St. Louis on the Air

Earlier this year, Steve's Hot Dogs announced it was calling it quits after an 11-year run. But the outpouring that followed its closure announcement led directly to a new day for the eatery. As Ewing explains in this episode of St. Louis on the Air, the massive crowds in what he’d intended as the restaurant’s final week gave him a change of heart, and investment from Ewing’s longtime friend Danni Eickenhorst turned his idea to a reality. Steve’s Hot Dogs now plans to reopen. It’s not the only local business to experience a remarkable reversal of fortune. And in Belleville, after Memorial Hospital announced it would close Belleville Health and Sports Center, members formed a not-for-profit organization to take over the fitness center and keep it open. Host Sarah Fenske talks with guests from each of these businesses.

St. Louis County’s jail population has dropped significantly over the past couple years, from an over-capacity total of 1,242 in the summer of 2018 to 930 inmates as of last week. The sustained decrease has been touted as one positive outcome among the justice reform efforts that followed protests in Ferguson. Much work remains — and thanks to five years of research led by University of Missouri-St. Louis Professor of Criminology and Criminal Justice Beth Huebner and funded by the John and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation, collaboration continues between the researchers and the county, its circuit court and service providers. During this year’s Pierre Laclede Society Community Confluence donor event at UMSL Feb. 20, St. Louis on the Air host Sarah Fenske talks about ongoing efforts in the county, and addressed lingering challenges. She is joined by Huebner, St. Louis County Executive Dr. Sam Page and Julia Fogelberg, director of diversion and special programs for the St. Louis County Prosecutor's Office.

Today’s teachers and school administrators are under increasing pressure on many fronts. There’s the increased focus on standardized testing, large class sizes and funding issues, not to mention the outside-the-classroom challenges complicating their students’ ability to learn. In the midst of all of this comes a refreshing focus — and a new graduate-level course — from two UMSL-connected leaders: Mindy Bier, co-director of the university’s Center for Character and Citizenship, and Tom Hoerr, assistant teaching professor and scholar in residence in the College of Education and former head of the New City School. During this year’s Pierre Laclede Society Community Confluence donor event that took place at UMSL Feb. 20, Bier and Hoerr talk with St. Louis on the Air host Sarah Fenske.

The town of Alton was a major stop for escaped slaves making their way from St. Louis to Canada. In this interview, Sarah Fenske talks with J. Eric Robinson, assistant professor of history at the St. Louis College of Pharmacy and proprietor of J. E. Robinson tours, about the historic places and people involved in the Underground Railroad in St. Louis and in Illinois. Robinson will begin guided tours of Alton’s Underground Railroad history starting Feb. 29.

For three decades, Diane Rehm hosted a conversation with America. The Diane Rehm Show grew from a local show at NPR affiliate WAMU to a national juggernaut, with 2.8 million listeners every week. And even after her December 2016 retirement, Rehm has continued the conversation. She hosts a podcast; she also recently published her fourth book, “When My Time Comes.” In partnership with "St. Louis on the Air," Rehm discussed her career at a dinner hosted by the Mannie Jackson Center for the Humanities Foundation at the Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. Here are the highlights from that conversation, including the secrets of her success and her reasons for becoming a passionate advocate for the “death with dignity” movement.

St. Louis’ Municipal Court is hosting a warrant amnesty program Feb. 24-27. It’s an opportunity for people with outstanding bench warrants — excluding DUIs, leaving the scene of an accident and prostitution — to be able to pay their original fines and costs without penalty. In this interview, Emily Woodbury talks with Judge Newton McCoy about the program. Newton is an administrative judge in St. Louis City Municipal Court.

Last week, the Illinois Department of Natural Resources announced the 12 sites in the state which were added to the National Register of Historic Places during 2019. That’s the official federal list of properties that merit special attention and preservation. Every Illinois county has at least one property or historic district listed in the National Register. Guest host Emily Woodbury learns more about the sites in Illinois that made it to the 2019 National Register of Historic Places, and what it took to get them on the list. Joining the discussion is Amy Hathaway, National Register and Survey Specialist for Illinois State Historic Preservation Office.

