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St. Paul activist Melvin Giles one of seven to receive $55,000 grant for rest and recuperation

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

With $55,000, Melvin Giles can buy a lot of fuel — er, bubbles.Giles, a lifelong Rondo community activist and urban gardener in St. Paul, is known for blowing bubbles as a central part of his peace advocacy. In addition to co-leading the Urban Farm and Garden Alliance and spreading joy with bubbles, Giles also installs peace poles, simple monuments with the inscription ‘May peace prevail on Earth’ in several languages.And as a “Star Trek” fan, he considers himself a time traveler — looking backward in time to draw lessons from the past, and looking generations into the future at a better world.Melvin Giles, a Rondo community activist, blows “peace bubbles” after an interview about the significance of the Dale Street Bridge Project in August 2017. Giles is an inductee in the new Black Legacy and Leadership Enrichment Initiative, which comes with an unrestricted $55,000 grant for recuperation. (ThreeSixty Journalism)His ethos, simply put: “The peace poles are m...

Longtime employees take over St. Paul’s 55-year-old Mastel’s Health Foods

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

After navigating Mastel’s Health Foods through the early stages of the pandemic, longtime employees Lauren Gaffney and Alina Hornfeldt knew they were ready for their next move — becoming the store’s new owners.Located at 1526 St. Clair Ave., Mastel’s has been selling supplements, vitamins and food to St. Paulites since it was founded in 1968 by John Mastel. New owners as of March 24, Gaffney and Hornfeldt plan to uphold the legacy that Mastel created with products they believe in and a focus on customer service.Mastel said that as a child, he suffered from near-constant allergies and illnesses, which spurred his interest in natural supplements and plants to try to quiet his symptoms. After discovering what worked for him, he said he made it a goal to teach others in hopes of helping them too.When asked how he felt about selling the store, Mastel said with a chuckle, “I feel like a grandad.”Gaffney began working for Mastel’s part-time in 2002 when she was a student. “I’ve...

Easter Sunday events in St. Louis highlight the holiday

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- There are a lot of fun events this Easter Sunday. One of them is a free Easter Egg hunt. It's happening at St. Paul's Evangelical Church at 10:45, and before that at 9:30 - an Easter worship service.Also happening today, is an Easter car show from 11 a.m. until 3 p.m. in Forest Park. It's put on by the Horseless Carriage Club of Missouri, where you can take a look at authentic restored and original antique vehicles 25 years and older; with some dating back to the early days of the automotive industry more than a century ago.And at around 1 p.m. today is the 46th annual Compton Heights Easter Parade. The parade starts at the Grand Point at 3521 Hawthorne. It will go from Hawthorne to Russell, to Longfellow and back to the Grand Point. The parade takes about half an hour to an hour.

Man shot in north St. Louis Saturday

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

ST. LOUIS -- Police are investigating after a man is shot several times in north St. Louis. It happened just after 8 p.m. Saturday on Northland Avenue in the Kingsway East neighborhood.Officers say a 29-year-old man was shot four times. He was taken to the hospital for treatment. His condition and name have not been released at this time. Neither has any information about a possible suspect.

Letters: Inspired by Native resilience displayed at Denver March Powwow

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

Inspired by Native resilience displayed at PowwowRe: “Denver March Powwow: ‘Culture is alive and well’,” March 20 news storyThis was my first time at a Powwow. I spent three days viewing and experiencing this special event at the Denver Coliseum. What I saw was beautiful and joyous. It was an expression of Native love, tradition, and unity. Their dance to the beat of drums, their energy and joy was a sight to behold. Yet, I felt something much more profound. Their sound was not a soft compliant drumbeat. The pounding of the drums expressed their anger and defiance. It was powerful. The singing that accompanied the beats was one of anguish and crying out for life.The dancers were all so beautiful with their colorful regalia and feathers. Mothers and fathers held their babies as they danced together. The young children danced enthusiastically and proudly. The elders, who danced slower, expressed their deep-rooted feelings for the love of their culture.I appreci...

Is Colorado ready to serve English learners under new universal preschool?

