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For more than a year, Assembly Speaker John Pérez dated a Hollywood funeral director who faces fraud allegations in one of the biggest financial scandals to rock the U.S. funeral industry. During their relationship, Pérez, a Los Angeles Democrat, mixed political business with his personal life in ways that showed poor judgment, ethics experts say. A Pérez spokesman said the lawmaker conducted himself appropriately during a casual dating relationship. Tyler Cassity, proprietor of a boutique cemetery called Hollywood Forever as well as a Mill Valley cemetery, and defendant in a $600 million fraud lawsuit in his native Missouri, accompanied Pérez...

ST. LOUIS • One of three would-be robbers raised a pistol while his two friends pretended to hide guns under their clothes late Monday night at Forest Park’s Grand Basin, police say. “Don’t make me kill you,” one of them told an off-duty St. Charles County sheriff’s deputy after approaching him and his female jogging partner, authorities say. The deputy announced he was a police officer and opened fire, killing Antonio Nash, 18, and wounding the two other men in what police say appeared to be a justifiable shooting. The deputy, 36, and his friend, 23, were uninjured. The two...

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A St. Louis-area robbery suspect is jailed after a store clerk stopped the man and held him at gunpoint until police arrived.

In between bowls of chicken poodle soup and deciding to provide air cover for al-Qaeda in Syria, our Dear Leader, Barack Hussein Obama, found time to meet with mayors from our crumbling major cities. From Justin Sink of The Hill: *** "President Obama told a collection of big-city mayors Tuesday at the White House that he would continue to use executive actions to combat gun violence plaguing major cities. In the meeting with Attorney General Eric Holder and the mayors of 18 cities from across the nation, Obama discussed commonly applicable strategies to reduce youth violence. 'He also vowed to...

In announcing charges against 58 suspected drug dealers, State’s Attorney Brendan Kelly said the “state of lawlessness” in East St. Louis, Washington Park, Alorton and Brooklyn is due in part to overwhelmed and poorly trained police departments. “In large parts of these communities at any part of the day, there’s really very little law enforcement presence, so this type of lawlessness occurs with impunity,” Kelly said. “It’s the hallmark of a failed state.” East St. Louis Police Chief Michael Floore could not be reached Thursday. Mayor Alvin Parks agreed with Kelly’s assessment of scarce resources but rejected the notion of...

When Angela Morgan learned about the opportunity to transfer her son out of Riverview Gardens High School, it was like finding a winning lottery ticket..... Morgan’s son is among nearly 2,600 students in the St. Louis region who are hoping to benefit from a decades-old but largely untested Missouri statute. Now, by order of the state’s highest court, that law — which allows students in unaccredited school districts to transfer to better schools — must be followed, no matter the cost or consequence. The effort has spawned a monumental logistical headache, as districts in St. Louis, St. Louis County and...

(KMOV.com) -- Police said a suspect has been charged after he shot and killed a friend during an argument over a beer spill in downtown St. Louis early Thursday morning. 34-year-old Stephen Rozier Jr. is charged with second degree murder, first degree assault, two counts armed criminal action and unlawful possession of a firearm.

Yesterday while I was continuing my Twitter questioning of Sen. Jamilah Nasheed, I did a quick review of her Twitter stream to see if she's mentioned Tyrese Short, a 9 year old boy killed in a drive-by shooting in her district. She hadn't. She still hasn't. But she has time for this: Middle Eastern Mad Libs: “Egypt is ____________” http://t.co/IjalmoiipD via @CFR_org— Jamilah Nasheed (@JamNasheed) July 17, 2013Fun fact: after asking her over and over again why she is silent on Tyrese, but marching for Trayvon, she blocked me: So much for dialogue. (Click here to ask her why she...

ST. LOUIS, MO (KTVI) – A St. Louis police officer suffered a minor gun shot injury Thursday after being accidentally shot by his partner. It happened just after 11:00 a.m. in the 3700 block of Keokuk, between Giles and Spring. According to the St. Louis Police, the on-duty officer’s partner was shooting at an aggressive dog when the bullet ricocheted and hit him in the ear and arm. Chief Sam Dotson @ChiefSLMPD An @SLMPD PO received a minor gun shot injury while on a call today. The PO is in good spirits and we are not looking for any suspects....

The St. Louis Cardinals general manager ordered a cross carved into the pitcher’s mound to be removed following a fan complaining about the religious symbol to local newspapers. Cardinals general manager John Mozeliak asked the grounds crew to remove the cross and not to put the religious symbol on the mound again after learning of the practice from the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. “It’s not just club policy to be putting religious symbols on the playing field or throughout the ballpark,” Mozeliak told the Post-Dispatch. “I didn’t ask for the reason behind it. I just asked for it to stop.”

