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11.22.2009 9:01 pm

Problems at Alton levee underscore a major regional threat

Water seeping under a levee near the Mel Price Lock and Dam in Alton.

Water seeping under a levee near the Mel Price Lock and Dam in Alton.

A plague of “sand boils” undermining an important Mississippi River levee in Alton is an ominous reminder of the critical need for extensive flood protection improvements in the…

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11.22.2009 9:00 pm

Prosecutors should send a message on consumer fraud

Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster filed suit earlier this month against six companies that market “extended service contracts” and special “additives” to automobile owners. The companies, which promise to reimburse consumers for costly auto repairs, have generated an epidemic of complaints.

“I…

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11.20.2009 9:00 pm

Dislocated in America

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

Vice President Joe Biden was on “The Daily Show” Tuesday night, being grilled, ever so lightly, by host Jon Stewart on why unemployment was so high and the Obama administration’s $787 billion stimulus package seems to be producing so few…

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11.19.2009 9:01 pm

Following the evidence on cancer screenings

Women worried about breast cancer have just one concern: What can they do to reduce the risk of dying from the disease?
One answer is to get regular mammograms. Over the past 15 years, that advice has saved thousands of lives.…

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11.19.2009 9:00 pm

When Hans Met Sarah: Everyone’s a critic.

“Like a lot of people, as soon as I got my copy of Sarah Palin’s ‘Going Rogue,’ I immediately thought of the German literary critic Hans Robert Jauss.”
— Matthew Continetti, The Washington Post, Nov. 17

Somehow we doubt that a lot…

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11.18.2009 9:01 pm

It’s time to dissolve the Northeast Fire District

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

So now comes Missouri Auditor Susan Montee to say the Northeast Ambulance and Fire Protection District is the worst-run agency her office ever has encountered, a “poster child” for bad government, a place where none of the books are balanced,…

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11.18.2009 9:00 pm

Illinois prosecutor bullies students, backslides to bad old days

Cook County State’s Attorney Anita M. Alvarez recently created a sensation with an 11th-hour filing in a high-profile murder case, alleging that students at Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism may have paid witnesses for statements exonerating a convicted murderer.

If it were…

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11.17.2009 9:01 pm

Hunger, a Third World problem, affects a sixth of the U.S.

A volunteer at a St. Charles County food pantry looks over empty shelves.

A volunteer at a St. Charles County food pantry looks over empty shelves.

The number of Americans without enough to eat has reached the highest level since the federal government began keeping track 14 years ago.
About 49 million people — including…

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11.17.2009 9:00 pm

Scare mongering about trials, prison is cynical partisanship

An aerial view of the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

An aerial view of the Thomson Correctional Center in Thomson, Ill. AP Photo/Charles Rex Arbogast

There’s poetic symmetry to the press release Sen. Christopher S. “Kit” Bond, R-Mo., issued last week after Attorney General Eric Holder decided that Guantanamo Bay detainees will…

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11.16.2009 9:00 pm

Reversing the silent epidemic of premature births

A baby in St. Louis Children's Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

A baby in St. Louis Childrens Hospital Neonatal Intensive Care Unit.

The little girl lay silent and asleep.
She wore a white stocking cap. A pair of plastic tubes sprouted from her chest, deep crimson from the blood that filled them.
They led…

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11.15.2009 9:03 pm

Danforth-Freeman should define stability for St. Louis schools

St. Louis’ civic dynamic duo — civil rights attorney Frankie M. Freeman and Washington University Chancellor Emeritus William H. Danforth — has been pressed back into service on behalf of St. Louis Public Schools.

Missouri Commissioner of Education Chris L. Nicastro has…

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11.15.2009 9:00 pm

New survey shows weaknesses in U.S. primary care

Post-Dispatch file photo.

Post-Dispatch file photo.

If you’re planning to get sick outside of regular business hours, you’d be well advised to do it in the Netherlands.
Almost every Dutch primary care doctor — 97 percent, to be precise — has a nurse or physician…

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11.13.2009 9:00 pm

Police business: What would “local control” look like?

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

On Tuesday afternoon, after Missouri Auditor Susan Montee released an audit critical of the St. Louis Police Department’s business practices, we intended to confront Police Chief Daniel Isom and Todd Epsten, chairman of the Board of Police Commissioners, with…

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11.12.2009 9:00 pm

Reality and Afghanistan: It’s time to leave.

A wounded soldier from the 10th Mountain Division is evacuated from Afghanistan's Wardark Province in August. (David Goldman/AP)

A wounded soldier from the 10th Mountain Division is evacuated from Afghanistan in August. (David Goldman/AP)

For decades historians have argued whether, had he lived, President John F. Kennedy would have sent the nation full tilt into Vietnam the way President Lyndon…

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11.11.2009 9:02 pm

Framed? Too bad.

In what would seem to have been a no-brainer, a three-judge panel of the Eighth U.S. Court of Appeals in St. Louis ruled last year that prosecuting attorneys should not receive blanket immunity from lawsuits and monetary damages when they use false…

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11.10.2009 9:01 pm

Veterans Day: So many wars, so many sacrifices.

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

On this Veterans Day, its worth remembering that the holiday originally was named Armistice Day, a commemoration of the end, on Nov. 11, 1918, of the “war to end all wars.”

By November 1954, it had become apparent that hadn’t quite…

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11.10.2009 9:00 pm

Kids of all ages say Hooray for Sesame Street

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

AP Photo/Mark Lennihan

Forty years have passed since puppeteer extraordinaire Jim Henson and a brilliant cast of producers, writers and performers at Children’s Television Workshop launched an experimental children’s program called “Sesame Street.”

It was a response to what Federal Communications Commission Chairman…

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11.09.2009 9:01 pm

Understanding reform doesn’t come from handicapping it

Horse race or health reform?

Here’s something you won’t learn from reading headlines or obsessively watching text crawl across the bottom of the TV screen: Health care reform isn’t a horse race.
It doesn’t turn on what the latest key member of Congress said this morning…

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11.09.2009 9:00 pm

Roy Blunt takes populist outrage for a spin.

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

R.J. Matson/Post-Dispatch

Roy Blunt usually is not the kind of politician who trades in populist outrage. But there he was last week, issuing a statement from his U.S. House office that said, “While many Missourians are still at risk, Wall Street…

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11.08.2009 9:03 pm

St. Louis Public Schools needs help from many hands

(AP Photo/Chicago Tribune, Bill Hogan)

(AP Photo/Chicago Tribune, Bill Hogan)

Three hundred public school professionals from districts throughout the state descended on schools throughout the St. Louis School District over several days last April and May.

They were teachers, principals, superintendents, librarians, counselors, technology advisers and special education…

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