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Luxury Infill Housing Innovator Robert E. Saur Dies

2 years 7 months ago
Robert E. Saur, 79, the founder and president of Clayton-based Conrad Properties Corp., died Nov. 1, 2022, from complications related to pulmonary fibrosis. In a development career bridging five decades, Saur made an indelible mark on local lifestyles and skylines with his innovative infill developments. Born Oct. 14, 1943, in north St. Louis, he graduated […]
Dede Hance

Missouri judge rules AG’s office under Josh Hawley ‘knowingly’ violated transparency laws

2 years 7 months ago

A Missouri judge on Monday ruled staff in the attorney general’s office, while it was being run by now-U.S. Sen. Josh Hawley, used private email accounts to “knowingly and purposefully” subvert the state’s open records law.  Cole County Judge Jon Beetem determined the attorney general’s office violated the Sunshine Law by taking steps to conceal […]

The post Missouri judge rules AG’s office under Josh Hawley ‘knowingly’ violated transparency laws appeared first on Missouri Independent.

Jason Hancock

FPF welcomes new advocacy director

2 years 7 months ago
Credit: Seth Stern

Freedom of the Press Foundation welcomes its new Director of Advocacy, Seth Stern. Seth will oversee and expand the nonprofit organization’s efforts to stand up for journalists and whistleblowers who have been denied their rights as part of its mission to protect, defend, and empower public-interest journalism. His work will include managing ambitious advocacy campaigns in collaboration with FPF partners and writing for FPF’s blogs, social media accounts, and other publications.

Seth spent the last 13 years practicing media and First Amendment law at the Chicago law firm Funkhouser Vegosen Liebman & Dunn. He is the chair of the Chicago Bar Association’s Media and Entertainment Law Committee as well as the American Bar Association’s Media, Privacy and Advertising Law Committee. Before law school he worked as a reporter and editor in the Chicago and Atlanta areas.

“I am honored to have the opportunity to contribute to an organization with a history as rich as Freedom of the Press Foundation’s,” Seth said. “I will always welcome input from our members and friends on how our advocacy team can best assist journalists and advance press rights.”

FPF’s Executive Director Trevor Timm said he is thrilled to welcome Seth to the 10-year-old organization. “We are confident that Seth and his team will build on FPF’s track record of successful advocacy on the national, international, and local levels and take our advocacy work in exciting new directions.”

FPF is a nonprofit organization that protects, defends, and empowers public-interest journalism in the 21st century. For media or other inquiries, email Seth Stern at Seth@freedom.press or media@freedom.press.

Freedom of the Press Foundation

New Techdirt Policy: No More Embedded Tweets

2 years 7 months ago
I sent this notice around internally here at Techdirt, but figured it might be useful to state this publicly. Historically, Techdirt would often embed tweets using the embed feature from Twitter. This was always somewhat risky for a few reasons, including that people could (and often did) delete tweets. Though Twitter’s embed feature had a […]
Mike Masnick

The Garden Glow at the Missouri Botanical Garden Is Back

2 years 7 months ago
Even on its worst day, the Missouri Botanical Garden (4344 Shaw Boulevard, 314-577-5100, glow.missouribotanicalgarden.org) is, without question, one of the most beautiful places St. Louis has to offer — a sprawling 79-acre oasis of nature and horticultural wonder plunked down in the heart of the city. Each year around the holiday season, the great garden steps its game up with its Garden Glow celebration, creating whimsey and wonder through what is essentially the most grandiose nondenominational Christmas display most of us will ever see. This year marks the 10th anniversary of the popular attraction, and organizers have gone suitably all-out, with nearly 2 million twinkling lights powering the fun.
Rosalind Early

A Christmas Carol Returns to the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis

