On The Record

Here's a Stoop Story from Andy Parsley about having the courage to ask for help and the strength to heal.

The title calls for your attention: “You, Me and My Mental Illness.” It’s a new podcast by NAMI Maryland -- the National Alliance on Mental Illness. Its creator, former WYPR reporter and journalist Mary Rose Madden, describes it as “Portraits that show what it’s like to live with a mental illness and how it reshapes relationships." The first season features Remy, 17, and her mother Joy. 
 Joy and Mary Rose Madden join us to talk about the podcast.

An artificial intelligence model that can identify patients most at risk of dying of sudden cardiac arrest, at a rate much higher than human doctors can, has been developed by Dr. Natalia Trayanova,the Murray B. Sachs Professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at Johns Hopkins University, where she’s also a professor of medicine. She also directs the Alliance for Cardiovascular Diagnostic Treatment and Innovation.

The shredding of USAID, the U.S. Agency for International Development, wiped out a big part of the budget of Catholic Relief Services, based in Baltimore. CRS was created by U.S. Catholic bishops in 1943 to help those displaced by World War II. It serves more than 200 million people in 122 countries.
 What part of its work continues? What effects is it seeing from the aid cuts? We talk with Sean Callahan, president and CEO of Catholic Relief Services.

The Trump administration had not yet brought Kilmar Abrego Garcia back from prison in El Salvador June 6 when a federal grand jury in Tennessee indicted him on charges of taking part for years in a conspiracy to smuggle undocumented immigrants across the United States. The sealed indictment was waiting in Nashville when Abrego got back to the U.S.
 
 Abrego, who has lived almost half his 29 years in Maryland, has no previous criminal arrests or convictions. The government’s star witness against him, Jose Ramon Hernandez Reyes, has been convicted of three felonies, deported multiple times, and was about to be deported again before the Justice Department began putting this case together. Now he’s in a halfway house, with prospects of staying in the U.S. at least a year and getting a work permit.
 
 To find out more we talk with reporter Maria Sacchetti, who covers immigration, Homeland Security, ICE and immigration courts for The Washington Post. She wrote about the witness and is following the case.

What does Kevin Plank’s 2013 trip to Dubai have to do with your surging BGE bill?

Here's a Stoop Story from Stacy Chambers about love at first bite. Or was that a snarl ...?

There are more than 3,600 different species of snake worldwide, living on every continent (except Antarctica). Snakes thrive in all sorts of climates, from deserts, to forests, even under the sea! And they can get into all sorts of places and they play a crucial role in many different ecosystems. Brittany Roger, Environmental Educator and Snake Specialist at Irvine Nature Center tells us all about it, and about the second annual World Snake Day taking place this Sunday, July 13.

Americans buy a lot of clothes. The non-profit Public Interest Research Group estimates that the average consumer bought 53 items of clothing last year, which is four times as much as 25 years ago.
 
 A lot of that clothing ends up in the trash - it’s estimated that more than half of clothes get thrown out within a year after being purchased.
 
 And in the US, upwards of 17 million tons of textiles get trashed annually.
 
 A lot of those clothes could have a new life… and that’s what the Public Benefit Corporation Helpsy is working to facilitate. We talk with Helpsy chief of staff, Lisa Scianella, to learn more.

A new report by the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health Center for Gun Violence Solutions delves into what it calls “the gun suicide epidemic.” Of the 46,728 people who died in the the U.S. by gun violence in 2023, 58 percent died by suicide--a record. 
 
 We talk with Dr. Paul Nestadt, an of the author of the new report. He's a psychiatrist who treats anxiety disorders at Johns Hopkins and an epidemiologist who researches suicide.

The Trump Administration’s assaults on LGBTQ+ rights - as well as recent Supreme Court decisions on gender affirming care and LGBTQ+ materials in schools - are having a significant impact on LGBTQ+ youth. The Trevor Project says about half of LGBTQ+ youth who want mental health care are not able to get it… and a national suicide prevention hotline could stop offering specialized support for LGBTQ+ people starting July 17. Licensed clinical professional counselor Tori-Lyn Mills talks about the mental health services LGBTQ+ youth need… and the challenges they face today.

