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.
Under Illinois' new cannabis legalization law, thousands of people will see their criminal records cleared of some pot convictions and arrests. But not everyone with a cannabis conviction will get a clean slate automatically.
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.
On the latest Politically Speaking weekly roundup, St. Louis Public Radio's Jason Rosenbaum and Julie O'Donoghue dive into how an unreleased audit of Josh Hawley's tenure as attorney general is getting state legislative attention.
O'Donoghue talks about how an oversight committee that monitors the St. Louis County's jail is not happy with transparency at the facility.
Rosenbaum and O'Donoghue also talked with St. Louis Public Radio's Rachel Lippmann about St. Louis Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner's lawsuit — and her political future.
And Rosenbaum and O'Donoghue talk about whether Missouri's state lawmakers make enough money.
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.
The Missouri Senate's conservative caucus formed just last year but the six senators have already shaped legislation. They were among the staunchest supporters of one of the most restrictive abortion bills in the country and they broke with their party to oppose a workforce development bill. We examine their priorities for this session.
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.
Middle school students from across Missouri are designing cities of the future with an emphasis on how they use water. The winner of the state competition in Rolla is receiving an all-expenses-paid trip to the nationals in Washington, D.C. The goal is to bring awareness to water issues and increase interest in STEM fields.
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.
The director of the St. Louis Zoo Institute for Conservation Medicine, Dr. Sharon Deem, wants people to understand just how much human health is dependent on the health of other animals and the environment. The interconnection between people, animals, plants and their shared environment is the main focus of the CDC’s “One Health” movement, in which the St. Louis Zoo is a leader. In this interview, Deem talks about emerging public health issues, everyday solutions to global threats and the St. Louis Zoo’s role within the One Health movement.
St. Louis County Councilman Mark Harder is the latest guest on Politically Speaking. St. Louis Public Radio’s Julie O’Donoghue and Jason Rosenbaum talked with the Ballwin Republican about a multitude of issues, including the ongoing saga of the Loop Trolley.
Harder represents the council’s 7th District, which takes in most of western St. Louis County. He is the council’s longest serving member after Hazel Erby resigned to take a post in St. Louis County Executive Sam Page’s administration.
Since he’s not up for election this year, Harder could run in a special election for St. Louis County executive as a Republican and not give up his council seat. He said he hasn’t made a decision on whether he will run.
As Republicans in the state legislature look to repeal Clean Missouri over its redistricting plan we ask what really constitutes fair redistricting? What would that look like and how might it affect political power in the state?
Growing up in north St. Louis County, where she was leading choirs by the time she was 12 years old, Maria Ellis remembers thinking about St. Louis Children’s Choirs as “the ultimate vocal group.” But as her alma mater, the University of Missouri-St. Louis, notes in a recent UMSL Daily story about Ellis’ journey, Ellis couldn’t afford to join the SLCC program as a child. She did participate in one of the organization’s community honors choirs, and now she’s come full circle, having landed a position as SLCC’s community engagement manager several years ago. But shortly after starting that job, she realized the north St. Louis County honors choir she’d so enjoyed as a child was no more. Now, in 2020, it’s coming back thanks to Ellis.
On the heels of Bi-State Development's meeting where committee members declined to move forward a proposal that the regional transit agency take over trolley operations, St. Louis Public Radio's Kae Petrin joins host Sarah Fenske in studio to talk about it.
In the popular imagination, Cahokia seems to represent a cautionary tale. What today remains only as a series of mounds outside Collinsville, Illinois, used to be a thriving city — bigger than London in the mid-13th century. There may have been as many as 40,000 people living there. Yet in the years that followed, the population faced rapid decline. By 1400, what was a city had become a wasteland. Yet a new paper suggests that narrative is at best incomplete. Published yesterday in “American Antiquity,” the study uses fecal deposits to show that the exodus from the site was short-lived. A fresh wave of native people settled in Cahokia and repopulated the area from 1500 to 1700. In this segment, A.J. White discusses the paper and how the longer timeline of his study destroys “the myth of Cahokia’s Native American lost civilization.” A doctoral student in anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley, White is the study’s lead author.
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