On The Record

Freedom Jones directs violence intervention for the Center for Hope at LifeBridge Health , which currently oversees four Safe Streets sites in Baltimore and will adopt two more next year. There, outreach workers mediate conflict before it turns deadly. We ask Jones about stopping gun violence and treating the trauma it causes. Learn more about Mayor Scott's plans for violence prevention and commun...

Democrat Heather Mizeur -- former state delegate and former candidate for governor -- is running to unseat the Maryland congressional delegation’s lone Republican, Andy Harris. How is she building a coalition in the deeply red first district? What are her priorities if elected? Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Pro...

The sparkly American Visionary Art Museum has a new director: We talk with Jenenne Whitfield about her plans and her ideas for AVAM’s synergy with Baltimore. Plus, Gage Branda , AVAM curator, previews the upcoming exhibit: ‘ABUNDANCE: Too Much, Too Little, Just Right.’    Links: American Visionary Art Museum current exhibit, "Abundance" , AVAM Annual Gala. Do you have a question or comment about a...

Since 2012, the  Goucher Prison Education Partnership  has offered college courses to men and women at two Maryland prisons. Executive Director  Eliza Cornejo  describes how Goucher stays in touch even after participants leave prison to help them continue their studies or find work. And   William Freeman , a graduate, now pursuing a Master’s degree from Johns Hopkins University, says signing up fo...

Baltimore writer Anthony Moll’s collection of poetry, titled, “You Cannot Save Here,” weaves together pop culture and counterculture references - everything from video games characters to song lyrics to tweets - against an apocalyptic backdrop.  Rather than imagining a happy ending, Moll takes a sober look at reality and asks what comes next, "Any time you turn on the news, any time you consider t...

Here is a Stoop Story from Jabari Lyles , former Director of LGBTQ Affairs for the Office of the Mayor, about founding the Gay-Straight Alliance at Towson High School.  You can listen to more Stoop stories by checking out the Stoop Storytelling Series’ podcast , hosted on WYPR's podcasting platform, Your Public Studios. The next live Stoop show will be Oct. 24th at Center Stage . The theme is “Tal...

Pickleball, the madly popular sport embraced by all ages, is not without growing pains. Tim Almaguer  Division Chief for Community Engagement & Strategic Partnerships at Baltimore City Recreation & Parks tells about efforts to meet demand. And Betsy Cunningham , pickleball fan, shares her grand vision for the sport: “It’s a way to bring peace to our neighborhoods. First thing you do when y...

Since March 2020, most of us have a deeper grasp of who is an “essential worker.” The Baltimore Museum of Industry is featuring a show about those who are indispensable to our young people: Baltimore City school food-service workers. Like Sheila Alston, who helped feed students for more than 30 years: “ We are part of the learning process with the kids. Because a child cannot learn if they’re hung...

Why would someone coming out of prison, with all the challenges they face, take on the task of starting their own business? Partly because employers pass them over, says Vanessa Bright, founder of the Maryland Reentry Resource Center . And some are natural risk-takers, she says. We talk to Lamont Bell , who runs three businesses he started since leaving prison and Chris Taylor, a retired business...

Where would our country be, what would it be without Frederick Douglass and Harriet Tubman? Award-winning documentarian Stanley Nelson evokes new insights into how each pushed to freedom from slavery on Maryland’s Eastern Shore. In the film MPT premiers next week, Nelson traces Tubman’s visions, which she took as direct guidance from God. Then Nelson shows Frederick Douglass reinventing himself ag...

Storytelling is at the core of what we do here at WYPR. So today, as a special fund-drive treat, we’re offering up a double scoop of Stoop Stories! Arianne   Rice, a newly ordained priest facing a crisis, talks about what she wished she’d learned in seminary and Jessica Murphy Garrett, who heard her biological clock ticking at age 35, tells how she decided to take matters into her own hands: “And...

Imagine iconic characters like Batman or Daredevil. How would their personalities sound, if presented in the Big Band style? Stephen Philip Harvey’s latest album, the debut of his jazz orchestra, is SMASH! He drew inspiration from superheroes he watched in Saturday morning cartoons, and translated brooding heroes and scheming villains into jazz melodies and harmonies. Check out his upcoming perfor...

