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A St. Peters man facing charges of child rape was released from jail Wednesday on $250,000 bail.

SPRINGFIELD – Due to the continued decrease in COVID-19 cases and hospitalizations, and increase in available ICU beds, the Illinois indoor mask requirement will end Monday, February 28, 2022, at 12:01 a.m. Since the Governor announced his plan to lift the indoor mask requirement, the number of people in the hospital with COVID-19 has been cut in half and the number of ICU beds available increased by 24%. Illinois’ weekly COVID-19 case rate has also decreased by 70%, More than 8 million people in Illinois are fully vaccinated with an average of approximately 16,000 COVID-19 vaccines administered each day, including more than 4,600 first doses daily. “Throughout this pandemic, we’ve taken action to save lives and keep our economy open – and I’m proud that Illinoisans have done the hard work that has our made our state a leader in the Midwest,” said Governor JB Pritzker. “Today, our hospitals are much better positioned to handle emergencies

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Acting Maplewood Police Chief Matt Nighbor reported on Friday to Maplewood block captains of a report of shots being fired near the 2400 block of Laclede Station Road. He said on Wednesday, February 23, at approximately 11 p.m., officers responded to the 2400 block of Laclede Station Road for a report of “shots fired”. Maplewood […]

Though Ketanji Brown Jackson has a mixed environmental record, green groups want the staunch liberal confirmed swiftly.

After Glenda Seim, 81, became the victim of a Nigerian scam artist, she herself victimized others. Seim was sentenced in federal court yesterday after pleading to two felonies. Assistant U.S. Attorney Tracy Berry and journalist Ryan Krull discuss online scams and the heartbreaking details in Seim’s case.

Seniors across the St. Louis area settle into their comfy chairs at various Arrow Senior Living facilities, crack open a book and hit record. They’re filming story times for the children of St. Louis public schools and beyond, but they’re not stopping at reading books – they’re donating them, too, in an effort to promote childhood literacy in underserved communities.…

The Agave pelona is nearly extinct, thanks to its extremely limited native habitat and threats from humans. One is in bloom now at the Missouri Botanical Garden, offering a once-in-decades opportunity to shore up the species’ future.

Former Maplewood mayor, James P. White, died on February 24, according to posts on social media and direct contact with a neighbor of the White family. White served two term as mayor of Maplewood, 2009-2017. Prior to that he served as Maplewood Police Chief. See his obituary here. Visitation will be held at J.B. Smith […]

Most Americans live in places where healthy people, including students in schools, can safely take a break from wearing masks under new U.S. guidelines released Friday.

Daniel Stepp, age 36, of White Hall, Illinois, was arrested Wednesday morning by the White Hall Police Department. Stepp was charged with attempted burglary, burglary, possession of methamphetamine, criminal trespass on a residence, and theft greater than $300. Stepp had multiple Greene County arrest warrants and was previously charged on Monday night with criminal trespass of a building.

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2020: Lafayette Park Ferns – Of Fiddleheads and Rabbit Holes We live in a neighborhood steeped in its own history. The times change fast, but it’s comforting to consider the…

EDWARDSVILLE - Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) has issued new guidelines for masking at the university for the spring semester. While masks will be optional in most indoor common areas, they will still be required in a few places and situations. Effective February 28 - the day the Illinois indoor mask mandate ends - masks will be optional in “most indoor campus spaces” such as the Morris University Center, University Housing, and common areas of the Lovejoy Library, according to an email sent to students. “Individuals should have a face-covering available and are expected to wear one in a private office or living space when requested by the occupant,” the email states. That said, there are also a few areas masks are still required on campus. These include classrooms and lab spaces during in-person instruction, healthcare, and childcare settings, COVID testing, and vaccination sites, Cougar Shuttles, and certain university events. Thes

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by Mike Hixenbaugh, NBC News, and Perla Trevizo and Lexi Churchill, ProPublica and The Texas Tribune

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

This article is co-published with The Texas Tribune, a nonprofit, nonpartisan local newsroom that informs and engages with Texans. Sign up for The Brief Weekly to get up to speed on their essential coverage of Texas issues.

