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Missouri American Water crews made repairs Tuesday to an 8-inch water main break that closed several lanes of traffic.

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. — Gov. JB Pritzker announced Wednesday a planned end date for Illinois' mask mandate. Pritzker revealed that he aims to have the indoor mask mandate lifted by Feb. 28. However, it will not apply to the "sensitive locations" of K-12 schools. Governor Pritzker revealed the details of ending the indoor mask mandate during [...]

Google Doodles featured Toni Stone, who was the first woman to play in the Negro Leagues, and played for the Kansas City Monarchs.

GLEN CARBON – Girl Scouts of Southern Illinois is excited to announce that Girl Scout Cookies are starting to arrive in the hands of customers! If you haven’t gotten your freezers stocked up yet, we have you covered! National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend is right around the corner! February 18-20 will be the biggest weekend for the Girl Scout Cookie Program as drive-thru cookie booths will be held in areas all throughout Southern Illinois. To find a cookie booth near you (for this weekend or any other weekend) visit gsofsi.org/findcookies or text COOKIES to 59618. In addition, Girl Scouts will be in their neighborhoods for Walkabouts and Red Wagon Weekends during National Girl Scout Cookie Weekend as well as the previous weekend (February 11-13). Cookie booths will be held throughout the duration of the Girl Scout Cookie Program, which runs through March 20. You can use the cookie locator to find a cookie booth near you during any weekend now through March 20. Every Gir

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The school will have its third defensive coordinator in three seasons .

So far, it's just a concept. But large-scale indoor farming might soon become a reality elsewhere in St. Louis.

AT&T got a lot wrong (and still really can't admit it) with the company's $86 billion acquisition of Time Warner. There were endless layoffs, a steady dismantling of beloved brands (DC's Vertigo imprint, Mad Magazine), all for the company to lose pay TV subscribers in the end.

But the one thing the company did get right, with a little help from COVID, was its attacks on the dated, pointless, and often punitive Hollywood release window. Typically, this has involved a 90 day gap between the time a move appears in theaters and its streaming or DVD release (in France this window is even more ridiculous at three years). Generally, this is done to protect the "sanctity of the movie going experience," as if for thirty years the "sanctity of the movie going experience" hasn't involved sticky floors, over priced popcorn, big crowds and mass shootings.

During COVID, big streamers like AT&T and Comcast shifted a lot of their tentpole films (like Dune) directly to streaming, which technically saved human lives, but resulted in no limit of raised eyebrows and scorn among the "Loews at the mall is a sacred space you can't criticize" segment of Hollywood. You might recall that AMC Theaters was positively apoplectic when Comcast showed that release windows were a dated relic, declaring it would never again show a Comcast NBC Universal picture anywhere in the world if Comcast kept threatening the sacred release window (the threat lasted about a week).

WarnerMedia (in the process of being spun off by AT&T) has faced similar whining from the industry. This week the company was hit with a lawsuit (pdf) by Village Roadshow Films, which claims the company "rushed" the release of The Matrix Resurrections from 2022 to 2021 as part of an (gasp) effort to boost streaming's popularity. All through 2021, AT&T/Time Warner released films simultaneously in theaters and on streaming to boost HBO Max subscriptions. And people liked it.

Unsurprisingly, Village Roadshow Films did not, claiming the effort (dubbed "Project Popcorn") was a "clandestine plan to materially reduce box office and correlated ancillary revenue generated from tent pole films that Village Roadshow and others would be entitled to receive in exchange for driving subscription revenue for the new HBO Max service." HBO Max and AT&T telegraphed this intention, so it seems hard to argue this was somehow clandestine. The suit also accuses WarnerMedia of ignoring the fact that piracy would have hurt the overall profits to be made from the film, though, again, metrics proving clear financial harm appear lacking.

But just as unsurprisingly, Warner Brothers thinks Village Roadshow Films is just annoyed by reality and shifting markets:

"In a statement shared with The Verge, Warner Bros. called the lawsuit “a frivolous attempt by Village Roadshow to avoid their contractual commitment to participate in the arbitration that we commenced against them last week. We have no doubt that this case will be resolved in our favor."

