Many of Washington University’s newest graduates at their commencement ceremony Monday expressed solidarity with Palestinians in the war zone of Gaza as dozens of students, alumni and supporters gathered outside campus to protest the university’s continuing investments in Boeing, which supplies the Israeli military with weapons.More than an hour before the 9 a.m. graduation ceremony began, protesters arrived near Lindell and Skinker boulevards to press their case that Wash U should disclose its investments and withdraw those in companies that provide weapons to Israel.They’re also calling an end to the war in Gaza where Israeli bombardments have killed thousands. Israel has waged the campaign since an Oct. 7 attack by Hamas fighters.“We are demanding that Wash U divest from Boeing and other military-industrial corporations that are supporting Israeli apartheid and the genocide in Palestine,” said Grace Iverson, who graduated from the university in 2020. “And we are continuing to keep up the pressure because Wash U has shown that they are clearly not interested in the community and in divesting. But we will not stop until they move to divest.”As the university prepared to start its ceremony, people outside the campus held signs calling for a “permanent global ceasefire.” Another poster was painted to resemble a Palestinian flag, with “Queer Jews for Palestine” written on it.Members of the “Ceasefire Choir” began singing “From Ferguson to Palestine, occupation is a crime!” outside the campus.Clayton police later arrived to tell protesters to stop using megaphones and speakers, which officers said are against city ordinances — and threatened to arrest those who continue doing so. They briefly put a woman in handcuffs after she honked her van’s horn in support of the protests. Police then released her.The demonstration is part of a series of protests on or near college campuses across the U.S., some of which have been forcefully shut down by police. Students staged minor disruptions at several commencement ceremonies across the nation over the weekend.Wash U maintains that it has not taken a position on the war and that it remains committed to free expression and peaceful protest.”Student Affairs staff have been working with our students and faculty to facilitate dialogue about this complex issue since Oct. 7, and we will continue to do so,” Wash U spokeswoman Julie Hail Flory said in a statement Friday.At the graduation ceremony, some students wore mortarboards with “Free Palestine” messages. Others wore Palestinian flag buttons and keffiyeh scarves to show their solidarity with Palestinians.Commencement speaker Alejandro Rodriguez, who earned a degree in Latin American studies and a Fulbright Scholarship to conduct research in Brazil, noted that many of the graduates support the Palestinian people.“Today I stand in solidarity with my peers, faculty and community members who have experienced hardship this last semester, who found their why and used it to express solidarity with the Palestinians around the world,” Ramirez said.Actor Jennifer Coolidge, who delivered the commencement address and is receiving an honorary fine arts doctorate, mentioned the protest and said “it illustrates the need for voices of brilliant, unique and nuanced graduates,” a line that received applause and a big cheer from the crowd.Some students say Wash U needs to pay better attention to student voices. Students are particularly outraged at the school’s response to two April pro-Palestinian demonstrations on campus, where police made more than 100 arrests. They’re calling for Wash U to drop charges and disciplinary cases against students, faculty and staff. In a statement Friday, Wash U spokeswoman Flory said the tone of this protest was not peaceful and included “aggressive chanting.”“They were abhorrently violent,” said Kevin McCarthy, who is graduating with a degree in English. “I was there the Saturday that they arrested my friends. And they acted with complete impunity. They did it all with a smile on their face, which is what was most jarring to me. I could see school administrators I saw and interacted with on campus in different contexts smiling as they told the police to charge the protesters and violently assault them.“It shows that the university is completely tied into the military-industrial complex,” said McCarthy, 22. “They are fully focused on their bottom line of the endowment, and they do not care about their students one bit.”To express their displeasure with the university, some graduates walked out of the ceremony as Chancellor Andrew D. Martin gave closing remarks.McCarthy said students are determined to continue delivering thoughtful and compassionate messages.“We’re going to be out here until Gaza is free — until this genocide stops happening. I know that me and my fellow classmates have not lost their appetite to protest the apartheid state of Israel. And we have not lost our appetite for justice and decolonizing the world.”

Source link

Missouri lawmakers only have a handful of items to complete this week before embarking on a particularly active election season.While the House wants to finish work on several critical priorities, much of the spotlight in the final week of the 2024 legislative session will be on the Senate. The chamber has been a tinderbox this session thanks to an ugly split within the GOP caucus that’s loomed over much of the past few months.

Eric Lee

/

St. Louis Public RadioSenate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, speaks during a post-session press conference on Jan. 25 in Jefferson City. Senate Democrats have vowed to filibuster any proposal to make it harder to amend the Missouri Constitution that contains other provisions, like barring noncitizens from voting, which is already illegal.

