Hundreds of African Americans who fought for their freedom in St. Louis courts will soon be commemorated in front of one of the city's oldest legal institutions. 

The Freedom Suits Memorial sculpture will be installed on the grassy plaza east of the Civil Courts Building downtown. The art piece, to be sculpted by Preston Jackson, will honor the more than 300 lawsuits filed by slaves and the lawyers who represented them within the St. Louis Circuit Court. City political leaders, judicial officials and civil rights proponents gathered Friday to dedicate the site.

A St. Louis judge has ruled that Circuit Attorney Kim Gardner does not have the authority to ask for a new trial in the case of a man Gardner says was wrongfully convicted of murder.

Judge Elizabeth Hogan’s opinion, issued Friday, also says Gardner’s request in the case of Lamar Johnson was filed well beyond deadlines outlined in court rules and decisions. 

A spokeswoman said Gardner will appeal the ruling, and had no further comment.

Some kids with mild asthma only need to use their inhalers when they have symptoms, according to research from Washington University.

That’s a major departure from traditional guidelines that recommend patients use their inhalers everyday, regardless of how they’re feeling. 

The study, which focused on African American children in St. Louis, found no difference in symptoms or lung function between kids who used their steroid inhalers everyday and those who used them as needed. Following an “as-needed” treatment strategy may help some patients cut down on the total amount of medicine they need to manage their asthma — and may reduce overall costs for low-income populations.

A new building at St. Louis Community College will help the region address a shortage of nurses and other health care professionals. 

The college officially opened its new Center for Nursing and Health Sciences on Friday. The $39 million facility is the first new building on the Forest Park campus in 20 years. 

The four-level, 96,000-square-foot building includes simulation labs, classrooms, a teaching area, a dental clinic and a functioning operating room.

Earlier this week, members of the Missouri Botanical Garden horticulture staff returned from a research trip in the Central Asia country of Kyrgyzstan. There, the team’s project involved conserving crop wild relatives of popular fruits like apples, apricots and plums found in Kyrgyzstan’s highly threatened walnut fruit forest.

The goal is to preserve genetic diversity that is often lost in modern agriculture, which is based on a single-crop system. On Friday’s St. Louis on the Air, host Sarah Fenske talked to Megan Engelhardt, manager of the Botanical Garden's seed bank, and horticulturist Dave Gunn about how the staff went about bringing seeds back to add to the Botanical Garden’s seed bank to propagate. 

The XFL is a planned professional U.S. football league with the mission of reimagining America’s favorite sport. The league originally debuted in 2001 and only lasted one season. XFL games are set to begin again in February 2020.

The St. Louis BattleHawks were one of the league’s eight teams announced this week.

The latest episode of Politically Speaking explores the state of the Missouri Democratic Party — and what some of the party’s leadership say needs to be done to reverse its decline.

St. Louis Public Radio’s Jason Rosenbaum, Jo Mannies, Julie O’Donoghue and Jaclyn Driscoll chart out why Missouri Democrats went from dominating the state’s politics to being nearly completely out of power. Many Democrats believe that State Auditor Nicole Galloway’s 2020 gubernatorial bid is the first big step toward engineering a comeback.

Jason Eberhart, 16, was a football player ― like his brother who plays for Ball State University and his father who played for the University of Illinois.

“He comes from a family of football,” said his cousin and mentor Charles Shelton. “He was the middle child of five. We were really hoping that football was going to keep his mindset, but unfortunately life in the streets got the best of him.”

On Sunday, August 18, Eberhart died from multiple gunshot wounds in the Carr Square neighborhood at 2 a.m., and the investigation is ongoing. His family is taking his death very hard, Shelton said, which is why he was speaking on their behalf.