On The Record

From her days growing up in Liberia, through medical training, and now heading Johns Hopkins Center for Health Equity , Dr. Lisa Cooper has tried to understand and explain the ways race and the stress of discrimination shape health care and health outcomes. She’s distilled her work and ideas into a book, "Why Are Health Disparities Everyone’s Problem?" Now, Cooper says she’s eage...

Maryland got an “F” grade from a national nonprofit for its efforts to protect children from being trafficked for sex. Amanda Rodriguez, of the state’s Human Trafficking Task Force, says what’s missing is state law that treats trafficked kids as victims, not criminals. Then we ask Jeanne Allert , who founded ‘The Samaritan Women’  to support trafficked wome...

Nearly 40 million Americans suffer from migraine attacks. They’ve been viewed as a ‘middle-aged white woman’s malady,’ --but research shows otherwise. Dr. Courtney White talks about racial disparities in treatment and why the syndrome is misunderstood: “People think it’s just a bad headache and that you can tough through it -- take some over the counter medicati...

Learning about other cultures can foster compassion, curiosity, and even patience. Preserving culture can provide a sense of connectedness to the past.  The National Slavic Museum is dedicated to both. We talk with its curator, Julea Seliavski , who took the reins from its founder Father Ivan Dornic. Father Dornic’s vision is that all Slavic cultures can come together in common love of...

Here's a Stoop Story from Jake Jacobson about cultural exchanges … and memorable mishaps. There’s a live Stoop coming up next Wednesday, December 8, with the theme : Bah, Humbug!: Stories about making mistakes, making amends, and making merry.   It starts at 7:30 p.m. at the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company. At the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of African-American History and Culture ne...

Legislators will return to Annapolis Monday, to wrestle over the boundaries of congressional districts. The Princeton Gerrymandering Project gave maps proposed by lawmakers a failing grade. The map put forth by Governor Hogan’s commission earned an "A." We ask analyst Helen Brewer about the grades .And Josh Kurtz of Maryland Matters walks us through how the proposals differ. Are legal challe...

Of all the fresh books, which titles make the best gifts? Carla Du Pree  of  CityLit Project  narrows it down. She shares top picks, from "me too" activist Tarana Burke’s memoir to a novel about a daughter returning to her oil boomtown home, decades later. Du Pree was featured in the most recent issue of Bmore Art magazine . And from  Baltimore City Librarian  Paula...

Food waste rotting in a landfill has no future. As compost, old scraps morph into a nutrient-dense spread for your garden. We hear from Kristyn Oldendorf of the Baltimore City Department of Public Works about a pilot program to collect food waste at drop-off stations. And Marvin Hayes , of the Baltimore Compost Collective, gives us a how-to on backyard composting, including making sure your mixtur...

Community artist  Ashley Minner  tells of growing up in Dundalk, surrounded by family. Her bond with her grandmother was special. Minner is a member of the Lumbee Tribe of North Carolina. She recently launched the  Guide to Indigenous Baltimore , a website and  mobile app , in collaboration with Dr. Elizabeth Rule of the Chickasaw Nation. The guide offers an illustrated history...

In Elissa Brent Weissman’ s novel Renegade Reporters,  Ash and her best friend Maya get sacked from the daily newscast at their middle school in Federal Hill, so they start their own news team, and soon discover that the software company with the contract for all the public schools in Baltimore is collecting a lot more data about pupils than anyone knew. Join Weissman virtually this Thu...

Today we’re sharing our platform, in our series called ‘Pass the Mic.” We invite a host to choose the guests and direct the conversation. This month, host Kerry Hawk Lessard , head of Native American LifeLines, talks with Judy Tallwing McCarthey about art as healing and the stereotypes some non-natives hold of Native Americans: “Stop mythologizing us. I’m not a myth,...

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: “What I bel...

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 . They’ve...