The National Resource Center for LGBTQ+ Aging says that within the next 5 years, the number of LGBTQ+ adults in America over the age of 65 is expected to reach the 7 million mark. Those elders face a number of challenges due, in part, to a lifetime of discrimination. They’re more likely to face poverty, homelessness, and have poor physical and mental health. We talk with Monte Ephraim, a retired social worker, who helped create a program for older adults at Chase Brexton.

What makes a firework work? On this Independence Day we speak with John Conkling, who was a chemist and former director of the American Pyrotechnic Association. This is an encore presentation, Conkling died in 2019. He describes what goes inside fireworks to make audiences say oooh and aaaah!

Dr. Peter V. Rabins has been studying the brain, and dementia in particular, for a half century, since before most Americans had heard of Alzheimer disease. He founded and directed the division of geriatric psychiatry at Johns Hopkins School of Medicine. Over the decades patients have asked him thousands of questions about how memory works, what dementia is, what might stave it off, how to help someone they love.
 
 The questions he’s asked most often he collected into a short book, called Is it Alzheimer’s? 101 Answers to Your Most Pressing Questions About Memory Loss and Dementia. Now Dr. Rabins has updated 101 Answers and joins us to talk about it.

Here's a Stoop Story from Rohaizad Suaidi about his love and dedication for America. You can catch the next live stoop event July 18 at 7pm at the Patterson Park Cedar House. The theme is ‘Smalltimore: Stories About a City So Small, Even Your Secrets Have Neighbors.’

Juvenile crime is down, but many people don’t feel safer. What’s Maryland doing wrong? Vincent Schiraldi, just replaced as head of the Department of Juvenile Services, decries charging kids as adults. He tells why he left, and what’s next: “I’m gonna kayak, I’m gonna hike a little, and then I'm gonna come back out and pick a fight.”

Do you ever wonder about who produced the food you enjoy each day? Lindsey Jacobs, who served as Ms. Agvocate USA 2024, wants the public to better understand the farmer to table connection. We learn more in a visit to her Church View Farm. 
 
 Today’s show is an encore presentation from July, 2024. It recently took top prize from the Chesapeake Associated Press Broadcaster’s Association for ‘outstanding use of sound’. The judges called it "Radio so alive, you can see it.”

Here's a Stoop Story from Geoffrey Danek about the bond that can grow between man and beast. Find more information at StoopStorytelling.com

Of every six people who live in Maryland, one was born outside the U.S. Sixteen per cent. Many have been here legally through something called TPS, Temporary Protected Status. TPS has allowed about a million people from countries torn by war, civil unrest and natural disasters to live in the U.S.legally -- and to work legally in the U.S.
 
 Shortly after he was inaugurated in January, President Trump signed an executive order directing officials to limit TPS, on the grounds that the temporary relief from deportation dragged on far after the initial crisis in many of the 17 countries eligible.
 
 This month the Trump administration revoked TPS for Cuba, Haiti, Nicaragua and Venezuela, which means more than half a million people from those countries no longer have the right to be or work in the U.S. We talk with Jaime Contreras, executive vice president of the union 32BJ SEIU. Among other duties, Contreras heads 32BJ’s Capital District --21-thousand members in Maryland, Virginia and Washington, DC; its members are cleaners, maintenance workers and security officers in commercial and government buildings, arenas, airports, and educational facilities. We ask Contreras how this will affect union members.

In less than three weeks, more than ten thousand Afghans who fled their country when the U.S. pulled its military forces out three years ago will lose the protections that allow them to live and work in the U.S. When the government announced it was revoking Temporary Protected Status, or TPS, the Baltimore-based nonprofit Global Refuge called it “a crushing blow to Afghan allies who were promised U.S. protection.”
 
