Aggregator

St. Louis Lambert International Airport is looking to pay more to a new parking shuttle provider in hopes of receiving improved service.

BETHALTO - Ashley Wallis knows the importance of helping others. Wallis teaches special education at Civic Memorial High School in the Bethalto Community Unit School District #8. This Teacher Appreciation Week, she is proud of the work she has done to build up her students and help them succeed. “My favorite aspect of my job is the opportunity to care for my students,” Wallis said. “I cherish the moments we share, both the joys and the challenges in their lives. It’s incredibly rewarding to see the spark in their eyes when they grasp new concepts, and nothing compares to the pride I feel as I watch them walk across the stage at graduation.” Wallis started mentoring and teaching at a young age as a big sister. She would often pretend to grade assignments and teach her dolls how to read. Coming from a family of faith, she learned early on how important it is to serve. After graduating from Alton High School, Wallis began studying vocal performance

Continue Reading

Missouri is poised to become the first state to repeal a common tax on profits from stocks and real estate sales. Legislation passed Wednesday would exempt capital gains from Missouri's individual income taxes starting this year and could also eventually eliminate the tax for corporations.

Missouri House Republicans muscled their biggest tax-cut priority of the year across the finish line on Wednesday, sending a bill exempting capital gains from income tax to Gov. Mike Kehoe. No Democrats supported the bill, although 10 did vote “present” to show they supported provisions of the legislation other than the exemption on profits from […]

by Kavitha Surana, Lizzie Presser and Andrea Suozzo

ProPublica is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates abuses of power. Sign up to receive our biggest stories as soon as they’re published.

Nearly four years ago in Texas, the state’s new abortion law started getting in the way of basic miscarriage care: As women waited in hospitals cramping, fluid running down their legs, doctors told them they couldn’t empty their uterus to guard against deadly complications.

The state banned most abortions, even in pregnancies that were no longer viable; then, it added criminal penalties, threatening to imprison doctors for life and punish hospitals. The law had one exception, for a life-threatening emergency.

Heeding the advice of hospital lawyers, many doctors withheld treatment until they could document patients were in peril. They sent tests to labs, praying for signs of infection, and watched as women lost so much blood that they needed transfusions.“You would see the pain in peoples’ eyes,” one doctor said of her patients.

Not every hospital tolerated this new normal, ProPublica found. A seismic split emerged in how medical institutions in the state’s two largest metro areas treated miscarrying patients — and in how these women fared.

Leaders of influential hospitals in Dallas empowered doctors to intervene before patients’ conditions worsened, allowing them to induce deliveries or perform procedures to empty the uterus.

In Houston, most did not.

The result, according to a first-of-its-kind ProPublica analysis of state hospital discharge data, is that while the rates of dangerous infections spiked across Texas after it banned abortion in 2021, women in Houston were far more likely to get gravely ill than those in Dallas.

As ProPublica reported earlier this year, the statewide rate of sepsis — a life-threatening reaction to infection — shot up more than 50% for women hospitalized when they lost a second-trimester pregnancy.

A new analysis zooms in: In the region surrounding Dallas-Fort Worth, it rose 29%. In the Houston area, it surged 63%.

After Texas Banned Abortion, the Sepsis Rate Spiked in Houston, but not Dallas Note: For hospitalizations at facilities in the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth perinatal care regions involving a pregnancy loss between 13 weeks’ gestation and the end of the 21st week. Rates are annual. (Lucas Waldron/ProPublica)

ProPublica has documented widespread differences in how hospitals across the country have translated abortion bans into policy. Some have supported doctors in treating active miscarriages and high-risk cases with procedures technically considered abortions; others have forbidden physicians from doing so, or left them on their own to decide, with no legal backing in case of arrest.

This marks the first analysis in the wake of abortion bans that connects disparities in hospital policies to patient outcomes. It shows that when a state law is unclear and punitive, how an institution interprets it can make all the difference for patients.

Yet the public has no way to know which hospitals or doctors will offer options during miscarriages. Hospitals in states where abortion is banned have been largely unwilling to disclose their protocols for handling common complications. When ProPublica asked, most in Texas declined to say.

ProPublica’s Texas reporting is based on interviews with 22 doctors in both the Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth metro areas who had insight into policies at 10 institutions covering more than 75% of the births and pregnancy-loss hospitalizations in those areas.