Again, while it's true that AT&T attacked the sacred old release window to goose streaming subscriptions, this was something that happened during an historic plague in which indoor transmission of a deadly virus could kill or disable you. It's also almost an afterthought that in the advanced home theater and mall shooting era, this is something consumers desperately wanted. For all its downsides, COVID had a strong tendency to painfully highlight shortcomings (see: broadband, the U.S. healthcare system) and dated antiquities (like release windows or a disdain for telecommuting) that no longer served us.

While there's a shrinking sect of Hollywood folks like Spielberg who still think in-person theaters and release windows are sacred and above reproach, COVID laid bare the fact that not that many people agree with them. And while that certainly disadvantaged folks financially dependent on older models (like theater owners and studios heavily vested in release windows), the reality is what it is, and a popular change was accelerated all the same.

The American economy boomed in 2021, and job growth followed suit. But it still wasn't enough to get employment back to pre-pandemic levels. Nonfarm employment rose 4.4% between December 2020 and December 2021, according to new data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics. That represents an increase of nearly 6.3 million jobs. Missouri ranked 33rd among all states and the District of Columbia, with a 2.77% increase in employment during the period. Illinois experienced 4.66% job growth, ranking…

GODFREY – The Brown Bag Bistro has been chosen as the February 2022 RiverBend Growth Association Small Business of the Month award recipient. Located at 318 East Broadway in Alton, mother-daughter duo owners Christine and Erin Velloff have kept the restaurant establishment going after starting with other family members in the mix. “We were lucky enough to not have to let any staff go during the pandemic,” Christine noted. In business since 2018, the duo currently employs 18, with most of their kitchen staff working close to 40 hours a week. “We have only been open for three and a half years and our business has grown exponentially,” said Christine. “In the near future, we are hoping to add in our own delivery service so that we can give our customers the best service they can get and move away from third-party delivery service. We also hope to expand the upstairs and add another kitchen on-site.” The Brown Bag Bistro today reflects an extensive

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Molson Coors, which won't be advertising in the Super Bowl, chided A-B for its 80-calories boast, saying that its Miller64 has 16 fewer calories.

The Missouri Supreme Court on Tuesday placed a St. Louis couple who gained national attention for waving guns at racial injustice protesters on probation as lawyers. The court suspended Mark …

JERSEY COUNTY - Jersey County is embracing an official affiliation with BackStoppers. First responders are also set to support the organization with future fundraisers. Jerseyville Police Chief Brad Blackorby said he and the other first responders in Jersey County are excited to move ahead with the BackStoppers agreement. He said it will not only benefit Jerseyville Police but Jerseyville Fire, Grafton Police, Jersey County Sheriff’s Office, and all the first responders in Jersey County. This also includes all volunteer firefighters in Jersey County and EMS personnel. BackStoppers was started in this region by Richard H. Amberg, one-time publisher of the St. Louis Globe-Democrat. The publisher took the idea of Nicholas Blassie, president of Meatcutters Union Local #8 in Detroit, who created an organization that provided relief for families of fallen public servants. Amberg invited key civic leaders from business, labor, and other professions and created the charger for BackStoppers

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A decision on whether to open a costly cancer drug to generic competition will be made shortly. It doesn’t require congressional approval.

From ancient Greece, live performance theater has had a rich and sometimes challenging history and nothing short of controversial. Thespis, the Greek poet, is considered the father of tragedy and introduced dialogue to the live performance’s choral performance structure, though some scholars tend to disagree. But it is no longer the time of Ancient Greece. The United States has its vibrant history of live performance theater from the Broadway Theater in Manhattan, N.Y., to Illinois’ longest-running community theater, Alton Little Theater, located in Alton. Alton Little Theater’s website states it was founded in 1933 by an English teacher, Dorothy Colonius, who had a clear vision of creating a community theater for Alton residents. Eighty-eight seasons later, the torch was passed to Executive Director and goddaughter of Colonius, Lee Cox, and her passionate and theater-loving team members. It is no easy feat to put together a live performance, and what the audience

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Politte spent four years in juvenile detention and was convicted in 2002 for the Washington County, Missouri murder.

St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones on Wednesday utilized a new power to appoint an interim director of personnel, a move that comes as her administration looks to restart a search for a police chief.

Demeria Thomas opened a cell door, then watched as two inmates attacked another.

Dajuan Louden is accused of grabbing and punching the 2-year-old boy in Florissant last week.

Watch Show Me St. Louis for the trivia question!