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Transit organizations encourage locals to celebrate 'National Dump the Pump' Day

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

ST. LOUIS - Thursday is National Dump the Pump Day.Metro, The St. Clair County Transit District, and Citizens for Modern Transit encourage commuters to use public transportation Thursday instead of driving. Transit Ambassadors will be at select Metro transit centers Thursday morning handing out candy bars and other prizes. Man died holding apartment door closed as sister fled shooter, police say They'll have a QR code, so people can calculate how much money they'll save taking transit to work instead of driving.

Nearly $4.5M invested in 900 local business struggling from COVID

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

ST. LOUIS - Local small businesses are getting a big financial boost.The St. Louis Development Corporation's Small Business Grant Program is investing nearly $4.5 million into 900 local businesses still struggling from COVID. Man died holding apartment door closed as sister fled shooter, police say Businesses like Grace Meats Plus Three are using those funds to extend inventory and support employees more than they were able to before.

Ascension Health nurses strike starting this afternoon

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

ST. LOUIS - Nurses from Ascension Health in Kansas and Texas are headed to the healthcare giant's headquarters in St. Louis Thursday for a strike.National Nurses United say Ascension is promoting unsafe staffing conditions that prioritize profits over patient safety. They also shared that not enough is being done to recruit and retain nurses. City aldermen discussing water rate hike today The union represents nearly 2,000 nurses across three facilities. 90% voted to a one-day strike, which begins at 2:00 p.m.

Mississippi River cleanup happening today in East Alton, Illinois

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

EAST ALTON, Ill. - A reminder to stop littering from Lewis and Clark Community College's National Great Rivers Research and Education Center hosts its River Cleanup Thursday.It's part of their 'Mississippi River Days of Action' initiative. The event will take place Thursday from 9:00 a.m. to noon at the Center's Field Station located at 1 Confluence Way in east Alton. Man died holding apartment door closed as sister fled shooter, police say There will be free coffee, bagels, and prizes will be awarded to those who clean up the most trash.

Club Q shooting suspect expected to take plea deal

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

By JIM MUSTIAN and JESSE BEDAYN (Associated Press)COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (AP) — The suspect in a mass shooting at a Colorado Springs gay nightclub is expected to strike a plea deal to state murder and hate charges that would ensure at least a life sentence for the attack that killed five people and wounded 17, several survivors told The Associated Press.Word of a possible legal resolution of last year’s Club Q massacre follows a series of jailhouse phone calls from the suspect to the AP expressing remorse and the intention to face the consequences at the next scheduled court hearing this month.“I have to take responsibility for what happened,” 23-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich said in their first public comments about the case.Federal and state authorities and defense attorneys declined to comment on a possible plea deal. But Colorado law requires victims to be notified of such deals, and several people who lost loved ones or were wounded in the attack told the AP that state prosecu...

“Past Lives” is a patient, luminous indie drama that trusts its audience to get it | Review

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

The film-fest favorite “Past Lives” has all the momentum in the world going into its wide release this month, and every ounce of it is earned.The compact drama, distributed by the A24 imprint, is directed and written by Korean-American playwright Celine Song, who’s known in the theater world for such inspired projects as staging Chekov’s “The Seagull” in the Sims 4 video game.“Past Lives” is her directorial debut and heralds a staggering new creative voice in film, as sophisticated and deliberate as it is insightful. The movie centers on Nora, an elementary school girl growing up in Seoul, South Korea, alongside chum Hae Sung. The kids, played respectively and wonderfully by Moon Seung-ah and Leem Seung-min, tease one another and bond as their lives intertwine organically, forging a connection that neither can shake.Nora, a stand-in for director Song, comes from a creative family — a film director father and visual artist mother ...

Don’t be fooled by rain and snow, the Colorado River is still in serious trouble, experts say

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

Water is rushing from Colorado’s Western Slope and into the tributaries of the Colorado River, restoring reservoirs across the American West to perhaps a semblance of their former glory.Cities, farmers, ranchers and water managers are breathing a sigh of relief at the crisis avoided this summer thanks to the robust snowfall this winter.A major crisis appears to have been avoided, for now anyway, water experts say. But the winter snow and spring rains aren’t enough to wash away the bigger picture that the Colorado River is still drying year after year.One good water year can be followed by several dry ones, Jennifer Gimbel, a senior water policy scholar at Colorado State University, said. The drying trend has been so strong over the last two decades that scientists no longer call it a drought. Instead they say this is the drier future to which the West must become accustomed. And state, federal and tribal officials must continue seeking new ways to use less water from the Colorado Ri...

Joyous Juneteenth, a bigger Boulder comedy fest, sensual cirque and more things to do in Denver

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

Juneteenth’s joyous song and danceThrough Sunday. Denver’s annual Juneteenth celebrations have been bigger and more widespread over the last couple of years, due in part to June 19’s designation as national holiday in 2021. This weekend’s big event is the Juneteenth Music Festival, which runs Saturday, June 17, and Sunday, June 18, along Welton Street in the Historic Five Points neighborhood.The free, multi-stage fest features not only live music and dance but local vendors, food and drink, and kid-friendly activities. Headliner Musiq Soulchild performs on Sunday, but don’t miss the Saturday parade, which begins at Manual High School and winds its way toward Welton Street — where some 70,000 attendees are expected over the weekend. There’s also the Saturday AfroRave dance party at Summit Music Hall. juneteenthmusicfestival.comIn addition this weekend: Cleo Parker Robinson Dance’s Friday-Saturday Juneteenth Celebration, which includes a...

Pixar’s “Elemental” is a mediocre but good-hearted romantic comedy | Review

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

It’s easy to view “Elemental” as a Frankenstein’s monster of recent animated films, considering how instantly and overly familiar its themes, visuals and pace are in its first few minutes.“Elemental,” which releases in theaters on June 16, once again drops us into a world where colorful, talking blobs confront big ideas via comic misadventures in a metropolis that mimics and critiques our own. That more or less describes not only the poignant, likeable 2015 movie “Inside Out” (Pixar), but also 2016’s just-meh “Zootopia” (Disney Animation), the same year’s abysmal “Angry Birds Movie” (Rovio Animation) and 2020’s well-intentioned “Soul” (Pixar).In “Elemental,” the colorful blobs represent the four traditional elements — fire, water, earth and wind — which are all crammed into (what else?) a place called Element City. Fiery protagonist Ember Lumen (Leah Lewis) l...

Denver restaurant group Edible Beats launches hydroponic farm

Published Sun, 23 Feb 2025 12:04:50 GMT

Tucked behind Vital Root restaurant, in a couple of parking spaces, a 320-square-foot shipping container is producing the same amount of veggies as a 2.5-acre farm.It’s not Justin Cucci’s original vision for his vegetarian restaurant that opened in 2016 — which was to build a four-story glass cube with three levels of hydroponic planters and a patio, where people could eat where their food is grown. “But that cost more money than anyone would lend us,” said Cucci, the founder of the Edible Beats group, which also owns popular Denver restaurants El Five, Root Down, Linger and Ophelia’s Electric Soapbox.Instead, Cucci and his employees started a small-scale garden in the restaurant’s backyard, at 3915 Tennyson St., operated a micro-green grow room and rented plots of dirt around town to grow their own herbs and vegetables. In the end, though, “It probably cost us three times more than the market price,” Cucci said. “Arugula was usually $6 a pound and ours probably co...