It was also produced in partnership with NBC News.

The U.S. agency responsible for protecting consumers announced this week that it intends to recommend new mandatory rules to make portable generators safer, saying manufacturers have not voluntarily done enough to prevent carbon monoxide poisoning deaths caused by their products.

The announcement, part of a 104-page staff report by the Consumer Product Safety Commission, is a key step toward regulating gas-powered generators, which can emit as much carbon monoxide as 450 cars and which kill an average of 80 people in the U.S. each year.

The commission’s move comes more than two decades after U.S. regulators identified the deadly risks posed by portable generators and two months after an NBC News, ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation found that federal efforts to make portable generators safer have been stymied by a statutory process that empowers manufacturers to regulate themselves, resulting in limited safety upgrades and continued deaths.

Portable generators, which are often used to power life-saving medical equipment, air conditioners, furnaces and refrigerators after major storms, emit enough carbon monoxide to kill within minutes when operated in enclosed spaces or too close to exterior openings. Carbon monoxide deaths caused by generators occur after nearly every major power outage, including 10 fatalities in Texas tied to generators during last year’s winter storm and power grid failure.

Generator manufacturers say that their products are not dangerous when users follow the safety guidelines in instruction manuals, which include keeping the machines outside, away from doors and windows. But safety advocates say those instructions aren’t always easy to follow, because the machines can’t be operated in rain or snow. And a review of user manuals by the news organizations found that they can provide conflicting messages. Some manuals suggest keeping generators a shorter distance from windows or doors than the 20-foot minimum recommended by the CPSC, while others provide more general guidance such as keeping the machines “far away” from homes.

The new push for mandatory rules has been years in the making. In 2016, after concluding that generator manufacturers could save lives by making machines that emit less carbon monoxide, the CPSC announced plans to makethe modification mandatory.

But before the CPSC could impose the rule, industry-friendly federal law required the agency to first allow generator manufacturers to come up with their own safety upgrades and to study whether those voluntary measures were enough to protect consumers.

Industry representatives instead proposed a cheaper safety upgrade: switches that would automatically turn the devices off when carbon monoxide builds up to an unsafe level. They said the shut-off switches would prevent 99% of deaths, but safety advocates argued that that claim was exaggerated.

Three years after the industry unveiled the voluntary standard, many manufacturers still had not adopted the change, the NBC News, ProPublica and Texas Tribune investigation found. This week’s CPSC report echoed those findings. The commission found that too few manufacturers had adopted voluntary changes, clearing the way for it to continue the process of developing and implementing mandatory regulations.

“Think how many lives could have been saved had the CPSC gone forward with a mandatory standard in 2016,” said Marietta S. Robinson, who served as a CPSC commissioner from 2013 to 2018 and supported mandatory generator safety standards.

The CPSC report concluded that voluntary changes implemented by some manufacturers did reduce the risk to consumers, but not to the degree that industry officials had promised.

Based on tens of thousands of simulations of common generator carbon monoxide accidents, CPSC staffers found that the industry’s preferred solution of adding shut-off sensors without reducing carbon monoxide emissions would prevent about 87% of generator deaths, while still leaving some consumers exposed to CO levels toxic enough to require hospitalization.

CPSC staffers also tested a more stringent approach of equipping the machines with both shut-off sensors and engines that emit far less carbon monoxide, and found that the combination would eliminate “nearly 100 percent” of generator deaths and the vast majority of hospitalizations.

The agency’s staff will urge the CPSC’s five commissioners, who have the final say, to make the recommended mandatory standard a priority in the next fiscal year, which begins in October.

Alex Hoehn-Saric, the group’s newly appointed chair, said in a statement that the new CPSC staff report on portable generators “demonstrates the need to move forward as quickly as the law permits with mandatory rulemaking designed to address this invisible killer.”

