Alex Heuer

More than a million students nationwide are homeless.

Children who lack a permanent or stable household is an important yet, perhaps, overlooked issue and that’s true in the St. Louis area where several thousand students do not have a permanent home.

Hundreds of thousands of American workers are paid the minimum wage.  It’s $7.25 nationally and $7.35 in St. Louis.  While the perception may be that minimum and low wage jobs are mostly held by teens, the vast majority, 75 percent, are adults over the age of 20.

Recent local news reports have highlighted protests by minimum wage earners.  They are demanding that their pay be nearly doubled.  The campaign is called “St. Louis Can’t Survive on $7.35.”

UC Berkeley Journalism Professor Michael Pollan has devoted a good deal of his career to examining the food we eat in today’s society and the hazards of much of it.  Four of his books are New York Times Bestsellers and have received many other accolades: Food Rules: An Eater’s Manual, In Defense of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, The Omnivore’s Dilemma: A Natural History of Four Meals and The Botany of Desire: A Plant’s-Eye View of the World.

While author Elaine Viets currently lives in Florida, the St. Louis native visits often and more often than not, her stories involve a St. Louis connection.

For many years Viets was columnist for the St. Louis Post Dispatch.

A few months ago, St. Louis on the Air host Don Marsh visited with Viets to talk about the latest book in her Josie Marcus Mystery Shopper series.