St. Louis on the Air

The Gateway Arch Park Foundation has several irons in the fire — and soon, cranes in the sky. After celebrating 60 years since completion of the Gateway Arch last year, the foundation and its partners have begun reimagining the former Millennium Hotel site, studying changes to Interstate 44 near Gateway Arch National Park and exploring an expansion of the park into East St. Louis. Foundation Executive Director Ryan McClure shared updates on those efforts and his hopes for how they could serve the St. Louis community.

Judges and lawmakers are clashing in Missouri, and it all has to do with a unanimous ruling delivered last week by the state Supreme Court. On this episode of the Legal Roundtable, our panel of legal experts unpacks the drama over the court’s decision to strike down a law that allowed the secretary of state to rewrite ballot summaries. In response, the law’s sponsor called the justices “little kings and queens in their black robes.” In addition to that case, our panel also analyzes major developments in the state’s ban on trangender healthcare, a trial over abortion restrictions, a developer suing over lost profits, and more.

150-years ago, St. Louis chose to split itself in two. The decision, now known as the Great Divorce, created an enduring divide that still shapes the region today. In STLPR’s new podcast, “Meet Me,” host Luis Antonio Perez visits a family whose home sits right on the city-county line and explores the origin of the split with historian Andrew Wanko. Then, host Elaine Cha talks with Perez about his work on the debut episode and what’s to come.

In 1905, Mexican journalist Ricardo Flores Magón escaped the Porfiriato dictatorship and settled in St. Louis, where he launched the newspaper Regeneración. With 20,000 readers throughout Mexico and the U.S., the leftist publication raised awareness of growing wealth inequality, labor exploitation and political corruption in both countries. Historian Francisco Perez shares how Flores Magón connected the struggles of the American working class with that of the Mexican working class, how St. Louis' labor movement shaped Flores Magón’s worldview, and why, more than a century later, the activist’s politics still resonate.

The number of people incarcerated in Missouri prisons is lower than it has been in decades; yet, recent years have seen record-high deaths among those in custody. The deaths reflect an ongoing crisis behind the walls of the state's correctional institutions, say activist ML Smith, founder of the Missouri Justice Coalition, and Rika White, criminal justice policy manager at Empower Missouri. Smith and White take us inside their role in a notable Jan. 14 Missouri House Corrections Committee hearing that featured pointed questions for Trevor Foley, director of the Missouri Department of Corrections, about the state of healthcare inside the state’s 19 prisons.

When Megan Green became St. Louis Board of Aldermen President in 2022, she made reforming development tax incentives a top priority. Critics of using tax increment financing and abatements say the incentives take away tax revenue that could otherwise have gone toward benefiting public schools and other services. In this episode, we hear STLPR economic development reporter Kavahn Mansouri’s conversation with Green. Then, Mansouri discusses the bigger picture around development in St. Louis.

A 20-foot-tall concrete spiral was recently completed at the Audubon Center at Riverlands nature reserve near St. Louis. The structure's practical use will be as a bird blind — a temporary home for migratory birds. But there’s something else that’s fascinating about this structure: A novel method of shaping concrete. To get to the bottom of this spiral (and inside its concrete walls) we talk with Pablo Moyano Fernández, associate professor of architecture at WashU’s Sam Fox School of Design & Visual Arts. Moyano Fernández is the creator of that structure, called "Avis Spiralis."

The American prairie once stretched across Missouri and Illinois, a vast grassland teeming with wildlife and rich biodiversity. Today, less than 1% of that prairie remains — disappearing even faster than the Amazon rainforest. In this encore presentation, environmental journalists Dave Hage and Josephine Marcotty discuss how prairies were destroyed, why their loss is one of the world’s greatest ecological disasters, and what it will take to bring it back. Hage and Marcotty are authors of the new book, “Sea of Grass: The Conquest, Ruin and Redemption of Nature on the American Prairie.”

President Donald Trump made startling demands to take over Greenland this week. And Missouri’s U.S. Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt have reacted much differently to the prospects of the United States taking over the Danish island. On the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air, we talk with Washington University and Arizona State University’s Steve Smith about the differing reactions to Trump’s Greenland push.

Governor Mike Kehoe’s plan to phase out Missouri’s income tax over five years — and replace much of the revenue with a sales tax on services — has sparked a heated debate. Supporters say it could boost population growth, while critics warn of higher costs and fiscal risks. One of the main proponents of eliminating the income tax is Sen. Ben Brown, a Republican from Washington, Missouri. Brown discusses the proposal on the Politically Speaking Hour on St. Louis on the Air.