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Treating a tropical illness in Chicago: Patient's painful journey with malaria

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

CHICAGO — It’s not something urban doctors see very often but that didn’t stop a local team of specialists from helping a scientist suffering with the extreme effects of malaria.Lindsay Maess loves her work.“I am a field biologist, but I specialize in the rescue and rehabilitation of African primates,” she said.And she knows the risks.“One of them is getting tropical infections,” she said.In the 20 years she’s been traveling to Africa, the Quad City native has weathered multiple illnesses. Her latest was malaria, even after taking preventive medication.“I took my first malaria medication and it didn’t work,” she said. “My Nigerian doctor believed it was a counterfeit medication.”After two more failed treatments, her symptoms grew worse, impacting her central nervous system.“Just searing nerve pain into the face, the head, deep inside the tongue, still down my spine and left arm,” she said. “I could barely hold my head up. I couldn’t speak. I had onset of extreme vertigo. My heartrat...

Named after famous Oriole, Saints’ Brooks Lee is his own player

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

With all due respect to his wife, Liz, Larry Lee, a baseball lifer, decided that if he ever had a son he would give him a baseball-oriented name.He was a big fan of Hall of Fame outfielder Lou Brock, but Brock Lee just didn’t click. Maybe he’d go with Major, but Major Lee? Too close to Major League, and too much pressure for someone who he knew was going to grow up playing the game.This is a 2023 photo of Brooks Lee of the Twins baseball team. This image reflects the Twins roster as of Friday, Feb. 24, 2023, in Fort Myers, Fla., when this image was taken. (AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)He settled on Brooks, with a tip of the cap to Hall of Fame third baseman Brooks Robinson. And the son with the baseball name will tell anyone who asks that he thinks that’s pretty cool, even if the facts can get twisted at times.“Most people think my first name is Lee,” Saints shortstop Brooks Lee said prior to going 1 for 4 in the Saints’ 5-4, 11-inning win over Columbus on Tuesday at CHS Field. “They cal...

Police: 3 Webster Groves properties the site of hate crimes

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

WEBSTER GROVES, Mo. – Webster Groves police are searching for the person or persons who wreaked chaos by burning signs on private property in suspected hate crimes.Words and messages of passion turned into ash, something that came as a surprise for those who live on North Bompart.“Early in the morning, when I was walking my dogs, I noticed my sign. I looked at my grass, I looked, and said, ‘What, was there a fire here or something?’” said Laura, a resident who lives in the neighborhood with her children and husband.What’s left is charred and burned grass, a sign once spreading messages of inclusion, now completely unrecognizable. It’s something Laura noticed early Monday morning while walking her dogs.“Someone burned the sign down,” she said.“That was a very personal, important thing for our family to show that we're in solidarity with individuals from different backgrounds and diversities.”At Webster Groves Baptist Church, feet away from the family’s home, yet another sign of the a...

Contreras homers twice to help Cardinals knock off Padres 6-5 in 10 innings

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

ST. LOUIS (AP) — Willson Contreras homered twice, pinch-hitter Tommy Edman singled in the deciding run in the 10th inning and the St. Louis Cardinals beat the San Diego Padres 6-5 on Tuesday night to snap a four-game losing streak.Edman slammed the first pitch from Josh Hader (0-2) to left field with one out to bring in Maysn Winn. Richie Palacios set up the winning run with a two-strike bunt to move Winn to third.Contreras cut it to 4-3 in the sixth with his first homer, then tied it at 5 with a two-run homer in the eighth off Robert Suarez. Contreras has 15 homers. He three multi-homer games this season and 14 overall.JoJo Romero (4-1) struck out two batters in the 10th.Luis Campusano homered for San Diego, which has lost four of five to fall to 7-16 in August. The Padres are 0-11 in extra-inning games.Matthew Batten had four hits for San Diego. Ha-Seong Kim had two hits and reached base three times. He drove in a run in the eighth with a sacrifice fly.TRAINER’S ROOMCardinals: LHP...

FBI initiative aims to prevent school tragedies

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

ST. LOUIS – Shaun Swearengen is a St. Louis parent who has safety on his mind. He is the father of a 6-year-old and a 17-year-old student.“I think about safety in the elementary school as well as the high school,” Swearengen said.He’s excited about an FBI initiative that aims to prevent school tragedies before it’s too late. The School Safety Initiative is a proactive effort to create threat assessment teams comprised of school counselors, staff, and school resource officers.The FBI shares research with schools to help identify any potential threat, with the idea of providing resources that could help.“The real goal here is that each school can create a team that fits their student body, their staff, their capabilities, and they can create the safest possible environment for their students,” said Jay Greenberg, special agent in charge of the St. Louis FBI office.Greenberg believes schools have a wealth of multidisciplinary experts, including SROs, faculty, staff, and counselors, cap...