The findings come as evidence of the fatal consequences of abortion bans continue to mount, with a new report just last month showing that the risk of maternal mortality is nearly twice as high for women living in states that ban abortion. Last year, ProPublica documented five preventable maternal deaths, including three in Texas.

One second-trimester pregnancy complication that threatens patients’ lives is previable premature rupture of membranes, called PPROM, when a woman’s water breaks before the fetus can live on its own. Without amniotic fluid, the likelihood of the fetus surviving is low. But with every passing hour that a patient waits for treatment or for labor to start, the risk of sepsis increases.

The Texas Supreme Court has said that doctors can legally provide abortions in PPROM cases, even when an emergency is not imminent.

Yet legal departments at many major Houston hospitals still advise physicians not to perform abortions in these cases, doctors there told ProPublica, until they can document serious infection.

Dr. John Thoppil, the immediate past president of the Texas Association of Obstetricians and Gynecologists, said he was “blown away” by this finding. He said it’s time for hospitals to stop worrying about hypothetical legal consequences of the ban and start worrying more about the real threats to patients’ lives.

“I think you’re risking legal harm the opposite way for not intervening,” he said, “and putting somebody at risk.”

“We Have Your Back”

In the summer of 2021, Dr. Robyn Horsager-Boehrer, a Dallas specialist in high-risk pregnancy, listened as hospital lawyers explained to a group of UT Southwestern Medical Center doctors that they would no longer be able to act on their clinical judgment.

Dr. Robyn Horsager-Boehrer, a retired maternal-fetal medicine specialist in Dallas (Lexi Parra for ProPublica)

For decades, these UT Southwestern physicians had followed the guidance of major medical organizations: They offered patients with PPROM the option to end the pregnancy to protect against serious infection. But under the state’s new abortion ban, they would no longer be allowed to do so while practicing at the county’s safety net hospital, Parkland Memorial, which delivers more babies than almost any other in the country. Nor would they be permitted at UT Southwestern’s William P. Clements Jr. University Hospital.

Lawyers from the two hospitals explained in a meeting that the law’s only exception was for a “medical emergency” — but it wasn’t clear how the courts would define that. With no precedent or guidance from the state, they advised the doctors that they should offer to intervene only if they could document severe infection or bleeding — signs of a life-threatening condition, Horsager-Boehrer recalled. They would need to notify the state every time they terminated a pregnancy. ProPublica also spoke with six of Horsager-Boehrer’s colleagues who described similar meetings.

As the new policy kicked in, the doctors worried the lawyers didn’t understand how fast sepsis could develop and how difficult it could be to control. Many patients with PPROM can appear stable even while an infection is taking hold. During excruciating waits, Dr. Austin Dennard said she would tell patients at Clements, “We need something to be abnormal so that we can offer you all of the options that someone in New York would have.” Then she would return to the physicians’ lounge, lay down her head and cry.

Dr. Austin Dennard, an OB-GYN in Dallas (Lexi Parra for ProPublica)

Their only hope, the doctors felt, was to collect data and build a case that the hospital’s policy needed to change.

Within eight months, 28 women with severe pregnancy complications before fetal viability had come through the doors of Parkland and Clements. Twenty-six of them were cases in which the patients’ water broke early. Analyzing the medical charts, a group of researchers led by Dr. Anjali Nambiar, a UT Southwestern OB-GYN, found that a dozen women experienced complications including hemorrhage and infection. Only one baby survived.

The research team compared the results with another study in which patients were offered pregnancy terminations. They found that of patients who followed the “watch and wait” protocol, more than half experienced serious complications, compared with 33% who immediately terminated their pregnancies.

Armed with the research, the doctors, including Horsager-Boehrer, returned to the lawyers for the two hospitals. Everyone agreed the data demanded action. Alongside physicians, the lawyers helped develop language that doctors could include in medical charts to explain why they terminated a pregnancy due to a PPROM diagnosis, Dennard said.

At Parkland, the new protocol required doctors to get signoff from one additional physician, attach the study as proof of the risk of serious bodily harm — part of the “medical emergency” definition in the law — and notify hospital leaders. At Clements, doctors also needed to get CEO approval to end a pregnancy, which could create delays if patients came in on a weekend, doctors said. But it was vastly better than the alternative, Dennard said. The message from the lawyers, she said, was: “We have your back. We are going to take care of you.”

A spokesperson for UT Southwestern said “no internal protocols delay care or otherwise compromise patient safety.” A spokesperson for Parkland said that “physicians are empowered to document care as they deem appropriate” and that hospital attorneys had “helped review and translate the doctors’ proposed language to make sure it followed the law.”

