Well, Thanks for nothing...............


That wraps up my several weeks engagement here in the lounge, but after yesterday on the board it is time to take a break. Thanks for the views, the recs and responses.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is allowing farmers to use controversial weedkillers made by ag giants Bayer and BASF for another five years.

But farmers across the country, including in Missouri’s Bootheel, have complained for years that the dicamba-based herbicides have drifted off target, damaging millions of acres of crops.

EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler announced the approval on Tuesday, saying it would give farmers who depend on the products to fight difficult-to-kill weeds certainty for next year's growing season.

“After reviewing substantial amounts of new information, conducting scientific assessments based on the best available science and carefully considering input from stakeholders, we have reached a resolution that is good for our farmers and our environment,” he said in a statement.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/economy-business/2020-10-28/u-s-epa-approves-bayer-basf-dicamba-weedkillers-despite-farmers-concerns

An exhibition featuring reproductions of Michelangelo’s Sistine Chapel paintings will open at the America’s Center Convention Complex next week.

“Michelangelo's Sistine Chapel: The Exhibition” boasts 34 reproductions of the Renaissance master’s iconic frescoes. Among them are some of the most revered images in Western art, including “The Creation of Adam” and “The Last Judgment.”

The show has toured internationally but has been idle for about eight months because of the coronavirus pandemic. It was created by Las Vegas-based SEE Global Entertainment and is presented locally by Explore St. Louis, the city’s tourism commission.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/2020-10-28/st-louis-convention-center-will-host-reproductions-of-michelangelos-iconic-frescoes

ROLLA — In 2016, 68% of voters in Phelps County voted for Donald Trump, and no Republican on the ballot received less than 59% of the vote.

But since then, some elections, public rallies and social media have suggested a progressive push in the county of 45,000 in the Ozarks, 100 miles southwest of St. Louis.

In June, hundreds of people took to the streets of downtown Rolla, the county’s largest city, in a Black Lives Matter protest march.

In September, Cori Bush, a progressive Democrat who upset longtime St. Louis Congressman Lacy Clay in the August primary, came to Rolla for a rally supporting causes that included universal health care and racial justice.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/government-politics-issues/2020-10-29/republican-stronghold-of-phelps-county-is-showing-signs-of-progressive-life

Quincy, Illinois, is an architectural gold mine. According to local architect Tony Crane, the city on the Mississippi River is home to a collection of well-documented and well-maintained structures that date back to the 1880s.

“You can drive down Main Street and look at the various styles as they go through time,” he told St. Louis on the Air.

Now a new self-guided driving tour promoted by visitors bureau SeeQuincy highlights the city’s trove of midcentury modern designs. Holly Cain, SeeQuincy executive director, detailed the new guide on Thursday’s St. Louis on the Air.

“This is now our eighth driving tour. Some of the [mid-century modern offerings were] represented in our architectural tour, but as we kept driving around, there's so many more,” she said. “And I think mid-mod is something really coming back these days. You know, the clean lines, single level, open-concept footprint.”

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2020-10-29/mid-mod-quincy-highlights-mid-century-modern-masterpieces

Brent Benjamin had never set foot in St. Louis when he showed up on a snowy day in 1999 to interview for a job running its namesake art museum.

He got the job, and made his impact over more than two decades at the helm of St. Louis Art Museum. He led a $160 million capital campaign, at the time the largest ever for a St. Louis arts organization, to fund construction of the museum’s East Building and creation of an endowment to pay for future upkeep. Notable exhibitions during his tenure include “Vincent van Gogh and the Painters of the Petit Boulevard” in 2001 and “Sunken Cities: Egypt’s Lost World” in 2018.

Benjamin announced in September that he plans to retire next summer. In January, the organization will begin its search for his successor in earnest.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/podcast/cut-paste/2020-10-30/cut-paste-st-louis-art-museums-outgoing-director-reflects-on-21-years-in-charge

With large social gatherings a rarity during the pandemic, catering businesses are struggling.

