VineBrook homes spent the last few years buying thousands of homes in St. Louis and other cities. Instead of maintaining the homes, tenants say the company is turning to evictions and allowing the homes to fall into disrepair. There’s more: Facing debt, VineBrook is starting to sell its vast stock of properties. Midwest Newsroom investigative reporter Kavaugn Mansuri breaks down the evidence and explores what might happen if the company folds.
Apr 10, 2024•20 min
Brentwood Destination Park has finally opened after months of reimaging and building, turning what was once a quarry into a child’s — and parents’ — dreamland. Park architect Ted Spaid shares how nature, community engagement, and trends around accessibility made the project a success.
Apr 10, 2024•23 min
While the holy month of Ramadan is typically marked by fasting, celebratory feasts and charity, some Muslims in the St. Louis area said this year felt more somber. Producer Ulaa Kuziez takes us to a prayer service at Daar Ul-Islam Masjid in St. Louis County and a pre-dawn breakfast meal at Golden Chicken in St. Peters.
Apr 10, 2024•7 min
Millions of people yesterday were treated to a total solar eclipse. STLPR had a team of reporters in southeast Missouri and southern Illinois. In this episode, we listen to their coverage and talk about what it was like to be in the path of totality.
Apr 09, 2024•21 min
Ocean conservationist Julie Packard has led the Monterey Bay Aquarium in California for 40 years. During that time she’s played a leading role educating people about the benefits and harms they bring to the unique ecosystem. Packard has also helped shape state, national, and global policies around ocean conservation. In this episode, she discusses the key role the Midwest plays in ocean health in advance of her receiving an award given by the Whitney R. Harris World Ecology Center at the Univers...
Apr 09, 2024•29 min
To demonstrate its commitment to St. Louis, Washington University has a new office in the Delmar Divine to engage local partners. Lisa Weingarth, inaugural senior advisor for St. Louis initiatives at Washington University, shares how the institution will engage with the St. Louis community. Wash U chancellor Andrew Martin also shares his vision for ensuring the university isn’t just “in” St. Louis, but “for” it.
Apr 08, 2024•19 min
For millennia, humans have looked to the sky to check out a total solar eclipse. In this episode, we listen back to our conversation with Manel Errando, an assistant professor of physics at Washington University, about how humans have kept track of and tried to understand what solar eclipses mean. Then, we checked in with STLPR journalists in Illinois, Missouri — and on a Southwest Airlines flight — about how they’re taking in the April 8 eclipse.
Apr 08, 2024•31 min
Webster Groves native Karlie Kloss took the modeling world by storm in the 2010s before launching a highly successful effort to connect young women with computer coding and, more recently, helping relaunch Life magazine. On this episode of the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air, she discusses another passion: her advocacy for abortion rights in Missouri and around the Midwest.
Apr 05, 2024•9 min
Missouri is slated to execute Brian Dorsey on April 9 for the murder of his cousin and her husband. While there’s no question about his guilt, a number of Republican lawmakers are calling on Gov. Mike Parson to reduce his sentence to life without parole — pointing to his sterling record in prison and questions about his legal representation. On the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air, STLPR’s Jason Rosenbaum talks with state Rep. Tony Lovasco about why Parson should spare Dorsey’s ...
Apr 05, 2024•19 min
While the 2020 election brought out a record number of voters to the polls across the country, the United States lags behind other countries when it comes to voter turnout. Whether from news fatigue or dissatisfaction with bipartisan politics, low voter turnout threatens democracy. That’s according to Ken Warren, professor of political science at St. Louis University, who joined the most recent edition of the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air.
Apr 05, 2024•23 min
The City of St. Louis has awarded $20 million in grants from the American Rescue Plan Act to individuals and nonprofit organizations. The goal is to help with things like home repairs and construction and even developing gardens or parks on vacant land. One such grant awardee seeks to rehab a home on North Kingshighway Blvd. into a four-family home. In this episode, we discuss what Neighborhood Transformation Grants seek to do and talk with people who are working to improve the quality of life i...