Can Missouri Democrats stop ‘IP reform’?Republicans in the Senate are set to consider Mary Elizabeth Coleman’s proposal to make it harder to amend the state’s constitution — dubbed ‘IP reform’ by supporters.That measure, which still needs voter approval, would increase the threshold to pass constitutional amendments from a simple majority to passing in five out of eight congressional districts. The version that came out of the House features so-called “ballot candy,” such as a voting ban for noncitizens even though that’s already the law.Senate Minority Leader John Rizzo, D-Independence, has made it clear that his caucus will filibuster any version of Coleman’s legislation that includes ballot candy provisions. And it’s not known if there will be enough Republicans willing to use the rare “previous question” motion to end debate, considering some GOP senators voted to strip out the other provisions in Coleman’s bill earlier this year.But especially after abortion rights proponents submitted more than 380,000 signatures for a November ballot initiative to legalize the procedure, some groups opposed to abortion rights may put pressure on lawmakers to act. They are hoping the amendment threshold change passes in August and a court decides the new rules to approve amendments apply to the abortion ballot item. However, some Republicans like Senate President Pro Tem Calen Rowden have expressed doubts about this happening.

Eric Lee

/

St. Louis Public RadioSen. Bill Eigel, R-Weldon Spring, and Senate Floor Leader Cindy O’Laughlin, R-Shelbina, debate during session on Jan. 25 in Jefferson City. Senate Republican leadership has clashed with members of the Missouri Freedom Caucus holding up business.

Can Senate Republicans stick together, or will their schism emerge again?Missouri’s 2024 legislative session didn’t have the highest expectations, especially since it’s an election year. And hopes of accomplishing lots of policy priorities seemed to be dashed at the beginning of session thanks to eye-popping clashes between Senate GOP leadership and the newly formed Freedom Caucus.Ultimately, the tensions between those two factions have waxed and waned throughout the year. And despite drama and an extremely long filibuster over whether the Senate would pass a budget or the extension of the Federal Reimbursement Allowance, the chamber did end up completing work on both of those items on Thursday.But infighting may sink priorities that are unrelated to initiative petitions,including a bipartisan push to create tax credits to help child care facilities.

Brian Munoz

/

St. Louis Public RadioHouse Speaker Dean Plocher, R-Des Peres, listens into media questions in 2023. This week will mark the final days of Plocher’s speakership before lawmakers head into the 2024 election cycle.

Will the House finish work on major issues without any drama?The Senate featured much more drama and intrigue and infighting than the House this year. And while the House didn’t completely escape infighting, members are likely expecting a relatively quiet end to the year.The House needs to pass the FRA — a tax on hospitals that funds much of the state’s Medicaid program. Other priorities include a multipart crime bill, legislation that curbs eviction moratoriums and a measure tweaking a senior property tax freeze program that’s raised alarm in the state’s counties.Considering none of these bills is particularly controversial within the House GOP caucus, it’s unlikely that the chamber will have much trouble passing them.Will there be any surprises?The last week of the General Assembly’s session usually focuses on obvious unfinished business. And this year is no exception, with the lingering drama over the measure making it harder to amend the constitution.Still, the legislature is known to raise unexpected issues during the waning hours of session. Three years ago, lawmakers attempted, but failed, to get a measure passed instituting runoffs for statewide and congressional races. And last year, a dispute over cutting property taxes caused tensions within the Senate to combust.But since the only must-pass item this week is completing work on the FRA, there may not be as much of a drive to approve contentious items like reinstating state control of the St. Louis Police Department. Those issues may be left for the next governor and legislature to figure out in 2025.

