St. Louis on the Air

Today is International Women’s Day and we’re listening back to our conversation from last summer about 100 years since the ratification of the 19th Amendment, which granted U.S. women the right to vote. St. Louis women were among some of the earliest suffragists and an exhibit at the Missouri History Museum about those women remains on display.

At the start of the coronavirus pandemic, and after 10 years of pursuing music professionally, Lloyd Nicks couldn’t have anticipated the year 2020 being his biggest yet. But last summer, everything changed when one of his songs started hitting airwaves across the U.S.

As a longtime professional in the live entertainment industry, Greg Hagglund watched far too many livelihoods crumble around him over the past year. But in recent months he’s collaborated with other local industry veterans on a concrete way to help them: Keep Live Alive St. Louis. The ongoing effort includes the premiere of a 90-minute video special March 12, featuring local and national performers.

Missouri’s “waiting lists” for public defenders were declared unconstitutional last month. Judge William E. Hickle ruled that the Missouri Office of State Public Defender violated the constitutional rights of indigent people awaiting trial by forcing them to wait for weeks, and even months, for an attorney. Tony Rothert of the ACLU of Missouri and state Rep. Tony Lovasco, a Republican from O'Fallon, discuss what happens next.

St. Louis attorneys Elad Gross and Mark Pedroli got a surprise in a set of documents they recently unearthed via Sunshine requests: proof that Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt’s office exchanged emails with the Rule of Law Defense Fund leading up to the November 2020 election — and continued to receive numerous communications from the fund afterward.

In 2018, Bayer-Monsanto lost a $289 million jury verdict in a case brought by a groundskeeper who claimed the weedkiller Roundup gave him cancer. Author Carey Gillam discusses her new book about that litigation.

How did Tishaura Jones and Cara Spencer move onto the April mayoral election? For Jones, it was a strong performance in north St. Louis and parts of south St. Louis, and approval voting may have been key in getting Spencer to the second round.

Missouri school students will sit down for state assessments soon. For some, it’ll be their first time in a classroom in more than a year. Teachers and parents say testing should be canceled, but education officials counter that the data is critical.

StoryCorps is turning its ear to tell the stories of Black people from Alton. We previewed a virtual event happening this Friday, "Untold Black Stories of Alton" and got a sneak peek at one of the conversation.

Earlier this year, Brittany "Tru" Kellman’s efforts got a big boost: a $1 million grant to train hundreds of doulas in an effort to reduce Missouri's maternal mortality rates and racial disparities. Kellman and her Jamaa Birth Village team are partnering with local nonprofit Generate Health on the three-year project. Host Sarah Fenske talks with Kellman and Generate Health's Kendra Copanas, and we also hear from Charity Bean, a recently trained doula who has since opened her own practice.

This Friday marks 75 years since Winston Churchill delivered the famous "Iron Curtain" speech. Tim Riley of America's National Churchill Museum talks about the significance of that speech and shares details about Churchill's trip to Westminster College in Fulton, Missouri.

Aaron Fowler has found huge success in the contemporary art world. Now he debuts his first solo exhibition in his hometown, N2EXISTENCE: GENESIS, which opens March 6 at the Luminary. Fowler explains how he went from St. Louis' Carr Square neighborhood to the Ivy League, and what it's been like to be back in his hometown for a year's residency.

Co-authors John A. Wright Sr. and John A. Wright Jr. discuss the new, second edition of their book, newly out from Reedy Press, and why the stories of so many notable Black people have been forgotten or concealed.

Paul Mensah, a Black chemical engineer and vice president of Bioprocess Research and Development group at Pfizer in St. Louis, led a team of scientists, engineers and technicians to develop Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.

The Legal Roundtable discusses developments involving the area's judicial system, including two 8th circuit rulings on qualified immunity for police officers and lawsuits over Missouri's Sunshine law.

André Cataldo of Dear Genre considers his latest album, “Man in Full,” his most “tame and mature” sound. He delves into his musical journey and share tracks from his sixth album.

Missouri Independent reporter Rebecca Rivas provides the latest on sweeping legislation that recently gained preliminary approval in the Missouri Senate. It would crack down on protesters — and give new rights to cops accused of misconduct.

Andrew J. Theising discusses the new book he edited for the Florissant Valley Historical Society, which provides a close look at slavery in the north county St. Louis suburb.

For many of us, mastering muting, unmuting and other basics of virtual work and schooling has proved to be more than enough of a challenge on top of everything else this past year. But St. Louisan Susanne Evens and her team of translators around the world have been busy in recent months tackling a different challenge: how to make large-scale international gatherings possible, and still understandable, in a virtual age.

The four contenders for mayor of St. Louis discussed crime prevention, the COVID-19 pandemic and transportation funding in one of the last virtual showdowns before the March 2 primary election.

St. Louis County Library director Kristen Sorth discusses the center's "GrandPad" initiative, where they aim to distribute about 1,500 tablets as part of their ongoing Digital Equity Initiative.

Advocates are celebrating a new law that will end wealth-based pre-trial detention in Illinois. With Governor J.B. Pritzker's signature yesterday, the state becomes the first in the country to eliminate cash bail.

A newly launched community of 50 tiny, transitional homes, located at Jefferson and Martin Luther King Drive in St. Louis, is now nearly at capacity. We talk with Tom Mangogna of the Magdala Foundation, which is operating the village, and with tiny-home resident Florine McBride. She moved in just a couple weeks ago with her emotional control cat, Logan.

