Midday

Now, Tom is joined by Shamiah T. Kerney, the Chief Recovery Officer in the Mayor’s Office of Recovery Programs, an office set-up by Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott to oversee the distribution of the $641 million dollars of funds allocated for the city from the 2021 American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA).

President Biden signed the ARPA measure into law in March of 2021, with the aim of assisting communities across the nation in their ongoing recovery from the dislocations caused by the COVID pandemic. The city's Office of Recovery Programs was established in July of that year.

The first announcements about which agencies and organizations would be receiving the funds were made in the fall. The city has until the end of next year to finish designating who gets the ARPA money, and until 2026 to have spent it.Shemiah Kerney joinsTom in Studio A to discuss the Office of Recovery Programs' important work.

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

Tom's first guest today is Del. Elizabeth Embry. Before she was elected to the Maryland House of Delegates last November, she served as Assistant MD Attorney General. She has spent the past four years investigating allegations of child sexual abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore. A redacted version of her report was released last week. Click here to read it.

Its findings are stunning. 156 priests and other Archdiocese employees are identified as abusers, including 31 who had not been previously named publicly. The report chronicles 80 years of assaults on children and young people.

Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown said this last Wednesday:

"Today, certainly in Maryland, is a day of reckoning and a day of accounting…"

“The incontrovertible history uncovered by this investigation is one of pervasive, pernicious and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel. It’s also a history of repeated cover-up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy…”

"What was consistent throughout the stories was the absolute authority and power these abusive priests and the church leadership held over survivors, their families and their communities. The report seeks to document this long and sordid history,"

"While it may be too late for the survivors to see criminal justice served, we hope that exposing the archdiocese's transgressions to the fullest extent possible will bring some measure of accountability and perhaps encourage others to come forward."

                                                            — MD Attorney-General Anthony Brown

If you are a victim of abuse, and you would like to report past abuse by members of the clergy or anyone else, you can call the Attorney General's Office at 410-576-6312 or e-mail [email protected]. 

Del. Elizabeth Embry joins Tom in Studio A.

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

The 445th session of the Maryland General Assembly came to a somewhat chaotic close at midnight Monday night. With minutes left until the stroke of midnight, former minority leader Del. Nic Kipke, a Republican from Anne Arundel County, engaged in a heated conversation with Speaker of the House Adrienne Jones.

All 10 of the bills put forward by the state’s newly elected Governor Wes Moore, passed, although with some changes. The signing ceremony for one of Gov. Moore’s signature initiatives, the Fair Wage Act, is taking place at this hour. That’s the measure that will accelerate the timetable for the minimum wage to reach $15 an hour.Over the past 90 days, lawmakers considered more than 2,000 bills, passing more than 600 into law.

Tom's guests today are two seasoned veterans of the State House press corps:

We begin with Josh Kurtz, the founding editor of Maryland Matters, the independent online news journal that covers Maryland politics and government.

Josh Kurtz joins us on Zoom. 

Later in the hour, Tom talks with WYPR News Director Matt Bush.

Matt Bush is at the State House in Annapolis and joins us on our digital line.

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

(This conversation was originally broadcast on March 15, 2023)

Tom's guest on this archive edition of Midday is the award-winning author, Julie Otsuka. She has published three critically acclaimed novels. Her first, When the Emperor Was Divine was published in 2002, and over the past 20 years, it has been chosen by more than 60 colleges and universities as a “campus reads” book, in which everyone at those institutions reads and discusses it.

In 2022, that same book was banned by the Muskego-Norway school district in Wisconsin, which deemed it inappropriate for high-school sophomores.

When Tom spoke with Julie Otsuka in March, she was preparing to come to Baltimore to deliver the keynote address at the 2023 Loyola University MD Humanities Symposium. Her March 16 talk was entitled, An American Story: War, Memory and Erasure, in which she talked about her family’s experience in internment camps during the second world war, and the importance of keeping those memories and those important stories alive. The launching point for her talk was her first novel, When the Emperor Was Divine. 

Julie Otsuka’s second novel is about Japanese “picture brides,” who came to America in the early 20th century to wed men they had never met in person. It’s called The Buddha in the Attic, and it won the 2012 PEN/Faulkner Award for Fiction, and it was a finalist for the National Book Award.