Source link

Editor’s note: This story was originally published in the Belleville News-Democrat.Residents, businesses and public officials are raising concerns about safety, impeded access to their neighborhoods and other issues due to the April closing of a bridge on 26th Street in East St. Louis.They want the damaged bridge to be repaired and reopened quickly, but word is that it may take months. No official timetable has been released.“It has my area blocked in and a lot of my elderly people are having problems,” said Kinnis Williams Sr., Democratic precinct committeeman for the area. “ It’s an old neighborhood, and there are a bunch of elderly people living there. They are concerned and I am concerned for them.”Williams is also the St. Clair County Circuit Clerk.A vehicle damaged the heavily traveled bridge on 26th Street just southwest of Missouri Avenue, or Highway 15, on April 21, forcing the Illinois Department of Transportation to close it indefinitely over safety concerns. Initial inspections found “significant damage to multiple truss members,” Dawn Johnson, regional communications liaison for Region 5 of the Illinois Department of Transportation, said last month.
The bridge allows motorists to avoid having to cross Norfolk Southern railroad tracks that run beneath the structure. In East St. Louis, residents and others are often frustrated about navigating around stopped trains that block roads, so the bridge closing is particularly aggravating.Illinois Department of Transportation officials are aware of the impact of the closing, but they had to close it to ensure the safety of motorists, Johnson has said.“Our structural engineers are still assessing the bridge,” she said this week. “We anticipate determining our preliminary plans in a couple of weeks.”Meanwhile, residents and business people remain frustrated.Linda Joiner, whose 92-year old mom has been a longtime East St. Louis resident, said the bridge situation “is horrible.”“I use that bridge two, three, four times a day. I go across it to go to work, to go to church, to go shopping, everything,” Joiner said.The bridge closing is “terrifying” to her mother, who lives nearby and counts on Joiner to be able to get to her quickly, like during recent severe storms. Joiner couldn’t get to her quickly by the easy route that the bridge provides.“I tried to go through Alorton to get on Bond. There was a train sitting on Bond, not moving. So, I decided to go back around to take 18th Street to get to Bond,” she said. “It’s like dodging a mine field on some of the streets in the city, always has been. But now we are going to have even more potholes because trucks and cars and everybody has to take these two different routes.”Part of the safety factor too is that Joiner doesn’t want to be stuck in her car on the road waiting for a train to move.“From a safety perspective, I am not going to sit there and be a sitting duck for somebody possibly wanting to rob me, hurt me or cause any kind of problem,” she said. “I hate to be that way, but that’s the world we live in right now.“It has nothing to do with my love for the city. I love the city,” she said.Her ties to East St. Louis are deep, as are her mother’s, who lives in the house Joiner’s father built.“My point is something as simple as a bridge being shut down can wreak all kinds of havoc,” she said. “People have to find a different way to get to work. It’s just bad.”John McIntosh, owner of New York Cleaners on State Street, is worried that some of his customers will go to other cleaners to avoid the hassle of getting to his business because of the 26th Street bridge closure.“It is obviously creating an inconvenience for customers getting here,” he said. “And, it could also have an impact where we could end up losing business due to the lack of access.“If customers can’t reach us, they may choose to go to some easier alternative. It could have a bigger impact on our employees who depend on customers to give us work.”McIntosh said some customers have complained about the bridge being closed. “And, we are not getting any clear-cut answers,” he said. “I don’t know how quick they are going to respond, but I have heard it could be mid-July. That is a long time.”A bigger concern, he said, is that people who need emergency services may not get them as quickly with the bridge being closed.“At any given moment you could have a blockage of a railroad. That bridge was the only confident thoroughfare that you had to get to the highway to access a need for maybe some emergency,” McIntosh said.He said there should be a town hall meeting where state Transportation Department officials can hear residents’ concerns and let people know their plans for the bridge.

Joshua Carter

/

Belleville News-Democrat The bridge on 26th St. near Missouri Ave., or Highway 15, in East St. Louis, Ill. closed on April 19, 2024.

Jung Truck Service Inc., based in Mascoutah, has a building at 2400 McCasland Ave. in East St. Louis where trucks move in and out and are loaded and unloaded. The bridge closing has had an impact on the business, according to company President Bruce Jung.Jung Trucking normally averages about 250 trucks in his East St. Louis facility daily.“We’re still getting them. But it’s such a lengthy way for them to get to us,” he said. “Plus our trucks. We run a fleet of 100 trucks. It has added so much time to everybody’s day to go around that bridge.“One of the things that attracted us to that property in the very beginning was the fact you could come off of (Interstate) 255 and stay on state routes and basically not have ground level rail crossings.”Another big concern about the closed bridge, Jung said, is public safety.“What are fire trucks and ambulances doing that would normally take that bridge? They are taking the chance of being stopped at a railroad crossing. That is a real big factor,” Jung said.He said trains often block roads in East St. Louis. “If something happens at one of our facilities, how is fire or ambulance going to get to us necessarily or get back out?”There just aren’t many alternate routes, Jung said.“I couldn’t tell you how many thousands of commuters take that way to get to St. Louis in the mornings,” he said. “ Thousands, I am sure.”Jung said it is an important corridor “not only for trucks, but the general public.”Williams, the precinct committeeman for the area, acknowledged the problem with the trains that sit on tracks and block the roads in East St. Louis and Alorton, creating long wait periods for motorists before they can continue on east or west.“If you go either way besides the bridge… and go through Alorton or by 21st and Bond, Market or Trendley, you’re going to get stopped by a train,” he said. “It is kind of a problem. If there was a real emergency we could have a big problem right there.”Williams said he learned from the Illinois Department of Transportation that “a beam” will arrive in July and workers will be able to fix the bridge.“We are in bad shape,” he said.Williams said he’s met with St. Clair County Board Chairman Mark Kern about the bridge problem, and Kern met with state Transportation Department officials.Kern and State Sen. Chris Belt, who represents the area, could not be reached for comment.A spokesperson for Norfolk Southern also could not be reached.Carolyn P. Smith is a reporter with the Belleville News-Democrat, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.

Source link