News

A 48-year-old north St. Louis man faces five felony counts for his role in a shooting just southwest of downtown that left a seven-year-old girl in critical condition.

The Environmental Protection Agency is looking for possible water contamination in Southeastern Missouri, in the area affected by the Birds Point levee breach.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers blew up a Mississippi River levee at Birds Point on May 2 to protect upstream communities like Cairo, Ill.

The levee breach flooded 130,000 acres of Missouri farmland, including a confined animal feeding operation.

Updated at 5:16 p.m. with gallery of aerial photographs from msnbc.com.

Updated at 4:29 p.m. with information on multi-vortex designation from the National Weather Service.

The New York Times brings us this update this afternoon on the continuing situation in Joplin:

About 1,500 people are unaccounted for in this battered city, a Fire Department official said Tuesday, as rescue workers took advantage of a few hours of sunny weather to continue searching for survivors in buildings leveled by the country’s deadliest tornado in more than 60 years.

As of 1 p.m. today, The Missouri State Emergency Management Association, or SEMA, lists the death toll at 117 people, and that number could climb.

An Illinois House committee has approved new legislative districts despite opposition from a leading Latino advocacy group. The districts drawn by Democrats advanced on a party-line vote.

You can see the full map, and interact with it, here.

It's not clear when the full House might vote.

Republicans controlling the House are preparing a $1 billion aid package to make sure federal disaster relief accounts don't run out.

Rep. Robert Aderholt said the move would ensure that there's enough money for victims of the devastating tornado that leveled Joplin, Mo., on Sunday, as well as those suffering from flooding in the Mississippi Basin and from tornadoes that swept across Alabama last month.