On The Record

A year ago, Trump supporters--galvanized by lies about election fraud--breached the U.S. Capitol, attacking police and threatening lawmakers. Johns Hopkins professor Lilliana Mason says deepening polarization between political parties paves the way for the acceptance of violence. And we ask Michael Jensen of the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism at the Unive...

Professor Charles Chavis Jr. has invested five years probing the lynching of a young Black man in Salisbury on the Eastern Shore 90 years ago--what 23-year-old Matthew Williams meant to his family and community, the leaders of the supposedly spontaneous mob, how the white power structure covered up the crime -- and what it all means today. Chavis’s book, The Silent Shore: The Lynching of Mat...

Baltimore’s Laura Lippman has been publishing tales of suspense, and winning awards for them, for a quarter century. She doesn’t take for granted the devious characters and puckered plots that shape her stories. " I keep trying to make this harder on myself. I think the scariest thing for me would be to sit at my computer and think: ‘This is easy, I know how to do this.’ I...

Since he was a kid, Conor McDowell had wanted to defend his country. He was proud to be a Marine, but the risks started to worry him. In 2019, his father, Michael McDowell, and mother, Susan Flanigan, got the awful news their only son had been killed: the light armored vehicle he commanded rolled over, crushing him. The investigation the McDowells pushed for counted hundreds of similar accidents i...

Here is a Stoop Story from Michelle Becote-Jackson about how her grandmother kept the Christmas spirit alive, even in tough times. The next live Stoop event comes up in two weeks--January 13th at the Ottobar in Baltimore. The theme is “ Something for Everyone: Stories about the Baltimore Music Scene .” Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On...

Two decades ago, just a few months shy of high school graduation, Sherise Holden learned she was pregnant. Today, she leads a nonprofit called SheRises , that connects teen moms to resources and mentors. Holden says this work is valuable, "I can help so many other young mothers rise, just by giving them a word of encouragement and giving them sort of like a sneak peek to the other wise of the wind...

A report by the nonprofit Climate Central  maps the risk of flooding along the Harriet Tubman Underground Railroad Byway in Dorchester County. We speak with one of the report’s  authors, Kelly Van Baalen , and local guide Alex Green,  who operates Harriet Tubman Tours .Then, Julie Schablitsky , chief archaeologist at the state Department of Transportation, describes discoverin...

George Washington was not destined to be great. He was the middle son of a middling Virginia family; he had land but seldom much cash. As a young militia leader, he did not win often. What he had, writes David O. Stewart in an astute biography, was ambition and the will to study the political skills of listening and compromise. Late in life, Washington focused on the horrors of slavery--yet never...

Thomas Hochla shares a Stoop Story about how his family sings in the new year. Listen to more Stoop Stories and check out the Stoop podcast here . 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, Melissa Gerr she/her/hers mgerr@wypr.org 410-235-1...

Can’t decide what to watch? Baltimore Magazine editor-in-chief Max Weiss gives us the low-down on the top films of 2021. From a documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival to a Japanese drama about grief and connection, we hear about can’t-miss movies. Find a write-up of Weiss' top 15 films here . Find her individual movie and television reviews here .  Do you have a quest...

You are what you eat … so when you eat healthy, you become healthy. That’s the message from a new program called FoodRx at Medstar Health. We talk with Angela Roberson (ROBE-ur-son) a registered dietician for the Collaborative Care Program at Good Samaritan Hospital, and the lead dietician for FoodRx. Giving patients access to nutrition education as well as full meals has made a marke...

Pumpkin spice latte, roasting turkey, butter-drenched stuffing ... Holiday smells conjure memories. But for people experiencing side effects of Covid-19, a sense of smell can suddenly be non-existent, or even repulsive. Dr. Danielle Reed of the ‘Monell Chemical Senses Center’ describes how smell works, why it affects taste and what can go awry. Then we meet Kim Minton and Cristen Scifo...

Persuasion is what Andres Lares does all day. Actually, most of us spend a big part of our day trying to persuade people to see things our way--but Lares and his colleagues do it full time, in an organized way, at the Shapiro Negotiations Institute. So three of them wrote a book called Persuade , that compresses the skill into four steps. Most people base choices on trust and emotions, Lares says-...

