On Midday today, a look at the life and legacy of Senator Charles Mathias. He was a liberal Republican popular in Maryland for more than two decades and was known by his colleagues as the “conscience of the Senate.”

A collection of essays about Sen. Mathias has been released called Mathias of Maryland: Remembering a Lincoln Republican in the Senate. Frederic Hill, a co-editor and contributor to the collection, and Norman Ornstein, a former congressional staffer who wrote the foreword to this book, join Midday to discuss.

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Today on Midday, a conversation about the work of Philip Berrigan, whose writing has been assembled in a new collection, A Ministry of Risk, edited by Brad Wolf. 

Philip Berrigan was an iconic peace activist, a soldier, a priest, a scholar, and a protester who came to international prominence as part of the Catonsville 9, a group that burned draft cards in 1968, during the Vietnam war.

In 1973, Berrigan, with his wife, Elizabeth McAlister, founded Jonah House in Baltimore, a Catholic Worker House inspired by the gospel nonviolence work of Dorothy Day.

Program guests include Brad Wolf, cofounder of Peace Action Network of Lancaster, Pennsylvania. We also speak with Brendan Walsh and Willa Bickham, the founders of a Catholic Worker House in Southwest Baltimore called Viva House.

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Debbie Hines is a former prosecutor in Baltimore, and a former Assistant Attorney General for the State of Maryland. In her new book, she focuses on the unfair treatment of people of color by prosecutors at the state and local level.

The book is called Get Off My Neck: Black Lives, White Justice, and a Former Prosecutor’s Quest for Reform.

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Anne Lamott is a best-selling author whose large body of work resonates with millions of readers. She writes both fiction and non-fiction and she has just published her twentieth book, 'Somehow: Thoughts on Love.' 

She joined Midday in early April to discuss the book, her motivations for writing and her experiences with love.

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Dr. Christopher Leighton, the founding executive director of the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies (ICJS) talks about his memoir, which traces the formation of the ICJS and its efforts to foster religious understanding. It’s called A Sacred Argument: Dispatches from the Christian, Jewish, and Muslim Encounter.

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Tom speaks with Pulitzer Prize-winning author Marilynne Robinson about her latest book, Reading Genesis, where she illuminates how Genesis is a paradigm for the rest of the Bible and “a meditation on the problem of evil.”

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From tax preparation to SNAP benefits, health care to housing, a myriad of government services have been privatized in the name of cost savings and efficiency. But the cost to taxpayers and to recipients is high, and the impact on corporate influence in government is undeniable.

Anne Kim writes about the money made on America's poor, in her new book Poverty for Profit: How Corporations Get Rich off America’s Poor.  Kim is a lawyer, public policy expert and contributing editor at the Washington Monthly.

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Maryland Democrats were on the mainstage at this week's Democratic National Convention with speeches from Governor Wes Moore, Congressman Jamie Raskin and Prince George’s County Executive and Senate candidate Angela Alsobrooks.

Josh Kurtz, founding editor of Maryland Matters joins Midday to reflect on Maryland's impact in Chicago.

Then, Baltimore City recently settled for $152 million with Cardinal Health for their role in the opioid crisis. This large amount follows $45 million settlements with CVS and Allergan earlier this year. WYPR health reporter Scott Maucione joins Midday to explain the details of the settlement and how the funds will be used.

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If you are looking to make the most of the last weeks of warm temperatures, you might wanna out to the valleys and ridges of western Maryland.

Midday is joined by two Marylanders with extensive knowledge of the outdoors.

Nature photographer and author Mark Hendricks spent many seasons traversing the ancient Appalachian Mountains crossing Maryland’s western handle. He joins Midday to discuss the best places to visit in Maryland's natural landscape and his tips for new nature photographers.

Maryland's top park ranger join us, as well. Angela Crenshaw is Director of the Maryland Park Service. We ask her about her favorite state park, and her mission to increase access to the Maryland outdoors

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The demise of the Bethlehem Steel Plant at Sparrows Point was devastating for the economy of Eastern Baltimore County.

Ten years ago, investors bought the 32-hundred acre steel plant property and since then have transformed it into a global logistics center called Tradepoint Atlantic. Thousands of people work there, and there are plans to build a deep water container terminal, which Tradepoint estimates will create 8,000 more jobs by 2035.

Aaron Tomarchio, Executive Vice President of Corporate Affairs for Tradepoint Atlantic, joins us to talk about the economic recovery in Eastern Baltimore County along with Pete Triantafilos, the general manager of the Costas Inn in Dundalk. 

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