St. Louis on the Air

In the 1860s, a plan to move the U.S. Capitol from D.C. to St. Louis garnered substantial support. Journalist Livia Gershon gives a crash course in this long-forgotten history.

As a 14-year-old imprisoned in a satellite camp to Auschwitz in 1944, Ben Fainer crafted a bracelet engraved with his name, his ID number and some decorative elements. We explore Fainer's story and how the bracelet made it's way to St. Louis.

Missouri Independent editor-in-chief Jason Hancock explains what’s happening in the Missouri legislature. The discussion delves into various topics, including the decision to not fund Medicaid expansion, COVID-19 liability and vaccine passports.

When migrating songbirds get to a major city like St. Louis, light pollution can cause them to become disoriented or exhausted, and sometimes die. A new effort seeks to address the problem by encouraging businesses and individuals in the Midwest to turn off exterior lights during May and September.

Last month, Mark Fingerhut set out from his home in St. Louis’ Dogtown neighborhood to see how far his feet could take him over the course of 24 hours. And he convinced 20 fellow St. Louisans to do the same, dubbing the adventure the 24 Hours from Home Challenge.

The legal roundtable featuring Mark Smith, Jennifer Joyce and Sarah Swatosh digs into cases including a class-action lawsuit against police treatment of protesters in St. Louis, lawsuits against the city's earning tax, and the resumption of jury trials during the pandemic.

St. Louis composer Jeremy Schonfeld shares how his father's memoir, "Absence of Closure" inspired his "Iron & Coal" rock-opera concert.

Kayla Reed shares what she saw at the City Justice Center and the Medium Security Institution, better known as the Workhouse — and what she hopes city leaders will do with those observations.

Polling suggests that attitudes and misunderstandings among political conservatives and people with limited health care coverage may pose the biggest challenges to mass vaccination.

Rex Sinquefield has had an outsized influence on the St. Louis region — whether he’s pushing a city-county merger or turning the Central West End into a world capital of chess. And for most of that time, fellow St. Louisan Devin Thomas O’Shea has been watching to see what the libertarian billionaire’s next moves might be.

St. Louis has voted new leaders into key offices from county executive to mayor to congresswoman. So what should be on the area's to-do list? UMSL professor Anita Manion and listeners shared their agendas for a transformed region.

After receiving a COVID-19 vaccine, some people are reporting heavier menstrual cycles and more cramping. To date, there are no published scientific studies about a possible link, but researchers are looking into it.

The lager has a long history in St. Louis — and despite its low-key image, experts say it’s surprisingly difficult to make well. Two local brewers discuss the lager’s local roots, and highlight some new favorites.

Missouri Independent editor-in-chief Jason Hancock explains what’s happening in the Missouri legislature. The discussion delves into various topics, including the expulsion of one of its members, and debates about the rights of transgender youth and critical race theory.

Missouri Botanical Garden ecologist Adam Smith studied the island's deforestation and found that all of Madagascar's rainforests could disappear by 2080. Botanist Jeannie Raharimampionona explains how MoBot's protected sites in Madagascar aim to combat this prediction.

Abolitionist newspaper editor Elijah Lovejoy became the first American journalist slain for his work when he was murdered by a pro-slavery mob in 1837 Alton. Journalist Ken Ellingwood discusses his life and times.

For the Reverend Michelle Higgins, pastoral work shares deep ties with social justice activism. The self described “protestor who has become a pastor” is the first Black woman to permanently lead the congregation at Saint John’s Church (the Beloved Community) in north St. Louis.

Twenty-five years ago, Reginald Dwayne Betts saw his entire life trajectory change in the space of 30 minutes. In what he has since described as “a moment of insanity,” Betts, then a 16-year-old high school junior, carjacked a man. He would serve eight years in prison for the crime.

The Field House Museum's "Momentous Milestones" exhibit highlights the history of the oldest privately-owned residential home in St. Louis.

For several decades, one of the most persistent theories of Cahokia's collapse has blamed self-inflicted ecological disaster.
 Geoarchaeologist Caitlin Rankin explains how her research debunks that theory.

Earlier this year, the Sierra Club released “The Dirty Truth About Utility Climate Pledges,” a report grading 50 utility companies across the U.S. on their transition from coal to clean energy. Ameren Missouri is among them, and received a D.

The latest exhibition at the St. Louis Art Museum, “Nubia: Treasures of Ancient Africa,” offers new ways of understanding Nubia’s history and contemporary relevance.

U.S. Rep. Cori Bush is introducing legislation that would directly fund local governments disproportionately impacted by climate change. The Green New Deal for Cities would authorize $1 trillion in spending over the next four years.

STLPR's Jonathan Ahl explores the political fallout from a mask mandate and other coronavirus-related restrictions in Rolla.

Missouri Independent editor-in-chief Jason Hancock explains what’s happening in the Missouri legislature. The discussion involves the ongoing snafu around unemployment overpayments, Rep. Rick Roeber, Rush Limbaugh and more.

The podcast's creator, Aaron Doerr, has released six episodes just in the past two months, featuring local bands ranging from Middle Class Fashion to Mathias & The Pirates. More conversations and tunes drop every other Tuesday.