Her latest novel, published last year, is called The Swimmers.  The story concerns a group of people who swim at a community pool regularly, and what happens when that pool develops a crack that no one can seem to explain. It’s also about dementia, and the complicated relationship between a mother and her daughter. And it’s about multitudes more.

The American Library Association awarded it the 2023 Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction.

Julie Otsuka is an artist who writes with power, elegance, and compassion, and The Swimmers is a book that many readers have found to be gripping and wondrous in every way.

Julie Otsuka joined Tom on Zoom from New York…

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

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

Today, she spotlights The Jungle, writers Joe Murphy and Joe Robertson's immersive theater piece about the refugee experience, now engaging audiences at Shakespeare Theatre Company's Harman Hall in Washington, DC.

The uniquely-staged play — conventional seating has been replaced with a dirt floor and wooden benches —is co-produced by the STC and Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company, and is co-directed by Tony Award winner Stephen Daldry (An Inspector Calls, The Crown) and Justin Martin.

The Jungle continues at Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC through April 16.

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

It's another episode of Midday at the Movies, our monthly conversation about films and filmmaking.Joining Tom in Studio A are our two movie-maven regulars:

Ann Hornaday, film critic for the Washington Post and author of the best-selling moviegoers' guide, Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies. Ann joins us on Zoom from Iowa...

And Jed Dietz, the founder and former director (retired) of the Maryland Film Festival and Parkway Theater. 

Today, Ann and Jed size up the current crop of new films and streaming releases, including THE LOST KING, A THOUSAND AND ONE, AIR, LITTLE RICHARD: I AM EVERYTHING, and PRETTY BABY: BROOKE SHIELDS.

And as always, we invite you to share your favorite flicks or streaming series!

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

Our focus on Midday today is the Attorney General’s Report on Child Sexual Abuse in the Archdiocese of Baltimore.A warning to our listeners: for the rest of the hour, we’re going to talk about child sexual abuse.Yesterday, Maryland Attorney General Anthony Brown released the long-awaited Catholic clergy sexual abuse report. It chronicles more than 80 years of abuse by more than 150 Catholic clergy members, seminarians, deacons and Archdiocese employees, and their victimization of more than 600 children and young people.

The Catholic Church is by no means the only religious faith institution which has had clergy break trust and act criminally with their congregants, nor are religious institutions the only professions in which abusers prey on children. But the Catholic Church is the sole focus of this particular report.

Here’s part of what AG Brown had to say yesterday when he announced the report’s release:

“Today, certainly in Maryland, is a day of reckoning and a day of accounting…“The incontrovertible history uncovered by this investigation is one of pervasive, pernicious and persistent abuse by priests and other Archdiocese personnel. It’s also a history of repeated cover-up of that abuse by the Catholic Church hierarchy…”

"What was consistent throughout the stories was the absolute authority and power these abusive priests and the church leadership held over survivors, their families and their communities. The report seeks to document this long and sordid history..."

"While it may be too late for the survivors to see criminal justice served, we hope that exposing the archdiocese's transgressions to the fullest extent possible will bring some measure of accountability and perhaps encourage others to come forward."

— Md Attorney General Anthony Brown, speaking Wednesday in Annapolis.

The report was written by Elizabeth Embry, who worked on it for four years. Ms. Embry is now a member of the House of Delegates. She will be joining Tom to talk about the report and its findings here on Midday next week, after the General Assembly Session has concluded.

The abuse described in the report goes back to the 1940s. Archbishop William Lori, in a letter to Catholics published yesterday offered an apology, acknowledged the, quote, “reprehensible time in the history of this Archdiocese,” and asserted that since the 1990s, the church has been more transparent and cooperative with law enforcement to remove abusers from its ranks.

We invited Archbishop Lori to join our conversation. He declined our invitation. Today is a holy day in the church calendar, Maundy Thursday, and the Archbishop’s spokesperson cited a schedule conflict.Today, we’ll hear from some of the survivors of the abuse that is described in the report, from reporters who have been covering this story, and from a Doctor who treats child sexual abusers.

Joining Tom in Studio A to discuss the AG's report are Scott Maucione, WYPR’s health reporter, and Emily Hofstaedter, a WYPR general assignment reporter. We also hear a recorded comment from Dylan Segelbaum, a reporter with WYPR's news partner, The Baltimore Banner.