As the pandemic drags on and many people settle further into a more virtual world, others are in their 11th month of continually interacting with members of the public and risking their own health to help keep people supplied with food and other necessities. In this episode, we hear from several of those workers.

Mayor Krewson recently signed a bill mandating more electric vehicle charging stations in the city. Linda Little, assistant director of the Electrical Industry Training Center, explains how the St. Louis company helped standardize the charging process nationally ten years ago.

The New York-based conceptual artist explains his project "A Counting," which aims to create a "sound portrait" of St. Louis.

The artist Le’Ponds is known for her dreamy, almost haunting songs. The St. Louis-based singer-songwriter and guitarist tells us about her musical journey and latest projects.

Advocates for St. Louis' homeless population explain how they came together in a two-week blitz to get people out of the cold -- and the political backdrop that made such efforts necessary.

About four miles south of the Gateway Arch, right near the riverfront in south St. Louis, sits a hospital with a long and troubled history — and what its new leaders hope will be a much brighter future. Best known for being the location of the only documented exorcism in the United States, the hospital is now benefiting from a new vision for serving the community that surrounds it.

A new report from the Riverfront Times puts the disparity in stark contrast: While Missouri inmates on average spend less than four years in prison, some of the state’s nonviolent drug offenders are still serving decades-long, no-parole terms. In this segment, host Sarah Fenske talks with the RFT's Danny Wicentowski and Republican state Rep. Cheri Toalson Reisch. We also hear from two men who recently had their sentences commuted by Governor Mike Parson.

Pablo Sobron, the founder and CEO of Impossible Sensing, explains how his Cherokee Street-based startup is aiding in the work of the Perseverance rover touching down this week on Mars -- and his bigger plans for future Mars' missions.

In this episode we hear from two struggling tenants at the Fountains at Carondelet as well as Lee Camp, an attorney with ArchCity Defenders. Kennard Williams, a lead organizer with Action St. Louis and active member of the St. Louis Housing Defense Collective, joins host Sarah Fenske throughout the discussion, and also interacts with callers.

The St. Louis County Library's Tap In Center seeks to provide a safe space for people who need assistance in resolving warrants, meeting with an attorney, learning their case status or applying for a public defender.

Scores of St. Louis residents are traveling to rural Missouri counties to get vaccinated. Reporter Kayla Drake discusses the issues surrounding these road trips.

After Walter Parks started researching his musical and cultural roots in southeast Georgia, he found a treasure trove of material in the Library of Congress’ American Folklife Center. The library had preserved early field recordings of homesteaders in the Okefenokee Swamp region, where Parks remembers camping and exploring as a kid. In this conversation, the writer, guitarist and vocalist joins host Sarah Fenske to share stories and tunes ahead of his show at the Blue Strawberry.

The "We Live Here" team delves into their latest Farm Dreams & Toxic Dust episode, and what the rest of the season on environmental racism has to offer.

Abra McField, the CEO and founder of St. Louis based Abra Kadabra Hair & Healing, has noticed a surge in clients dealing with hair loss since the COVID-19 pandemic began.

Susan Van de Riet is the owner of St. Louis Native Plants, a landscape consulting and design company that helps locals figure out the ideal way to grow a garden in their yard. She recently designed a native garden plan with the local chapter of Wild Ones Natural Landscapers. It’s time and budget friendly and totally free to download.

Journalist Masuma Ahuja discusses her new book, which compiles diary excerpts from 30 teenaged girls in 27 countries. She explains why she sees hope in even the most challenging stories.

In the middle of winter’s coldest month, we make time to celebrate love. Valentine’s Day is Sunday. What better way to get in the mood than to listen to some love songs?

As the new executive director of Medical Students for Choice, St. Louisan Pamela Merritt works with medical student groups across the globe to ensure they have access to training in abortion. She discusses those efforts and her perhaps surprising assertion that "abortion is winning."

The year 2021 is shaping up to be a pivotal one in St. Louis politics — with both a new mayor being chosen and a new system of approval voting being pioneered. But the big shifts won’t stop with this spring’s elections: The city is also set to reduce its number of wards from 28 to 14, ultimately shrinking the size of the Board of Aldermen by half.

Sauce Magazine executive editor Meera Nagarajan highlights five new food-and-drink establishments in the St. Louis area.

Black Squares is a new program looking to expand access to chess for low-income and Black and brown youth in north St. Louis. The founders explain how they're planning to make a St. Louis version of Washington Square Park in the Hyde Park neighborhood.

Prairie Farms representative Darin Copeland discusses the initial impact of the pandemic on the company’s production, which Prairie Farms products have proven pandemic popular and how its farmers have been able to keep up a new set of demands.

Mayor Lyda Krewson discusses the causes of recent unrest at the City Justice Center, as well as changes to the police 911 dispatch system, the state's vaccine rollout and more.

The World Chess Hall of Fame's most recent exhibition, “Masterminds: Chess Prodigies," explores the stories of chess prodigies from past to present.

Allyson Mayer, a computational biologist for the St. Louis startup, is particularly hopeful about a current project she hopes will help COVID-19 "long-haulers."

Tad Yankoski, Missouri Botanical Garden’s senior entomologist and "bug dad," returns to the program to dismantle cockroaches' bad reputation and detail some of their positive attributes.

Bubonic plague. Influenza. The Red Death. An infection of zombies. For humanities scholar Marie Lathers, reading fiction about these and other pandemics has proved to be a surprisingly comforting experience over the past year. And now, she's leading a group of Missouri S&T students on a similar journey.