Often referred to as the most dangerous eight seconds in sports, bull riding is not for the faint of heart. In fact, the medical director for the international organization Professional Bull Riders estimates that about one in 15 rides results in injury. Yet, the sport is gaining popularity. Since PBR was founded in 1992, the sport has grown into a global phenomenon. Over the course of a weeklong competition, riders can earn up to six figures in prize money. This weekend, PBR is hosting a competition at the Enterprise Center. Riders and their bulls will be coming to St. Louis with several events already under their belt, and competition this year has been tough. One of the riders competing is Brady Sims. The Missouri native is currently ranked as the 27th rider in the world.

Big news out of Cape Girardeau: A federal jury there returned its verdict against agricultural companies Monsanto and BASF. The case involved some Cape Girardeau peach farmers who said they’d been damaged by the weed killer dicamba. And that verdict was staggering. It totaled $15 million in damages — and $250 million in punitive damages. That’s even more than attorneys had asked for. St. Louis Public Radio reporter Corinne Ruff was in Cape Girardeau when jurors returned their verdict. She’s joins host Sarah Fenske to talk about it.

For the occasional traveler, the term “TSA” likely conjures images of opening laptop bags, taking off shoes, lifting arms overhead and hoping against hope that there’s no spare change hiding in a pocket. But for Transportation Security Administration manager Robert Davis, that scene has about as much to do with customer service as it does airport security — and earlier this month he was honored in a big way for his efforts. St. Louis Lambert International Airport named Davis its Ambassador of the Year at the airport’s annual employee celebration. The kudos came as part of the airport’s Catch Us Giving program, after Davis helped an international traveler avoid what could have otherwise turned into a travel nightmare. Davis — who first began working for the TSA when it was created in 2002, and always at Lambert throughout the 18 years since — joins host Sarah Fenske to talk about it. Also joining the conversation is Davis’ supervisor Shayne Danielson, who oversees airport security at Lambert.

The St. Louis Art Museum has opened an exhibition that its curators say acknowledges the contributions of a largely forgotten artist who was instrumental in the birth of modern art: 19th-century French painter Jean-François Millet. His work features landscapes, nudes and other work that inspired other artists such as Vincent van Gogh and Claude Monet. Host Sarah Fenske talks with Simon Kelly, curator of modern and contemporary art at the St. Louis Art Museum. He is the co-curator of the "Millet and Modern Art: From Van Gogh to Dalí" exhibition along with Maite van Dijk, senior curator at the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam.

Jackie Robinson famously integrated Major League Baseball, taking the field for the National League’s Brooklyn Dodgers in April 1947. And the American League followed a few months later, when the Cleveland Indians put Larry Doby into the lineup. But right behind Cleveland were the St. Louis Browns. Just 12 days later, the team played its first black player. And two days after that, the Browns became the first club to put two black players into a game when Willard Brown and Hank Thompson took the field. Author Ed Wheatley discusses how fans and teammates reacted to Brown and Thompson — and why their time on the team proved short-lived. He also discussed another former Negro League star who did a stint with the Browns: the one and only Satchel Paige.

Host Sarah Fenske talks with St. Louis Public Radio reporter Jason Rosenbaum about former Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens. The Missouri Ethics Commission fined him $178,000 for failing to disclose in-kind donations but the commission also found no evidence that Greitens personally engaged in wrongdoing or that he had any knowledge of the ethics violations. The ex-governor has posted publicly on social media for the first time in months. Is he mounting a comeback?