Apr 04, 2024•50 min
A local 8th grader is bound for the Scripps National Spelling Bee for her second year in a row. Meet orthographic whiz Sonia Kulkarni, as well as adults prepping for a local fundraising spelling bee — and how some of them are hoping to avenge their own childhood spelling bee trauma.
Apr 03, 2024•33 min
Sauce Magazine’s Meera Nagarajan presents a sampler of new restaurants and spots for great bites and sips around town. Jonathan Moxey, head brewer at Rockwell Beer Company, joins the discussion to offer a spirited defense of beer foam, and we explore how more drinkers are learning to appreciate beer foam’s heady flavors and aromas.
Apr 03, 2024•8 min
For 12 years, Lo-Fi Cherokee has delighted music lovers with its one-day music festival format and one-take music video production before live audiences at multiple businesses along Cherokee Street. Filmmaker and Lo-Fi St. Louis founder Bill Streeter shares why 2024’s Lo-Fi Cherokee will be the last, and how his love for the local music scene and video production will continue. Singer/songwriter Beth Bombara, who performed at the very first Lo-Fi Cherokee in 2012 and is on this year’s bill as th...
Apr 02, 2024•21 min
Paris Woods grew up watching her mother navigate her own finances while caring for seven children on a secretary's salary. Drawing from a lifetime of observations, her own financial challenges, and professional experience in the “college access” industry, Woods authored her book, “The Black Girl’s Guide to Financial Freedom,” to encourage fellow Black women as they take control of their finances and build confidence when dealing with money.
Apr 02, 2024•29 min
Two-headed snakes don’t live long in the wild, but in captivity, they can live for decades. Tiger-Lily the western rat snake is lucky to be in the latter category. Found in southwest Missouri in 2017, Tiger-Lily is now a species ambassador with the Missouri Department of Conservation. Naturalist Lauren Baker talks about best practices for feeding two hungry snake heads at once (Tiger and Lily share a stomach) and what she’s witnessed providing care to a snake with one body and two independent br...
Apr 02, 2024•16 min
In 2008, Brian Dorsey was sentenced to death for two counts of murder. On April 9, he’ll become the first person executed by the state of Missouri in 2024 — unless Governor Mike Parson grants him clemency. Retired Missouri Supreme Court Judge Michael A. Wolff, who upheld Dorsey’s sentence in 2010, shares why he now supports Dorsey’s case for clemency and reflects on the factors that affect outcomes in death penalty cases. And Michelle Smith, founder of the Missouri Justice Coalition, talks about...
Apr 01, 2024•35 min
First opened in 2004, the Missouri History Museum closed their long-running running exhibit on the 1904 World’s Fair last April to reimagine the experience. Next month the museum will unveil its work over the last year of confronting the many hard truths that hid behind the grandeur of the World’s Fair hosted in St. Louis. Sam Moore, managing director of public history and Sharon Smith, curator of civic and personal identity at the Missouri History Museum share the additions and new perspectives...
Mar 29, 2024•31 min
On August 9, 2014, the killing of Michael Brown, Jr. by Ferguson police officer Darren Wilson saw the birth of a social movement. A new Webster University exhibition titled, “Ferguson and Beyond: Artistic Responses to a Decade of Social Upheaval 2014-2024,” features art created as a means to process Brown’s death and bring about healing.
Mar 29, 2024•22 min
How bad does party infighting have to get for a frontrunner to leave a political race? Republican Senator Caleb Rowden knows first-hand. In this “Politically Speaking” interview, he shares his reasons for dropping out of the contest for Missouri Secretary of State — a decision prompted by discord within his party and other issues.
Mar 28, 2024•22 min
St. Louis resident and pilot Cathy Babis has been flying for more than 50 years. Starting this Saturday, she’ll attempt to do something that no woman has done before — circumnavigate mainland Australia in a seaplane. The journey marks the 100th anniversary of the Royal Australian Air Force’s circumnavigation of the continent. Babis talks with producer Alex Heuer about the trip and its goals of encouraging people from diverse backgrounds in STEM fields and raising awareness around suicide prevent...
