Midday

Our Newsmaker guest today is Cheryl Bost, a former Baltimore County Teacher of the Year (2003) who serves as the president of the Maryland State Education Association, a 75,000 member union (affiliated with the National Education Association) that represents teachers and other education employees across the state. Ms. Bost joins Tom to explain the MSEA's perspectives on safe school re-opening.

As Tom discussed on this program yesterday with Baltimore City Public Schools CEO Dr. Sonja Santelises, Baltimore City and Baltimore County are planning to send teachers and students back to the classroom over the next few weeks. Is it safe to do so, with the COVID-19 pandemic still raging across the state? Governor Hogan and school leaders say it is. Teachers unions say, “not so fast.”

Cheryl Bost joins us today on Zoom. Listener comments and questions are welcome during the live conversation.

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

Today's Newsmaker guest is Dr. Sonja Santelises, the CEO of Baltimore City Public Schools. She joins Tom for the hour to discuss one of the key questions facing school communities across the nation: as the COVID-19 pandemic continues, how and when can we safely reopen our schools? Dr. Santelises will also talk about getting teachers and students vaccinated, outfitting school buildings for COVID-safe operation, the pros and cons of remote learning, and how the Biden Administration's $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan would benefit state and local education systems.

Dr. Santelises will address your comments and questions. Call 410.662.8780. email [email protected]. Tweet us @MiddayWYPR or @tomhallWYPR.

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

It’s the Midday Healthwatch, another of our occasional conversations with Dr. Leana Wen, an emergency physician and former Baltimore City Health Commissioner. Dr. Wen teaches at the George Washington University School of Public Health. She’s also a columnist for the Washington Post and a medical analyst for CNN.

Today, we discuss progress in the accelerating but still problematic COVID vaccine rollouts. The Maryland Health Department announced this morning that they have distributed all of the doses of coronavirus vaccines that they have, that 78% of those doses have been administered, and that more than 544,000 people have received at least the first dose of a two-dose regimen. On Friday night, the Baltimore City Health Department said they had identified a problem with their scheduling software and that a few hundred people who had received appointments would need to have those appointments cancelled and re-scheduled.

Also, on Friday, Johnson and Johnson became the latest drug company to announce promising results in clinical trials for a COVID 19 vaccine. The Biden Administration has promised lots more doses of vaccines from Pfizer and Moderna and help for states and local jurisdictions to ramp up vaccine distribution.

Dr. Leana Wen joins Tom on Skype...and she 'll be addressing your questions and comments during the show. Call us: 410.662.8780, email: [email protected], or Tweet @MiddayWYPR or @TomHallWYPR.

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

When the Baltimore City Council passed the Elijah Cummings Healing City Act last February, it made attention to the trauma of violence not just an aspiration, but a matter of law in Baltimore City.

Next week, the city will hold the 2nd annual Healing City Summit, and members of the Baltimore City Council and Mayor Brandon Scott’s cabinet will be the first to receive trauma training from the City Health Department, in the hope that the work they do will be informed by their understanding of the effects of trauma on the people they serve.

City Councilman Zeke Cohen, the sponsor of the legislation, and Tisha Edwards, the director of the Mayor’s Office of Children and Family Success join Tom to explain the new law and how it will be implemented.

Councilman Zeke Cohen and Tisha Edwards come to us on Zoom.

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

Now, we turn our attention to a topic that for generations has been a source of lurid fascination: gangsters. Ever since the Prohibition Era of the early 20th century, when organized crime came into its own in the United States, the mafia has been of great interest to Americans, attested to by the preponderance of movies and books and music about gangsters, many of whom achieve legendary status, and who continue to be, on some level, glamorized and imbued with almost heroic status.

Next month, a new biography of Bugsy Siegel will be published by Yale University Press as part of the award-winning series, Jewish Lives, where Siegel will join the ranks of Alfred Einstein, Karl Marx, Irving Berlin and Moses...

Tom's guest is Michael Cannell, a former New York Times editor and the author of several books, his latest a biography of a mobster who ended his long career as a vicious murderer by agreeing to testify against Bugsy Siegel. Having helped prosecutors convict several other of his fellow criminals, Abe Reles never got the chance to testify in open court about Siegel. His death, and the story of his path from gangster to state’s witness is chronicled in A Brotherhood Betrayed: The Man Behind the Rise and Fall of Murder, Inc.

Author Michael Cannell joins us on Zoom.

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

Today, Tom's Newsmaker guest is Baltimore County Executive John "Johnny O" Olszewski, Jr. He is beginning his 3rd year in office, and like leaders of local governments across the country, he has responsibility for the level of government that is the first stop for people who need services large and small, from trash removal to receiving life-saving vaccinations against COVID 19. In the swirl of information emanating from the White House in Washington to the Statehouse in Annapolis, it’s the former Courthouse in Towson that is the place people in Maryland’s third largest jurisdiction look for action that affects them directly and immediately.

