Kavahn Mansouri

FEMA says it won't pay to demolish a majority of tornado-damaged properties in St. Louis St. Louis sought permission for the federal agency to pay for demolishing vacant condemned properties, second homes and some commercial properties. This denial means St. Louis will have less money to ...

NEW: The Federal Emergency Management Agency has told St. Louis it will not pay for most building demolitions the city hoped would be covered.

✍️: @kgrumke.bsky.social and me.

www.stlpr.org/government-p...

Kansas informs trans residents their driver’s licenses become invalid on Thursday Some transgender Kansans said they had received the letters from the Department of Revenue. Others hadn’t by Wednesday evening.

Trans Kansans are getting letters on the eve of a new state law going into effect informing them that their driver’s licenses will be considered invalid as of TODAY.

“Please note that the Legislature did not include a grace period for updating credentials," read the letters mailed Monday.

Hearing set for Midtown St. Louis data center in March as city mulls zoning rules After months of debate, the developers behind a data center planned for a site near The Armory will receive a Conditional Use Hearing to seek approval for the project.

NEW: Hearing set for data center portion of $3 billion Armory project.

www.stlpr.org/government-p...

She's just like me, foreal.

Sunshine requests in City of STL still need reform. @gconnolly314.bsky.social requested data center info from Zoning on Feb 5 & was charged $22.07 for a PARTIAL copy. The same info was requested 11 days later and charged $0 but given FULL public record. Arbitrary and capricious?

Eberechi Eze scored a hat-trick against Tottenham Hotspur in November.

And he has a brace today.

Daylight for Mikel Arteta's Arsenal in the north London derby — they lead 3-1.

Bottle that. #arsenal

St. Louis program to fix tornado-damaged homes is about to go broke Tornado recovery officials say, without intervention, St. Louis will need to slow down the repair of damaged homes in North City due to a lack of funding for the repair programs.

NEW: After announcing plans to ramp up repairs to 40-100 homes a month in North City, St. Louis officials in charge of tornado recovery say the city may run out of funds to repair those homes by April or May.

www.stlpr.org/government-p...

"You can't regulate a dumpster fire."

- Quote of the week from tonight's Planning Commission public hearing on data center zoning rules.

Strong reporting from my colleague, Sarah Fentem.

The report notes:
"Many of the [tornado recover programs] struggled to take applications and, up until now, have denied hundreds of applicants. Others launched so long after the tornado hit that many residents STLPR interviewed said they had turned elsewhere for aid or given up entirely."

Tornado victims lose hope as St. Louis programs deny relief to hundreds Nearly nine months later, St. Louis programs aimed to help people impacted by the May 16 tornado are only getting started. City officials say they struggled to get the aid programs running.

Important reporting out today from @kavahnmansouri.bsky.social:

One tornado-impacted St. Louis resident told him, “I'm not spending my precious time and my precious energy holding out hope for the city … I'm going to reserve that for my neighbors.”

Tornado victims lose hope as St. Louis programs deny relief to hundreds Nearly nine months later, St. Louis programs aimed to help people impacted by the May 16 tornado are only getting started. City officials say they struggled to get the aid programs running.

My latest on tornado recovery in North St. Louis.

“There's so much red tape, and nobody knows what they're doing... Everybody is falling through the cracks.”

www.stlpr.org/government-p...

Greater St. Louis Inc. took public officials on trips to tour huge data centers with Ameren in tow Greater St. Louis Inc. took public officials from Illinois and Missouri to Nebraska to tour a hyperscale Google data center in December. The organization confirmed it has organized multiple similar tr...

@kavahnmansouri.bsky.social and @kgrumke.bsky.social continue to do great reporting on data centers in our region. Here’s their latest from today: www.stlpr.org/economy-busi...

NEW: St. Louis officials have released a rough draft of zoning rules for data centers. I talked with city planning executive Miriam Keller about the proposed rules. www.stlpr.org/government-p...

Greater St. Louis Inc. took public officials on trips to tour huge data centers with Ameren in tow Greater St. Louis Inc. took public officials from Illinois and Missouri to Nebraska to tour a hyperscale Google data center in December. The organization confirmed it has organized multiple similar tr...

