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Heat sickens children on basketball court
Police responding to a call about four dead bodies on a Missouri basketball court found two adults and two children alive but suffering from exposure to the heat, CNN affiliate KSDK reported Tuesday.
Officers in Pine Lawn woke the adults, who said they were merely napping. But the two children, ages 3 and 4, were drenched in perspiration and urine and had steam rising from their bodies, KSDK reported.
The children were hospitalized. The woman, who is the children's mother, was arrested and may be charged with parental neglect, the station reported.
Pine Lawn is 10 miles northwest of St. Louis. The temperature in the area reached 102 degrees Tuesday, KSDK reported.
Gotta Watch: Tornado rips through St. Louis
Many residents of St. Louis are glad to be safe after a category EF4 tornado ripped through the area over the weekend. These are just a few videos of the destruction.
Tornado slams airport – Upon first glance, this silent surveillance video of Lambert Airport in St. Louis looks as if there's an invisible vacuum inhaling debris.
[cnn-video url="http://cnn.com/video/?/video/us/2011/04/23/vo.lambert.surveillance.cnn"%5DDeputy marshal dies after St. Louis shooting
A U.S. deputy marshal who was shot Tuesday while trying to serve an arrest warrant in St. Louis has died from gunshot wounds, officials said.
The deputy marshal was identified as John Perry, 48.
FULL STORY
Tennessee bill would make it a crime to practice Sharia law
Editor's Note: CNN’s Soledad O’Brien chronicles the dramatic fight over the construction of a mosque in the heart of the Bible belt. “Unwelcome: The Muslims Next Door," airs March 27 at 8 p.m. ET.
Murfreesboro, Tennessee, has been the epicenter of a months-long battle over the construction of a new mosque in the Nashville suburb. It's one example of many concerning Muslims in America, and how cities and communities are responding to efforts to build Islamic places of worship.
That battle got fiercer when two state lawmakers, one representing Murfreesboro, introduced legislation that would make it a felony to practice Sharia law, which includes lessons found in the Quran, the holy book of Islam, and which can inform how Muslims live their everyday lives, including prayer rituals. Many Muslims consider Sharia law to outline basic tenets of living a moral life. What is Sharia law?
State Sen. Bill Ketron, R-Murfreesboro, and state Rep. Judd Matheny, R-Tullahoma, who are backing the same bill in the Senate and House, describe Sharia law as dangerous to U.S. national security, according to the Tennessean newspaper. The bill grants Tennessee's attorney general the power to investigate complaints about anyone who might be practicing Sharia law.
The possible punishment for practicing Sharia law is 15 years behind bars.
Last year, construction equipment on the site of a planned mosque in Murfreesboro was torched, and police suspect arson. Signs on the mosque property were vandalized with spray paint reading, "Not welcome." Two other proposed Islamic centers in Tennessee stoked much controversy last year. A Crusaders' cross was spray-painted on the side of a Nashville mosque, next to the words, "Muslims go home." In Williamson County, not far from Murfreesboro, plans to build a mosque were quashed after residents complained a turn lane into the building would be too costly. The debate over a mosque near ground zero in New York is still raging. The U.S. Justice Department supports the Murfreesboro mosque.
Tennessee isn't the first state to consider anti-Sharia law legislation. Oklahoma passed a similar bill last year. This month Missouri House Speaker Steve Tilley said he would support a bill that "maintains that U.S. law shall take precedence in U.S. courts," according to the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Tilley referenced a case, frequently cited in the debate concerning the Oklahoma law, in which a New Jersey judge relied on Islamic law to rule in a case involving domestic violence.
Temps plummet in twister-stricken areas
One day after a violent storm system roared through parts of the nation's midsection, spawning tornadoes in several cities in Missouri and Arkansas, freezing temperatures Saturday threatened to compound the plight of victims left homeless due to the weather.
Temperatures in Sunset Hills, Missouri, dropped Saturday to 16 degrees Fahrenheit – with a wind chill of 7 degrees below zero, according to the National Weather Service.
Temperatures dipped into the 20s in parts of Mississippi, where the storm had knocked out power to nearly 20,000 homes.
Seven people died and dozens were hurt Friday in a storm system that stretched more than 1,000 miles from the Northern Plains down to the mid-Mississippi Valley.
On Saturday, Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon toured a neighborhood in Sunset Hills, a St. Louis suburb. "Bottom line [is] significant property loss," he said.
The tornado that hit Sunset Hills will be rated an EF3, the National Weather Service said.
An EF3 twister has winds between 136 – 165 mph, according to the weather service.
A family of seven lost their home in north St. Louis, CNN affiliate KMOV reported. William Gibbs told KMOV that his daughter told him that there would be a tornado. "I took it for granted," Gibbs told KMOV. "I'm thanking God that we're all safe but, I don't know where we go from here," he said.
Latasha Stuhlman told CNN affiliate KMOV that her home has been condemned after the storm hit her neighborhood. The Stuhlmans will sleep in a hotel with other families.
“It’s bad. Real bad," Stuhlman told KMOV. "The people that said they went in [to the property] said my whole bedroom’s gone.”
The St. Louis-area Red Cross said in a news release that it had provided assistance to about 60 people Friday and expected that number to grow following a damage assessment.
You can contact the St. Louis-area Red Cross at (314) 516-2800.
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