Later in the program, Tom is joined by Dr. Elizabeth Letourneau. She's the director of the Moore Center for the Prevention of Child Sexual Abuse at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

If you are a victim of abuse, and you are ready to come forward you can report past abuse by members of the clergy or anyone else by calling the Attorney General's Office at 410-576-6312 or emailing [email protected].

In addition, there are a variety of local and national resources available for survivors of sexual violence:

1. Baltimore Child Abuse Center at Center for Hope: 410-601-HOPE; https://lbhstaging22.lifebridgehealth.org/CenterforHope/BaltimoreChildAbuseCenterServices.aspx
2. Center for Family and Traumatic Stress at Kennedy Krieger Institute: 443-923-5980; https://www.kennedykrieger.org/patient-care/centers-and-programs/traumatic-stress-center
3. Maryland Coalition Against Sexual Assault: https://mcasa.org/
4. Male Survivors: https://malesurvivor.org/
5. Rape, Abuse, and Incest National Network: https://www.rainn.org/
6. Survivor Network of Those Abused by Priests (SNAP): https://www.snapnetwork.org/

CORRECTION: During today's live broadcast, we heard a clip of a woman named Maria Smith. Ms. Smith was incorrectly identified; she is a Catholic parishioner, not a survivor of sexual abuse. We apologize for the error.

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

Donald Trump has broken yet another norm, becoming the first US president in American history to be indicted on criminal charges.

He surrendered to authorities Tuesday afternoon in lower Manhattan, and when he appeared before Judge Juan Manuel Marchan, he pleaded “not guilty” to 34 felony counts of falsifying business records, in connection with a hush-money scheme ahead of the 2016 presidential election.

Mr. Trump returned to his Florida home at Mar-a-Lago later on Tuesday. He gave a defiant speech, riddled with false claims, last night.

Politically, Trump’s indictment has been a boon for him. His poll numbers have spiked, and he says he has raised more than $7 million dollars since news of his indictment broke last month.

Today, two perspectives on these unprecedented legal and political developments.

We begin with Luke Broadwater, a congressional correspondent with the New York Times Washington Bureau.

Luke Broadwater joins us on Zoom…

Then, Tom's guest is the highly respected legal scholar and great friend of our show, Kim Wehle. She’s on the faculty of the University of Baltimore School of Law. She’s teaching this year at the American University Washington College of Law. She’s a former Assistant US Attorney, and the host of the YouTube show, Simple Politics with Kim Wehle. And she's the author of three books, the latest of which is How to Think Like a Lawyer--And Why: A Common-Sense Guide to Everyday Dilemmas.

Kim Wehle join us on Zoom.

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

Now, with the excitement of March Madness behind us, with opening day for the Orioles at Camden Yards just two days away, and with Lamar Jackson’s future with the Ravens very much up in the air, it’s a good time to talk sports:

Alejandro Danois covers sports for WYPR's news partner, The Baltimore Banner…

Jerry Coleman is the co-host of the Adam Jones Podcast, produced by the Baltimore Banner…

We encourage you to check out the Baltimore Banner's new sports newsletter. It's called The Point. Every Monday and Friday morning, they’ll deliver the latest news and analysis from Ravens reporter Jonas Shaffer, Orioles beat writer Andy Kostka and one of our guests today, enterprise writer Alejandro Danois. You'll also find the work of Jon Meoli, one of the most-trusted sources on baseball in Baltimore. You can find them in The Banner and in “The Point" newsletter, at thebaltimorebanner.com.

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

Today, we begin with a conversation about the violence interruption program Safe Streets. It’s a central fixture of the Group Violence Reduction Strategy that Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott has implemented to reduce violence in our city.

Safe Streets has operated in some areas for 15 years, providing credible counselors, known to their communities, who help diffuse tense situations and help people resolve conflicts peacefully.

Last week, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Gun Violence Solutions released a report assessing the effectiveness of Safe Streets. It concludes “that there is evidence that Safe Streets has yielded important reductions in homicides and nonfatal shootings.”

Dr. Daniel Webster, a distinguished research scholar at the Center for Gun Violence Solutions. is the lead author of the report, called Estimating the Effects of Safe Streets Baltimore on Gun Violence. 

Professor Daniel Webster join us on Zoom.

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