2 years 7 months ago
Ring in the spirit of the season with the most famous of yuletide tales. The Repertory Theatre of St. Louis (130 Edgar Road, 314-968-4925, repstl.org), will host its second annual production of A Christmas Carol, the legendary account of London’s most miserable miser, Ebenezer Scrooge, with a variety of evening and afternoon shows from Saturday, November 19, to Friday, December 30, at the Loretto-Hilton Center in Webster Groves. In Charles Dickens’ iconic tale, the ghost of Scrooge’s friend warns him he will soon have three visitors.
Monica Obradovic

Simmons Hanly Conroy Attorney Patricia Llanos Selected To 2022 Missouri & Kansas Rising Stars

2 years 7 months ago
ALTON – Simmons Hanly Conroy, one of the nation's largest mass torts firms and a national leader in the legal representation of mesothelioma patients and their families, is pleased to announce that Patricia Llanos has been selected to the 2022 edition of Missouri & Kansas Rising Stars. Llanos, an associate in the firm’s Asbestos Department, focuses her practice on helping individuals and families affected by mesothelioma and other asbestos-related diseases. Previously, she focused on personal injury law at a St. Louis area law firm and worked for the New York City Department of Health and the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services – Office of Minority Health. No more than 2.5 percent of attorneys who are 40 years old or younger or practicing for 10 or fewer years are included in the Rising Stars list. Published by Thomson Reuters, Super Lawyers uses independent research, peer nominations and peer evaluations to determine the honorees. The Missouri & Kansas

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Daily Deal: The Complete Big Data And Power BI Bundle

2 years 7 months ago
The Complete Big Data and Power BI Bundle has 5 courses to help you learn how to effectively sort, analyze, and visualize all of your data. Courses cover Power BI, Power Query, Excel, and Access. It’s on sale for $40. Note: The Techdirt Deals Store is powered and curated by StackCommerce. A portion of all […]
Gretchen Heckmann

BEX Construction Services Hires Cole Libbert as Project Engineer

2 years 7 months ago
Cole Libbert has joined BEX Construction Services as a project engineer. His five years of field supervision experience spans commercial, industrial, multifamily and tenant finish projects. Libbert completed his bachelor’s degree in construction management with a minor in business administration at the University of Central Missouri. He has traveled the country as a field superintendent, […]
Dede Hance

Raw data: Unicorns with the biggest losses

2 years 7 months ago
Over at MarketWatch, Jeffrey Lee Funk and Gary Smith present a list of Silicon Valley's biggest losers: I don't have any real comment on this except yikes. I didn't quite realize you could lose this much money. I'm such a hayseed.
Kevin Drum

St. Louis Bill Would Pave Way for Better City Streets, Comprehensive Process

2 years 7 months ago
A bill introduced in the St. Louis Board of Aldermen last week would allocate tens of millions in federal pandemic aid dollars to improve pedestrian and street safety. The current version of Board Bill 120 calls for over $74 million in American Rescue Plan Funds to design and implement traffic studies, create safety improvements at 10 high-crash locations, pave arterial streets, improve sidewalks and more.
Monica Obradovic

A Florida Fund for Injured Kids Raided Medicaid. Now It’s Repaying $51 Million.

2 years 7 months ago

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

Florida’s long-troubled compensation fund for infants born with catastrophic brain injuries has resolved one of its thorniest disputes: the claim that it avoided hundreds of millions in health care costs by raiding the safety net for impoverished Floridians.

The Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Association, or NICA, settled a three-year-old whistleblower complaint that alleged the program grew assets of nearly $1.7 billion partly by dumping health care and caregiving costs onto Medicaid, the state-federal insurer for poverty-stricken and disabled Floridians.

Under the settlement, announced Monday by the U.S. Justice Department, NICA agreed to pay $51 million to resolve allegations that it violated the federal False Claims Act. NICA’s board of directors, ushered in last year as part of a far-reaching reform, already had voted to cease the program’s reliance on Medicaid.

Beginning in April 2021, the Miami Herald, in partnership with ProPublica, published a series of stories showing NICA withheld and delayed care to many families, focusing on stockpiling assets instead.

