Maryland Morning Podcast on WYPR

After months of public hearings, private meetings, and political maneuvering, a deal to provide Tax Increment Financing to create the infrastructure for the massive Port Covington development appears to be headed for approval by the Baltimore City Council. A final vote is scheduled for Monday night. Tom speaks with Bishop Douglas Miles, a co-chair emeritus of Baltimoreans United in Leadership Development (BUILD), one of the groups of community activists who negotiated what many are calling an

We’re just about seven weeks away from the election, as one of America’s most divisive and unpredictable presidential campaigns continues to challenge political norms. Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton blast each other as unfit for office, as charges of “deplorable” and “racist” and “hateful” fly from both camps. The tumultuous presidential campaign has led to uncertainty up and down the ballots of both major parties. Washington Post syndicated columnist E.J. Dionne joins Tom to try make sense of

We begin with a conversation about the controversial practice of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking . There are some who believe that if this type of gas drilling were allowed in Western Maryland, it could generate up to 3,000 jobs and at least $5 million in annual tax revenues. But many have concerns about the impact on the environment and public health. We’ll hear from Dr. David Vanko , the former head of the Maryland Fracking Commission, and co-host Nathan Sterner talks to Dr. Brian Schwartz,

T he NFL opened its season last night, amid a controversy surrounding San Francisco quarterback Colin Kaepernick , who has protested inequality in communities of color by refusing to stand during the playing of the national anthem. Pulitzer Prize winning journalist ER Shipp joins Tom for a conversation about protests and patriotism. Plus, our Movie Mavens, Jed Dietz and Ann Hornaday , on this summer’s epidemic of “sequel-it is” and the Obama effect: how the first family has transformed tinsel

For the finale of our Focus on the Counties series with a look at Kent County . The smallest of Maryland’s 23 jurisdictions, it’s home to Chestertown , a popular destination for retirees, and Washington College. K ent County is one of nine counties in the state that does not have a county executive, instead administrators are appointed by a board of elected commissioners. Tom is joined by Kent County Administrator Shelley Herman Heller and Chris Cerino, the mayor of Chestertown , to talk about

Here’s a cheery thought to kick off your holiday: The first two leading causes of death in the United States are heart disease and cancer. The third leading cause? Medical errors. Researchers at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine found that mistakes in prescribing drugs, miscues in surgery, and miscommunication between care givers leads to an astonishing number of preventable deaths every year. One of the authors of the study, Dr. Michael Daniel , explains how the medical community is

We revisit a conversation about African centered approaches to mental health with Dr. Cheryl Grills of Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles, and Enola Aird , the f ounder and president of Community Healing Network. This conversation originally aired on April 15, 2016. Then, comedian and political satirist Barry Crimmins weighs in on the presidential election and discusses how the abuse he experienced as a child informs his work today. Plus, we go up on the roof to hear about one pastor's

What’s your identity project? The thing that puts a skip in your step when you wake up every day? Maybe it’s the instrument you play, or the poetry you’ve written. For a lot of kids living in Baltimore’s most impoverished neighborhoods, their identity project can be their ticket out of economic hardship. A Hopkins researcher spent 10 years studying kids in Baltimore’s public housing. Why are some kids able to break the cycle of poverty? Stefanie DeLuca on Coming of Age in the Other America .

Today's podcast begins with our story, first broadcast this past May, on Destiny Watford. She's a winner of the 2016 Goldman Environmental Prize for her work with Free Your Voice , a grassroots organization that opposed construction of an incinerator in Curtis Bay. The Goldman Prize is awarded to one person on each of the six inhabited continents. Ms. Watford, at age 20, is this year’s winner for all of North America. She joins Tom to talk about lighting a fire for justice in South Baltimore.

Liz Lerman , a MacArthur award winning dancer and choreographer joins Tom to discuss her new appointment as a Professor in the Herberger Institute of Design and the Arts at Arizona State University. Then, Donald Hicken , who retired from the theater department at the Baltimore School of the Arts in June, joins Tom to share his reflections after three and a half decades of changing young lives. And, Sharayna Christmas is a dancer, writer and the executive director of Muse 360 , an organization