STL on the Air 📻

St. Louis Public Radio reporter Rachel Lippmann goes behind the headlines with guest host Jim Kirchherr on two big stories from recent days: John Rallo, a major campaign donor to former St. Louis County Executive Steve Stenger, pleaded guilty to federal charges on Tuesday. And, St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner has publicly spoken out defending her conduct with regard to the case involving former Missouri Governor Eric Greitens. She's also been defending the changes she’s made to the circuit attorney’s office.

St. Louis Public Radio arts and culture editor David Cazares talks with Ralph Johnson of Earth, Wind & Fire ahead of the band's performance at the Stifel Theatre in St. Louis. The group has received multiple Grammy Awards and is enshrined in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Nearly a decade ago, HandleBar owner Tatyana Telnikova began heading up the after-party for St. Louis’ World Naked Bike Ride. She’s now even more deeply involved as an organizer of the annual event, which gets going at 4 p.m. Saturday in the Grove neighborhood. Telnikova talks with guest host Jim Kirchherr of the Nine Network about this growing St. Louis tradition. Twelve years running, the ride aims to raise awareness about oil dependency, body positivity and cyclist vulnerability.

Saturday marks the 50th anniversary of the Apollo 11 lunar landing, when humanity took its first steps on another planetary body via astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin. In this St. Louis on the Air segment, guest host Jim Kirchherr remembers that day in history with the manager at the James S. McDonnell Planetarium, Will Snyder, and Linda Godwin, a professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Missouri and retired NASA astronaut.

Years ago, when many multiple sclerosis researchers believed that a type of immune cell known as a T cell was the cause of the disease, Dr. Anne Cross turned her focus instead to B cells. Her findings have led to key breakthroughs in MS research – and also to receiving the John Dystel Prize for Multiple Sclerosis Research from the National Multiple Sclerosis Society and the American Academy of Neurology.

Guest host Jim Kirchherr of the Nine Network talks with a past winner of the competition, Justice Hill, who is now a SLU student, as well as Rebecca Butler Mona, the president of Optimist International. Also joining the discussion is Wayne Fields, the Lynne Cooper Harvey Chair Emeritus in English at Washington University. Among other books, Fields is the author of “Union of Words: A History of Presidential Eloquence."

While many writers pen memoirs because of something particularly distinctive or unusual about their lives, the reason Chavisa Woods gives for writing hers is pretty much the opposite. “I felt that it was incumbent for me to put this on the page ... because my life is not exceptional,” Woods, the author of “100 Times: A Memoir of Sexism,” says. “And I think when people hear that you’ve experienced 100 formative incidents of sexism, maybe the first reaction is, ‘Oh, I can’t believe that it influences your life so much.’ But I think when most women stop and think about discrimination, harassment, groping, sexual violence and also microagressions, you’ll see that you could easily compile [such a list]. ”

Guest host Jim Kirchherr of the Nine Network talks with Jaclyn Driscoll, who recently joined St. Louis Public Radio’s newsroom as its statehouse reporter to help cover all things Missouri politics.

Guest host Jim Kirchherr of the Nine Network talks about the latest trends in school lunches and more with St. Louis Public Radio reporter Chad Davis; past School Nutrition Association President Becky Domokos-Bays and Irene Wan, director of food services for the Maplewood Richmond Heights School District.

Guest host Jim Kirchherr of the Nine Network delves into lobbying in Missouri and how it's evolved over time with University of Missouri-St. Louis political scientist Anita Manion and David Jackson, a principal with Gamble & Schlemeier, Missouri’s largest lobbying firm.

In this "St. Louis on the Air" segment, guest host Jim Kirchherr of the Nine Network discusses ongoing violence in the region, as well as solutions which aim to address it as a public health issue. Joining the discussion are Poli Rijos of Washington University’s Gun Violence Initiative and Jessica Meyers of the St. Louis Area Violence Prevention Commission.

St. Louis Fire Department Chief Dennis Jenkerson says that paramedics see the impact of so much violence that they're quitting faster than he can hire replacements. In this "St. Louis on the Air" segment, we talk about the impact of violence in the area and the toll it takes on the morale and the mental health of those providing emergency care.

Meandering over more than 400 miles of southeast Missouri is a network of hiking trails that’s been in existence since the 1970s: the Ozark Trail. Its history, along with its natural beauty, fill the pages of Don Massey’s photographic book titled “The Ozark Trail: Images of Missouri’s Longest Hiking Trail.” Massey is a member of the Ozark Trail Association, and he joins St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum for this conversation alongside the association’s president, Kathie Brennan.

St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum goes behind the headlines to discuss the latest news in the ongoing abortion battle in Missouri with politics editor Fred Ehrlich.

St. Louis-based hip-hop artist Kareem Jackson, who goes by the stage name Tef Poe, talks about his upcoming travels Jordan as part of Next Level, a cultural exchange program the U.S. State Department-sponsored is heading alongside the Meridian Center for Cultural Diplomacy and the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill. The project seeks to use artistic collaboration and social engagement to enhance people-to-people diplomacy, especially among young audiences.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Jonathan Ahl discusses the advancement of women’s suffrage and equal rights in Missouri with Nancy Miller, co-president of the League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis, and Vivian Eveloff, director of the Sue Shear Institute for Women in Public Life at the University of Missouri-St. Louis.

Six of the 113 films in the spotlight during the 19th Annual Whitaker St. Louis Filmmakers Showcase are feature length. Collectively, they take viewers from the women’s prison in Vandalia, Missouri, to Henry Shaw’s Museum at the Missouri Botanical Garden, to World War II and more. In this St. Louis on the Air segment, St. Louis Public Radio’s Jonathan Ahl talks with the filmmakers of “Road to the Pros” and “The Ghost Who Walks.”

Ranging from narrative and experimental shorts to feature-length documentaries, the lineup also includes a documentary short directed by 14-year-old Joshua Kelley. Kelley, whose film “A Look Ahead: Our Energy Future in 20 Years” considers the future environmental state of St. Louis and the country as a whole, joins St. Louis Public Radio’s Jonathan Ahl for a conversation. Also participating in the discussion is Chris Clark, who is the artistic director of the nonprofit Cinema St. Louis. The organization presents the annual festival, which serves as the region’s primary venue for films made by local artists.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Jonathan Ahl talks with St. Louis County Prosecutor Wesley Bell; Cristina Garmendia, author of St. Louis’ Equity Indicators Baseline Report as well as a staff member at Washington University’s Race and Opportunity Lab at the Brown School; and Wally Siewert, director of civic engagement and the Impact Fellows program for FOCUS St. Louis.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Jonathan Ahl talks with Washington University neurosurgeons Albert Kim and Eric Leuthardt about the particularities of the brain and their “BrainWorks” theater production that dramatizes real-life neurological cases to help explain the science behind brain diseases such as Alzheimer’s, epilepsy, brain tumors and strokes.