SPARK -- a large database of DNA from people with autism and their families -- offers insight into the spectrum of the disorder. Neuropsychologist Ericka Wodka of Kennedy Krieger Institute explains how the enormous number of SPARK participants helps researchers investigate other conditions that commonly affect people with autism. And Angie Auldridge , whose son, Mark, has autism, tells how genetic...

A nursing shortage still grips U.S. healthcare. How can the system onboard students faster … while making sure they grasp all they need to know about patient care? Lisa Rowen , System Chief Nurse Executive for the University of Maryland Medical System, hopes the Academy of Clinical Essentials, or ACE, will begin to address that challenge.  “With ACE the nursing students are able to see the continu...

Some factors in the economy are slowing--but not the job market. “Help wanted” signs are everywhere. Some employers are brainstorming how to hire the talent they need. Penn-Mar Human Services , a nonprofit that offers a range of supports for people with intellectual or developmental disabilities, works with businesses that want to analyze whether some part of their workflow would fit a person with...

Here's a Stoop Story from Rachel Micah Jones about fighting for migrant worker rights.  Want more Stoop Storytelling Series? Listen to the podcast or find information about upcoming Stoop shows . Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer, Maureen Harvie she/her/hers mharvie@wypr.org 410-235-1903 Senior Producer, M...

Gun violence, leading to the deaths of two Baltimore students, cast a shadow over the start of the school year. Annette Anderson, deputy director of the Johns Hopkins ‘ Center for Safe and Healthy Schools ,’ is a former principal--and the parent of three teens in Baltimore City public schools. She says violence prevention starts with positive relationships, “Our young people may not always connect...

Brittany Young ’s non-profit, B360, gives kids hands-on STEM experience through dirt bikes. As they ride them, fix them and even design them … they learn science, technology, engineering and math. Young knows dirt bike riding has a reputation … and she intends to transform that, along with the lives of young people. Five years in, her dream is within sight: to create a permanent multi-acre campus:...

In November, Maryland voters will elect a new chief financial officer, the state comptroller. State Delegate  Brooke Lierman  is the Democratic nominee. To her, it’s an opportunity to build a more transparent and financially resilient state. Another priority: ensuring Maryland has the revenue to fund the multi-billion dollar Blueprint for Education. Lierman hopes to use the comptroller’s statewide...

Journalist Baynard Woods grew up in the last quarter of the 20th century, son of white parents raised in the Jim Crow South, descendant of forebears who had enslaved hundreds of Black people in South Carolina. His memoir Inheritance: An Autobiography of Whiteness, traces his dawning awareness of the crimes and outrages of his dead ancestors, … and his parents’  failure to confront that history and...

Seven decades ago, the construction of the Bay Bridge was the largest public-works project in Maryland’s history. It knitted the Western and Eastern Shores together, and paved the way for economic growth in the nine eastern counties.  Lydia Woolever, a senior editor for Baltimore Magazine , tells us about the crossing’s impact. Read her story,  How The Chesapeake Bay Bridge Changed Maryland Foreve...

The resiliency of restaurant owners and workers is impressive. Christina Tkacik covers food news for The Baltimore Banner . In the wake of the pandemic, restaurants are dealing with the pressures of inflation, supply-chain delays, and the labor shortage. These pressure may be reflected on menus, "So if you’ve gone to a restaurant and you’ve noticed, ‘Oh, this restaurant only has like five items on...

Harford County Executive Barry Glassman , a Republican, has served in public office for 32 years straight. Now he’s running for comptroller, the only one of the three Republicans campaigning  statewide who is not a fan of Donald Trump. Glassman is counting on his moderate philosophy and hands-on budget experience to draw voters from the middle, and maybe the left.. We ask about his priorities if e...

Most people with federal student loans are eligible for some forgiveness, under the plan President Biden announced last month: up to $20,000 for low-income recipients of Pell Grants, $10,000 for other borrowers. What does this mean for Marylanders? Tisa Silver Canady founded the non-profit Maryland Center for Collegiate Financial Wellness . She says this plan moves toward addressing the failures o...

Twenty thousand Baltimore children have a parent behind bars or on parole or probation. A new program called  B’More Reconnects  aims to solidify the bonds between a parent and child and reduce trauma. Kate Sweeney   co-directs the  Parent, Infant, Early Childhood Program  at the  Institute for Innovation and Implementation  at the  University of Maryland School of Social Work . She describes B’Mo...