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CARBONDALE, Ill. (AP) - Southern Illinois University President Glenn Poshard says the school has met a budget milestone.

He told The Southern Illinoisan Editorial Board on Monday that for the first time in several years SIU has been able to enter the next fiscal year with a budget equal to the previous year. University officials had been bracing for another 5 percent cut, but instead were able to convince state lawmakers to reinstate funding at the previous year's level. The school's budget will be $203 million.

Poshard also discussed enrollment. He says it's unrealistic to think the school's declining enrollment will turn around. But Poshard says he sees evidence enrollment is moving in the right direction. He says he has confidence Chancellor Rita Cheng will accomplish the task.

COLUMBIA, Mo. (AP) - A central Missouri couple is concerned that a former soldier will be granted visitation or custody of the child he conceived with their 14-year-old daughter.

   Pulaski County Associate Circuit Judge John Clayton is scheduled to hold a hearing Tuesday in the guardianship and adoption case filed by a Pulaski County couple regarding their grandson.

   The Columbia Daily Tribune reports the girl's parents are seeking to terminate the parental rights of the father.

   A military court in 2012 found the father not guilty of aggravated sexual assault, statutory rape and committing an indecent act with the couple's daughter. She became pregnant in 2010.

   The father is seeking to gain custody or visitation and to change the boy's name. He says he's wants his parental rights recognized.

Monday's afternoon's storm and flooding left thousands without power in the St. Louis area. Ameren reports only a handful of homes and businesses remain without power Tuesday morning.

At the height of the Monday afternoon storm over 4,000 were without power in Missouri and another 1,000 in Illinois.

They were most heavily concentrated in Webster Groves and Affton. Lights were also out at several businesses at the intersection Hampton and Chippewa.

The greatest threat from the storms was flooding. 

Some areas in and around St. Louis absorbed several inches of rain in short order. Flash flooding, a problem in several areas including South City on Kingshighway near Chippewa, where Jerry Ackerman says his Toyota showroom got a little wet.  (Yeh, it kinda happened real quick here. The rain came down, water starts shooting out of the manholes and the next thing you know it's up to our front window here in the showroom.)

Ackerman says everything was fine until drivers ventured through the water, creating waves which pushed the H2O into his business. There was about three inches of water to mop up.  Reporting in South St. Louis city, I'm Vicki Pimentel, KTRS news.