Washington University’s Clinic for Acceptance, Recovery and Empowerment (CARE) treats women who become pregnant while dealing with an opioid use disorder. It provides prenatal care, substance abuse treatment and extended postpartum support. In this episode, we talk with the clinic’s medical director, Dr. Jeannie Kelly, who says there is a high demand for these services in the St. Louis region. She also says they are seeing more patients who are addicted to multiple types of drugs, otherwise known as polysubstance abuse. About a third of the clinic’s patients have some sort of concurrent polysubstance use going on, and there’s been a rise in patients with addictions to meth.

When you’re out on the town, it can be fun to try a couple different spots. What isn’t fun, though, is driving from one spot to another, or having to seek out parking in one packed neighborhood after another. Fortunately, our friends at Sauce magazine have addressed this problem in their most recent issue. They’ve outlined a three-stop nightlife tour in eight St. Louis-area neighborhoods in their “Night Moves” feature. Meera Nagarajan, art director of Sauce, and Heather Hughes Huff, Sauce’s managing editor, join host Sarah Fenske to explore the highlights the region has to offer for date nights.

David Murphy prides himself on being a “goal-setting” type-of-guy. Every year, he sets out different goals for himself — whether they’re physical, spiritual or work-related. And hitting those targets isn’t necessarily the intention. For Murphy, it’s more about the journey. And so for his 50th birthday last year, he wanted to go on a quest: One that turns a seemingly doable thing (say, going to Mass) into something grand — like visiting every active Catholic church in the Archdiocese of St. Louis. Inspired by his love for his Catholic faith and its deep history in the region, Murphy set out to visit each of the 190 active churches in the archdiocese, which covers ten counties and the city of St. Louis. He joins host Sarah Fenske to share what he learned — and which local churches made his “epic list.”

Following months of crowds and fanfare, most of the infrastructure associated with the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair was demolished soon after the festivities ended. That included George Ferris Jr.’s giant wheel, which had first debuted in Chicago in 1893 and boasted 36 observation cars — “each the size of a Bi-State bus,” as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch later described them. But Ferris’ legacy survived the dynamite and has seen something of a resurgence locally since the opening of the 200-foot-tall St. Louis Wheel at Union Station last fall. And last Friday, wheel-goers found a special celebration underway there: a very Valentine’s Day-themed observance of National Ferris Wheel Day. St. Louis on the Air producers stop by to take in the scene and talk with first-time riders. And host Sarah Fenske leads a discussion about St. Louis observation wheels past and present with Jody Sowell and Karyn Wilder.

The 18th Amendment of the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcohol in the U.S. Enforcement of the new law started on January 17, 1920. In this episode, our panelists dive into St. Louis' rich Prohibition-era history. They describe the time robbers siphoned off 3,000 barrels of whiskey from the Jack Daniels distillery, how Anheuser-Busch survived more than a decade of a nationwide ban on alcoholic beverages, and they recall the tale of a 1922 New Year’s Eve party at the Chase Hotel when an enforcement raid led to plates being thrown, shots being fired and pandemonium spilling out onto Lindell Boulevard.

Better Family Life’s 24/7 hotline helps callers facing the possibility of gun violence connect with people trained in de-escalation and mediation techniques. They also offer assistance with seeking counseling and medical supplies. In this episode, host Sarah Fenske talks with several mothers who called the hotline on behalf of their sons, and we learn how the Better Family Life de-escalation team is tackling one of the most complicated pieces of the gun violence epidemic.

Host Sarah Fenske discusses the highlights of St. Louis County Police Department Lieutenant Keith Wildhaber's first interview talking about his $10.25 million settlement case against St. Louis County. The gay police sergeant talked to St Louis Public Radio reporter Julie O’Donoghue, and said going forward, he’s intent on leading the department's newly formed Diversity and Inclusion Unit.

Composer Tobias Picker has five operas to his credit, with commissions from the LA Opera and the Metropolitan Opera, among others, and serious acclaim. But his sixth opera, which makes its world premiere at the Opera Theatre of St. Louis this June, will have particular personal resonance. The librettist writing the words to go with Picker’s music is his husband, Dr. Aryeh Lev Stollman. And while Stollman has written three novels, this is his first time writing an opera libretto. Still, he brings a particular expertise to the show, which is an adaptation of Dr. Oliver Sacks’ nonfiction medical drama “Awakenings.” Like Sacks, Stollman is a physician who studies the nervous system (Stollman is a neuroradiologist; Sacks was a neurologist).

