SPRINGFIELD – The Illinois State Police announced Monday they will start using a broader definition of what constitutes a “clear and present danger” when reviewing a person’s Firearm Owners Identification card. That’s a factor ISP considers when deciding whether to grant someone a FOID card or to revoke or suspend a card that has already…
If you need to talk, or if you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts, text the Crisis Text Line at 741-741 or call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 1-800-273-8255. America’s new national mental health crisis line—988—goes live on July 16. The three-digit hotline is supposed to make it easier for people struggling with addiction, suicide, and…
SPRINGFIELD – I’Kera Hill, 3, died of malnutrition and dehydration at a Carbondale hospital on June 22, 2022, according to the child endangerment charges filed in Jackson County against her parents, Isaac Hill and Katrina Simelton Hill. Her obituary stated that I’Kera died after a bout with COVID-19, and she was known as “Peanut.” The…
SPRINGFIELD – Planned Parenthood affiliates in Illinois and Wisconsin said Thursday they have formed a partnership to expand services at an abortion clinic in Waukegan to help serve residents of Wisconsin, where abortion services are now banned. That announcement came three weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court overturned the 1973 decision in Roe v. Wade,…
SPRINGFIELD – Illinois will soon have a new Department of Public Health director and its first electric vehicles coordinator after Gov. JB Pritzker announced those appointments in recent days. Dr. Sameer Vohra, a Springfield pediatrician, will still need approval from the state Senate to become the permanent replacement for former Director Dr. Ngozi Ezike, who…
On Tuesday, the first probable case of monkeypox was reported in Champaign County, according to the Champaign-Urbana Public Health District (CUPHD). The World Health Organization describes monkeypox as a potentially serious viral illness, fatal in 3 to 6 percent of cases. CUPHD administrator Julie Pryde said that monkeypox is spread in numerous ways, though her department…
Years before starting a landmark research project on abortion access, Diana Greene Foster saw firsthand the impact that banning abortion can have, through her grandmother Dorothy. Dorothy became pregnant at 19. It was not planned, and Foster thinks if her grandmother had access to a legal abortion, she would’ve gotten one. But in 1940, that…
https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/06/sicklecelladults-feature-web.mp3 One night when Paul Gakpo was 9 months old, he fell sick and wouldn’t eat. His parents grew worried and rushed him to a nearby hospital the next morning. It was 1984. The doctors figured out baby Gakpo’s red blood cells were changing from the typical doughnut shape into the shape of a…
The U.S. is caught in a critical shortage of a drug known as contrast media that helps physicians diagnose conditions like a heart attack or stroke. Doctors perform about 50 million scans a year using the injectable drug, which is also used for cancer patients and gunshot and car crash victims. It helps them see…
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court has ended constitutional protections for abortion that had been in place nearly 50 years — a decision by its conservative majority to overturn the court’s landmark abortion cases. Friday’s outcome overturning Roe v. Wade is expected to lead to abortion bans in roughly half the states. The decision, unthinkable just…
https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s60/audio/2022/06/0617bvbirdfluweb.mp3 Nearly 5.5 million chickens and turkeys have died or had to be destroyed in Buena Vista County, Iowa, during the latest bird flu outbreak — more than in any other county in the nation. That’s impacted producers, as well as workers and their families. Colin Johnson has been around turkeys for nearly seven decades….
Teonna Woolford has always wanted to have six kids. “I don’t know where that number came from. I just felt like four wasn’t enough,” Woolford said. “And I never wanted an odd number of children. I don’t know. Six is a good number.” https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/06/sickelcell-fertility-feature-web.mp3 Listen to this story here. Woolford was born with sickle cell…
If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, help is available. Contact the National Suicide Prevention Hotline at 800-273-8255 or the Crisis Text Line by texting HOME to 741741. Updated June 16 at 2 p.m. SPRINGFIELD — Staff at Memorial Behavioral Health in Springfield, Illinois, are on call around the clock to…
SPRINGFIELD – At least 16 residents and six staff at the state-run veterans home in Manteno have tested positive for COVID-19 and one COVID-positive resident who was in hospice died Wednesday morning, according to the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs. All of the positive residents had received at least two doses of a COVID-19 vaccine…
INDIANAPOLIS — Gary Gibson has a clear memory of his first conversation with his future wife Brenda Williams back in 1973. “Hello, my name is Brenda,” was the first thing Gibson remembers her saying. The second was, “I have sickle cell disease.” “I was like, sickle what?” Gibson said. https://cpa.ds.npr.org/s4780019/audio/2022/06/sicklecelldisease-story1-lackofresources-web.mp3 Listen to this story here….