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HARTFORD — A medical helicopter crashed and caught fire Thursday evening during a training event hosted by the Hartford Fire Department, authorities said. The incident occurred around 8:51 p.m. on April 24 as Arch Medical Helicopter took off from the training site. An unknown cause led to the crash, according to officials. The Hartford Fire Department, with assistance from the South Roxana, Roxana, Mitchell, and Wood River fire departments, responded to the scene. Madison County HazMat and Madison County Emergency Management also provided support. Three crew members aboard the helicopter, including the pilot, were transported by ambulance to hospitals in St. Louis. All suffered non-life-threatening injuries and were reported in stable condition. Hartford Police said the road affected by the crash would reopen soon. The Federal Aviation Administration is investigating the incident.

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Eight people were injured in a crash Friday afternoon in north St. Louis.

A rabbit found dead in Tuscola was confirmed to have died from tularemia, officials in Douglas County said.

Drivers in the Metro East are having to find an alternative way around a familiar road after parts of it collapsed over the Easter weekend due to heavy rain.

At the time, the charges were related to one victim; however, new charges claim there is a second victim. 

Illinois Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton has announced her candidacy for the U.S. Senate, with a focus on protecting the values of the middle class and moving the country forward.

This weekend, thousands of runners will once again flood the streets of St. Louis’ historic neighborhoods for the 25th year for the Greater St. Louis Marathon.

by William Turton, Avi Asher-Schapiro, Christopher Bing and Andy Kroll

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

A Treasury Department inspector general is probing efforts by President Donald Trump and Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency to obtain private taxpayer data and other sensitive information, internal communications reviewed by ProPublica show.

The office of the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration has sought a wide swath of information from IRS employees. In particular, the office is seeking any requests for taxpayer data from the president, the Executive Office of the President, DOGE or the president’s Office of Management and Budget.

The request, spelled out in a mid-April email obtained by ProPublica, comes as watchdogs and leading Democrats question whether DOGE has overstepped its bounds in seeking information about taxpayers, public employees or federal agencies that is typically highly restricted.

The review appears to be in its early stages — one document describes staffers as “beginning preplanning” — but the email directs the IRS to turn over specific documents by Thursday, April 24. It’s not clear if that happened.

The inspector general is seeking, for instance, “All requests for taxpayer or other protected information from the President or Executive Office of the President, OMB, or DOGE. Include any information on how the requestor plans to use the information requested, the IRS’s response to the request, and the legal basis for the IRS’s response,” the email says.

The inquiry also asks for information about requests for access to IRS systems from any agency in the executive branch, including the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration and DOGE.

The Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration office, known as TIGTA, is led by acting Inspector General Heather M. Hill. When Trump fired 17 inspectors general across a range of federal agencies in January, those working for the Treasury Department were not among the ones axed.

The White House, DOGE, OMB and Musk did not respond to requests for comment Friday.

Previously, the administration has said, “Those leading this mission with Elon Musk are doing so in full compliance with federal law, appropriate security clearances, and as employees of the relevant agencies, not as outside advisors or entities.”

A TIGTA spokesperson, Becky D’Ambrosio, said the agency “does not disclose specific details of ongoing work or timelines.” She said the office has received multiple requests from Congress. “When possible, we are incorporating these requests into our ongoing work providing independent oversight of IRS activities.”

The April 15 request follows concerns expressed by some within the IRS that DOGE employees under Musk’s direction have improperly accessed taxpayer information or shared it with other government agencies, said multiple people familiar with the matter who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation.

Earlier this month, a group of Democratic senators urged the Treasury inspector general to investigate whether the Trump administration was “violating strict taxpayer privacy laws” by giving DOGE personnel wide access inside the agency.

“Taxpayer data held by the IRS is, by design, subject to some of the strongest privacy protections under federal law, the violation of which can trigger civil and criminal sanctions,” the lawmakers wrote in their request.

In March, three senators said they were troubled by reports the IRS had entered into a sharing agreement to help the Department of Homeland Security “locate suspected undocumented immigrants.” Trump has promised deportations on a massive scale.

A spokesperson for Sen. Ron Wyden, one of the signees of both requests, declined to comment. DHS referred a request for comment from ProPublica to the Treasury Department, which did not respond.