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

This story was originally published by Chalkbeat. Sign up for newsletters at ckbe.at/newsletters. Leer en español.Every morning, students in the Early Excellence Program in north Denver start their day with a song in Spanish and English. Story time and reading circles also happen in the two languages. Kids are encouraged, but never forced, to speak both.These are some of the ways teachers at this highly-rated preschool try to give students a strong foundation in their home language as they prepare for school — something researchers agree is helpful for young bilingual learners.As the state prepares to roll out universal preschool, a new taxpayer-funded program starting in the next school year that offers preschool hours for free to all 4-year-olds and some younger children, officials have given priority to children who don’t speak English at home. The state will offer those children more hours of tuition-free preschool and is promising — for the first time — that program...

From tiramisu croissant knots to sourdough loaves, artisan bakery’s business is on the rise

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

When bakery owner Zach Martinucci moved to Denver about five years ago, people told him there were plenty of bakeries in the area.“I was like, ‘Oh, no, there’s so much room,'” Martinucci replied. “I had come from San Francisco, where there was a bakery on every street corner and you could still open more because of the love of good bread.”Since starting Rebel Bread, an artisan bakery, Martinucci has seen more bakeries and coffee shops open in the Denver area. As the worst of the pandemic passed, his wholesale business surged to meet the rising demand for scones, muffins and croissants to go with all those cups of coffee.“We’ve always done wholesale. It’s been our priority for a while now,” Martinucci said.But the number of the bakery’s wholesale accounts approximately has doubled since November.“We’re now serving about 60 different accounts, up from 30. They’re mostly independent coffee shops in Denver, so...

Western Colorado safest region in country against rising tide of natural disasters

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

Rodney King heads up emergency management efforts in Conejos County and plans ways to protect residents from the worst-case scenarios. But when it comes to having to act on those plans, not much catastrophic happens in this off-the-beaten-path border region south of Alamosa.“We have no hurricanes and we have no tornadoes, although we do get high winds, the kind that can knock over power poles. We get some hail, usually pea-sized and sometimes it will get to marble-sized,” he said. “We do have earthquakes, usually along the Sangre de Cristo Range, but they are so mild that we don’t ever feel them.”Snow is plentiful higher up, but lower down, where most residents live, paralyzing dumps aren’t common. Winter temperatures can get bitterly cold and storms do knock the power out about twice a year up in the canyons. But locals are used to burning wood and coping until the power comes back on.The county was among the first in Colorado to record a severe pine b...

East High shooting spotlights tenuous balance between school safety, “moral obligation” to educate kids

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

The shooting inside Denver’s largest high school last month by a student who administrators had been checking daily for weapons raises a stark question: How do you balance a child’s right to an education with the need to keep students and school staff safe?Parents and community members are left wondering why Denver Public Schools enrolled Austin Lyle — the teen who shot and wounded two administrators while being searched at East High School — after he was expelled by the Cherry Creek School District and while on probation for a weapons charge.Educators and others have criticized DPS’s broader record on student discipline, describing the district’s policies as too tolerant and administrators too hesitant to expel students. But activists and other teachers worry the outcry over the March 22 violence — and a fatal shooting near the school in February — will disrupt the progress the district has made in combatting the school-to-prison pipeline, especi...

‘This tragedy was avoidable’: New records show how Hayward police found 8-year-old Sophia’s Mason — but it was already too late

Published Sat, 22 Feb 2025 11:00:51 GMT

Newly-obtained documents in the killing of Sophia Mason show that Hayward police – after getting a missing person’s report about the 8-year-old in March 2022 – swiftly determined what Alameda County social workers had failed to see for more than a year: The girl was in danger and needed immediate help.But by the time officers found Sophia just three days later, it was too late. She was already dead, decomposing in the bathtub of a house where her mother and the mother’s boyfriend had lived in Merced.At a home where 8-year-old Sophia Mason’s body was found in March on the 500 block of Barclay Way in Merced, Calif., a curbside memorial remains outside the now empty house, Tuesday, May 31, 2022. (Karl Mondon/Bay Area News Group) The documents, compiled by police and obtained after this news organization successfully sought a court order, confirm the findings of ongoing reporting by the Bay Area News Group detailing how Alameda County’s Department of Children and Family Servi...