Increasingly more companies, organizations and governmental entities are establishing formal units focused on diversity and inclusion — the St. Louis County Police Department is one recent example in the bi-state region. But even as awareness of the importance of diversity and inclusion grows, it can sometimes seem like something that all too often gets stuck at the level of lip service rather than leading to real change. Webster University is aiming to move the needle “From Conversation to Action” over the course of its four-day Diversity & Inclusion Conference set for Feb. 24 to 27. All of the sessions are free and open to the public, with journalist and former NPR host Michele Norris, founder of The Race Card Project, giving the keynote address.

For about a year, Darwin Aquino has been serving as conductor of the orchestras at both the University of Missouri-St. Louis and Washington University. And on Tuesday evening, the two groups under his direction rehearsed together for the first time ever. Final preparations are underway for their distinctive concert this Sunday, where they’ll combine musical forces to present music from several popular video games, films and more. “It’s the music that we hear every day, and especially our young people,” he said during Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air. “They are hearing that music while they play the video games or they see a movie. So that’s why we decided for this very special event [to] put two university orchestras together … playing the music of today.” From “World of Warcraft” and “Zelda” to “Harry Potter” and “Lord of the Rings,” Sunday’s program promises a wide range of beloved scores. There will also be visual highlights on a big screen accompanying each piece. The free performance at the 560 Music Center is billed as a family-friendly affair highlighting the talents of more than 100 young musicians.

Author Candacy Taylor’s stepfather grew up in the Jim Crow South. But it wasn’t until she began researching her new book, “Overground Railroad: The Green Book and the Roots of Black Travel in America,” that she started to understand what he’d endured. Black travelers in the 20th-century U.S. might be stopped by police on any pretext — and face serious harassment. They might be turned away by hostile hoteliers or gas station attendants. And that’s not even mentioning “Sundown Towns,” all-white towns which sometimes even featured signs warning black people to stay out in the harshest of terms. Missouri and Illinois were among the five states having the most Sundown Towns, Taylor writes. And so black men like Taylor’s stepfather turned to the “Green Book.” Victor Green’s book highlighted businesses from coast to coast where black travelers could count on friendly reception — a respite from the racism and uncertainty that marred other spots on the roadways.

According to the St. Louis Business Journal, the Arch grounds aren’t getting the kinds of projected visitation numbers calculated before the $380 million redevelopment that wrapped up in 2018. It was projected that there would be a 25% to 33% increase in visitors to the monument in the first two years after completion. Host Sarah Fenske delves into reasons why that hasn’t been the case and what new initiatives are in store to help bring those visitation numbers up. Joining the discussion are Jacob Kirn, St. Louis Business Journal economic development editor, and Mike Ward, superintendent of the Gateway Arch National Park.

On Monday, St. Louis County Police Chief Jon Belmar, announced plans to retire from the department this spring. Within hours, more department-related news broke: St. Louis County has reached a $10.25 million settlement with county police Lt. Keith Wildhaber, who sued the county and was awarded a nearly $20 million in October after a jury agreed he had been passed over for promotions because of his sexual orientation.

In Missouri’s history, the state has seen more than 7,000 state legislators. Fewer than 140 of those have been black. Since 1989, the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus has helped African American lawmakers work together as a minority in the state capitol. In this interview, Sarah Fenske talks with State Representative Steve Roberts Jr. about the priorities of the Missouri Legislative Black Caucus this year.

What would it take for you to be happy? Tim Bono has written a book on the subject. It’s called Happiness 101, and draws on what he’s learned in his nine years teaching The Science of Happiness course at Washington University. And he might suggest you’re asking the wrong question. It’s not about being happy. It’s about being happier. He explains the reasons for that shift in thinking to host Sarah Fenske.