Here’s a Stoop Story from Gregory Hartzler about searching for the way to deal with a special kind of hunger. There’s a live Stoop show coming up! The theme is ‘Bah, Humbug!: Stories about making mistakes, making amends, and making merry.’ It happens Wednesday, December 8, at  7 p.m. on the set of “A Christmas Carol” at Chesapeake Shakespeare Company in dow...

Turkey, stuffing and mashed potatoes are fine but … save room for dessert!  Because we are talkin’ about pie today, with Allie Smith , owner of Bramble Baking Company, who describes the fine art of playing on the nostalgia of holiday pie flavors, with a twist. And Kara Mae Harris, creator of the blog ‘Old Line Plate,’ reveals a surprising history of a Thanksgiving cro...

Americans are buying so many physical things--like stuff for their homes or holiday gifts--it’s swamping how goods are made and moved. When will supply-chain snags ease up? University of Maryland professor Martin Dresner says as the pandemic recedes, some spending on goods will shift to travel and entertainment, and shortages should abate. The Maryland expert President Biden tapped to fix pr...

Most of the country is short of nurses; Maryland is no exception. It needs thousands.  Charlotte Wood , president of the Maryland Nurses Association, describes the complicated causes of the shortfall and creative ways -- like forgiving student loans--to attract more to the field.  Then Kathleen Wisser , dean of Nursing at Notre Dame of Maryland University, says its 15-month accelerated p...

110,000 Marylanders have been diagnosed with Alzheimer’s disease. More than twice that many care for them. And both numbers are growing. In June, the FDA approved the first new drug in 17 years to treat Alzheimer’s. University of Maryland neurologist Dr. Paul Fishman says sophisticated new scans can detect in the brains of more people the abnormal proteins that mark Alzheimer's. Fishma...

When millions of African Americans moved from the rural south to northern cities, exclusionary zoning and restrictive covenants worked to constrain their space. Over time, these practices evolved into lending discrimination and then into urban renewal projects that displaced Black communities. Georgetown law professor Sheryll Cashin argues that geography is central to the American residential cast...

Growing up in west Baltimore, R. Eric Thomas often felt like an outsider. He was a Black student at a mostly white private school; he was gay in a Baptist family.  Thomas’ memoir, Here For It, or How to Save Your Soul in America , follows humorous and heartfelt detours in his journey of self-acceptance. " And when I threw off the shackles of trying to be enough of who I implicitly am, i...

Here’s a Stoop Story from Jabari Lyles about existing in the world the way you want to … and need to. You can hear his story and others at Stoopstorytelling.com ! 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/...

This Veterans Day, a look at two efforts dedicated to the health and well-bring of those who served. We speak with Shanita Burch, who oversees the VA Maryland Health Care System’s Community Resource and Referral Center, located at the Baltimore VA Annex . Tyrone Johnson , a U.S. Army veteran, went from homeless to living in his own apartment with the help of the center. Learn more about hous...

A stroke can be devastating--or deadly. Stroke hits nearly 8-hundred-thousand people each year in the U.S.  More than half are women--and a growing number are young women. Johns Hopkins neurologist Dr. Michelle Johansen studies a particular kind of stroke that affects younger women, in which the heart--for unknown reasons--throws off a blood clot to the brain. She previews the risks she&rsquo...

The U.N. Climate Change Conference has brought together world leaders and environmental groups who hope to design solutions that will combat rising temperatures around the globe.  Baltimore-based Jakir Manela , CEO of the Jewish environmental justice organizations Hazon and Pearlstone Center, attended the conference in Glasgow.  It gave him hope, and also gave him pause: ”It's just...

As the pandemic drags on, teachers are feeling exhausted and unheard. We speak with Frederick County middle-school teacher, Alia Dahl and Baltimore City high-school teacher, Franca Muller Paz , about the pressures educators are facing and the support they need. Others have decided it’s time to go. Writer Leslie Gray Streeter interviewed teachers who resigned during the pandemic. What did she...