As the omicron variant threatens more pandemic restrictions, we Pass the Mic to Dutch Courage co-owner and Baltimore Bartenders’ Guild president Brendan Dorr. He talks with Ashley Mac , from HEARD , a mental-health resource for restaurant and bar staff, Ezra Allen , co-founder of  Cane Collective , and Lara Sumerson co-owner of The Back Yard Restaurant and Mulberry’s Bar , about h...

When André De Shields won a Tony award for creating the agile, elegant messenger-god Hermes in the Broadway musical Hadestown, he said he was making good on a decades-old promise to be a native son Baltimore could be proud of. De Shields was born 75 years ago into a large family, to a mother who yearned to be a dancer and a father who would have loved to be a singer. He graduated from Balti...

Ten months ago, Dr. Ruth Faden , Johns Hopkins bioethicist and advisor to the World Health Organization on Covid 19 vaccination, said the global rollout of vaccines was failing. We checked in with her again -- she says there is still a lot of work to be done: “ So the challenge now is shifting. There is enough global vaccine supply, but we still have high income countries capturing the marke...

Sometimes music can take you to places only reachable by your imagination. Singer and musician Jonathan Gilmore wants to be your guide for an intergalactic trip: ‘The Jonathan Gilmore Project’s A Journey to Funktopia’ is part theater, part concert and full of original funk, soul and R&B music -- with a simple message:  “I hope they feel so comfortable in their skin...

Here's a Stoop Story from Space Telescope Science Institute astronomer, Nora Lutzgendorf   about her work on the James Webb Space Telescope . The J-W-S-T is scheduled to launch Friday, Dec. 24 , -- just missing the Winter Solstice. But you don’t have to miss it! There are lots of ways coming up to proclaim--even celebrate- the solstice:  Ensemble Galilei with guests James Oxley and...

COVID testing slacked over the summer. At-home COVID tests are costly and hard to find. We speak about the continued need for testing with Stephen Thomas, director of the Maryland Center for Health Equity in the University of Maryland School of Public Health, and Dr. Adena Greenbaum, assistant commissioner of the Bureau of Clinical Services for the Baltimore City Health Department . Learn more abo...

The call to “Save the Bay” has galvanized Will Baker most of his life. As he wraps up four decades at the helm of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, he points to what’s improved and what hasn’t, Pennsylvania’s foot-dragging on the bay clean-up--and the late governor William Donald Schaefer’s wistful assessment that he had thought it would be easier to Save the Bay:...

It’s documented that using social media -- the scrolling, the likes, the shares -- is addictive and seductive. If that’s its effect on adults, what about young kids? Dr. Drew Pate , chief of psychiatry at LifeBridge Health, talks about the different ways social media influences the minds and moods of children. Then Danny LaBrecque , creator of ‘Danny Joe's Tree House’ and &...

After the deadly shooting of a West Baltimore 9th grader in 1983, police and prosecutors coerced the testimony of witnesses. Three innocent young men - known as the Harlem Park Three - were sentenced to life in prison for felony murder. Then, in 2019, they were released. Jennifer Gonnerman writes about this case for The New Yorker, in a piece titled, “ When a Witness Recants .” And Bal...

Feeling a sense of safety doesn’t encompass just physical security. To feel secure in one’s community also means being accepted, welcomed and seen. The Jewish Museum of Maryland’s new exhibit, ‘A Fence Around The Torah: Safety And Unsafety In Jewish Life,’ asks visitors to consider how their own safety might make someone else feel vulnerable or dismissed.  We get...

Here's a Stoop Story from Jennifer Mendelsohn about finding family against all odds.  Links: Return to the Stoop , where you can hear more about Jennifer's story about finding her mother-in-law, Frieda Pertman's, relatives, a short video about Frieda Pertman.   Do you have a question or comment about a show or a story idea to pitch? Contact On the Record at: Senior Supervising Producer,...

Almost two years into the pandemic, the threat of eviction and homelessness looms large for financially insecure families. Although Baltimore got millions in federal funds to forestall evictions, Karen Wabeke of the Homeless Persons Representation Project says her group is seeing more and more landlords refuse to take part, "We, along with partners in the Baltimore Renters United coalition, have a...