITASCA – The Illinois High School Association (IHSA) has teamed up with Donate Life Illinois – a coalition of Illinois organ, tissue, and eye donation and transplantation organizations – to encourage high school students to get educated about donation and “Say Yes” to joining the Illinois Organ/Tissue Donor Registry whether online or upon receiving their driver’s license at an Illinois Secretary of State Driver Service Facility. The “Say Yes” campaign launching on National Donor Day , February 14, marks the fifth annual partnership to raise awareness, encourage donor registration and celebrate Illinois student-athletes, their families, and communities for saying “yes” to organ, tissue, and eye donation. Programs at all 44 IHSA finals events in 2022 will promote “Say Yes” with information on how to register as an organ, tissue, and eye donor. Illinois donation officials, donor families, and transplant

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The Creve Coeur-based coal company — formerly known as Arch Coal, until a recent name change — said in a Tuesday earnings report that it "restored the balance sheet to pre-pandemic strength."

ST. LOUIS - City Museum is hosting an in-person Job Fair on February 18 - 21, 2022. The popular attraction also has been named a finalist in the USA Today 10Best Readers Choice Awards. JOB FAIR AT CITY MUSEUM Part-time and seasonal positions are available for floor staff, retail associates, facilities and groundskeepers, and members of the food and beverage team. Interested workers can apply line now at https://www.citymuseum.org/about-us/employment/ or in-person on Friday, February 18, Saturday, February 19, Sunday, February 20, or Monday, February 21 from 10 a.m. until 5 p.m. each day. Resumes are encouraged but not required. Weekend and evening availability is preferred. Wages begin at $12-13 per hour and applicants must be 16 years of age or older. The perks of working at the City Museum include a fun environment, free admission for employees and their friends and family, tickets to other attractions and events in St. Louis, monthly prizes, and free access to other Premiere Park

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GODFREY – Prospective students are invited to learn more about becoming a Trailblazer and experience campus during Lewis and Clark Community College’s Spring Discover Day, Monday, Feb. 21. Future Trailblazers will be able to speak with financial aid and academic advisors, tour campus, find info on the programs they’re interested in, and even experience a taste of student life with free food, fun and giveaways. “Discover Day is always a great experience, whether you’re thinking about attending college in the fall or even further down the line,” Recruiter Amy Bowling said. “It’s an excellent chance to gain a lot of valuable information about the benefits of attending Lewis and Clark and the enrollment and financial aid processes, wrapped in a fun and engaging campus event.” L&C Student Activities will provide the food and entertainment for the open-house style event. Guests are free to come and go as they please, but are encouraged

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Europe faces a balancing act: keeping the heat on while promising to eliminate natural gas entirely.

Festival returns with three outdoor stages, market, after-parties, carnival attractions, plus the Midwest Music Summit.

It’s a mindset she’s picked up from her brother, Olympian Ian Quinn. He told her you gotta learn to love that you suffer.

ID.me -- the facial recognition company that has managed to snag several lucrative contracts -- has gotten the brushback from perhaps its most lucrative government partner, the IRS. ID.me promised government agencies better control over distributions of unemployment benefits and other payments to the public, citing its own (unexamined) prowess at recognizing faces as well as an astounding claim that governments have been duped out of $400 billion in unemployment benefits by fraudsters -- a claim it has yet to back up with actual evidence.

That the pitch worked so well isn't a surprise. After all, governments hate to give money to taxpayers and most governments have deficits they'd like to trim down. Anyone promising millions in savings is bound to be given a second, third, or fourth chance even after it's become obvious claims about fraud are, at best, dubious, and that the company can't really do the job it promised to do: eliminate fraud.

Misspending tax dollars is a national pastime. The bizarre embrace of ID.me is no exception. The IRS may have walked back its reliance on ID.me for identity verification, but problems persist. States are still relying on ID.me, even if the feds aren't. And ID.me doesn't seem to have the personnel on hand to backstop questionable calls by its facial recognition tech, as Corin Faife reports for The Verge.

Internal documents and former ID.me employees say the company was beset by disorganization and staffing shortages throughout 2021, as shortcomings in the automated systems created tensions among the company’s workforce, particularly the human verification workers who have to step in when the algorithms fail. Even now, the company plays a central role in how claimants access benefits across the United States — working on behalf of 27 state-level uninsurance employment programs to verify applicants — and the underlying issues are far from settled.

Current and former employees who spoke to The Verge paint a picture of a company described as being in “permanent crisis mode,” changing policies rapidly to keep up with fluctuating demand for its services and fight a slew of negative press. In particular, they say a lack of human review capacity has been a chokepoint for the company, leading to stress, pressure, and a failure to meet quality standards.

This verifies accusations raised earlier by other critics of ID.me -- critics who were forced to become users of faulty systems due to several states making ID.me the barrier between claimants and their benefits. Those locked out of their benefits complained the company offered few options for review of their supplied info. ID.me claimed it was performing reviews on the regular, but social media comments suggested this simply wasn't true. Actual humans were nearly impossible to reach. This report confirms what was suspected: the company simply did not have enough humans employed to deal with the problems generated by its verification processes.

Claimants were given no option but to put all their biometric eggs into one malicious hacker-tempting basket owned and operated by ID.me. When glitches separated people from their payments, the company's CEO blamed users for not being better at using an entirely new verification system. When these problems persisted, the CEO claimed most false negatives were actually the company thwarting fraudsters.

But ID.me can be duped. And it can be duped fairly easily it seems. A Washington Post report shows one person illicitly secured nearly $1 million in unemployment benefits using little more than an extremely obvious wig.

[D]espite the scale of the data gathering by the company, ID.me, revealed in newly released records, the system has been exploited by scammers. Federal prosecutors last month said a New Jersey man was able to verify fake driver’s licenses through an ID.me system in California as part of a $2.5 million unemployment-fraud scheme.

ID.me has pointed to the scam as an example of how well its systems work, noting that it referred the case to federal law enforcement after an internal investigation. But the criminal complaint in the case shows that ID.me’s identification systems did not detect bogus accounts created around the same day that included fake driver’s licenses with photos of the suspect’s face in a cartoonish curly wig.

I mean… [images via DOJ criminal complaint]:

Humans might have been able to shut this fraud down immediately. But it's clear ID.me doesn't have enough humans and is relying on mostly unproven tech to decide who is or isn't entitled to government benefits.

The IRS's walk-back on ID.me use may end up causing at least as many problems as it solves, unfortunately. The IRS also suffers from a shortage of humans and now they will be expected to do more with less outside assistance as tax return season shifts into high gear. By the time the IRS was forced by public and Congressional pressure to make a change, it was already up to its eyeballs in returns. Taxpayers can now expect delays ranging from several weeks to several months at least partially as a result of the agency's regrettable decision to do business with ID.me and its questionable track record.

Public documents show that Bi-State's board on Friday is set to discuss eventually entering an operating agreement with the taxing district that built the trolley.