If you're looking for some things to listen to or read today that aren't pandemic-related, we've collected some nice listens, long reads and hard-hitting investigations from our newsroom in recent months.
You can listen to the stories in the players embedded below.
Curious Louisville: What’s That Door In A Hill On Lexington Road?
Let Ashlie Stevens take you through that door near Headliners Music Hall and tell you what she sees on the other side.
(Side note: the Curious Louisville podcast is home to dozens of delightful stories like this. FInd it on your favorite app: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | NPR | Spotify | Stitcher | RadioPublic)
A Rare Look Into The Condemned Third Floor Of Louisville’s Academy @ Shawnee
The third floor of the Academy @ Shawnee in Louisville’s West End has sat empty since 1981. At the time, the district said there weren’t enough students there to justify the cost of renovating it, and it was closed. Nearly 40 years later, the district has decided to fix it and reopen it to students once more. Jess Clark of WFPL News got a rare look inside, before the work began.
In Ohio Watershed, Higher Water Lines And More Hazardous Cargo
Over the past decade in the Ohio watershed, extreme weather has been cited more and more frequently as a contributing cause in serious marine accidents. At the same time, an analysis by Alexandra Kanik for the Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting found that shipping of hazardous materials like crude oil and kerosene are rising.
Glidepath To Recovery: Flying Squirrels And Spruce Forests Share Common Fate
More than a century ago, the high-elevation ecosystem inside the Monongahela National Forest would have been dominated by the evergreen spruce. After being logged and suffering from fires in the 1880s through early 1900s, today an estimated 90 percent of this ice age-relic of an ecosystem has been removed from West Virginia.
And that has been a challenge for another iconic species: the West Virginia northern flying squirrel.
Ohio Valley ReSource's Brittany Patterson learned more about the ties between the squirrel and spruce.
Kentuckiana Sounds
On each episode of Kentuckiana Sounds, curator Aaron Rosenblum brings us a field recording from the Kentuckiana Sound map and we hear from the contributor who made it.
Musician and student Chris Leidner lives in a noisy neighborhood. His Old Louisville apartment is above a narrow street where the sounds of cars and motorcycles ricochet and rattle his windows. Airplanes fly low on their approach to Muhammad Ali International Airport. And yet he makes space for the small sounds of home, like this radiator that offers a surprising variety of sounds for those willing to listen.
Prosecution Declined
KyCIR's Eleanor Klibanoff spent the better part of a year looking into how rapes are investigated and prosecuted in Louisville. Listen to her investigation, the first season of our new podcast, Dig.
