The Gateway

A celebrity chef known has a new restaurant in an iconic downtown St. Louis dining room--and says he's excited to be part of the city's momentum. Chef Gordon Ramsay’s newest “Ramsay’s Kitchen” location is now open inside the Four Seasons Hotel overlooking the Mississippi River. The restauranteur and media personality stopped into St. Louis for the grand opening this weekend, sharing why he’s eager to work with St. Louis talent, where else he ate while he was in town, and what he really thinks of the Gateway Arch.

Women have historically trailed behind men in the STEM field. A local non profit is working to boost young girls' interest in STEM one shop class at a time.

A nonprofit is building some of the first private housing in East St. Louis in decades. The religious organization plans to have 20 homes finished by the end of this summer. St. Louis Public Radio's Will Bauer spoke with one of the leaders of Landsdowne Up about their goals and the challenges facing East St. Louis.

A Florissant restaurant has gained national attention for its gender-based age policy. Experts say the rules could violate state law, but owners tell St. Louis Public Radio’s Madison Holcomb their new Afro-Caribbean restaurant aims to bring something different to the community.

During the school year, Sarah Adam is an assistant professor of occupational therapy at St. Louis University. But this summer, she’s turning her studies toward Paris, and the 2024 Paralympics. St. Louis Public Radio’s Abby Llorico spoke with the first woman to make the wheelchair rugby team about what it means for her and her sport.

It’s called the “dead zone:" a massive area in the Gulf of Mexico that’s so low in oxygen that fish and other wildlife can’t live there. Roughly 70-percent of harmful nutrients that cause the dead zone come from Midwest farms, namely fertilizer. Without laws to regulate fertilizer use, farmers are left to make changes on their own. But many don’t. St. Louis Public Radio’s Eric Schmid reports on why.

Four months after the shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs Super Bowl parade, the cost of surviving is hitting hard for the 24 people with bullet wounds. Expenses like medical bills, missed work, and many out-of-pocket costs are all coming due for the survivors and their families. They’re waiting for a promised payout, but they’re racking up debt in the meantime. Bram Sable-Smith from our partner at KFF Health News reports, it can be expensive to survive a mass shooting.

Connecticut-based band Goose launched its summer tour at The Factory in Chesterfield earlier this month. The show sounded and looked great for fans in the room, and those watching a live webcast from home. Few of them knew the sights and sounds arrived, in part, through the work of a Chesterfield company that’s become a force in the concert industry. St. Louis Public Radio’s Jeremy Goodwin reports on the work that happens before a band can hit the stage.

America needs more renewable energy, and of course it needs food--and those two demands are on a collision course over farmland. Solar power is the fastest growing source of renewable power, but solar farms can take land out of crop production. As Harvest Public Media’s Frank Morris reports, a growing field of study is searching for ways to get calories and kilowatts off the same land.

While the work to get Missouri residents compensated for radiation exposure has gotten lots of attention, an effort to help victims in Venice, Madison and Granite City has largely gone unnoticed. St. Louis Public Radio’s Will Bauer reports on what's being done and who's being impacted.

Galileo’s observations about the solar system made him the father of modern astronomy. They also clashed with the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church. And in 17th century Italy, spreading scientific facts could earn a death sentence. Opera Theatre of St. Louis is presenting a work about Galileo by the American composer Phillip Glass that opens Saturday. In a report by STLPR's Jeremy Goodwin, Performers Paul Groves and Vanessa Becerra reflect on some key moments in the opera and its continuing relevance.

Precision agriculture has promised to revolutionize farming since the mid-1990s. The idea is to give growers more granular data about their operations and new technology to put that information to use. Some of this has come to pass: farmers have more sophisticated equipment and hard data on how their operations perform. But St. Louis Public Radio’s Eric Schmid reports, some of the loftiest promises of precision ag are still out of reach. This reporting is in conjunction with Harvest Public Media, a collaboration of public media newsrooms in the Midwest and Great Plains - including St. Louis Public Radio.

The right haircut can be hard for anyone to find. Some St. Louis hairdressers understand a good haircut is especially important for transgender clients. As St. Louis Public Radio’s Lauren Brennecke reports, these stylists and barbers are moving toward gender-free terminology and using in-depth consultations.

One of the centerpieces for free public gathering in downtown St. Louis is back open after eight months of renovations. Citygarden, the three-acre sculpture park stretching along the Gateway Mall, is again offering a greener and more peaceful environment than the busy streets and city sidewalks it sits among. As St. Louis Public Radio’s Jeremy Goodwin reports, an opening day party at Citygarden offered a view of the amenity as a colorful hub for city residents and visitors.

A recent report showed child abuse investigators missed warning signs parents were taking fentanyl before their children overdosed. As St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum explains, the report is prompting sharp questions about why Missouri’s Children’s Division isn’t using a process to steer parents into rehabilitation programs.

Missouri’s Department of Conservation has a new director. Jason Sumners, a former deputy director of the department, is taking the reins from Sara Parker Pauley who stepped down after 30 years. St. Louis Public Radio’s Sarah Kellogg spoke with Sumners about how conservation work has changed over the years and his goals for the department.

Staffing at the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department dropped by about a third since 2014. There’s a backlog of DNA samples linked to homicides, and the homicide squad grappled for resources as murders in the city spiked. Our investigation with APM Reports and The Marshall Project has found that one reason police failed to solve more than 1,000 homicides in the city over the last 10 years is a lack of resources. Tom Scheck with APM Reports, spent a lot of time digging into the finances of the SLMPD’s homicide squad. He spoke to St. Louis Public Radio's Rachel Lippmann about the findings.

We’ve been reporting this week on the difficulty the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department had with solving homicides between 2014 and 2023. Reporting by St. Louis Public Radio, APM Reports and the Marshall Project found that the department kept detectives in the unit even after a supervisor claimed they repeatedly failed to perform basic investigative tasks. St. Louis Public Radio’s Rachel Lippmann has more of the investigation’s finding.

This week, we’re taking a look at how the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department handles homicide investigations. An investigation by St. Louis Public Radio, APM Reports, and The Marshall Project found there were roughly 1,000 unsolved homicides involving Black victims over the last 10 years. Tom Scheck takes us to a stretch of road in north St. Louis where Black families rarely see justice.

There were more than 1,900 murders in St. Louis between 2014 and 2023, and the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department has failed to solve more than 1,000 of them. That means thousands of family members and friends do not have answers from police about the violent death of their loved ones. Rachel Lippmann has the story, part of an investigation into the city’s homicide clearance rates by St. Louis Public Radio, APM Reports and the Marshall Project.