Host Sarah Fenske talks with classical music critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Sarah Bryan Miller. Several of the city’s music organizations came together to commission a major composer to write a piece in her honor.

The St. Louis Symphony Orchestra is in the midst of its first season with music director Stéphane Denève at the helm, but the organization is already looking ahead. Earlier this week, the symphony announced the lineup for Denève’s second season. It begins this fall, and it focuses on the theme of “music inspired by and written by women.”

Opera Theatre of St. Louis just got the biggest gift in the organization’s history -- $45 million. In this segment, Sarah Fenske talks about this very nice surprise with the general director of Opera Theatre of St. Louis, Andrew Jorgensen.

Every year, the St. Louis Theater Circle honors the best of local professional theater, voted on by local critics. In this segment, Calvin Wilson, theater critic for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and Tina Farmer, theater reviewer for KDHX, join host Sarah Fenske to release the 2020 award nominees and discuss some of the highlights. St. Louis Theater Circle asserts that this year's nominations represent the most competitive field in the eight years of the awards.

Artists are no strangers to political activism. Through captivating installations, they’re able to visualize complex themes that resonate with movements and social causes. A new exhibit at the Luminary Center for the Arts, “America’s Mythic Time,” takes it to the next level with an unusual partner — ArchCity Defenders. But the collaboration isn’t really that far-out. The two organizations have worked together closely for years, co-sharing spaces and political expertise. Host Sarah Fenske discusses how social justice issues such as mass incarceration and debtors’ prisons and initiatives like Close the Workhouse can be translated in a way that reaches gallery visitors. Z Gorley, ArchCity Defenders’ communications director, joins the conversation, as well as Kevin McCoy, one of the featured artists in the exhibit.

News crews haven’t had a monopoly on live footage of breaking news and emergency situations in quite some time. Among other innovations, the proliferation of cellphone video — especially video taken by bystanders during first-responder interactions with citizens — has been a game changer in recent years for the public’s understanding of such events. Production companies including Big Fish Entertainment have also turned their cameras toward the real-life drama. And in “Live Rescue,” a Big Fish show currently airing on the A&E Network, St. Louisans are finding themselves in the spotlight. Last April, the St. Louis Fire Department entered into an agreement with Big Fish to allow the company access to record the activity that surrounds calls for help and various crises that department personnel respond to on an everyday basis. As the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Erin Heffernan reported earlier this week, the department does not receive any money in exchange. But Captain Garon Mosby, public information officer for the department, is deeply involved with the production of “Live Rescue,” regularly traveling to New York City on Big Fish’s dime to help produce the Monday evening broadcast. In this segment, Mosby and St. Louis Fire Chief Dennis Jenkerson offer a closer look at the collaboration.

The directors and subject of “St. Louis Superman,” the documentary film showcasing the story of former Missouri state Rep. Bruce Franks Jr., will be in Los Angeles for this Sunday’s Academy Awards ceremony. The film has been nominated for a Best Documentary Short Subject Oscar. The documentary follows Franks’ journey as a lawmaker and his push for a proposal to recognize youth violence as a public health epidemic. In this interview, we hear from the film’s directors, Smriti Mundhra and Sami Khan.

Washington University’s Adia Harvey Wingfield, who is a professor of sociology, has long been interested in the ways that race, class and gender influence everyday workplace structures and interactions. Her most recent book, “Flatlining: Race, Work, and Health Care in the New Economy,” looks closely at the experiences of black workers in health care — as does a new study of which she is the co-author. Focused around 60 in-depth interviews with black doctors, nurses and technicians, the study suggests that among people of color, one’s professional status within an organizational hierarchy has a significant effect on how one perceives instances of racial discrimination. In this segment, Harvey Wingfield joins host Sarah Fenske to discuss the implications of this research for the health care industry and beyond.