Administrators reduced costs, the Herald reported, partly by funneling families into Medicaid — a program already so poorly funded that a federal judge in late 2014 accused the state of rationing care and maintaining an unconstitutionally inadequate system of care for children in poverty.

Monday’s settlement amount is more than twice what was paid by the administrators of a Virginia compensation program to resolve a similar lawsuit — but also far less than the $140 million that Florida health administrators estimated was diverted by NICA from the state’s chronically underfunded Medicaid program.

“The Medicaid program provides a safety net for our most vulnerable populations that do not have access to traditional healthcare coverage,” U.S. Attorney Juan Antonio Gonzalez, who heads the DOJ’s Southern District of Florida, said in a prepared statement.

He added: “The misuse of Medicaid funds will not be tolerated.”

NICA denied wrongdoing in the settlement agreement.

Florida lawmakers created NICA in 1988, responding to dire warnings — critics called them exaggerated — that obstetricians would flee the state to avoid rising medical malpractice premiums. Under the law, the parents of children born with a certain type of brain injury were precluded from filing malpractice suits. In return, NICA was to provide medical care, therapy, medication and in-home caregiving for the life of the injured child.

Most children accepted into NICA either were deprived of oxygen at birth — sometimes as the result of a constricted umbilical cord — or suffered other brain damage or spinal injury. The program is no-fault, meaning parents need not prove their doctor or hospital acted recklessly.

This year, the state Agency for Health Care Administration, or AHCA, which oversees Florida’s Medicaid program, estimated in a report that it had spent more than $140 million over the previous 33 years to cover hospital stays, in-home nursing and other medical needs for children covered by NICA.

NICA’s reliance on Medicaid dollars frustrated and, at times, infuriated parents who depended on the program. Parents complained bitterly that they were forced to exhaust all efforts and appeals for Medicaid reimbursement — a process that could take months, if not years — before NICA would consider paying, even for such necessary items as wheelchairs and medications.

The Herald series led to sweeping changes: NICA’s long-standing executive director stepped down. The program’s board of directors resigned en masse. And the Florida Legislature approved a massive overhaul, including increased payments to parents and fewer restrictions on benefits. Lawmakers also required the program to include a NICA parent and an advocate for children with disabilities on the board.

Jim DeBeaugrine, a former head of the state’s disabilities agency, gained oversight of NICA as board chairman following the previous board’s resignation. He said Monday the settlement helps the program sustain its ongoing reform.

“I think we are all glad to have this behind us,” DeBeaugrine said. “We will focus on continuing to do what we were all appointed to do. That’s improve the way this program serves the families. … It’s important to get this behind us.”

“My main disappointment,” he added, “is that the money we are paying comes from dollars that otherwise would serve our families.”

The path to reforming NICA’s dependence on Medicaid was cleared by a Virginia couple who filed a whistleblower suit in July 2015 challenging the legality of that state’s compensation program for infants born with profound brain damage. Florida NICA was modeled after the Virginia Birth-Related Neurological Injury Compensation Program.

The Virginia program settled that lawsuit by paying $20.7 million to the U.S. government and agreeing to stop shifting costs to Medicaid. The parents of Cody Arven, a severely disabled boy on whose behalf the suit was filed, received $4.1 million of that settlement.

Veronica and Theodore Arven, the latter now deceased, also filed a whistleblower complaint against Florida NICA. Though the DOJ chose not to intervene in the Florida case, the department’s attorneys investigated the claims and helped negotiate the settlement.

The settlement set aside $12.7 million for Veronica Arven and the estate of Theodore Arven for their role in spearheading the litigation. “We are pleased that this whistleblower lawsuit has resulted in a resolution that ultimately benefits all NICA families and provides relief to a long-overburdened Florida Medicaid program,” said Scott Austin, a Virginia attorney who acted as lead counsel in the litigation.

by Carol Marbin Miller, Miami Herald