The inspector general examination comes amid major upheaval at the Treasury Department and the IRS, as the administration moves to fire thousands of agency workers and DOGE digs deeper into IRS databases. Melanie Krause resigned as the acting commissioner of the IRS after the agency reached an agreement to share taxpayer data with the DHS.

A former senior official at TIGTA told ProPublica the review could lead to a criminal investigation if reviewers find evidence of lawbreaking. The same official said it’s possible those leading the review could face political repercussions, as have scores of prosecutors, FBI agents, law firms and others who have questioned Trump’s actions.

Emails from the inspector general to IRS employees earlier this month asked them to provide copies of any written agreements to share taxpayer data with entities including the Department of Homeland Security, the Social Security Administration, DOGE, the Office of Personnel Management or other agencies.

It also seeks a full list of non-IRS employees who are part of DOGE or its affiliates. This year, ProPublica has been profiling the figures working for DOGE.

Danielle Citron, a leading privacy legal scholar at the University of Virginia, said the email suggests that the inspector general may be probing for violations of the Privacy Act, which requires agencies to safeguard citizens’ information and only share it across the government in specific cases. The kind of blanket data-sharing agreement the Trump administration is seeking with the IRS, she said, is “exactly what the Privacy Act is designed to avoid.”

CNN and Wired have reported that DOGE is attempting to build a master database that combines information from the IRS, DHS, Social Security Administration and other agencies. The database would be used for immigration enforcement, the outlets reported.

This is not the first time Trump administration decisions at the IRS have prompted an inspector general inquiry.

As ProPublica reported, a senior IRS lawyer warned the agency’s leaders in late February that its plan to terminate nearly 7,000 probationary employees based on poor performance was untrue and a “fraud.” The IRS proceeded with the firings, which have since been challenged in federal court.

After the firings, the IRS inspector general began scrutinizing the mass terminations, said a person familiar with the effort who wasn’t authorized to speak with reporters. The status of the probe is not known.

The Bruce Springsteen Archives Center for American Music has launched a new charity auction in connection with its annual American Music Honors, which this year will honor John Fogerty, Smokey Robinson,…

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St. Louis police said officers were called to the 4100 block of Farlin Avenue at about 4:25 p.m. Wednesday

A new survey from the Missouri State Teachers Association revealed over 70% of 1,800 teachers across the state thought about leaving the profession in 2025.

St. Louis police spotted a stolen vehicle during a routine patrol and tried to stop Rickie Wells, 31, of Bolivar, Missouri.

Former Super Bowl-winning coach Jon Gruden may be known best for his fiery football persona, but on Thursday, he showed big-time support for an unexpected allegiance with the St. Louis Blues.

While his main gig is frontman for The Rolling Stones, Mick Jagger has also dabbled in a solo career, and now a compilation of his biggest solo tracks is coming to…

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by Richard A. Webster, Verite News

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with Verite News. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

A Louisiana judge this week set aside the first-degree murder conviction and death sentence of Jimmie Chris Duncan, whose 1998 conviction for killing his girlfriend’s 23-month-old daughter was based in part on bite mark evidence that experts now say is junk science.

The decision comes after a Verite News and ProPublica investigation in March examined the questions surrounding Duncan’s conviction as Gov. Jeff Landry, a staunch death penalty advocate, made moves to expedite executions after a 15-year pause.

Judge Alvin Sharp, of the 4th Judicial District in Ouachita Parish, pointed to new testimony during a September appeals hearing that such bite mark analysis presented by a once-heralded forensics team is “no longer valid” and “not scientifically defensible.”

The original analysis came from forensic dentist Michael West and pathologist Dr. Steven Hayne, whose longtime partnership as state experts fell under legal scrutiny after questions emerged about the validity of their techniques.

Over the past 27 years, nine prisoners have been set free after being convicted in part on inaccurate evidence given by West and Hayne. Three of those men were on death row.

Duncan was the last person awaiting an execution based on the pair’s work, which Sharp said in his ruling appeared “questionable at best.”

Other expert witnesses said that Hayne’s autopsy and his findings were “sloppy in practice” and “inadequate overall.”