Contemporary Art Museum St. Louis recently announced its latest multidisciplinary artist patrons can expect to see at the space during its First Fridays and other CAM events. James Biko is an East St. Louis-born and St. Louis-based artist prominent in the local hip-hop and soul scene. He’s been on the radar of music aficionados in the city, and is a ten-time Riverfront Times Music Award winner. He also co-hosts the “Rawthentic” radio program, with Cleo Jones on KDHX, which plays hip-hop, R&B and soul on Thursday evenings. Besides the local recognition, Biko has also performed at national and international music festivals. On Wednesday’s St. Louis on the Air, Biko joins host Sarah Fenske to talk about his new residency and musical process.

In January, St. Louis’ regional transit agency considered taking on operation of the embattled Loop Trolley — and ultimately declined to do so. At this month’s meeting of the Bi-State Development board, a totally different project’s future will come before the agency: the two shipping-container-sized grocery stores located along MetroLink in north St. Louis County. The stores are operated by a nonprofit subcontractor, Link Market, which formed about two years ago. They were funded by a grant Bi-State was awarded from the Missouri Foundation for Health and meant to be a pilot project addressing the region’s food deserts. But this past summer, as reported by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Tony Messenger, Link Market founder Dr. Jeremy Goss learned Bi-State had concerns about their financial viability. After a meeting of various parties in St. Louis County Executive Sam Page’s office, the shipping-container markets got an extension from Bi-State. And as the St. Louis Post-Dispatch’s Andrew Nguyen explains in this segment in conversation with Goss and host Sarah Fenske, Bi-State’s board should vote Feb. 21 on a proposal to donate the shipping containers to the Link Market.

After Left Bank Books cancelled a planned event late last month with bestselling author Jeanine Cummins in the wake of outcry about her new novel, the independent bookstore met with waves of feedback from every corner, some of it very angry. In this segment, the St. Louis on the Air team seeks to take the conversation that the situation has sparked and push it forward in productive ways. Host Sarah Fenske talks with Kleindienst and with Ignacio Sánchez Prado, a professor of Spanish, Latin American Studies and Film and Media Studies at Washington University who was born in Mexico. Also joining the discussion is Kelly Von Plonski, owner of Subterranean Books. The segment also includes brief comments from Christina Rios and Alicia Hernandez, who are both members of the local Latinx community. Rios was until recently the longtime artistic director of R-S Theatrics, and Hernandez is a local community organizer working on immigration issues.

The Sister Cities International program began in 1956, and the people-to-people, citizen diplomacy initiative took off across the country. A few years later, in 1960, St. Louis’ first partnership abroad flourished in Stuttgart, Germany, through the World Trade Center St. Louis' international mission. Now St. Louis has 16 sisters abroad, from Argentina and Senegal to Indonesia. Host Sarah Fenske learned more about what it takes to become a sister city with Susanne Evens, president of St. Louis-Stuttgart Sister Cities Committee, and Tim Nowak, executive director of World Trade Center St. Louis.

Host Sarah Fenske talks up some of the latest additions to the St. Louis region’s food-and-beverage community. Joining her for the Hit List segment are Sauce Magazine managing editor Heather Hughes Huff and art director Meera Nagarajan.

Host Sarah Fenske discusses the influence of the black vote on local and national politics. Joining her for the conversation is Shakia Gullette, director of African American Initiatives for the Missouri Historical Society, and Gena McClendon, director of the Voter Access and Engagement and the Financial Capability and Asset Building initiatives at the Center for Social Development at Washington University.

Host Sarah Fenske talks to Gabe Fleisher from the "Wake Up To Politics" podcast about the Iowa caucuses.

The impeachment proceedings in Washington, D.C., have frequently lasted into the evening hours. Beyond thinking about the legal issues that senators are grappling with, we found ourselves contemplating something a bit closer to home. Namely, the modern American attention span. When you’re used to checking your phone every five minutes, how do you possibly sit quietly for hours on end … listening? Joining host Sarah Fenske to discuss the matter is Jameca Falconer, a professor of Behavioral Analysis in the Webster University. Steve Smith also joins the conversation. He’s the director of Washington University’s Weidenbaum Center.