NEW: As public pushback against data center proposals in the St. Louis region raged, a nonprofit seeking to grow development in the region took public officials and Ameren on multiple trips to visit hyperscale data centers.

From @kgrumke.bsky.social and me.

www.stlpr.org/economy-busi...

Honesty took her own life shortly after leaving prison. Her family, friends and legal representation gathered today to honor her. Please learn about her. She had a tragic life but still found a way to see the good in it and pass it on. She fought to make sure others wouldn't endure what she did.

For years, Honesty behaved but prison officials refused to release her from solitary confinement. Documents show officials rarely gave reason for her continued isolation. While investigating this story her documented words to an official, "I've been good," stuck with me.

YouTube video by The Midwest Newsroom For 2,000 days, a prisoner's pleas from solitary were ignored. Now Missouri will change its policy

For more than 2,000 days, the Missouri Department of Corrections held Honesty, a transgender woman, in a solitary confinement cell no larger than a parking space. Why? Because a male inmate attempted to sexually assault her. As a carrier of HIV, MODOC policy mandated she be locked away.

For 2,000 days, a prisoner's pleas from solitary were ignored. Now Missouri is changing its policy Honesty Bishop was attacked by her cellmate. Missouri prison officials deemed her sexually active and kept her in isolation for more than 2,000 days.

Today the @macarthurjustice.bsky.social held a memorial for Honesty Bishop, who @katiereports.bsky.social and I wrote about last year. She would have been 34. Her story is tragic and unbelievable, but her strength led to the end of the very Missouri prison policy that tormented her.

St. Louis balked at $116M price for Paul McKee properties — now it's moving to seize them St. Louis officials balked at a $116 million appraisal of some Northside Regeneration parcels before turning to eminent domain, a letter to The Bank of Washington reveals.

The Bank of Washington valued some Northside Regeneration-owned parcels in North City higher properties in Clayton and Frontenac, according to a letter from SLDC head Otis Williams.

The spinning wheel on STL city's sunshine request portal may actually drive me insane.

The Alton sinkhole has been "dewatered."

📷: 618 Drone Service

Questions on Armory data center’s scope, environmental impact remain unanswered months later Months later, the developers behind the proposed data center at the Armory in Midtown St. Louis have yet to answer city-required questions on the project.

The developer behind a proposed data center at the former Armory in Midtown St. Louis has not answered a required 44-question city survey more than three months after receiving it.

With the first R out, the large illuminated ARMORY sign reads “A MORY”

[Dean Martin singing] That’s A MORY.

Inside ICE Air: Flight Attendants on Deportation Planes Say Disaster Is “Only a Matter of Time” Current and former flight attendants for GlobalX, the private charter airline at the center of Trump’s immigration crackdown, expressed concern about their inability to treat passengers humanely and t...

“‘If a fire occurs in the cabin ... don’t check on the immigrants. Just make sure that you and the guards and the people that work for the government get off," one flight attendant was told.

“It was as if the detainees’ lives were worthless,’” said another.

Our #3 most-read story of 2025:

Watchdog report finds SLPS loses $2,360 per student annually from tax incentives for developers Good Jobs First released its annual report, which found that St. Louis Public Schools is losing about $2,360 per student from tax incentives offered to developers. The St. Louis Development Corporatio...

From earlier this week.

"They say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different outcome — I think it's not working and I think there's really got to be a debate here about overhauling incentives completely.”

www.stlpr.org/education/20...

New contracts in St. Louis sell a 'false' dream of homeownership, critics say Contracts that look like rent-to-own agreements leave buyers with high costs and facing eviction. "A model that is selling a dream that is known to be false."

Companies tied to investor Joey Chianese, of Virginia, own 150+ single-family homes across St. Louis. He sells them using a model much like rent-to-own, which leaves buyers without the protections afforded by mortgages or landlord-tenant laws. By @jacobbarker27.bsky.social. tinyurl.com/joeychianese

New contracts in St. Louis sell a 'false' dream of homeownership, critics say Contracts that look like rent-to-own agreements leave buyers with high costs and facing eviction. "A model that is selling a dream that is known to be false."

A read well worth your time by @jacobbarker27.bsky.social. www.stltoday.com/news/local/m...