Mar 28, 2024•30 min
A St. Louis County SWAT team used a battering ram to burst into a home in Ferguson. Officers had used the Find My app to trace a pair of stolen AirPods linked to a carjacking to that address. The only problem? The AirPods had been tossed into the street. The family inside had nothing to do with the carjacking and never had the AirPods. This month’s Legal Roundtable convenes to discuss the raid. Attorneys Eric Banks, Dave Roland and Nicole Gorovsky also discuss a white professor suing St. Louis’ ...
Mar 27, 2024•49 min
“Missouri Weird & Wonderful” presents readers of all ages with a kid-friendly tour through the Show Me State. Author Amanda E. Doyle and illustrator Dan Zettwoch, two longtime St. Louisans, discuss highlights from the book, which closes with a scavenger hunt for famous Missouri people and things.
Mar 25, 2024•29 min
Are you the sort of Midwesterner who goes outside when tornado sirens go off to watch Mother Nature get crazy? Then you might be exactly who the National Weather Service - St. Louis wants to train to be a storm spotter. Meteorologist Matt Beitcher shares details on upcoming classes and how storm spotters can help save lives by collecting and sharing real-time weather data.
Mar 25, 2024•21 min
U.S. Rep. Mike Bost, R-Murphysboro, won the GOP nomination in Illinois' 12th Congressional District for a sixth time earlier this week, warding off a challenge by former Illinois legislator Darren Bailey, R-Xenia. In the Madison County Republican primary for board chairman, treasurer Chris Slusser defeated the embattled incumbent, Kurt Prenzler. STLPR journalists Will Bauer and Brian Munoz discuss the results on the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air.
Mar 22, 2024•10 min
Missouri isn’t the competitive swing state that it was during the 20th century — or even in the 2000s and 2010s. But even though the state’s voters may continue to back GOP candidates for governor and other statewide posts, they may be amenable to backing a ballot initiative that legalizes abortion. On the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air, SLU associate political science professor Steve Rogers and STLPR senior political reporter Jo Mannies discuss what the SLU/YouGov poll result...
Mar 22, 2024•31 min
A new podcast is taking up the past and present of meth. "Home Cooked: A 50-Year History of Meth in America” begins with a Missouri-heavy exploration of meth use and manufacture as it grew in the 2000s. We talk with its host Olivia Weeks, and Prevent Ed executive director Nichole Dawsey, about how Missouri became known as the "meth capital of America,” and how use of the drug has changed today.
Mar 21, 2024•40 min
Washington University Professor Ian Bogost says checking email is a source of daily torment. In this episode, he makes the case for why it’s time to give up on email entirely. He also digs into the history of email, its evolution, and how we can better use text communication tools in ways that benefit our lives.
Mar 20, 2024•40 min
Humans have gotten a lot wrong when it comes to living on Earth. And while it wouldn’t be possible to entirely leave earthly problems behind, when humans settle outer space there will be a host of ethical questions with which to grapple. At an event presented by Missouri Humanities and recorded at the James S. McDonnell Planetarium, Elaine Cha spoke with astrophysicist and author Erika Nesvold. Nesvold is the author of “Off-Earth. Ethical Questions and Quandaries for Living in Outer Space.”
Mar 19, 2024•43 min
St. Louis streets transformed this weekend into a sea of green as thousands of revelers celebrated St. Patrick’s Day. The city’s Irish community has a long history, which includes St. Louis’ 10th mayor, Bryan Mullanphy: Mullanphy’s contributions to the city go far beyond the street named for him. “Unseen St. Louis” writer and history buff Jackie Dana shares her findings from researching Mullaphy’s life, including his then-scandalous decision to leave one-third of his estate to the City of St. Lo...
Mar 18, 2024•25 min
