Free Republic

B.B. King has spent decades singing “The Thrill Is Gone.” Perhaps at long last it actually is. Make no mistake: King is a living legend, a national treasure, and the sobriquet “king of the blues” is not mere wordplay, but a title earned. To be in the same room as him and breathe the same air is an honor and a privilege. But for the majority of King’s concert at the Peabody Opera House on Friday night, the sizeable crowd could have been excused for thinking that’s all they were going to get. King’s shows in recent years have featured...

(KMOV.com) -- An amazing story of survival as an O’Fallon woman has a loaded gun shoved in her face by her ex-boyfriend. He pulls the trigger several times, but nothing happens. The female victim asked not to be identified. She said her ex-boyfriend, Jerry Beatty, 53, kicked in the door of her home and had a gun in his hand. “Somebody points a gun in your face, you know I turned my head and it clicked,” the victim said, “[He] was like, ‘Look at me when I kill you.’” Police said there was nothing wrong with the gun, but the...

What is wrong with the hosts at MSNBC? Ronan Farrow, who will begin anchoring a network program on February 24, made a tasteless joke on Tuesday night, comparing war hero Cory Remsburg's struggles to that of politicians in Congress. Farrow tweeted, "Cory 'struggles on the left side.' Congress relates.'" Farrow has not apologized for the tweet On Wednesday, political reporter Mark Murray, whose wife works in the Obama administration, compared Remsburg's struggle to that of the President: "Obama's ending on Remsburg wasn't just a story about America -- it also was a story about Obama.

As those in power continues to hang onto the 19th century model of education or accept Common Core indoctrination for their students, parents are moving toward becoming the “deciders” as they chose charter and private schools, homeschooling, and online programs, it is leaving thousands of empty school buildings all across America. According to a recent study among the cities with vacant school buildings are

BELTON, Mo. — As Missouri lawmakers return to Jefferson City Wednesday, one of many issues they are expected to consider is raising the state’s speed limit. Along Interstate 49 here, the speed limit is 70 miles an hour, but that could jump up to 75 if this proposal becomes law. A southwest Missouri lawmaker wants drivers in the Show-Me State to be able to go faster on rural highways. Rep. Mike Kelley from Lamar, further south on I-49, wants to raise the speed limit to 75 miles an hour on 4-lane highways away from the cities. Currently Missouri’s speed limit...

In April 2011 an elderly St. Louis man was attacked by a mob of black youths playing “the knock out game” while walking home from the grocery store with his wife. They killed him. In June 2011 a group of black youths beat a gay man bloody playing “the knock out game.” In August 2011 black teen mobs targeted St. Louis cyclists in the knock out game. In September 2011, a 73-year-old St. Louis man was knocked unconscious just outside of Tower Grove Park. One local teen claims to have knocked out over 300 people in the “game.” There have...

Heavy snow and travel disruptions will spread from the Midwest and into the Northeast as the day progresses on Saturday. The snowstorm will span more than 1,000 miles. Snow will fall on and impact every major city and rural area from St. Louis to Boston, including Chicago, Detroit, Indianapolis, Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia and New York City. The area encompasses about 110 million people.

ROCK HILL • Sitting inside a Starbucks, sipping black coffee, joking with the baristas, Dan Zimmerman doesn’t look like a gun guy. He looks like a guy who might work in accounts receivable, which is what this Olivette resident did for years. He is 53, balding, wearing tortoise shell glasses, carrying a little extra weight and dressed in the beige tones of business casual. He smiles easily. He is working on a laptop at a back table. He also might be packing heat. Could be his .38 snubby. Maybe his Kahr 9 mm. He won’t say. “I really don’t talk...

St. Louis police are searching for a man who robbed a Bank of America branch from the drive-through lane about noon Saturday. Police said the man drove up to the bank in the 6600 block of South Kingshighway in a white Impala and announced a robbery while at the drive-through window. The teller gave him an undisclosed amount of cash and the man drove off.

Drug trafficking, gang wars, political instability, corruption, and poverty have combined to make Latin America by far the most homicidal region of the world. The region has 40% of the world's murders, despite having only 8 percent of the population, according to the U.N. The highest murder rate of all is in San Pedro Sula, Honduras, with 169 homicides per 100,000 people, according to a study published earlier this year by Mexico's Citizens' Council for Public Security and Criminal Justice. The ranking is based on 2012 data, except for San Pedro Sula and Distrito Central in Honduras, where authorities would...

- FrontPage Magazine - http://frontpagemag.com - When Opposing Jihad Is ‘Racist’Posted By Robert Spencer On November 12, 2013 @ 12:39 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 17 Comments “Islamophobia” has broken out at Washington University of St. Louis, sparking outrage, grief, an “open solidarity forum,” and an avalanche of groveling apologies from university administrators.It all started, according to the university’s independent student paper Student Life, with a “controversial Halloween photograph” that went “viral” and became an “emotional trigger” for Muslim students, “bringing back memories of personal experiences with racism.”The offending photo featured a group of students apparently dressed as soldiers pointing...

Reuters reports that the FBI and other agencies are in the process of investigating multiple threats to Midwest Water Supply Systems. Specifically, the FBI has named Wichita, Kansas as a target, but utility facilities have also been put on alert in other Midwestern cities. (Reuters) The U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation learned of the threats in the past two days and has contacted the water supply facilities and law enforcement offices for the municipalities, said Bridget Patton, a spokeswoman for the FBI office in Kansas City, Missouri. Patton declined to discuss the nature of the threats or the number of...

Congrats to the RedBirds, and a shout out to Cardinal Nation!

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.