“It is worth noting that the qualifications of Dr. Hayne were lacking in certain ways to an extent that called into serious question” the pathologist’s “expert designation,” Sharp wrote in his ruling.

Sharp also stated in his ruling that he found “very compelling” the September testimony of an expert medical witness who said that the child’s death was not the result of a homicide but of an accidental drowning.

It remains unclear when — or if — Duncan will walk free.

Robert S. Tew, district attorney for the 4th Judicial District, can choose to appeal the decision, retry Duncan on the murder charge or a lesser offense or accept the court’s ruling and set him free. Tew did not respond to requests for comment. Duncan’s legal team declined to comment.

Louisiana has a long record of convicting and sentencing to death people later found to be innocent. In the past three decades, the state has exonerated 11 people facing execution, among the highest such numbers in the country, according to The National Registry of Exonerations.

Duncan, 56, has maintained his innocence for more than three decades, while prosecutors continued to insist that Duncan committed the murder and should be executed without delay.

Duncan was babysitting Haley Oliveaux, his girlfriend’s daughter, at the house they shared in West Monroe, Louisiana, on Dec. 18, 1993. He said he had left her alone in the bathtub while he washed dishes. At some point, he said he heard a loud noise from the bathroom. When he went to check on Haley, he found her floating face down in the water. She was pronounced dead a few hours later.

While Duncan claimed it was a tragic accident, authorities charged him with first-degree murder after Hayne and West examined the girl’s body and determined there was evidence she was sexually assaulted and intentionally drowned. After about two weeks of testimony in 1998, the jury found Duncan guilty and sentenced him to death.

Years later, Duncan’s post-conviction attorneys uncovered evidence that was not presented at trial that, they said, proves his innocence. This includes a jailhouse informant who wrote to prosecutors offering to share Duncan’s confession to the crime in what the defense claims was an exchange for leniency (the informant later recanted his trial testimony); past head injuries Haley suffered that might explain her death; and a video in which West can be seen grinding a cast of Duncan’s teeth into Haley’s body. West later claimed those bite marks, which the defense says the forensic dentist manufactured, were a match for Duncan’s teeth.

Dr. Lowell Levine, a defense expert, testified in a September hearing as part of Duncan’s post-conviction appeal over the death of his girlfriend’s daughter. He is quoted in a brief summarizing Duncan’s case following his appeal hearing. (Obtained by Verite News and ProPublica. Highlighted by ProPublica.)

Hayne died in 2020. West did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the ruling.

West has previously said he was simply using what he called a “direct comparison” technique, in which he presses a mold of a person’s teeth directly onto the location of suspected bite marks because it provides the most accurate results, according to a 2020 interview with Oxygen.com.

West said he no longer believed in bite mark analysis in a 2011 deposition in a different post-conviction appeal, saying, “I don’t believe it’s a system that’s reliable enough to be used in court” and admitted to making mistakes in previous cases. But he told The New Republic in a 2023 interview that his methods are valid because other people have used them.

In this week’s ruling, Sharp also noted the September testimony of Detective Chris Sasser, who investigated Haley’s death. Sasser said there was “no blood, no signs of struggle, no cleaning rags and no cleaning agents” in the bathroom or house where the alleged crime occurred. This undermined the state’s assertion that there was “massive blood loss,” the ruling said.

In addition, Sharp found that Duncan’s trial attorney, Louis Scott, provided ineffective counsel. Sharp pointed to a witness who testified that Scott failed to “investigate or present evidence that was available at the time of the trial,” that he did not “develop a coherent theory of defense,” and that he failed to disclose a conflict of interest.

Scott’s wife told Verite News and ProPublica that he has suffered significant health problems including memory and speech impairment and declined to comment on the judge’s ruling.

Duncan is among 55 people on death row in Louisiana, though until very recently he and the others were not in imminent danger of being executed as the state hadn’t put anyone to death since 2010 due to the unavailability of execution drugs. That changed with Landry’s 2023 election.

Landry has made clear his intention to carry out these death sentences as soon as possible, having recently approved the use of nitrogen gas, a controversial method allowed in only three other states.

This cleared the way for the state’s first execution in more than 15 years, as Jessie Hoffman was put to death on March 18 using nitrogen gas.