St. Louis on the Air

Candidates Anne Schweitzer and Shedrick Kelley explain why they're part of a group that hopes to defeat more establishment-minded Democrats to seize progressive control of the St. Louis Board of Aldermen. Reporter Rachel Lippmann provides analysis.

Stories of Resistance at the Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis includes video, photography, drawing, sculpture and painted installations by 19 artists. It also includes the museum’s first podcast, “Radio Resistance.” Among those featured will be Congresswoman Cori Bush, activist and professor emeritus Harry Edwards and Harvard professor and author Walter Johnson.

The Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company’s "Human Resources," presented by the Repertory Theatre of St. Louis and created by Telephonic Literary Union, is a choose-your-own-adventure story via phone. What initially sounds like a typical customer service hotline invites callers to discover the unexpected.

For the second year in a row, COVID-19 is putting the kibosh on the St. Patrick's Day parade and Irish festival that typically bring crowds of revelers to the vibrant St. Louis neighborhood. But the Dogtown community is still going green this week, finding creative and cautious ways to celebrate Ireland’s patron saint — while also raising funds for what organizers anticipate will be a return to traditional festivities in 2022.

For the second year in a row, the Illinois Manufacturers’ Association is highlighting the state’s diverse manufacturing sector with a bracket-style tournament. The Makers Madness contest started with 311 nominees. After nearly 140,000 votes, eight products are now vying to be declared the state’s coolest.

Last month, more than 100 detainees at the St. Louis Justice Center revolted, attacking a guard, smashing windows and setting fires to protest their living conditions. The detainees held a floor of the jail for nearly seven hours. Now a new task force, created to investigate conditions in the jail, has released a report that seeks to explain what went wrong and what it will take to fix it.

The Rev. C.T. Vivian was a confidant of Martin Luther King Jr. and a man who played a pivotal role in desegregating lunch counters, buses and beaches. Co-author Steve Fiffer discusses his legacy and his early years in Boonville, Missouri, and Macomb, Illinois.

Washington University sociologist Caitlyn Collins discusses the troubling trend of mothers dropping out of the workforce during the pandemic -- and how the U.S. lags behind other countries in supporting parents.

As coronavirus cases spread and shutdowns got under way a year ago this week, few of us had any idea what to expect in the days and months ahead — nor would we have guessed the crisis would extend well beyond the year 2020.

Edison Agrosciences is the St. Louis based agricultural biotechnology company working to develop alternative rubber crops. It’s found a product that it believes can become a source of homegrown rubber: sunflowers.

A yearlong collaboration between the Missouri Confluence Waterkeeper, Blue2Blue Conservation and researchers at Wichita State University, the effort centers on three litter-collection devices installed at area creeks. In this segment, we travel to Deer Creek in Maplewood for a closer look.

St. Louis singer-songwriter Haley Woolbright planned to record her new song as a wedding surprise for her husband. The pandemic changed those plans -- but taught the couple some things about love.

St. Louis’ historic Sumner High School has dodged closure once more. Tuesday night, the St. Louis Public School board approved a new effort to reinvigorate Sumner's declining enrollment, rather than close the historic school.

Council Chair Rita Heard Days recently beat back a lawsuit to hold the chairwoman's post. She discusses her relationship with the county executive, her priorities and her thoughts on COVID-19 restrictions in St. Louis County.

Last week the Missouri Supreme Court dealt another blow to Lamar Johnson, who's spent 26 years in prison for a murder prosecutors say he didn't commit. His lawyer discusses next steps in the quest for his freedom.

Republican lawmakers in Jefferson City are seeking to update some of the state’s photo ID laws as they pertain to elections. Rep. John Simmons, R-Washington, sponsored the bill — which passed the House on Feb. 24 and is on its way to the Senate for consideration.

Marian Middle School is the city's only all-girls Catholic middle school. School administrators describe it as a “school beyond walls” because its students are equipped with resources that help them, and their families, overcome societal and financial obstacles.

In Missouri’s own bicentennial year, Missouri Folk Arts’ staff are sharing 200 stories over the course of 52 weeks about folk and traditional arts in the Show-Me State.

One of our favorite recent conversation was with H.W. Brands. His recent book, "The Zealot and the Emancipator: John Brown, Abraham Lincoln and the Struggle for American Freedom," explores the run-up to slavery's abolition — and choice to confront its "great evil" via politics or violence — through the lives of two men: John Brown and Abraham Lincoln.

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.