A ProPublica, Tribune and NBC News analysis of CPSC data showed that more than 300 people died from carbon monoxide poisoning from generators in the four years after CPSC proposed its rule lowering emissions.

“It’s about time,” said Sheletta Brundidge, a Houston native who lost five family members in 2020 when they left a portable generator running inside an attached garage after Hurricane Laura knocked out power across Louisiana. “You can’t expect these companies to police themselves. And, you know, I gladly and I’m sure most Americans would pay some additional money to have some safety measures in place.”

The CPSC previously estimated that reducing generators’ carbon monoxide emissions would add about $115 to the manufacturing cost of most units, which typically sell for $500 to $1,500.

Joseph Harding, technical director at the Portable Generator Manufacturers’ Association, the trade group that developed the voluntary shut-off switches standard, said in an email that the group was still in the process of reviewing the CPSC’s report. Harding reiterated the industry’s belief that shut-off switches alone would eliminate 99% of deaths from carbon monoxide poisoning, and disputed the agency’s conclusion that too few companies had adopted the safety measure.

“Compliance with the standard is already at a high level and is projected to grow substantially in the next year,” Harding wrote. The industry group declined to provide data supporting that contention to the news organizations, saying it was confidential.

Rachel Weintraub, general counsel for the advocacy group Consumer Federation of America, said this moves the CPSC closer to establishing a mandatory standard for portable generators.

The lack of widespread compliance, she said, provides the CPSC with direct evidence that refutes the industry’s claims that voluntary measures are enough to protect consumers. “There are less levers that they can pull to slow the process,” Weintraub said, referring to the industry.

Brundidge said she hopes the latest effort to mandate safety upgrades moves more quickly.

“It shouldn’t have taken all of these people to die and get sick for somebody to come and say, ‘Hey, wait a minute, we need to do something,’” she said. “And so I’m glad that finally something is being done to police the manufacturers, because we’ve been putting it on the consumers, and that’s not right.”

Authorities arrested a 31-year-old man Wednesday in West Virginia, who is accused of threatening to shoot “whoever he needed to” at a high school in Town and Country.

A former patient's lawsuit complains of lax oversight and treatment at the Alsana Treatment Center and says she was groped by an employee.

SANGAMON COUNTY - Madison County’s challenge to a new judicial subcircuits rule was dismissed Thursday by Sangamon County Circuit Judge Ryan Cadigan. Madison County State’s Attorney Thomas Haine had previously sued for an order declaring the act unconstitutional. Legislators approved a Judicial Redistricting Act on Jan. 5 and it was signed by Gov. Pritzker. The new law would create new subcircuits in Madison County and also modifications are set to occur in Cook County. Republican lawmakers have vehemently opposed the creation of new subcircuits. Judge Cadigan had granted a temporary restraining order and after more analysis, determined to dismiss the challenge. Haine had previously described the decision to divide Madison County into three judicial subcircuits as “rotten to the core” and now says he will take the issue to the state Supreme Court. “We intend to appeal the judge’s decision on Thursday,” Haine said. “I think the law look

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The story of Missouri's Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE) leaking the Social Security Numbers of hundreds of thousands of current and former teachers and administrators could have been a relatively small story of yet another botched government technology implementation -- there are plenty of those every year. But then Missouri Governor Mike Parson insisted that the reporter who reported on the flaw was a hacker and demanded he be prosecuted. After a months' long investigation, prosecutors declined to press charges, but Parson doubled down and insisted that he would "protect state data and prevent unauthorized hacks."

You had to figure another shoe was going to drop and here it is. As Brian Krebs notes, it has now come out that it was actually the Governor's own IT team that was in charge of the website that leaked the data. That is, even though it was the DESE website, that was controlled by the Governor's own IT team. This is from the now released Missouri Highway Patrol investigation document. As Krebs summarizes:

The Missouri Highway Patrol report includes an interview with Mallory McGowin, the chief communications officer for the state’s Department of Elementary and Secondary Education (DESE). McGowin told police the website weakness actually exposed 576,000 teacher Social Security numbers, and the data would have been publicly exposed for a decade.

