Midday

Nearly 45 million Americans have amassed $1.6 trillion dollars in student loan debt. The Biden Administration is expected to announce its plan for student debt relief soon, perhaps as early as this weekend.

One of the ideas the President is considering is an executive order that would forgive $10,000 of each borrower's debt, which would wipe out loans for 4.6 million borrowers.

More than 1 in 5 borrowers have defaulted or stopped making payments on their loans. A payment moratorium has been in effect since the beginning of the COVID pandemic in 2020. It expires in August.

We begin our conversation with Cory Turner, an education correspondent and Senior Editor at NPR who has covered the student-loan debt issue extensively over the past year. Corey joins Tom on our digital line from Silver Spring…

Then, Tom gets the perspectives of two African American doctors who hold appointments at Yale University, and some student debt, as well.

Dr. Jessica Isom is a Clinical Instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine…

Dr. Carmen Black is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry, also at the Yale School of Medicine.

The two physicians co-wrote an essay in Newsweek Magazine recently that argues for framing student debt as a racial justice issue. One of the debt relief options President Biden is reportedly considering is to cap the income at which borrowers would have their debt reduced or eliminated.

Dr. Jessica Isom and Dr. Carmen Black are recommending a different approach. They both join us on Zoom.

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

The trauma that the country feels in the aftermath of these all-too-common mass shootings is palpable, raw and not quickly relieved. And imagine what the medical staffs of the hospitals experienced as victims of these attacks are rushed into their facilities.

And another kind of trauma continues to afflict them: COVID infection numbers are climbing again. For people who have been vaccinated, there is a tendency to think of the pandemic in the past tense. But for front-line health care workers, it is not at all a thing of the past.

Even before hospitals faced the challenges of COVID 19, there were challenges that many health care professionals were unable or unwilling to overcome. In January of this year, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that healthcare was among the top three professions in monthly "quits rate." That month alone, 33,000 health care workers quit their jobs, leaving hospitals, and the remaining workers, scrambling.

On today’s installment of Midday on Ethics, we’re going to talk about moral resilience and why it is such an important component for the people our healthcare is entrusted to. And we'll tell you about The Nurse Antigone Project, a collaborative arts project spotlighting the unique challenges front-line nurses have endured during the COVID pandemic.

Tom's guests today are two scholars from the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn is the director of the Berman Institute, and our regular guest here on Midday for our Midday on Ethics programs.

Dr. Jeffrey Kahn join us on Zoom from Baltimore.

Dr. Cynda Rushton is the Anne and George L. Bunting Professor of Clinical Ethics at the Institute, and a Professor of Nursing and Pediatrics at the Johns Hopkins University School of Nursing. She is the creator of the Rushton Moral Resilience Scale, and the editor and author of Moral Resilience: Transforming Moral Suffering in Healthcare.

Dr. Cynda Rushton joins us on Zoom from Boston.

The next performance of The Nurse Antigone takes place tonight (Wednesday, May 25), originating in New York City, from 5-7pm. To register for the free Zoom event, click here.

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

We begin today with Elizabeth Williamson, a feature writer for the New York Times and the author of Sandy Hook: An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth.

Elizabeth joined Tom in March to talk about her very important book, and you can hear their Midday conversation here.

As we know, another American tragedy occurred Tuesday at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, when a murderous rampage by an 18-year-old man with multiple weapons left at least 19 children and two teachers dead.

Elizabeth Williamson joins us on Zoom…

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

The Fraternal Order of Police held a vote of no-confidence last night regarding Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt, and called for her dismissal.

The County school system is grappling with persistent transportation problems and a nationwide driver shortage.

And concerns over Baltimore County teacher pay and school safety sparked a protest rally last week outside a school board meeting.

Tom's next guest is WYPR’s John Lee, who covers all things Baltimore County for the station's award-winning news team. John joins us on our digital line with details on these and other developments.

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

Now, we turn to Mark Reutter, a senior editor and investigative reporter with the Baltimore Brew. One of the stories he has been covering, for years, is the development at Port Covington, announced with great fanfare in 2016.

But the scope and parameters of the project have changed since then, and Mark joins us on Zoom with an update on the most recent turns in the huge development project.