Parkland and UT Southwestern are not the only ones providing this care in Dallas. ProPublica spoke with doctors who have privileges at hospitals that oversee 60% of births and pregnancy loss hospitalizations in the Dallas-Fort Worth region, including Baylor Scott & White and Texas Health Resources. They said that their institutions support offering terminations to patients with high-risk second-trimester pregnancy complications like PPROM.

At Baylor Scott & White, doctors said, the leadership always stood by this interpretation of the law. (When asked, a spokesperson said miscarrying patients are counseled on surgical options, and that its hospitals follow state and federal laws. “Our policies are developed to comply with those laws, and we educate our teams on those policies.”)

Texas Health and other hospitals in the region did not respond to requests for comment.

While efforts to be proactive have meant more patients are able to receive the standard of care in Dallas, that is still not the case at every medical campus in the region. Doctors at Parkland said they have seen patients come to them after they were turned away from hospitals nearby.

In other parts of the state, however, it’s been impossible to know where to turn.

“No Interventions Can Be Performed”

In Houston, one of America’s most prestigious medical hubs, Dr. Judy Levison mounted her own campaign.

The veteran OB-GYN at Baylor College of Medicine wanted hospital leaders to support intervening in high-risk complications in line with widely accepted medical standards. In 2022, she emailed her department chair, Dr. Michael Belfort, who is also the OB-GYN-in-chief at Texas Children’s. She told him colleagues had shared “feelings of helplessness, moral distress and increasing concerns about the safety of our patients.”

Dr. Judy Levison, a retired OB-GYN, at her home in Denver (Rachel Woolf for ProPublica)

They needed training on how to protect patients within the bounds of the law, she said, and language they could include in charts to justify medically necessary abortions. But in a meeting, Belfort told her he couldn’t make these changes, Levison recalled.

He said that if he supported abortions in medically complicated cases like PPROM, the hospital could lose tens of millions of dollars from the state, she told ProPublica. “I came to realize that he was in a really difficult place because he risked losing funding for our residency program if Baylor and Texas Children’s didn't interpret the law the way they thought the governor did.” She wondered if he was deferring to hospital lawyers.

Belfort did not respond to requests for comment about his stance. Nor did Baylor or Texas Children’s.

Although Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton has threatened hospitals with civil action if they allow a doctor to perform what he views as an “unlawful” abortion, he hasn’t filed any such actions. And in the years since the ban, there have been no reports of the state pulling funding from a hospital on account of its abortion policy.

A spokesperson at only one major Houston hospital chain, Houston Methodist, said that it considered PPROM a medical emergency and supported terminations for “the health and safety of the patient.”

Five other major hospital groups that, together, provide the vast majority of maternal care in the Houston region either continue to advise doctors not to offer pregnancy terminations for PPROM cases or leave it up to the physicians to decide, with no promise of legal support if they’re charged with a crime. This is according to interviews with a dozen doctors about the policies at HCA, Texas Children’s, Memorial Hermann, Harris Health and The University of Texas Medical Branch. Together, they account for about 8 in 10 hospitalizations in the region for births or pregnancy loss.

Most of the doctors spoke with ProPublica on the condition of anonymity, as they feared retaliation for violating what some described as a hospital “gag order” against discussing abortion. In a sign of how secretive this decision-making has become, most said their hospitals had not written down these new policies, only communicated them orally.

Several doctors told ProPublica that Dr. Sean Blackwell, chair of the obstetrics and gynecology department at Houston’s University of Texas Health Science Center, which staffs Harris Health Lyndon B. Johnson Hospital and Memorial Hermann hospitals, had conveyed a message similar to Belfort’s: He wasn’t sure he would be able to defend providers if they intervened in these cases. He did not respond to multiple requests for comment, and his institution, UTHealth Houston, declined to comment.

ProPublica reached out to officials at all five hospital groups, asking if they offer terminations at the point of a PPROM diagnosis. Only one responded. Bryan McLeod at Harris Health pointed to the hospital system’s written policy, which ProPublica reviewed, stating that an emergency doesn’t need to be imminent for a doctor to intervene. But McLeod did not respond to follow-up questions asking if patients with PPROM are offered pregnancy terminations if they show no signs of infection — and several doctors familiar with the chain’s practices said they are not.

