Flu Cases Up in Champaign County
Story by Jeff Bossert
The administrator of Champaign-Urbana’s Public Health District says more people than usual are dealing with the flu this winter.
Categories:
Health
Illinois Public Media News
Indiana Lawmaker Wants Lord’s Prayer in Schools
Story by The Associated Press
A Republican state senator is pushing for Indiana’s public school students to start the school day by reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Senate education committee chairman Dennis Kruse of Auburn has filed legislation that would let school districts require the prayer to be recited, but would also grant broad exemptions.
The measure might have little chance of winning approval since the Senate’s leader has assigned it to the rules committee, which rarely advances bills.
But it’s part of a broader push by Kruse and other lawmakers to put religion in Indiana’s public schools.
Kruse sponsored a bill last year seeking to allow schools to teach creationism, the belief that life was created as described in the Bible. This year, he’s seeking to allow questioning by teachers of scientific principles like evolution.
After C-section, Bloomington Couple Opts for Home Birth
By Kimberlie Kranich
After having a traumatic Cesarean section delivery of her first child, Parker, in 2008, 29-year-old Amy Russell of Bloomington, a farm manager at Soy Capital, was in counseling for posttraumatic stress disorder. She rebounded and got connected with a local chapter of the International Cesarean Awareness Network when expecting baby number two, a girl named Rachel. Rachel was a successful vaginal birth born in the hospital in 2010.
Home Birth is Planned Gathering of Friends & Family for Towanda Couple
By Kimberlie Kranich
When 27-year-old Abbey Fish of Towanda had her first baby, Shane, in 2007, she didn’t know much about birth. Like most women, she went to the hospital to deliver. There she was given an epidural to ease her pain and the drug Pitocin to induce labor. All common hospital practices. After Shane was born, she did not see him for 12 hours because he was considered distressed.
Categories:
Health
Ill. Senate Returns Wednesday to Wrap Up Session
Story by The Associated Press
The Illinois Senate returns to the Capitol on Wednesday to begin a weeklong legislative session that could take up pension reform, legalizing gay marriage and banning assault rifles.
Categories:
Politics
Judge: Indiana ‘indifferent’ to mentally ill inmates
Story by The Associated Press
A federal judge says Indiana has been "deliberately indifferent'' to the plight of mentally ill inmates in its state prisons, whoamount to nearly a quarter of the system's population.
Categories:
Criminal Justice,
Health
Champaign Dad Delivers Daughter in Planned Home Birth with Help from Internet
By Kimberlie Kranich
Rebecca Butler, 34, and Tom Sheehan, 50, of Champaign wanted their daughter, Clementine, to be born at home. Rebecca's two other daughters, Sage and Lotus, were hospital births. Both were stressful and out-of-control experiences for Rebecca.
Categories:
Health