Red House gets award for bicentennial event

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Cape Girardeau's Red House Interpretive Center received a $10,000 grant Friday from the Missouri Lewis and Clark Bicentennial Commission.

The announcement marked the second round of grants, which were established to help fund bicentennial celebrations of the 2004 exploration of Meriwether Lewis and William Clark.

The Red House is one of 26 recepients of $437,000 in grants.

The awards varied from $40,000 for the Discovery Expedition of St. Charles, which will perform an reenactment of the expedition, to $2,000 to the National Frontier Trails Center in Kansas City for development and production of educational tools.

The Red House will be a replica of Cape Girardeau founder Don Louis Lorimier's trading post and home. Ground was broken for the project across from the Old St. Vincent's Church in October.

Former Boeing worker accused of fraud

ST. LOUIS -- A suburban St. Louis woman was arraigned Friday on a federal indictment's charge that she defrauded Boeing Co. of $134,827 while working for the aerospace giant.

Federal grand jurors on Thursday indicted Juanita A. Lewis, 50, of Florrisant, of one felony count of mail fraud.

The indictment alleges that while working at Boeing between Feb. 1 and Sept. 30, Lewis created bogus travel and business expense reports, accounts and records. Boeing then mailed checks payable to the names on the questioned reports at Lewis' direction, authorities allege.

Strike-ending agreement to put holidays on hold

GRANITE CITY, Ill. -- Students in Granite City will attend school on the birthdays of Abraham Lincoln, Martin Luther King Jr. and other days they'd normally have off under the terms of a federal arbitrator's ruling.

In all, the arbitrator accepted the Granite City School District's proposed calendar, which calls for the students to make up 11 of the days they missed during the monthlong teacher strike during the fall.

The teachers will also be docked eight days' pay under a compromise agreement between the district and teachers.

Thursday's ruling by the arbitrator means students will be in class four days that would normally be holidays. They'll also be in class three days during which parent-teacher conferences were scheduled and for an additional two days at the end of the school year.

Abducted children return to mother before holiday

BELLEVILLE, Ill. -- Tracy Louis got her Christmas wish early.

She has been reunited with her two daughters who were missing since October.

Her estranged husband is accused of not returning the girls to their mother after spending a weekend with his daughters, as his divorce was being finalized. Tracy Louis, 39, of Mascoutah, has said that Michael Louis took $250,000 from the couple's joint retirement fund and then fled with the children to Costa Rica.

Michael Louis, 43, of O'Fallon, was indicted last month in St. Clair County on a felony charge of child abduction. The International Police of Costa Rica and the FBl arrested him Wednesday. He will be held at a jail in San Jose, Costa Rica until his extradition hearing, officials said.

20-year0-old SLU student dies from meningitis

ST. LOUIS -- A St. Louis University student who contracted bacterial meningitis has died.

Brendan Mooney, 20, died Thursday night at Saint Louis University Hospital, where he had been admitted Dec 15. Brendan was a junior business major from Austin, Texas.

Bacterial meningitis is an infection of the fluid and membranes covering the brain and spinal cord. The disease is spread through close contact such as kissing or sharing utensils. Flulike symptoms can include high fever, headache, nausea, vomiting and a stiff neck.

-- From staff, wire reports