Michael Kinch's new book, "“The Price of Health: The Modern Pharmaceutical Enterprise and the Betrayal of a History of Care," digs into the many factors leading to exorbitant drug prices. He discusses what he found, and what it would take to address them.

In 2017, St. Louis Mayor Lyda Krewson was elected the city’s top executive, making her the first woman to win the job. Four years later, she’s set to retire, marking an end to 24 years in public service.

Chabon, who is this week receiving the 2020 St. Louis Literary Award, discusses his successes, his struggles and how the joy of good sentences continues to sustain him.

For 365 days a year, 24 hours a day, the St. Louis Crisis Nursery welcomes children in need of care due to factors like homelessness, illness or extreme parental stress. Its clinical worker explains how it assists those families -- and how the pandemic affected its work.

Sauce Magazine's Meera Nagarajan highlights six new food and drink establishments in the region.

First hired by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch in 1980, Martin has been drawing the beloved Weatherbird character for 35 years now. He’s the sixth artist to carry on the legacy since the cartoon first appeared in the February 11, 1901, edition of the newspaper.

On April 6, Knapper earned support from 58% of voters. The federal administrative law judge and school board member, who defeated incumbent Mayor Barry Greenberg, joins host Sarah Fenske to discuss her campaign and her hopes for her community's future.

Up for a road trip? In this encore episode, we listen back to our conversation about a self-guided tour promoted by the visitor's bureau in Quincy that highlights 30 of the city’s trove of mid-century modern designs.

In this encore episode, we listen back to a conversation with local author NiNi Harris, where she drills down on which places can claim to be the oldest in St. Louis.

As a frontline worker, Dr. Tiffany Osborn lived in an RV for the past year to protect her family from the coronavirus. She's fully back home now, and joins the talk show to share other reflections she’s had throughout the year — and the fate of the RV trailer.

Sports writer Joan Niesen goes deep on baseball’s steroid era in her new podcast, Crushed.” She explains how she fell in love with baseball as a 10-year-old in St. Louis, and how subsequent revelations affected her fandom

Less than 48 hours since her victory in Tuesday’s big race and with only 12 days until she’ll be sworn into office, St. Louis Mayor-elect Tishaura Jones said on Thursday's show that she’s ready to move fast on a number of fronts — including how to address the critical issues currently facing the City Justice Center.

Washington University Sociology Professor Jake Rosenfeld discusses his new book, “You’re Paid What You’re Worth And Other Myths of the Modern Economy,” and the complicated issues surrounding compensation.

St. Louis Public Radio reporter Corinne Ruff discusses a proposal by Missouri House Budget Chair Cody Smith, R-Carthage, to roll back or delay a voter-approved minimum wage increase.

Tishaura Jones' landmark mayoral win ushers in a new era for St. Louis politics.

Since late December, five protests have erupted at the Justice Center in downtown St. Louis. This latest came Sunday night, when a group of detainees broke windows on the third floor and threw objects out of the windows. Inmates could be heard chanting, “We need help” and “We want court dates.”

Last week, as Laurie Bowen watched movers transport her cherished upright piano from the front of her home to the trailer hitched to their truck, she grew a bit emotional. She wiped away some tears. But they were happy ones, especially as she thought about what the instrument would mean for its new owner, 11-year-old piano student Amani Dugger, who lives in St. Louis.

KnowInk founder Scott Leiendecker shares how he developed the Poll Pad and how his voter registration company is becoming one of the fastest-growing companies in the region.

In his book “Hemingway’s St. Louis: How St. Louisans Shaped His Life and Legacy,” Andrew J. Theising argues that many of Ernest Hemingway’s great adventures have roots in St. Louis. He explains how Hemingway's three St. Louis-born wives and their family fortunes helped to launch the novelist.

Federal prosecutors will retry two St. Louis police officers charged with beating an undercover colleague after the jury deadlocked last week. A former federal prosecutor shares his analysis of what went wrong at trial -- and what this means for others making similar claims against St. Louis Police.

In January, shortly after poet Amanda Gorman inspired the nation with her reading at President Joseph Biden’s inauguration, St. Louis' outgoing youth poet laureate, Sarah Abbas, and the city’s next poet laureate, Grace Ruo, shared their hopes for bringing written and spoken words to bear on society.

In this encore episode, we listen back to a conversation with Washington University Sociology Professor David Cunningham, who shares what we can learn about right-wing, white nationalist groups today — and best practices for defeating them — by studying their mobilization during other moments in our nation's history.

Republicans in the Missouri House this week declined to fund the expansion of Medicaid. To their colleagues across the aisle, including state Rep. Peter Merideth, D-St. Louis, the GOP arguments in recent days against funding the change haven’t made much sense. In this conversation, Merideth, the ranking minority member of the House Budget Committee, offers his sense of recent developments and where this battle may be headed next.

This year's reigning Mrs. Missouri is one of just two Black women ever to hold the title, and at 57, the oldest yet. She shares how pageants prepared her for life in the Marines and discusses why the St. Louis Diaper Bank is close to her heart.