Marissanne Lewis-Thompson
Afternoon NewscasterMarissanne Lewis-Thompson joined St. Louis Public Radio October 2017 as the afternoon newscaster and as a general assignment reporter. She previously spent time as a feature reporter at KRCU in Cape Girardeau, where she covered a wide variety of stories including historic floods, the Bootheel, education and homelessness. In May 2015, she graduated from the University of Missouri with a Bachelor of Journalism degree in Convergence Journalism. She's a proud Kansas City, Missouri native, where she grew up watching a ton of documentaries on PBS, which inspired her to tell stories. In her free time, she enjoys binge watching documentaries and anime. She may or may not have a problem.
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St. Louis-based nonprofit Beyond Housing and its partners are coming together to build 36 new single-family homes in the Pagedale Town Center and throughout the city in north St. Louis County.
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Dolly Parton’s Imagination Library program is now statewide in Missouri. The program provides children with a free book in the mail each month until their fifth birthday. The goal is to nurture a love of reading and improve literacy.
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The United States Army has granted $1.2 million to a University of Missouri researcher to study combat wound infections. The research will focus on non-intravenous, topical and localized antibiotic treatments.
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Federal student loan borrowers are paying back their loans after a more than three-year pause. St. Louis Public Radio spoke with some borrowers in the region about how this change is affecting their lives.
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Dred Scott, the enslaved man whose case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, is getting a new memorial monument. The Dred Scott Heritage Foundation is dedicating the monument in his honor on Saturday at Calvary Cemetery in St. Louis.
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Western Illinois landowners and farmers are needed for a survey about the challenges they face on their land. The Illinois Extension’s survey will turn the feedback from landowners in Adams, Pike, Brown, Hancock and Schuyler counties into educational programming and resources to help them.
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The Quincy Gems, a collegiate summer baseball team, is not returning next season. The team’s owners, Jimmie and Julie Louthan, made the announcement on Tuesday. The couple cited sacrificing family time and a difficulty providing affordable seasonal entertainment.
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The rare lemon cuckoo bumblebee bee was recently spotted in a Belleville garden by an amateur citizen scientist. The bee’s population has been on the decline, but this recent sighting could mean good news for rare bee species and bumblebees in the region.
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Safe Connections is expanding its violence prevention program to third through fifth graders. The program will focus on conflict resolution, bullying, consent and boundaries, as well as healthy relationships.
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St. Louis is getting its very own Safe Haven Baby Box. The box is a secured incubator that new mothers in crisis can leave their newborns in if they are not able to care for the child. This is the only Safe Haven box in Missouri. The box will be installed at Mehlville Fire Protection District Station 2.
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Pregnant and postpartum women in the WIC program can now get free prenatal vitamins from the St. Charles County Department of Public Health. Clients can get a six-month supply at the department’s Health Services Clinic during nutritional counseling appointments.
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A new St. Charles City-County library policy requires anyone under 18 to have a parent or guardian present to sign up for a library card. The library’s board approved the policy following new rules from Missouri Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft. It creates a certification process for state-funded public libraries to adopt policies for age-appropriate reading materials.