St. Louis on the Air

New data on opioid deaths among Black St. Louisans show fatal overdoses up by more than 500% since 2015. A physician and a researcher with the new CENTER Initiative discuss what they’re doing to reduce those deaths.

City Foundry STL — the popular retail, entertainment and food hub in midtown St. Louis — has 16 food stalls, with another on the way. Sauce Magazine Executive Editor Meera Nagarajan gives her recommendations. She also details a new restaurant to try in West County and one in St. Charles.

O’Fallon, Illinois, junior high school teachers PJ and Jamie Creek built a thriving business creating detail-rich posters about American government. They discuss their first book, “We the People and the Presidency,” and the art of making social studies accessible to students.

Playwright Colin Healy’s “Big Machine” was inspired by the deadly events at a Standard Oil factory in Bayway, New Jersey, in 1924. He and director Nancy Bell discuss the history of lead poisoning — and what it takes to transform tragedy into musical theater.

Five St. Louis-area Starbucks stores have filed for unionization. Two workers discussed what’s driving these efforts, as Wash U’s Jake Rosenfeld gives insight to the wave of unionizations sweeping the nation.

Black entrepreneurs want to see more entrepreneurs from marginalized backgrounds break into the cannabis industry. The executive director of Exit Now, Marne Madison, discusses what it will take to make that vision a reality, while Adrienne Scales-Williams and Jamila Owens-Todd of Luxury Leaf share their story as Black women working in medical marijuana in Missouri.

Decades after lead was banned in residential paint, water pipes and gasoline, thousands of Missouri children continue to suffer from lead poisoning. Reporter Allison Kite discusses her new deep dive into the issue, co-produced by the Missouri Independent and NPR's Midwest Newsroom.

Terrell Robinson has served 12 years in Missouri prisons for a parole violation that he says was never explained to him. Attorneys at the MacArthur Justice Center say his incarceration is part of a pattern that led to a federal judge ruling in 2020 that Missouri’s parole system is unconstitutional. Attorney Amy Breihan and Robinson’s wife Lawanda discuss his case.

Lux Living is one of the largest developers in St. Louis, yet many of their tenants are dissatisfied. Current and former tenants continue to voice complaints, and the company’s business practices also are drawing heat. In this episode, we talk with St. Louis Post-Dispatch reporter Jacob Barker. He recently reported on the company and the brothers who run it.

Voters in St. Louis County on Tuesday dealt County Executive Sam Page two decisive defeats. In one of them, voters passed Proposition B, which prohibits the county executive from holding another job. Page has worked some hours as anesthesiologist and critics made no secret about the measure targeting him. STLPR Political Correspondent Jason Rosenbuam breaks down the election results as Page faces a Democratic primary challenger in August’s election.