Grand Center, Inc. & Jazz St. Louis have partnered to present the American Music Showcase on Saturday, August 3, from 6pm to Midnight, in Grand Center. For $10, guests will receive wristband admission which will provide access to all six bands and five participating venues along with food and drink specials.

An entrepreneurship program for bee keeping, reflective rooftop painting and a new skate park are among the seven winning projects of the Sustainable Neighborhood Small Grant Competition to promote sustainability among City neighborhoods.

Black Friday has come and gone and retailers definitely reaped the benefit. Wal-Mart, despite some of its employees mounting a symbolic protest, reported that it sold 5,000 items for second!

It’s taken since February to get here, but help is coming for some homeowners who lost their homes due to foreclosure or they are underwater on their existing homes. Underwater means they owe more on the house than it is actually worth, a bad position to be.

You know whose book club or endorsement you would like to have to propel your book beyond profitability and move it upwards on the New York Times’ Best Seller list. If Oprah Winfrey, a Southern Belle tells you that your mouth-watering fried chicken is delightful and yummy; well that has to be good for another month of wall-to-wall lunch and dinner reservations.

Even though the event was scheduled for 2:30 p.m. on Thursday, Missouri Governor Jay Nixon made the media and other guests, including Cardinals president Bill Dewitt III, State Rep Karla May and Aldermen Shane Cohen and Jeffrey Boyd wait for about 30 minutes, while Nixon apparently talked to inner city youngsters and Big Brother Big Sister of Eastern Missouri executives and some board members in another part of the building which still would have been an excellent media op, instead of podium shots of talking heads. Kids and politicians interacting always make for interesting viewing.

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. –While some Dems are attempting to teach MO State Rep Penny Hubbard, a straight-shooter, a lesson by running several people against her in her revised district, because she knows how to count votes, and isn’t smoking crack as she works across the aisle with the controlling lawmakers – the Republicans; — this sophomore is moving ahead with progressive legislation, that has a lot of compassion and logic, and she is taking a large chunk of both sides of the political persuasion with her.

City development and elected officials joined McEagle Properties and NSC employees for a ribbon-cutting ceremony today for a new multi-million NSC campus within the McEagle Properties Northside Regeneration Project, although one could swear we were a few blocks from downtown St. Louis. Reportedly the campus is the first completed by the Northside Regeneration team. The 100,000 square-foot facility features a 24,000 addition to the house the company’s relocated showroom and distribution center.

LL Cool J said it best. “Let’s face it; we’ve had a death in the family”. Of course, LL was addressing the entertainment industry present at the Grammy awards and the family he referred to was more likely than not, those in the business. But in reality, Whitney Houston was a part of a much larger family. Us. And so we all should feel. One family, God’s family.