st. louis

Some school districts in the St. Louis area are asking the community to help pay off student meal debt for families who can't afford daily lunches for their children.

More than 2,100 students in the Francis Howell School District collectively owe nearly $19,000 in their school lunch accounts. The district has asked community members to pitch in to a dedicated lunch debt fund, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch reported .

Residents are being asked to evacuate a small Missouri town because the rain-swollen Missouri River is threatening to topple a nearby levee.

City officials are urging West Alton's roughly 500 residents to leave as heavy rain continues to hit the area about 20 miles north of St. Louis.

Another levee breached earlier Wednesday in Franklin County, southwest of the city, though the flooding affected mostly farmland.

St. Louis' city minimum wage could rise to $10 an hour starting next week now that the state's highest court won't reconsider its ruling upholding it.

The Missouri Supreme Court in February rejected claims by business groups that setting a wage higher than the state's $7.65 one would spawn regulatory confusion. The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports the Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to revisit that, ending the issue.

The ordinance sets a $10-an-hour minimum wage in the city this year, climbing to $11 in 2018.

A state audit finds that a now-defunct suburban St. Louis municipal court illegally charged fees on dismissed cases and that police were collecting unlawful booking fees at the jail.

Missouri State Auditor Nicole Galloway released findings Monday of the audit requested by Northwoods residents. That city has dissolved its municipal court and transferred cases to St. Ann under a courts consolidation push in St. Louis County.

  Missouri Supreme Court judges are weighing arguments over the constitutionality of a law passed in the wake of the unrest in Ferguson that would cap the amount of revenue cities can keep from traffic fines and court fees.

A lawyer for several St. Louis suburbs told judges in the capital courthouse Wednesday that the law unfairly targets those cities.

The law limits most cities to 20 percent of their budgets. St. Louis County municipalities face a 12.5 percent cap.

The chief curator of the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis is stepping down amid tensions from an exhibition that was criticized as racially insensitive.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that Jeffrey Uslip, who came to St. Louis in 2014, is leaving for another institution. Museum spokesman Eddie Silva declined to say where Uslip is going because that museum wants to announce the news itself.

The exhibit in question featured the work of artist Kelley Walker. Black artists criticized the choice and treatment of imagery showing 1960s black civil rights protesters and black women on magazines smeared in toothpaste and chocolate.

 Journalists are expected to arrive at Washington University in St. Louis as early as Wednesday to cover the presidential debate.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that by the time Sunday's debate commences, as many as 2,000 news professionals will be in place.

Leaders from the Commission on Presidential Debates call this media turnout "unprecedented" compared to past election years. Debate officials say the boom of online-only news outlets has played a role in the high number of journalists covering the event.

The Missouri Department of Natural Resources is investigating after a suburban St. Louis creek that has already been the source of health concerns turned milky white.

KMOV-TV reports that Coldwater Creek in the Hazelwood area of St. Louis County was white Sunday morning, raising renewed concern from residents. The DNR says crews were sent to collect samples of the water.

  Videos obtained by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch provide new insight into a fatal 2011 police shooting that led to first-degree murder charges this year against a white officer, who was carrying a personal assault rifle.

Jason Stockley, who is white, was charged in May in the Dec. 20, 2011, death of 24-year-old Anthony Lamar Smith, a black man who was shot and killed after a chase.

A federal judge has prohibited the release of videos and police reports by lawyers who obtained it as part of a civil case.

  Missouri Secretary of State Jason Kander is sending findings from an investigation of a state House race to state and federal prosecutors to determine if charges are warranted.

A report from Kander's office Wednesday also said it "strongly encourages" the St. Louis Circuit Attorney's Office to review every absentee ballot cast in a contested Democratic primary for a St. Louis-area House seat.

At issue is incumbent Rep. Penny Hubbard's 90-vote win over political newcomer Bruce Franks.

St. Louis Mayor Francis Slay says the city is sending a message of inclusiveness with the raising of the transgender flag at City Hall.

The pink, light blue and white flag was raised Monday, making St. Louis one of only a handful of cities to fly the transgender flag. It is being raised as part of Pride month and will remain in place through June. Another transgender flag was raised at a second city office building a couple of blocks away.

St. Louis police plan to increase their presence at PrideFest events this month in the aftermath of the fatal shootings in Orlando, Florida.

Fifty people died in the shooting early Sunday at a gay nightclub. In a statement, organizers of the St. Louis event say PrideFest will go on as planned June 24 through June 26 at Soldiers Memorial in downtown St. Louis. Several other events are taking place throughout the St. Louis region this month.

 A St. Louis federal judge is ordering for the first time the release of unredacted grand jury transcripts in the Ferguson police shooting death of Michael Brown to lawyers for his family.

U.S. District Judge E. Richard Webber signed off Monday on an order requiring St. Louis County prosecutors to hand over the testimony and the names of grand jury witnesses to attorneys for Brown's family pressing a wrongful-death lawsuit.

Ferguson city leaders, struggling to balance a budget decimated by fallout from unrest that followed the police shooting of 18-year-old Michael Brown, will ask voters in August for a second tax increase.

Voters in the St. Louis suburb in April approved a half-cent sales tax increase and narrowly defeated a property tax increase.

The Ferguson City Council at a special meeting Sunday voted to put on the Aug. 2 ballot a proposal to raise the city utility tax by 2 percent.

ST. LOUIS - Officials at Washington University in St. Louis say at least one person has been injured in a shooting near the school's student union and performing arts building, and are urging anyone on campus to remain in a safe place.

The shooting happened about 1:30 p.m. Wednesday. University spokeswoman Sue Killenberg McGinn says one person was injured in a shooting near the university's Mallinckrodt Center. She says the person has been taken to a hospital with what are believed to be non-life-threatening injuries.

ST. LOUIS COUNTY - The top two elections officials in St. Louis County will testify before the Missouri House Urban Issues Committee after ballot shortages affected nearly eight percent of precincts on Tuesday.

Committee Chairman Courtney Curtis, a Democrat from Ferguson, announced the hearing Wednesday. Curtis initially asked that both Democratic elections director Eric Fey and Republican director Gary Fuhr testify Thursday. The directors requested a delay to allow more time to gather information on what went wrong.

A date for the hearing has not been set.

An environmental law firm is suing to block plans to sell St. Louis County parkland for the expansion of a national cemetery for veterans.

The Great Rivers Environmental Law Center filed the lawsuit Thursday in St. Louis County Circuit Court on behalf of three local taxpayers.

The two-state battle for a federal spy agency's new regional headquarters is heating up.

The U.S. Department of Justice says St. Louis County police need to strengthen policies for handling protests and demonstrations, improve training on diversity and community policing, and do a better job of hiring and promoting minorities and women.

  Jackson County and the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority announced the $52 million purchase of a rail corridor from Lee's Summit to near the Truman Sports Complex.

Police are investigating after graffiti was scrawled on a "Black Lives Matter" sign outside a suburban St. Louis church.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch reports that black paint was sprayed on the sign that hangs outside Eliot Chapel, a Unitarian church in Kirkwood. 

The sign was dedicated on Aug. 9, the one-year anniversary of the fatal police shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson. The shooting helped spur the national "Black Lives Matter" movement.

Kansas City, St. Louis, and the State of Missouri have been awarded a combined 1.4 million dollars from the the Environmental Protection Agency.