 Global Refuge is the new name for ‘Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service,' the 85-year-old faith-based nonprofit dedicated exclusively to serving refugee children and families. We talk with president and CEO Krish O’Mara Vignarajah about what’s going on with refugees in the Trump administration.

The Trump administration has told hundreds of thousands of migrants who fled violence or disasters in Latin America that they can no longer stay in the U.S. We ask a labor leader and a worker what this means in Maryland, and an advocate for refugees what will happen to thousands who fled Afghanistan.

Dr. Joanne Martin tells a stoop story about the founding of the National Great Blacks in Wax Museum.
 
 The next live Stoop Storytelling event is tonight; it's called "Unleashed: No muzzles, no collars, just real stories about animal companions." Information about the event, more stories, and the Stoop podcast is at StoopStorytelling.com.

The Irene and Richard Frary Gallery - located in the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg Center in Washington, DC - is featuring an exhibit that draws heavily on the shining talents of its neighbor to the north. It’s called ‘Strong, Bright, Useful & True: Recent Acquisitions and Contemporary Art from Baltimore’ and it runs through September 6. We talk about it with the gallery’s inaugural director, Caitlin Berry, and with Jerrell Gibbs, one of the featured artists.

It’s been less than a month since Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. announced that his department no longer recommends that healthy kids and pregnant women be vaccinated against Covid 19. The turmoil has only accelerated, as Kennedy last week fired the entire CDC vaccine advisory committee, and began restocking it with doctors, some of whom are skeptical of vaccines. We talk about the implication of the changes with Dr. James Campbell, Interim Division Head of Pediatric Infectious Disease and Tropical Pediatrics at the University of Maryland, where he's been a faculty member in the School of Medicine since 2001. Parents can get information about vaccines from the Immunization Action Coalition and the American Academy of Pediatrics.

Baltimore-based non-profit Make Studio supports the work of artists with disabilities in myriad ways and the space creates an atmosphere that churns with creativity, collaboration and fun. Their latest exhibit is: ‘Express Impressionist: The Inversive Artistic Practice of Eddie Kil’ and there’s a gallery opening tomorrow night. We talk about the exhibit and about Make Studio's mission with Stefan Bauschmid, Make Studio's Associate Director and Studio & Art Preparations manager... and Jill Scheibler, Make Studio's Operations & Program Director.

Author Laura Lippman is out with her 29th or 30th novel, depending how you count. 'Murder Takes a Vacation' is a cozy mystery that follows a plus-sized Baltimore widow in her late 60s who is breaking out of her shell… at the same time she becomes the target of ruthless international criminals. A book launch event is on June 17th in the Penguin Room at Whitehall Mill.

Lola tells a stoop story about how a queer awakening.
 The next live Stoop Storytelling event is called "Unleashed: No muzzles, no collars, just real stories about animal companions." Information about the event, more stories, and the Stoop podcast is at StoopStorytelling.com.
 
 The 50th Year Anniversary of Baltimore Pride is this weekend, with the Pride Parade starting at noon on Saturday, and Pride in the Park at Druid Hill Park starting at noon on Sunday.

The paved 1½ mile trail that around the lake at Baltimore’s Druid Hill Park (aka the loop) has reopened! It’s been out of commission for years because of a federally mandated infrastructure project that broke ground in 2017... a project that put two massive water tanks underground to protect drinking water for Baltimore residents. Now that this project is nearly complete, another project is about to begin... a project that could bring fishing, boating, and more to Druid Hill Lake. We hear about the work that's been done - and the work that's to come - from Khalil Zaied, Director of the Baltimore City Department of Public Works, and Reginald Moore, Executive Director of Baltimore City Recreation and Parks.

Democratic opponents of the cuts Congress intends to make in SNAP -- the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program for people with low incomes, what used to be called ‘food stamps,' say it’s the biggest rollback in an anti-hunger program ever.
 
 In Maryland, more than one-tenth of the 684-thousand people who now get SNAP benefits may lose them, and another one-fifth may see their benefits reduced. In the Free State, the average monthly SNAP benefit is about $180 —$6 dollars a day — and 40 percent of the people getting benefits are children.
 