County Executive Olszewski is with us for the hour today, and he'll address your comments and questions. We'll take your calls a little later in the program, at 410.662.8780, but we welcome at any time your emails at [email protected] and your Tweets @MiddayWYPR.

Johnny Olszewski joins us on Zoom…

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

Today on Midday, an update on the 2021 General Assembly Session in Annapolis, now in its second week. Given the pandemic and the constitutional requirement that lawmakers be physically present in the State House for their deliberations, it’s been an unusual legislative session so far. In some ways, it is progressing at an unusually rapid pace.

A focus on racial equity is front and center this year, in ways it has not been in the past. Last August, Senate President Bill Ferguson of Baltimore formed an Advisory Workgroup on Equity and Inclusion, chaired by Senate President Pro Tem Melony Griffith of Prince George’s County to review bills with an equity lens around issues like health care disparities, economic opportunities and environmental justice. And last week, Speaker of the House Adrienne Jones officially rolled out her “Black Agenda” for the Session, which includes nine pieces of legislation and 30 policy recommendations directed at rectifying wealth disparities, improving minority performance in competition for state contracts, and addressing health outcomes for Black and Brown people.

Today on Midday, we'll find out which issues have dominated during the busy first two weeks of this year's legislative session, and we'll talk with civil rights leaders about their policy priorities. Coming up in the show's second and third segments, we'll hear from Dayvon Love, director of public policy at the social justice advocacy group, Leaders of a Beautiful Struggle, and from the Rev. Kobi Little, the president of the Baltimore Chapter of the NAACP, and Joshua Harris, vice-president of NAACP-Baltimore and the former Green Party candidate for Baltimore Mayor. All three guests join Tom on Zoom.

But Tom begins the discussion today with Rachel Baye, who covers the Maryland State House in Annapolis for the WYPR News Team. She joins us via TieLine's Report IT.

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

Two weeks ago, Governor Larry Hogan announced that the state would move into Phase 1B of the COVID-19 vaccination plan last week, and as of yesterday, Phase 1C, which includes people age 65 or older. But shortages of the vaccines have made getting an appointment for a shot complicated for many.

For a status report on when, where, and how the vaccines are being made available to Marylanders and Baltimore City residents, Dr. Letitia Dzirasa, the Commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department, joins us on Zoom.

At 2:00 today, Gov. Larry Hogan will have an update on the state’s vaccine plan. WYPR will carry the Governor’s press conference live.

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

We often talk about how we think of the WYPR community of listeners as a family, and if we are indeed a family, we need to have family meetings from time to time. That’s why every six months or so here on Midday, we invite WYPR's President and General Manager, LaFontaine Oliver, to join us to talk about how our station is doing, and the state of public media in general. LaFontaine has experience in both commercial and public radio and a perspective that is both local and national. He took the reins of WYPR in 2019. He’s been a member of the board of directors of NPR since 2016. Last year, he was elected the chair of the NPR Board.

LaFontaine Oliver joins us on Zoom. And we welcome your questions and comments about Your Public Radio, and NPR programming in general. Call us at 410.662.8780. Email: [email protected]. Tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or @tomhallwypr.

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

Today, it’s another edition of Midday on Higher Education, our occasional series of conversations with the leaders of Maryland’s colleges and universities. Tom's guest is Dr. Theresa B. Felder, who began her tenure as president of Harford Community College in Bel Air, Maryland, just three weeks ago.

Like many other community colleges across the country, Harford has struggled in recent years with declining enrollment. Overall, college enrollment is down about 2 and half percent, but community colleges have seen a 10% decline, nationwide, according to Inside Higher Ed. Last Friday, the Board of Trustees of Harford Community College approved a preliminary budget that is $737,000 less than the budget for the current year.

Dr. Theresa Felder came to Maryland from Ohio, where she was in the senior leadership of Clark State Community College. She is the first African American to serve as president of Harford Community College.

She joins us today on Zoom.

As always, we welcome listener questions and comments. Call 410.662.8780, email us: [email protected], or Tweet us: @MiddayWYPR.

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COVID-19 Vaccine Update: The Maryland Health Department has announced that people 65 years old and older are now eligible to receive a COVID 19 vaccine. This age cohort joins front line health care workers, teachers, people in group home settings, food and agricultural workers, postal employees, as well as restaurant, grocery and transit workers.

But getting an appointment is difficult. Here in Baltimore City, residents in this group may submit their contact information on the website of the Baltimore City Health Department. The department says it will notify people of available appointments when they become available.

The web address is: http://www.coronavirus.baltimorecity.gov

If you don’t have access to the internet, you may call 410-396-CARE (2273)

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