Linda Mitchell talks about her new book that explores how to help children deal with their feelings, with photos captured by her husband Odell Mitchell Jr., a retired St. Louis Post-Dispatch photographer. “How Are You Today? A Celebration of Children’s Emotions" is a photography book geared toward a pre-kindergarten through elementary school audience.
The "63106 Project" chronicles life in the city's most vulnerable ZIP code during the pandemic. Founder Richard Weiss of Before Ferguson Beyond Ferguson discusses the nonprofit journalism project, along with writer Leyla Fern King and story subject Misha Marshall.
Activists and alumni have pushed back on the St. Louis Public Schools' plan to close 10 schools, claiming they were rushed and came with too little public notice. The district's superintendent has paused the plan for a month, but says on air that critics will have to step up to reverse course.
Have you watched The Prom on Netflix yet? If not, you should get cracking — it’s fizzy and funny and almost certain to make you smile. The two St. Louis theater impresarios share how they helped bring it to life on Broadway first.
St. Louis photographers Kelly Pratt and Ian Kreidich talk about their Dancers & Dogs photography project that showcases Saint Louis Ballet dancers with their pet dogs. Their ongoing "Muttcracker" initiative is a partnership with Stray Rescue to promote pet adoption this holiday season.
Over the past decade and a half, Seth Hamilton’s love for foreign languages and martial arts has taken him to destinations around the world: Nicaragua, Guatemala, France and north Africa. Now he’s sharing his love of travel with kids in East St. Louis. His nonprofit Go! International offers free language classes to East St. Louis youth, as well as martial arts training and entrepreneurship programs.
We explore the ins and outs of local coronavirus vaccine distribution — and why some healthcare workers are getting left behind in the first round. We also discuss the public health messaging necessary to get everyone on board.
The way Missouri tracked hospital bed capacity was misleading at best and dangerously inaccurate at worst. KCUR health reporter Alex Smith talks about his recent investigation into this issue.
Missouri Department of Conservation furbearer biologist Laura Conlee will join us to talk about the expanding black bear population in Missouri, new hunting guidelines and the Be Bear Aware Campaign.
Arnold resident Carrie Rayfield Cabral participated in Pfizer's vaccine trial this fall. In this interview, she shares why she's convinced the trial spared her from serious illness, and what she hopes others take from her experience.
Tamara Keefe joins us to share how her local creamery is managing to keep delighting ice cream fans near and far this holiday season — and why she wants the general public to be more cognizant of what people in the food industry are going through right now.
Last Saturday, along south St. Louis’ lively Cherokee Street, it was almost possible to forget about the coronavirus pandemic for a bit. The sun was shining. The businesses along Antique Row were looking festive. Shop owners carefully handed out cookies to passersby. And right near Whisk bakery sat a white van with a bright yellow piano inside it, along with a pianist: Alexandra Sinclair.
Lisa Montgomery is scheduled to die on Jan. 12. She faces the death penalty for one of the most heinous murders in recent Missouri history. Her lawyer explains her tragic life story and makes the case for sparing her life.
Earlier this year, after being approached by the Great Rivers Environmental Law Center, Karisa Gilman-Hernandez and her colleagues at Dutchtown South Community Corporation added excessive air pollution to the list of things they're no longer willing to see the community they serve just put up with. She offers her perspective to "St. Louis on the Air," and host Sarah Fenske talks with Great Rivers staff attorneys Bob Menees and Sarah Rubenstein about why the pollution burden in the Dutchtown area caught their eye and how their legal efforts there fit in with other issues in their portfolio.
In his work leading the Missouri Veterans Commission, Tim Noonan serves in a volunteer capacity. But in the year 2020, the job has proved to be a particularly intense one — and in recent weeks it’s been filled with tragedy. The seven long-term care facilities the commission oversees suffered "a prolonged and rapidly escalating outbreak of COVID-19" beginning in September, according to a recent summary of an independent investigation.
Jessica Baran has been awarded an Andy Warhol arts writers grant to subsidize her ongoing “critical engagement with art, artists and exhibitions” in the Midwest. She explains what drives her criticism and how the St. Louis arts scene has changed.
A judge's decision could mean big changes for Missouri residents' abilities to referendum the decisions of the state legislature. ACLU Legal Director Tony Rothert explains why.
In the 20 years that NPR justice correspondent Carrie Johnson has covered the U.S. Department of Justice, she’s learned to expect changes with each administration. “But there have been seismic shifts in this DOJ under President Trump,” she says.
Missouri’s fledgling medical marijuana program has approved nearly 70,000 patient and caregiver applications — so many, there is not yet enough legal cannabis in the state to serve them all. But people working in the industry say patience is necessary. The seeds of the solution to both problems are already in the ground.