The state Senate unanimously passed a bill last week to clarify that doctors can terminate pregnancies if a woman faces a risk of death that is not imminent. ProPublica asked the hospitals if they would change their policies on PPROM if this is signed into law. They did not respond.

Last fall, ProPublica reported that Josseli Barnica died in Houston after her doctors did not evacuate her uterus for 40 hours during an “inevitable” miscarriage, waiting until the fetal heartbeat stopped. Two days later, sepsis killed her.

Barnica was treated at HCA, the nation’s largest for-profit hospital chain, which did not respond to a detailed list of questions about her care. With 70% of its campuses in states where abortion is restricted, the company leaves the decision of whether to take the legal risk up to the physicians, without the explicit legal support provided in Dallas, according to a written policy viewed by ProPublica and interviews with doctors. A spokesperson for the chain said doctors with privileges at its hospitals are expected to exercise their independent medical judgment “within applicable laws and regulations.” As a result, patients with potentially life-threatening conditions have no way of knowing which HCA doctors will treat them and which won’t.

Brooklyn Leonard, a 29-year-old esthetician eager for her first child, learned this in February. She was 14 weeks pregnant when her water broke. At HCA Houston Healthcare Kingwood, her doctor Arielle Lofton wrote in her chart, “No interventions can be performed at this time legally because her fetus has a heartbeat.” The doctor added that she could only intervene when there was “concern for maternal mortality.” Leonard and her husband had trouble getting answers about whether she was miscarrying, she said. “I could feel that they were not going to do anything for me there.” Lofton and HCA did not respond to a request for comment.

Brooklyn Leonard was diagnosed with PPROM when she was 14 weeks pregnant in Houston. It took her five days to get care. (Lexi Parra for ProPublica)

It was only after visits to three Houston hospitals over five days that Leonard was able to get a dilation and evacuation to empty her uterus. A doctor at Texas Children’s referred her to Dr. Damla Karsan, who works in private practice and is known for her part in an unsuccessful lawsuit against the state seeking permission to allow an abortion for a woman whose fetus was diagnosed with a fatal anomaly. Karsan felt there was no question PPROM cases fell under the law’s exception. She performed the procedure at The Woman’s Hospital of Texas, another HCA hospital. “She’s lucky she didn’t get sick,” Karsan said of Leonard.

Dr. Damla Karsan, an OB-GYN in Houston (Lexi Parra for ProPublica)

Many Houston doctors said they have continued to call on their leadership to change their stance to proactively support patients with PPROM, pointing to data analyses from Dallas hospitals and ProPublica and referring to the Texas Supreme Court ruling. It hasn’t worked.

Houston hospitals haven’t taken action even in light of alarming research in their own city. Earlier this year, UTHealth Houston medical staff, including department chair Blackwell, revealed early findings from a study very similar to the one out of Dallas.

It showed what happened after patients at three partner hospitals stopped being offered terminations for PPROM under the ban: The rate of sepsis tripled.

Still, nothing changed.

How We Measured Sepsis Rates

To examine second-trimester pregnancy loss outcomes in Houston and Dallas, we used a methodology we developed to determine sepsis rates in inpatient hospitalizations where a pregnancy ended between 13 weeks’ gestation and the end of the 21st week. To assess regional differences, we grouped hospitals by perinatal care region and focused on the two regions with the highest population: Houston and Dallas-Fort Worth.

We grouped hospitalizations in the nine quarters after the implementation of the state’s six-week abortion ban (October 2021 through December 2023) and compared them with hospitalizations in the nine quarters immediately before. Each region had about 2,700 second-trimester pregnancy loss hospitalizations over the course of the time span we examined.

Sophie Chou contributed data reporting, and Mariam Elba contributed research.

The city is still working to complete the reforms in 19 areas spelled out in the 131-page document between the city of Ferguson and the U.S. Department of Justice.

A recent article from the American Psychological Association noted that Artificial Intelligence (AI) is increasingly being used in health care settings, with its potential use expected to expand across the industry. While AI adoption in health care is on the rise, many providers and patients remain hesitant about its implementation. Although this apprehension is understandable, AI has the potential to enhance accessibility, efficiency, and personalization in mental health care, provided it is utilized thoughtfully and ethically. Currently, attitudes toward the use of AI in behavioral health care are mixed. Many people don’t feel strongly either way. On the other hand, there are a few who have strong opinions both in favor of and against the use of AI in mental health. However, as more physicians incorporate AI into their practices, particularly for documentation, openness to the use of this technology is increasing. As AI becomes more widespread, experts anticipate a shift