Check out Mark Reutter's coverage of Port Covington on the Baltimore Brew Website.

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

Memorial Day weekend is right around the corner, and in anticipation of all those summer crab feasts folks are looking forward to, we thought we’d take a look at the status of crabs in the Chesapeake Bay.

Since 1990, the MD Department of Natural Resources has conducted a Baywide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey, to determine the size of the blue crab population in the Bay. And this year, the news is not great. The survey found fewer crabs than at any time in more than 30 years. Why is that, and what can be done to increase the crab population in the Bay?

Tom's guest is Michael Luisi, DNR's Acting Director of Fishing and Boating Services. He joins us on Zoom from Annapolis.

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

We are, as a general rule, living longer. The average life expectancy of Americans in 1960 was just over 69 years. In 2022, it’s 79 years. A team of physicians and researchers at Johns Hopkins University have formed a group to study ways that we can stay healthy as we get older, exploring medical and technological fixes for what might ail us.

Dr. Jeremy Walston is the director of the Johns Hopkins Human Aging Project and Raymond and Anna Lubin Professor of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at Johns Hopkins.

Dr. Walston joins us on Zoom from Baltimore.

Dr. Peter Abadir is a scholar at the Human Aging Project. He is an associate professor of Geriatric Medicine and Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, and he holds a joint appointment in the School of Engineering.

Dr. Abadir joins us on Zoom as well.

Folks over 65 who would like to volunteer for the Human Aging Project can contact the team by email at [email protected], or by calling the Healthy Aging Studies Unit at 410-550-2113.

For more information on pathways to staying healthy in your later years, follow the link to Hopkins' Aging Well Website.

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

We open with Kenny Rogers singing Through the Years, one of the many hit songs written by Tom's next guest, Steve Dorff.

The winner of more than 40 BMI Awards, Dorff is an inductee to the Songwriters Hall of Fame, and he has written more than 20 top 10 hits for iconic artists like Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Anne Murray, Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Dusty Springfield. He’s also composed countless scores for movies and television shows like Growing Pains, Murphy Brown, Murder She Wrote and the Clint Eastwood film, Every Which Way But Loose.

He is giving concerts tonight and tomorrow night at 8pm in Annapolis to benefit the Classic Theater of Maryland. Follow the link for ticket information.

Steve Dorff joins us on Zoom from Annapolis…

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

Time now for another edition of Midday at the Movies, our monthly look at films and filmmaking.

Jed Dietz, the founder and former director of the Maryland Film Festival and Parkway Theatre, joins Tom to talk about the Cannes Film Festival, running May 17-28 in France, where one of the showcased new films is Top Gun: Maverick, the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 blockbuster action film. Tom Cruise returns in his starring role as the cocky test pilot and flight instructor. The film opens locally on May 27.

Jed and Tom also review some of the best new theatrical and streaming releases, including the HBO series Julia, based on Julia Child's extraordinary life and her groundbreaking public TV show The French Chef, which essentially invented food television.

And we note with sadness the passing of Vangelis, the acclaimed Greek musician and movie-score composer (Chariots of Fire, Bladerunner), who died Tuesday while being treated for COVID-19. He was 79.

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

The White House has taken a number of steps to address the current shortage of infant formula.

President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to make sure ample supplies of formula can be created in the US and he has directed the USDA and the Defense Department to coordinate picking up and delivering formula from abroad. The first shipments are scheduled to arrive in the next few days. The government has loosened red tape surrounding WIC benefits so vulnerable families can buy different brands and different sizes. The President has asked the FTC and the Attorney General to crack down on price gouging, and the FDA has committed to quickly inspect and re-open the Abbott plant in Sturgis, Michigan that was closed after a bacterial infection was found there.

But even with these measures, it may take a while for formula to find its way to store shelves. What options do parents who are dealing with this crisis have in the meantime? Many parents have many questions, and Tom's first guest today is here to help.

Dr. Ashanti Woods is a pediatrician at Mercy Care Physicians here in Baltimore.

Dr. Woods joins us on Zoom.

If you have a question, we’ll do our best to get it answered… call 410.662.8780. Email: [email protected] Or Tweet us: @MiddayWYPR.

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