I had another column ginned up for this week’s offering but then I read something an hour ago which made me save it for a later date and address something else that’s been on my mind, namely blacks and Right-To-Carry laws. Some background: Those of you who are regular readers of Ross in Range may notice a similarity in layout and scheduling (but not necessarily content) to another, much more widely read Internet column called Fred On Everything at http://www.fredoneverything.net/ColMenu.html by Fred Reed. This is not a coincidence. I have been a regular reader of Mr. Reed’s writings for a...

ST. LOUIS (AP) -- An argument inside a St. Louis home health care business escalated into gun violence Thursday when a man shot three other people before turning the gun on himself, police said. The shooting occurred at AK Home Health Care LLC, one several small businesses inside the Cherokee Place Business Incubator south of downtown St. Louis. The shooter gunned down another man and two women before turning his semi-automatic handgun on himself, Police Capt. Michael Sack said.

ARMED DHS GUARDS GREETED TEA PARTY PROTESTERS TODAY AT THE ST. LOUIS IRS RALLY– No sign of the Light-Armored Tanks yet… But there were DHS vehicles parked outside the IRS office just in case the Tea Party protesters got violent. Alex Cohen holds a Gadsden flag at the IRS building. It was his first Tea Party rally. Over 300 Tea Party protesters turned out for the rally against IRS harassment and intimidation. Tea Party protesters at the St. Louis-Town and Country IRS protest today wore targets on their backs. There were plenty of American and Gadsden flags at the rally....

St. Louis Reporter Larry Conners revealed via Facebook yesterday that he has been “hammered” by the IRS since his much-discussed interview with President Obama. Conners, a veteran reporter, asked tough, but fair question during the interview which was slammed by progressives in media. Conners says: Shortly after I did my April 2012 interview with President Obama, my wife, friends and some viewers suggested that I might need to watch out for the IRS. I don’t accept “conspiracy theories”, but I do know that almost immediately after the interview, the IRS started hammering me. At the time, I dismissed the “co-incidence”,...

A teacher at Soldan High School in the St. Louis Public School District faces charges after prosecutors say he had sex with a student near school property. David Marler, 32, was charged with five counts of second-degree statutory sodomy...Police said while there, Marler and the Soldan student engaged in several sexual acts including anal sex.

The most disturbing thing about this is that “Sharia law” prosecutions can only take place in the Muslim world. So this looks a lot like an attempt at intimidating and perhaps even causing the death of Atheist and Christian critics of Islam in the Muslim world. Last August, the director of CAIR St. Louis, Faizan Syed, wrote about his ideas for monitoring social media titled Social Media Task Force. Syed wants to create a Muslim youth association who would aggressively monitor the media. What really stood out was this statement under the section “I have few suggestions to make in...

Here’s some good news: Demetrius Murphy, one of the original members of a gang of Black teenagers who roam the streets of St. Louis attacking people as they “play” the Knockout Game, is dead. He was shot and killed recently while preparing to break into the wrong home and met someone who was armed and not afraid to defend himself. It happened that the home owner is White and Murphy was Black. In ordinary times this shouldn’t mean anything, but in this case it does. Murphy instigated this confrontation because he preferred White victims – well actually any victims but...

Forbes put Detroit Mayor Dave Bing on its cover in 2011 for a story with the optimistic headline: “City of Hope.” The premise was that the city had hit rock bottom and was poised for a turnaround. “Right now, it’s all about survival,” Bing told Forbes. Two years later, Detroit’s problems continue to multiply, sadly. It is still dealing with high levels of violent crime and unemployment. Home prices, already at historic lows, plummeted a further 35% during the past three years to a median of $40,000 as net migration out of the city continued. The latest blow was Tuesday’s...

An Applebee's waitress who posted a receipt with a note from a pastor complaining about the automatic gratuity added to the bill on the Internet was fired on Wednesday after the pastor complained to her manager. Chelsea Welch, the waitress, wrote in an email to Yahoo News that the pastor (who has since been identified as Alois Bell) told Welch's manager at the St. Louis-area Applebee's that the ensuing firestorm had "ruined" her reputation."I give God 10%," Bell wrote on the receipt, scratching out the automatic tip and scribbling in an emphatic "0" where the additional tip would be. "Why...

ST. LOUIS (AP) — A part-time student strode into the office of a longtime administrator at a downtown St. Louis business school Tuesday and shot the man in the chest, creating panic in the school before turning the gun on himself, police said. Both men were in surgery Tuesday afternoon at Saint Louis University Hospital. Police Chief Sam Dotson said he was optimistic both would survive, but a hospital spokesman declined to discuss their conditions. Police did not identify either man, but Dotson said the administrator was a longtime employee in his late 40s. He said the suspect had been...