Midday

The Baltimore City Council approved the city’s $4.4 billion budget on Wednesday. The council exercised its new power to make amendments to Mayor Brandon Scott’s spending proposals.

City councilmembers put their stamp on the fiscal 2024 city budget by canceling some items proposed by Mayor Brandon Scott in order to fund projects of their own. The Council withheld money for the Baltimore Office of Promotion and the Arts, boosted the Fire Department and cut some city positions that had been vacant for some time.

Emily Sullivan covers City Hall for our news partner, the Baltimore Banner. She joins Tom in Studio A to talk about the process, and the result.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

The advocacy group Disability Rights Maryland has filed a lawsuit against the Maryland Department of Human Services over the housing and treatment of youth with behavioral health issues. Many are hospitalized for long periods of time, without the services they need.

Rachel Baye of the WYPR news team has been covering this controversy. She joins Tom in Studio A.

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"Eroding History" tells the story of two Black communities on Deal Island, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, that are finding themselves at the intersection of sea level rise, historic racism and the disappearance of Black communities. It is a climate justice story, made by two Black filmmakers and a Jewish grandchild of refugees. Sean Yoes was born, raised and currently resides in West Baltimore. He has been a professional journalist since 1989. He co-wrote and co-produced Eroding History and joins Tom today.

The film is presented by the The Environmental Justice Journalism Initiative.

(Photo courtesy Sean Yoes)

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It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of the mid-Atlantic regional stage.

Today, she tells us about "Frozen" at The Hippodrome Theatre. 

(Photo by Deen van Meer)

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What do you look forward to cooking and baking at this time of year?

Chef John Shields is the author of several cookbooks, the latest of which is The New Chesapeake Kitchen. He’s a chef and the proprietor of Gertrude's Chesapeake Kitchen at the Baltimore Museum of Art, and the host of two highly acclaimed PBS cooking shows: Chesapeake Bay Cooking and Coastal Cooking. John joins us in Studio A…

We also welcome Chef Melanie, the creator of Chauncey’s, which does catering and offers culinary classes in Baltimore and throughout the DMV area.

Chef Melanie studied at Le Cordon Bleu College in Los Angeles. She’s worked with some of the best known chefs in the country, she appeared on Chopped on the Food Network, and 10 years ago she even served as the event chef at Cochella, where she fed more than 90,000 music lovers.

Plus, Debonette Wyatt joins Tom. Wyatt is the owner of My Mama’s Vegan. You can find it at the Urban Reads Bookstore in the 3000 block of Greenmount Avenue.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Former President Donald Trump was arrested and arraigned in a federal court in Miami yesterday afternoon.

Between the federal indictment yesterday and the New York state indictment from April, he is charged with more than 70 counts of criminal acts. The 37 count indictment brought against him by special counsel Jack Smith is in addition to the 34 count indictment bought against him in April by Manhattan District Attorney Alvin Bragg.

He is the first President to be federally indicted for a crime, and the second Presidential candidate to face charges during a campaign.

Philip Bump is a national columnist for the Washington Post, and the author of "The Aftermath: The Last Days of the Baby Boom and the Future of Power in America."

Bump joins Tom on Zoom from New York to break down the latest news.

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The media seas are rocky for some of America’s largest legacy news organizations. NPR, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times and the Washington Post have all announced layoffs and restructuring in recent days and weeks.

And the outlook for many smaller organizations is cloudy as well. Last fall, the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University reported that between late 2019 and the spring of 2022, more than 360 newspapers around the country closed. In the last 20 years, between 1,300 and 1,400 communities became “news deserts,” with no local journalists reporting on local issues.

To a certain extent, Baltimore is defying that trend. Last year, The Baltimore Beat, a Black-led, Black-controlled nonprofit newspaper and online outlet was revived after a long absence with a million dollar infusion of funds from the family foundation of Adam Holofcener. It joins the Afro, founded in 1892, and the Baltimore Times, which began in 1986, as media that focuses on Baltimore’s Black community. These publications have deep roots in the community. The Times, for example, is published by Joy Bramble, the mother of developer David Bramble, who is renovating and reimagining Baltimore’s Harbor Place.

And one year ago tomorrow, the most significant addition to the local media landscape in generations was launched. The Baltimore Banner is an online news platform that has been our news partner here at WYPR since its inception. The Banner also works closely with WJZ television.

The Banner was founded by Stewart Bainum, a businessman and philanthropist who has committed $50 million dollars over the next several years to establish and sustain the nonprofit newsroom devoted to local coverage of local news.

Bainum recruited Kimi Yoshino, a seasoned and highly respected journalist from the LA Times to serve as the Banner’s editor in chief. Imtiaz Patel, another experienced newspaper executive, was tapped to be the CEO and Publisher.

As the Banner enters its second year, we thought we would reflect on the impact it has had on the Baltimore metropolitan area.

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When Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr. needed to replace Police Chief Melissa Hyatt last spring, he turned to a veteran of his county’s police department.

The new police chief is Robert McCullough, a 35-year veteran of the County police force.
He was confirmed by the County Council in April and is the first African American to lead the country’s 21st largest police department in Maryland’s third largest jurisdiction.

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It’s the Midday Newswrap. Jayne Miller, a former award-winning investigative reporter for WBAL-TV, joins Tom for a look behind the headlines, including the announcement yesterday that Baltimore Police Chief Michael Harrison has stepped down from his post. Also, reports from Donald Trump’s legal team reveal he has become the first former President to be indicted for a federal crime.

(Photos, from top to bottom by: Gage Skidmore, Matt Bush and the Baltimore Police Department.)

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

June is Pride Month. around the world, celebrations of the LGBTQ+ community are happening to celebrate sexual and gender minorities.

This year, the celebrations come in the context of more than 75 anti-LGBTQ+ laws passing in state houses across the country, more than double the number of anti-LGBTQ+ bills that passed last year. For the first time in its 40 year history, the Human Rights Campaign has declared a state of emergency for LGBTQ+ people in the United States.

Tramour Wilson is the Senior Director of Advocacy and Community Engagement at the Pride Center of Maryland, located in Baltimore.

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