Established in 1920, Washington Park Cemetery in Berkeley served as a for-profit burial place for African Americans. Before it stopped operating in the 1980s, the graveyard became the largest African American cemetery in the region. However, years of neglect and various city project expansions were not kind to the burial grounds. Now the cemetery may soon come under public ownership. The City of Berkeley is in the process of purchasing Washington Park Cemetery.
 
 In this episode, we talk about what happened to Washington Park Cemetery and remember the stories of those who are buried there. We also talk with advocates for two other historic black cemeteries in the region, Greenwood Cemetery in Hillsdale and Father Dickson Cemetery in Crestwood, about how they fight abandonment and lack of upkeep to keep their history alive.

For years, Bob Romanik’s presence on St. Louis-area AM radio airwaves has been marked by constant, overt racism. Somehow, the Illinois-based shock jock remains on air, as the Riverfront Times’ Danny Wicentowski notes in his latest reporting on the saga. But as Wicentowski detailed in his story published Monday, the current Federal Communications Commission investigation surrounding Romanik has to do with something else: evidence that he is acting as the de-facto owner of Entertainment Media Trust, which owns multiple radio stations in the region. As a felon, that’s something Romanik is barred from doing. Jane Halprin, an FCC administrative law judge, issued an order last Friday setting a Feb. 10 deadline for EMT’s attorney to explain, as Wicentowski reported, “why she shouldn't throw the license renewal applications out due to ‘EMT’s continuous efforts at obfuscation.’” In this episode, host Sarah Fenske talks with Wicentowski about the implications of this investigation — and what happens next for the “Grim Reaper of Radio.”

The year 2020 marks a lot of developments related to the habit of lighting up. The federal sales age for purchasing tobacco and nicotine products is now 21 and older. Recreational marijuana is now sold in cities across Illinois. Missouri dispensaries are selling medical marijuana. And, teenagers are continuing to vape at rates that concern public health officials. In this interview, Sarah Fenske talks about the impact of these developments with Dr. Laura Bierut, a psychiatry professor and founding director of the Health & Behavior Research Center at the Washington University School of Medicine.

Chef Rob Connoley’s acclaimed St. Louis restaurant, Bulrush, isn’t just a delicious night out. It’s also a deep dive into the culinary history of the region. The Grand Center eatery takes its inspiration from cuisine in the Ozarks region prior to 1870, before railroads allowed for easy transport of foodstuffs. And, in recent months, the restaurant has doubled down on that exploration. Aided by college interns, Connoley has begun researching the food of marginalized populations in the area at that time. That includes both indigenous people, enslaved people and freed slaves. In this segment, we talk with Connoley and St. Louis University student Gabriel Shoemaker, and with Dr. Andrea Hunter, director/tribal historic preservation officer for the Osage Nation Historic Preservation Office. She discusses what the Osage ate prior to their first encounters with Europeans in 1673, and how that changed in the centuries that followed.

In St. Louis County, it’s illegal to be a "vagrant." Host Sarah Fenske talks with attorney Bevis Schock — who is challenging the ordinance — and learns about what his client has endured.

Kaldi’s Coffee is a St. Louis company. Other than a few outlets in the Atlanta area, Kaldi’s lacks a physical presence outside Missouri. But in the past year, Kaldi’s co-owner Tricia Zimmer Ferguson has been spending time far from the Midwest — in Rwanda. Ferguson is also working with the nation’s only women’s college, Akilah Institute. A group from Kaldi’s is committed to teaching its students about the coffee and tea industries, opening career opportunities for them.
 
 Zimmer Ferguson and Karen Sherman, president of Akilah Institute, join host Sarah Fenske to discuss the collaboration.