![Runner Shannon Leinert, 24, hopes to qualify for the 2012 Olympic track and field team to compete in the 800-meter race.](https://npr.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/bda1d6e/2147483647/strip/true/crop/1283x1711+498+0/resize/150x200!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia.npr.org%2Fassets%2Fimg%2F2012%2F06%2F19%2Fshannonleinert3-a06775aad5c65c889ae1156258b142f8320000f8.jpg)
Rachel Lippmann
Lippmann returned to her native St. Louis after spending two years covering state government in Lansing, Michigan. She earned her undergraduate degree from Northwestern University and followed (though not directly) in Maria Altman's footsteps in Springfield, also earning her graduate degree in public affairs reporting. She's also done reporting stints in Detroit, Michigan and Austin, Texas. Rachel likes to fill her free time with good books, good friends, good food, and good baseball.
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Christopher Dunn is serving a life sentence for the 1990 murder of Ricco Rogers. But two adolescent eyewitnesses have recanted, and prosecutors say they no longer believe that Dunn is guilty.
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Lawmakers sent a very similar measure to Gov. Mike Parson last year. He vetoed it due to a proposal making it easier for people to get restitution for wrongful convictions, and language around expungements.
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Because Gov. Mike Parson dissolved a board of inquiry established in 2017, the Missouri Supreme Court is free to set an execution date for Marcellus Williams, even if St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell has not yet finished his review of the case. Williams has always maintained his innocence.
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Johnson had long maintained he did not shoot and kill Marcus Boyd in 1994. A judge ruled last year that “clear and convincing” evidence showed Johnson was innocent and freed him after 28 years.
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Missouri applied for the grant from the U.S. Department of Agriculture after two straight years of drought forced some livestock farmers to reduce their herd size because they did not have enough food or water.
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Lawmakers in Jefferson City did not take up any gun restrictions during the 2023 legislative session, despite pleas from students affected by the south St. Louis school shooting. Two people, a 15-year-old sophomore and a health teacher, were killed, seven others were injured, and hundreds were left traumatized.
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Attorney General Andrew Bailey argued that Southampton Community Health Center failed to provide a “comprehensive mental health assessment” before prescribing hormones or puberty blockers to minors. The claim is based on testimony from a hearing on a lawsuit challenging Missouri's ban.
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The members of United Auto Workers Local 2250 were the first employees of General Motors to go on strike. On Sunday, the picket line was joined by Democratic U.S. Reps. Cori Bush of St. Louis County and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York.
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Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker is asking a judge for permission to raise her own legal challenges to Missouri's near-total ban on abortion, which she says is vague and inconsistent. Baker said the law flips the burden of proof required in criminal cases from the prosecutor to the defendant.
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After a Cole County judge invalidated the health powers of local governments in 2021, then-attorney general Eric Schmitt decided not to appeal the case. Local governments, who had used their authority to issue pandemic restrictions such as mask mandates, want the right to defend them in court.