 Congressman and former Baltimore County Executive Johnny Olzsewski was on the House floor one evening last week leading speeches against the SNAP cuts, and he joins us to explain his opposition.

Every day in the Free State, 120-thousand people who might otherwise be hungry get a meal through the Maryland Food Bank. The nonprofit has been distributing food for 45 years— it was the first food bank on the East Coast — and a lot has changed. These days it’s serving more working families, children and older adults. It’s paying more attention to nutrition, distributing millions of pounds of fresh produce. And beyond distributing food, the Maryland Food Bank works to fix what puts people at risk for hunger. The root causes.
 
 Many of these changes have come under the leadership of Carmen Del Guercio, who has been President & CEO of the Maryland Food Bank for eight years. He’s stepping down at the end of this month, so we talked with him about what’s improved as well as the challenges ahead.

The arts can provide an outlet of expression that other ways of communication cannot. Making art can foster expanded thinking, creative problem solving, empathy, and more. And: art can help kids learn in ways that traditional education cannot.
 
 Enter Arts for Learning Maryland. The non profit provides schools with programming across all creative disciplines, and has based its work on these fundamental ideas for 75 years.
 
 We talk with Jessica Smith, Arts for Learning Maryland Young Audiences Chief Program Officer and with Kara Kane special education lead in the Baltimore City public school system and Summer Arts Learning Academy instructor.

From the middle of 2013 to the end of last year, more than 1,300 reports of alleged child sex trafficking were screened by Maryland Child Protective Services. Last week hundreds of people working to stop child trafficking gathered in Towson to raise awareness and focus on partnerships to protect vulnerable kids.
 We talk with conference organizer Nadine Finigan-Carr, executive director of the University of Maryland, Baltimore's Center for Violence Prevention.

Think “homeless in Baltimore.” Think “healthcare”. Right away, your brain may paint a picture of the nonprofit Health Care for the Homeless, reaching out to people on the street, without housing, connecting them to healthcare.
 
 Except that until this spring, Health Care for the Homeless wasn’t actually delivering medical care on the street. It has always reached out to unhoused people, it operates satellite clinics and mobile clinics where people can get care -- and it offers lots of other kindness of support to get people into homes of their own. But street medicine -- that’s new. It started in April.
 
 We talk with Dr. Jimmy Miller, Director of Outreach Services, to learn how it works.

Here's a Stoop Story from Luke Wesby about his journey to becoming a homeowner and what it has meant to him.
 
 The next live Stoop event happens Friday, June 20th, at 7pm at Checkerspot Brewing. In partnership with the Maryland SPCA, the theme is “Unleashed: No muzzles, no collars, just real stories about animal companions!”

Professionals worry there’s a mental-health crisis among young people; some say social media and excessive screen time makes it worse. We ask Dr. Ernestine Briggs-King, a licensed psychologist in charge of its Department of Family and Community Interventions at Kennedy Krieger Institute, how parents can safely curb its use and build “digital resilience.’’

Picture this. You’re in middle school, dealing with all the issues that beset middle-school kids: will anyone in your new class like you? What if the cool kids are mean to you or someone you like? Will you stand up for them? What are you good at-- and what if the cool kids don’t think that’s cool?
 
 On top of that, imagine that your mother is a “momfluencer” -- an influencer with thousands of followers on social media, who can’t get enough of her take on raising a family. She posts things about you and your siblings for the world to read--and some of those posts are not what you want people to know about you. That’s the premise of the new young-adult novel 'So Over Sharing,' by Elissa Brent Weissman — we get a preview.

Coard Bounds, an eastern shore farmer and co-owner of Couldbourn Farm, talks about what it takes to get his corn and soybean crops in the ground and some of the issues of modern farming today.

The Maryland State Park Service is rolling out a “day pass” system to keep its most popular parks from overcrowding.
 
 Angela Crenshaw, the Director of the Maryland Park Service, explains the policy, and offers tips for hiking and camping.

