The idea, when stated simply, doesn't exactly inspire scream "grocery empire." Yet that's just what became of the maritime-themed specialty market that Joe Coulombe first opened in 1967 in Pasadena, Calif. — which, in the decades that followed, blossomed into a web of hundreds of locations in dozens of states.

On Friday, more than three decades after he retired from the chain that still bears his name, Coulombe died in Pasadena at the age of 89. The company confirmed his death to NPR in an email Saturday.

The long and potentially painful process of restructuring St. Louis Public Schools’ physical presence throughout the city is underway.

The district held its first of six community visioning sessions Saturday morning. They’ll be followed by special school board meetings and more public forums in early spring.

Updated Saturday, February 29, 1:45 p.m. We will continue to update this story as details emerge.

One person is in custody after a shooting early Saturday morning in Westport that left one person dead and four others injured. 

The shooting occurred at about 1:30 a.m., when an off-duty Kansas City Police officer saw a white SUV traveling along Mill Street near Westport Road shooting. 

Tenants of a landlord notorious for the festering conditions of its apartment units have won the right to sue  as a class.

Complaints by tennants of Ruskin Place Apartments, a 169-unit complex in south Kansas City, ranged from “vast amounts of water” leaking through windows, mold and sagging floors to inadequate heat, unsecured doors and “large critters” roaming through the units.