ROLLA — If Missouri gets money from its lawsuits against opioid manufacturers, rural health care providers want to make sure they get some of those dollars to support underfunded opioid addiction services.

The Your Community Cares Rural Health Coalition invited Attorney General Eric Schmitt and representatives from the U.S. Attorney's office in St. Louis to Rolla Friday to talk about their programs and how they are underfunded.

Sen. Roy Blunt came to Ranken Technical College in St. Louis on Friday to advocate for more apprenticeships and job training programs. 

Blunt, who is the chairman of a Senate subcommittee that addresses labor and education, released an appropriations bill for the coming year to expand higher education opportunities.

“I do believe for the last 20 or 30 years, there's been too much singular focus on the way to get a good job is a college degree,” he said.

For three decades, Diane Rehm hosted a conversation with America. "The Diane Rehm Show" grew from a local show at NPR affiliate WAMU to a national juggernaut, with 2.8 million listeners every week. And even after her December 2016 retirement, Rehm has continued the conversation. She hosts a podcast; she also recently published her fourth book, “When My Time Comes.”

Earlier this week, in partnership with St. Louis on the Air, Rehm discussed her career at a dinner hosted by the Mannie Jackson Center for the Humanities Foundation at Southern Illinois University-Edwardsville. We aired highlights from that conversation on Friday’s St. Louis on the Air — which included Rehm’s thoughts on interviewing and advocacy for the “death with dignity” movement.   

The town of Alton was a major stop for escaped slaves making their way to freedom from St. Louis.

Some runaways stayed in Alton, and some continued north to Canada. Though Illinois was the first state to ratify the 13th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which abolished slavery nationally, it wasn’t necessarily a friendly place to escaped former slaves.

Faith & For the Sake of All is inviting the community to join in a discussion with local faith leaders this weekend to find ways to tackle racial equity issues in St. Louis.

The local nonprofit focuses on improving the health and well-being of black St. Louisans through faith-based social action. 

The organization’s director, the Rev. Gabrielle Kennedy, said the organization grew out of the For the Sake of All report. Kennedy said the report highlighted several community needs including early childhood development, stabilizing neighborhoods, investing in mental health awareness and helping low-income families. 

This article was originally published in the Belleville News-Democrat.

Officials have just begun contacting people potentially affected by contamination from Scott Air Force Base after news broke last week that dangerous chemicals may have affected drinking water.

Last week, the base joined a growing list of military installations where cancer-causing chemicals from firefighting materials have leaked into the ground and nearby water supplies. 

On the latest edition of the Politically Speaking weekly news roundup, St. Louis Public Radio’s team of political reporters talk about the re-emergence of former Gov. Eric Greitens and efforts in Jefferson City to pass a prescription drug monitoring program.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Julie O’Donoghue, Jaclyn Driscoll and Jason Rosenbaum discussed how a PDMP once again passed the Missouri House despite loud opposition from some conservative Republicans. It faces a tough reception in the Missouri Senate, where the program aimed at stamping out opioid abuse has failed to advance previously.

BELLEVILLE — The success of the 2020 census will largely depend on people answering the survey themselves, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. That way, the bureau can dedicate fewer resources to finding and counting people.

Bureau officials have identified a number of factors that result in low self-response rates. These include areas with more minority residents, low-income households, frequent movers, renters and many other factors.

St. Louis’ Municipal Court is hosting a warrant amnesty program Feb. 24-27. It’s an opportunity for people with outstanding bench warrants — excluding DUIs, leaving the scene of an accident and prostitution — to be able to pay their original fines and costs without penalty.

There are nearly 119,000 outstanding warrants in the city of St. Louis, meaning thousands of people are at risk of going to jail.