But the International Institute of St. Louis is helping immigrant- and refugee-owned catering businesses find a new outlet. Starting Nov. 4, the organization is launching a physically distanced version of its popular Wednesday lunches — now Wednesday night dinners available for curbside pickup every other week.

Dinners will be served by caterers specializing in Egyptian, Bosnian and other types of cuisine.

They’ve all launched their business with the help of the institute, which assists immigrants and refugees in obtaining business licenses, loans for equipment and kitchen space.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/2020-10-27/international-institute-rolls-out-pop-up-dinners-to-support-refugee-and-immigrant-caterers

During these challenging times, it remains vitally important to find ways to strengthen relationships between police officers and students of color. In response to this need, the St. Louis Chess Club created the Chess Helping Enhance Student Skills program to bring students and police officers together over a game of chess. CHESS Cops events have always been fun, and now there is evidence that suggests these events have a positive impact on students’ perceptions of and relationships with police officers.

The CHESS Cops program is still relatively new. It began in 2017 as a one-off breakfast event but has since developed into a widespread community outreach program partnering local police departments with St. Louis area schools to facilitate chess games between students and police. The aim: bring distanced communities together and strengthen neighborhoods through the personal interactions facilitated by one of humanity’s oldest games. Following that first breakfast, CHESS Cops has hosted numerous events and summer camps. It’s spurred students at a local school to build their own chess club. It’s also started an effort to train school resource officers to assist within chess classrooms while always providing students and police officers a platform to sit together and play in a trusting environment.

Early indicators suggest that CHESS Cops is positively impacting students’ perceptions of police officers. This spring, the St. Louis Chess Club worked with researchers from St. Louis University, the University of Missouri and Basis Policy Research to understand the social impact of some of its outreach programs, including CHESS Cops. Feedback surveys following a CHESS Cops event at Lift for Life Academy asked students about their attitudes, trust and feelings about the police. Of the participating students, 92% said playing chess with the police officers helped them see police as regular people, 86% said it helped them see the officers as more friendly, and 86% responded that it helped them trust the officers more. While these results are encouraging, it is imperative that both parties come away from these events with a better understanding of each other. Trust between communities is built by the players on both sides of the chessboard; future research is needed to understand if the perspectives of the police officers are changing, too.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/2020-10-29/on-chess-chess-program-aspires-to-build-bridges-between-police-officers-and-local-youth

This article is a collaboration between St. Louis Public Radio and the Belleville News-Democrat.

Jolene Baker’s knees ached with arthritis, she suffered from high blood pressure, and she needed medication for frequent migraines.

The East St. Louis resident’s employer-sponsored health insurance covered less and became more expensive every year she worked at the fast-food seafood restaurant. The 56-year-old’s untreated health problems made it almost impossible to work on her feet all day.

“I was weak. I was sluggish,” Baker said.

She had to quit to find more suitable part-time work, and she lost her health insurance.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/government-politics-issues/2020-10-29/who-can-you-trust-with-your-health-care-heres-what-downstate-illinois-candidates-promise

This weekend, weary Halloween revelers across the U.S. will dutifully set their clocks to “fall back” — signaling the end of daylight saving time for 2020. The annual ritual may give some people an extra hour of sleep on Saturday night, but for others, including parents of young children and shift workers, it’s an annoying complication that takes days of adjustment.

And is it really necessary? A growing body of evidence suggests that our twice-yearly tradition of changing our clocks to gain or lose an hour of morning sunlight isn’t just irritating: It’s actually dangerous. In the first days after the switch to daylight saving time in the spring, heart attacks and traffic accidents both increase.

Several states are now contemplating an end to daylight saving time. Last year, the Illinois Senate actually passed a bill to abolish the practice, which dates back to World War I and was presented as an energy saver (research, it’s worth noting, is “decidedly mixed”).

On Thursday’s St. Louis on the Air, Erik Herzog explained why scientists increasingly believe we need to scrap the time shifting. A professor of biology and neuroscience at Washington University, he focuses on understanding circadian clocks and their role in behavior and health.

https://news.stlpublicradio.org/show/st-louis-on-the-air/2020-10-27/thursday-the-case-against-daylight-saving-time