McGowin also said the DESE’s website was developed and maintained by the Office of Administration’s Information Technology Services Division (ITSD) — which the governor’s office controls directly.

“I asked Mrs. McGowin if I was correct in saying the website was for DESE but it was maintained by ITSD, and she indicated that was correct,” the Highway Patrol investigator wrote. “I asked her if the ITSD was within the Office of Administration, or if DESE had their on-information technology section, and she indicated it was within the Office of Administration. She stated in 2009, policy was changed to move all information technology services to the Office of Administration.”

Now, it's important to note that the massive, mind-bogglingly bad, security flaw that exposed all those SSNs in the source code of publicly available websites was coded long before Parson was the governor, but it's still his IT team that was who was on the hook here. And perhaps that explains his nonsensical reaction to all of this?

For what it's worth, the report also goes into greater detail about just how dumb this vulnerability was:

Ms. Keep and Mr. Durnow told me once on the screen with this specific data about any teacher listed in the DESE system, if a user of the webpage selected to view the Hyper Text Markup Language (HTML) source code, they were allowed to see additional data available to the webpage, but not necessarily displayed to the typical end-user. This HTML source code included data about the selected teacher which was Base64 encoded. There was information about other teachers, who were within the same district as the selected teacher, on this same page; however, the data about these other teachers was encrypted.

Ms. Keep said the data which was encoded should have been encrypted. Ms. Keep told me Mr. Durnow was reworking the web application to encrypt the data prior to putting the web application back online for the public. Ms. Keep told me the DESE application was about 10 years old, and the fact the data was only encoded and not encrypted had never been noticed before.

This explains why Parson kept insisting that it wasn't simply "view source" that was the issue here, and that it was hacking because it was "decoded." But Base64 decoding isn't hacking. If it was, anyone figuring out what this says would be a "hacker."

TWlrZSBQYXJzb24gaXMgYSB2ZXJ5IGJhZCBnb3Zlcm5vciB3aG8gYmVpZXZlcyB0aGF0IGhpcyBvd24gSVQgdGVhbSdzIHZlcnkgYmFkIGNvZGluZyBwcmFjdGljZXMgc2hvdWxkIG5vdCBiZSBibGFtZWQsIGFuZCBpbnN0ZWFkIHRoYXQgaGUgY2FuIGF0dGFjayBqb3VybmFsaXN0cyB3aG8gZXRoaWNhbGx5IGRpc2Nsb3NlZCB0aGUgdnVsbmVyYWJpbGl0eSBhcyAiaGFja2VycyIgcmF0aGVyIHRoYW4gdGFrZSBldmVuIHRoZSBzbGlnaHRlc3QgYml0IG9mIHJlc3BvbnNpYmlsaXR5Lg==

That's not hacking. That's just looking at what's there and knowing how to read it. Not understanding the difference between encoding and encrypting is the kind of thing that is maybe forgivable for a non-techie in a confused moment, but Parson has people around him who could surely explain it -- the same people who clearly explained it to the Highway Patrol investigating. But instead, he still insists it was hacking and is still making journalist Jon Renaud's life a living hell from all this nonsense.

The investigation also confirms exactly as we had been saying all along that Renaud and the St. Louis Post-Dispatch did everything in the most ethical way possible. It found the vulnerability, checked to make sure it was real, confirmed it with an expert, then notified DESE about it, including the details of the vulnerability, and while Renaud noted that the newspaper was going to run a story about it, made it clear that it wanted to make sure the vulnerability was locked down before the story would run.

So, once again, Mike Parson looks incredibly ignorant, and completely unwilling to take responsibility. And the more he does so, the more this story continues to receive attention.