The British General Staff's battle map.

Last month the New York City Council approved a developer’s proposal to erect an 18-story apartment tower on the East River in Brooklyn, just east of the Brooklyn Bridge. The project is controversial not only because…

Soon-to-be-former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin

Sarah Palin has announced that she will resign as governor of Alaska this month.

In a news conference from her home in Wasilla, Alaska, Palin announced Friday that she would resign later this month. The state’s lieutenant…

Below (lightly edited) we reprise this  wonderfully witty and engaging “translation” of the Declaration of Independence — into 20th century American parlance.

It first appeared in Baltimore Evening Sun in 1921.

It was written by H.L. Mencken, brilliant essayist, editorialist, satirist, grump, skeptic, libertarian…

Post-Dispatch file photo.

What’s the difference between a senior citizen in St. Louis and another in Kansas City? About $700, as far as Medicare is concerned.
In 2006, Medicare spent an average of $702 more per patient in St. Louis than it…

AP Photo/Jack Dempsey

Update: Read the governor’s Veto Message here.

Tony Messenger reports that Gov. Jay Nixon will veto the bill that would repeal the Missouri law that requires motorcyclists to wear helmets:

“In terms of lives and of dollars, the cost of repealing…

Post-Dispatch file photo.

The nation’s largest employer thinks big companies should be required to provide health insurance for their workers.
Wal-Mart, the country’s biggest retailer and the second-largest corporation in the world according to this year’s Fortune 500, this week endorsed the idea…

Robert Cohen/Post-Dispatch

Picking a July day with low humidity, a sweet breeze and noon-time temperatures hovering in the high 70s to debut an outdoor sculpture garden in the heart of downtown St. Louis clearly was a smart strategy.

Those conditions greeted Wednesday’s curtain…

Photo by Brian Adams for Runner's World

In case your subscription to Runner’s World has lapsed, here’s a link to a long interview with Sarah Palin, who describes the joy of sweat. Don’t miss the part when she encounters a mother…

Rick Sullivan (right) talks with parents and teachers at a meeting in 2007. Huy Richard Mach | Post-Dispatch

Gov. Jay Nixon is a key figure in the stability of St. Louis Public Schools. There’s no avoiding it — the district’s hard-fought battle…

For the first time, someone has put a price on what Americans are willing to pay to protect their children and grandchildren from the effects of global warming: $18.75 a month.

The effort began with a Washington Post/ABC News poll last week…

According to the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, on Thursday and Friday of last week, the nation’s cable news networks devoted 93 percent of their airtime to the death of Michael Jackson.

I wanted to add a personal note to our editorial today on the Supreme Court’s decision about promotions at the New Haven Fire Department.

I have great respect for fire fighters. But fire departments’ inability, nationally, to make significant progress in promoting…

By Ken Midkiff

Thousands of folks from St. Louis take float trips on the Current and Jacks Fork rivers – designated in 1964 by the US Congress as the Ozark National Scenic Riverways (NSR).  Congress also gave a mandate to the…

The U.S. Supreme Court served up plenty of red meat for conservative commentators Monday: Not only did it rule 5-4 in favor of white firefighters in New Haven, Conn., who claimed discrimination in promotions practices, but in so doing, it…

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki (AP Photo)

Four years ago Sunday, President George W. Bush summed up U.S. military strategy in Iraq for an audience at Fort Bragg, N.C.: “As the Iraqis stand up, we will stand down.”

It finally has happened. Today…

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon did something a little weird last Thursday: He vetoed $33,000 from the Department of Transportation’s budget to punish MoDOT for commissioning a poll on Missourians’ attitudes about the Legislature’s decision to lift the state law requiring…

Photo by Matthew Hathaway

Since last September, St. Louis Alderman Kacie Starr Triplett, D-6th ward, has been championing a “vacant building initiative.” Last Wednesday, her proposal finally got a hearing from an aldermanic committee.

The proposal had a lot of support, at least in…

Post-Dispatch file photo.

By any standard, American health care is the world’s most expensive.
• We spend twice as much per person as the average of other large developed nations — $6,714 in 2006, compared to $3,414. In 2008, per person spending is…

St. Louis’ Department of Health has been sending nurses into city parochial schools for decades. They do health screenings and make sure the children have received their immunizations.

Four nurses, all public employees, currently ride a circuit of 36 Catholic and Lutheran…

Cynthia Davis enjoying what surely is a rare restaurant meal (2001 Post-Dispatch photo by David Carson).

Thanks, in part, to a recent Post-Dispatch editorial, Missouri state Rep. Cynthia Davis, R-O’Fallon, was the subject of Keith Olbermann’s scorn this week on his…