Pattonville School District to add safety protocols following Friday night scare

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

ST. ANN, Mo. – Hundreds of students and families were sent running Friday night when they thought they heard gunshots.The Maryland Heights Police Department dispelled any of those rumors following an investigation, and it was determined folks started running because they saw everyone else running.“When you see a group of kids running, dispersing from an area, and you are in the stands, you think, ‘Okay, what’s wrong? What are those kids running from?’” Pattonville School District Superintendent Barry Nelson said.On Tuesday, Pattonville School District announced it would upgrade its Friday night safety protocols by first taking a closer look at how its security is positioned inside the football stadium. The school district is also adding floodlighting in the parking lot and moving the stadium's security checkpoint in front of the ticketing area. Search for gunman after Ferguson police chief’s niece killed “What happened on Friday scared a lot of kids and we need to make adjustments...

Rockies fall to 0-6 against Braves in 2023 in 3-1 defeat as Colorado musters just three hits

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

The Rockies’ deficiencies in 2023 have been drawing plenty of parallels to the club’s expansion team in 1993, and on Tuesday night, the Braves highlighted another bit of similarly ugly molding.That 1993 club that lost 95 games and was still very much looking for an identity like the ’23 team is now was 0-13 against the Braves, getting outscored 106-50.Fast forward three decades, and it’s a good thing the Braves were only in the NL West for that ’93 season. First-place Atlanta, a favorite to win its second World Series title in three years, improved to 6-0 against the Rockies this year with a 3-1 win at Coors Field.“They’ve got a really good lineup, and we’ve got to just keep competiting, try to stay in these ballgames with them (like we did tonight),” said rookie outfielder Brenton Doyle, who has never beaten the Braves. “Maybe we’ll come out on top one of these times.”Colorado only has one chance left to do tha...

Smash-and-grab burglars steal over $500,000 worth of jewelry from Pasadena shop

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

Police are investigating after a group of smash-and-grab burglars ransacked a Pasadena store and escaped with over half a million dollars worth of jewelry on Tuesday.Pasadena police received calls of the break-in around 1:47 p.m. at the Jewels on Lake store on the 400 block of Lake Avenue.According to the shop’s owner, Sam Babikian, three masked men wearing gloves entered the shop and pepper sprayed him during the destructive burglary.Images from the scene show shattered display cases throughout the shop as empty jewelry trays and holders lay scattered on the ground.A group of smash-and-grab burglars ransacked a Pasadena store and escaped with over half a million dollars worth of jewelry on August 29, 2023. (KTLA)A group of smash-and-grab burglars ransacked a Pasadena store and escaped with over half a million dollars worth of jewelry on August 29, 2023. (Citizen)A group of smash-and-grab burglars ransacked a Pasadena store and escaped with over half a million dollars worth of jewel...

Woman loses $14,000 in tech repair service scam

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

DENVER (KDVR) — Staggering numbers from the Federal Trade Commission reveal scam victims lost more than $8 billion in 2022, a 30% increase over the year before. Meanwhile, the Colorado Bureau of Investigation has recovered more than $4.2 million in money stolen through scams and is currently working with banks to stop scam organizers from doing more damage. What is curbstoning? Car-flipping scam growing in Denver Jo Anna DeMarrais told the Problem Solvers she received an email that looked like it was from a popular tech repair service asking her to call them to stop a $495 auto-renewal. “It was so authentic,” she said.The scammer said he accidentally made the charge anyway, even providing realistic-looking documents, but all DeMarrais had to do was allow them to refund the money to her credit card. “He had identified himself as a refund officer with the company, so I believed it. The scammer told me over and over again that he’d be losing his job because of this mistake he made, a...

Editorial: Biden dumps border crisis in states’ laps

Published Thu, 20 Feb 2025 16:10:49 GMT

President Biden has a message for city and state leaders around the country who are struggling to provide housing and care for the unending influx of migrants in their communities.Not my problem.New York got the message loud and clear from Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, who responded to criticism that the government wasn’t doing enough to help with the massive humanitarian undertaking by saying, essentially, that New York was dropping the ball, not the feds.Two letters obtained by Politico were sent to Gov. Kathy Hochul and Mayor Eric Adams Monday from  Mayorkas, who mentioned structural and operational issues found during a week-long assessment of the city’s operations starting on Aug. 7.“The structural issues include governance and organization of the migrant operations, including issues of authority, structure, personnel, and information flow,” Mayorkas wrote. “The operational issues include the subjects of data collection, planning, case management, commun...