Here's a Stoop Story from Tom Ritter about the power of the clipboard … and believing in miracles. You can find more information about li ve events and the Stoop podcast at Stoopstorytelling.com.

Ospreys are one of the largest birds of prey in North America, with a wingspan of up to six feet. Many spend their summers catching fish, building nests, and having babies around the Chesapeake Bay. But they’ve developed an affinity for nesting on utility poles. That can be life-threatening for the birds, and can cause power outages that impact us. Baltimore Gas and Electric has developed a program called “Osprey Watch” - to protect the birds AND the power lines. We hear about it from Sarah Knebel, Principal Environmental Project Manager at BGE. If you see an osprey nest on a utility pole, get note of the pole number or closest address, and e-mail [email protected]… or call 1-800-685-0123.

An audit of a decade-and-a-half of rulings by Maryland medical examiners on the causes of deaths of people restrained while in custody found a pattern that could be racial or pro-police bias. We ask state Attorney General Anthony Brown: What now?

We go On the Record with Paula Davis, treasurer of Maryland Gold Star Mothers. The group honors and preserves the memory of their children who died during conflict -- by offering their continued service and support to the military community.

Here's a Stoop Story from Thomas Dotstry, executive officer of the USS Louisiana, about the power of being present in the moment, and the gift of human connection. You can hear more stories, find out about live events and the Stoop podcast at stoopstorytelling.com

The handsome young actor who shot President Lincoln was a proud supremacist from Maryland. Matthew Weiner, famous for Mad Men, has written a play that finds some humor in John Wilkes Booth’s monstrous ego.

Here's a Stoop Story from Dario DiBattista about the continuing journey of his military service. You can hear more stories, find out about live events and the stoop podcast at stoopstorytelling.com .

Among the many laws passed by the General Assembly this year is the “Chesapeake Bay Legacy Act.” Its goal: to improve environmental health while promoting economic growth. The measure will have widespread effects: supporting agriculture, bolstering aquaculture, improving bay health, and streamlining watershed restoration. And more! Maryland Secretary of Natural Resources Josh Kurtz provides an overview.

Medicaid covers a million and a half Marylanders -- half of Maryland’s children, 40 percent of its births, 80 percent of nursing-home charges in the state. Mental-health and substance-abuse care for 325,000 people. The state health department says thousands of those Marylanders may lose coverage if the federal government follows through on plans to tighten who’s eligible for Medicaid and how they prove it.
 
 We talk with Ryan Moran, Maryland’s deputy health secretary, in charge of Healthcare Financing and Medicaid, to find out more.

We talk with evolutionary biologist Dr. Nathan Lents, about his book “The Sexual Evolution: How 500 Million Years of Sex, Gender, and Mating Shape Modern Relationships”. The book explores sex, gender, mating, and more in dozens of species -- from insects, to birds, to fish… to the primates most closely related to us humans. Lents is a Professor of Biology at John Jay College of The City University of New York. A version of this conversation originally aired March 2025.

Each week nearly two hundred people drop their worries at the door and raise their voices in song. We meet members of Charm City Sings, and its driving force, Heidi Ackerman. Also featured are tenor Patrick McGroarty, soprano 1 Renee Bourke, bass Mark Newsom, soprano 1 Pearl Laaveg, tenor Eric Zhunio, soprano 2 Kathy Helzlsouer and of course the other 190 or so choir members.
 
 Hear Charm City Sings in concert, the theme is Earth, Wind and Fire! Sunday at 3pm and 6pm, Monday at 7pm at Ministry of Brewing.

Here is a Stoop Story from Kevin Griffin Moreno about hitting the road and reinvention by redemption. You can reinvent yourself, or just treat yourself to more free music this weekend: Lafayette Gilchrist and his 10 piece band the New Volcanoes -- with opening guest Eze Jackson. It all starts at 4pm at Beth Am Synagogue, celebrating 50 years as an anchor in the Reservoir Hill neighborhood. Free to everyone.