Continue Reading

GODFREY – Lewis and Clark Community College is inviting the community to campus for a fun-filled day at its annual Summerfest, from 4-7 p.m., Wednesday, June 4. This year’s event will be held in the George C. Terry River Bend Arena on the Godfrey Campus. Summerfest is free to attend and will include food trucks, inflatables, a children’s area, face painting, vendors, campus and community resources, L&C giveaways, and more. “We’re excited to return for another incredible year,” said Recruiter Daniel Nosce, who coordinates the event each year. “Join us for a vibrant, family-friendly celebration designed to engage and entertain community members of all ages.” Look for L&C’s mascot, Blazer the Newfie, throughout the event for a fun photo opportunity. Anyone interested in the college’s educational offerings can get information on everything from college-level transfer programs and short-term degrees and certificates to

Continue Reading

Going forward, those without a Real ID will not be able to fly unless they bring a passport. Additionally, anyone without a Real ID can not enter a federal building or a nuclear power plant, according to the Missouri Director of Revenue.

The Who appear to have something brewing.The Rock & Roll Hall of Famers shared a cryptic post on Instagram Wednesday, writing, “Stay tuned… in 24-hrs we’ll be answering your questions!” They then asked…

Source

A St. Charles County man will be arraigned next month for allegedly keeping thousands of images and videos containing child sexual abuse material.

Sonny Gray pitched seven innings of two-hit ball, and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the slumping Pittsburgh Pirates 5-0 on Wednesday for their fifth straight victory.

Justice Department announces results of Operation Restore Justice 205 child sex abuse offenders arrested in FBI-led nationwide crackdown, four facing charges in the Southern District of Illinois EAST ST. LOUIS — The Department of Justice announced Wednesday, May 7, 2025, the results of Operation Restore Justice, a nationwide enforcement initiative aimed at identifying and arresting child sex offenders. Over five days, the FBI led a coordinated effort involving all 55 of its field offices, the Department’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and U.S. Attorney’s Offices across the country, resulting in the rescue of 115 children and the arrest of 205 individuals accused of child sexual abuse offenses. In the Southern District of Illinois, four individuals face federal charges related to child sexual exploitation. Jared K. Galbraith, 38, of Belleville, is charged with sexual exploitation of children and transportation with intent to engage in criminal sexual

Continue Reading

GODFREY – Lewis and Clark Community College’s inaugural Blazer Con drew fans and community members to campus for an unforgettable day of fun, fandom and connection across sci-fi, fantasy, comics, and pop culture. The convention, held from 1-8 p.m., Saturday, April 12, saw a turnout of around 700 students, team members and community members. Con attendees shopped with local vendors, enjoyed delicious food options, and engaged in friendly conversations about their favorite fandoms. “It was truly incredible to see the community come together and celebrate the things they love,” said Blazer Con director and LC Media Specialist Jared Smilack. “Everyone had a blast, from the cosplay contest to the diverse range of vendors. The sense of community was electric, and that’s exactly what we hoped to create with Blazer Con.” One of the major highlights of the day was the cosplay contest, which took place at 3 p.m. and attracted some of the best-dressed

Continue Reading

The new president of the Bar Association of Metropolitan St. Louis said he will prioritize “protecting and upholding the integrity of the justice system” and the rule of law. He wouldn't discuss President Trump's record.

ALTON - In January 2025, Alton Memorial Hospital Chief of Staff and Chief of Anesthesia, Dr. Juri McDowell, traveled to Africa as part of an effort by regional business leaders to strengthen business relations between the St. Louis Metro area and Kigali, Rwanda. The overarching initiative, led by the World Trade Center and Nexus Group, is to establish a sister city agreement between St. Louis and Kigali. Dr. McDowell specifically wanted to learn more about the disparities in specialty medical care in the area and the innovations Rwanda has implemented in the setting of resource-strained healthcare delivery. While in the area, the group made an unscheduled stop at a local school for the blind named Seeing Hands Rwanda. The founder, Beth Gatonye, gave a tour of the small school and told the story of how she started it with her own money in her home not long after the 1994 genocide against the Tutsi people. Students learn a variety of skills depending on their individual needs. Gaton

Continue Reading

The restaurant group also includes brunch and breakfast concept Rooster, Chocolate Bar, Baileys' Range, Bridge Tap House, and The Fifth Wheel.

This year's celebration will not include the America's Birthday Parade, breaking a 141-year-old tradition.