St. Louis on the Air

Local nonprofit We Stories focused on anti-bias education aimed toward young white children and families for the past seven years. They are closing their doors and shutting down their website, which includes all of their educational resources, in June 2023. We Stories executive director Maggie Klonsky and board member Pam Washington agree that while anti-racist work is still necessary, now is the...

Isaiah Maxi has been hiking all over Missouri’s state parks — and he's not doing it alone. He documents his journeys on his Facebook group, “The Journey to 100 Hiking Friends,” charting his connections across the state. Maxi discusses his experience hiking across the state while forging connections along the way — and shares his picks for favorite hiking parks in the St. Louis region.

In the 1997 alternative history novel "The Misconceiver,” the year is 2026, and the United States has almost wholly prohibited abortion rights. Yet the book’s St. Louis-born author, Lucy Ferriss, never got to see the novel make its mark. Now, 25 years, Ferriss is watching “The Misconceiver” get new life in the wake of the U.S. Supreme Court overturning of abortion rights. Ferriss discusses the boo...

The Legal Roundtable discusses the latest controversy surrounding St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner, who is facing calls to resign after a car crash left a 17-year-old seriously injured. The driver who caused the crash, Daniel Riley, was out on bond for a felony charge of stealing a gun, but had violated the terms release more than 50 times. Attorneys Javad Khazaeli, Brenda Talent, Connie McF...

Missouri is one of just two states without a law banning distracted driving for all motorists. Although dozens of states have expanded their bans, Missouri’s law only applies to drivers under 21. Reporter Eric Berger, shares his insights into the different ways these laws have been implemented across the country. He’s joined by former Missouri Republican state representative Jeff Porter, who unsuc...

Amid the torrent of news this week, the biggest story was the ongoing controversy embroiling St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner that stems from a St. Louis man causing a crash that seriously injured a 17-year-old girl who was visiting from out of town. Missouri’s Attorney General is attempting to use a legal procedure to remove her from office and St. Louis Mayor Tishaura Jones says Gardner ha...

The newly formed Chinese American Collecting Initiative highlights the long lost stories of Chinese American immigrants living in St. Louis from the mid 19th century onward. St. Louis architect and community leader Peter Tao, who serves as chair of the initiative, and Janet Leong, of the well-known Leong family that owned Asia Cafe, talk about why these stories are relevant.

Despite the fact that nearly 83% of the population does not have perfect hearing, most of our spaces are designed to cater, auditorily, to a select few. That’s a problem, according to researchers in the growing field of aural diversity. Producer Avery Rogers takes us through the various ways we perceive sound and how understanding these differences can help us better approach hearing accessibility...

St. Louis K-12 students change schools midyear at an alarming rate — 38%. The cause of so-called “student mobility” is often unanticipated and, in many instances, it results in low attendance and poor test scores. Those are the findings of a new report from the St. Louis School Research-Practice Collaborative. A researcher and a fifth grade teacher discuss.

At 10 years old, Sidney Keys III founded Books N Bros, a book club and subscription service for young Black boys. Since then he has been honored and recognized by CNN and Marvel. Now 17 years old, Keys can add “published author” to his list of many accomplishments.

Hundreds of illegally transported Antilles pinktoe tarantulas were intercepted by the federal government before they could enter the pet trade, and now, 98 of them reside at the Sophia M. Sachs Butterfly House in Chesterfield. Missouri Botanical Garden entomologists share what it’s like to care for these endangered spiders, how they are a vital part of the ecosystem in their home country and why i...

The City of Pagedale struggled with underdevelopment and underinvestment for decades which led to higher crime rates and poor health outcomes. In 2010 the North County municipality welcomed its first grocery store in over forty years, Save-A-Lot, after years of working with city and community leaders as well as Beyond Housing. In the 11 years after Save-A-Lot opened, Pagedale saw a dip in crime an...

Missouri Botanical Garden’s Conservation Scientist Matthew Albrecht and Herbarium Director Jordan Teisher are hoping to bring extinct plants back from the dead. The two scientists are part of a global “de-extinction” project with sixty other herbaria that will result in attempting to germinate seeds of extinct plant species, some of which have not been seen alive in the wild for over a century. Pr...

Washington University researcher Calvin Lai discusses his latest study showing that the daylong implicit bias-oriented training programs commonly used by most police departments are unlikely to reduce racial inequity in policing.

Adina Talve-Goodman lived a life on the edge of death. Born with a congenital heart condition, St. Louis-born author underwent a heart transplant at 19. Yet, tragically, more than a decade later, she was diagnosed with cancer. She died in 2018, at the age of 31. She left behind a trove of published and unpublished essays, drafts and other writings. That material now comprises the new collection, “...

Simone Faure, owner/chef of La Pâtisserie Chouquette, talks about baking the traditional New Orleans Mardi Gras king cake. The bakery opened in St. Louis in 2013 and was recently named a semifinalist in the annual James Beard Awards for outstanding bakery.

New Music Circle has evolved in tandem with boundary-pushing musical movements since 1959. Board members Alex Cunningham and Josh Levi discuss the upcoming New Music Circle concert and how the artists demonstrate the technological potential of experimental music.

Lamar Johnson gained freedom this week after spending 28 years in prison for a crime he did not commit. Among the attorneys who worked to secure Johnson’s release was Lindsay Runnels, who represented Johnson since 2015. Johnson called Runnels a sister, a friend and “God’s best angel.” Runnels reflects on the journey that led to Johnson’s release and describes what it was like to experience it in t...

Damon Davis’ latest — and largest — work of art, “Pillars of the Valley,” took five years to go from concept to installation. For author Vivian Gibson, the formal recognition of her beloved childhood neighborhood Mill Creek Valley is worthy of celebration. Gibson brought new attention to the neighborhood's history with her 2020 book, “The Last Children of Mill Creek." The two reflect on the years...

Afghans in St. Louis are welcoming newly arrived Afghan refugees with more support thanks to the new Afghan Community Center. The center also houses a new Afghan Chamber of Commerce, which will provide a number of educational services and mental health programs. Moji Sidiqi, Afghan Community Development Program Manager at the International Institute of St. Louis, and business owner Gul Totakhil di...

Roz Lewy and Ralph Insinger discuss their book, "Beyond Beyond: A Chance Encounter, an Online Courtship and the Language of Love," which details how the couple fell in love late in life via the exchange of hundreds of emails.

Filmmaker Daniel Lawrence Wilson thinks that St. Louis can — and should — be the industry’s next premier filming location. Wilson, now living and working in Los Angeles, returned to St. Louis to film his directorial debut, “A Brush of Violence.” The film is the first to be sponsored by the nonprofit St. Louis Filmworks, and features many recognizable locations in St. Louis including Webster Univer...

We listen back to this conversation from April 2021 with Dan Martin about his daily doodling of the St. Louis Post-Dispatch's Weatherbird. Martin will retire from the position after 37 years at the paper.

Critically endangered elephants in the Congo Basin play a key role in creating forests, which in turn, store carbon and maintain the biodiversity of African rainforests. If the species becomes extinct, the second largest rainforest on earth would lose between six and nine percent of their ability to capture atmospheric carbon — that’s according to researcher Stephen Blake, an associate professor o...

St. Louis Zoo and Brookfield Zoo in Chicago recently swapped two western lowland gorillas in an effort to help the survival of the critically endangered species. St. Louis zoological manager Helen Boostrom talks about how the recent gorilla swap plays into the goal of creating genetically healthy populations of the critically endangered species.