Maryland Morning Screen Test

When he was 15, R. Dwayne Betts was taking honors English and AP U.S. history. When he was 16, he began serving a nine-year term in prison. R.

For about two years, from June 2010 until May of this year, our show held a series called the Maryland Morning Screen Test.

Libowitz web extra.mp3

RG Steel, the company that runs the steel mill at Sparrows Point, is filing for bankruptcy. The plant is idle, and layoffs may be on the way. We’ll talk to a reporter and a union local president about the prospects for a new owner, and talk to people from the community about the toll of years of instability at Sparrows Point.

Lotfy Nathan is chronicling the lives of Baltimore’s “Twelve O’Clock Boyz,” the renegade dirt bikers who inspire some Baltimoreans and terrify others. He takes the final Maryland Morning Screen Test.

Lotfy Nathan was majoring in painting at the Maryland Institute College of Art when he first started work on the hotly anticipated documentary Twelve O’Clock in Baltimore. He’s chosen a difficult subject, and taken to it with a simple premise.

We ask the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene about the landscape of substance abuse in Maryland, beyond hard drugs, alcohol, and prescription drugs.

Do we need black history month? That’s a question being posed this February by a number of members of the African-American community. We talk with two professors who debate its merits.

How would a reduction in the family farm estate tax affect the amount of farmland in Maryland?  We talk with two lawmakers -- one Republican, one Democrat -- who are proposing separate bills.

How can we effectively bring technology into education?

Behind the SoWeBo Landmark 5k, which encourages awareness of childhood obesity.

Biographer Ron Chernow won a Pulitzer Prize this year for “Washington: A Life,” and he will appear Tuesday at the Meyerhoff to kick off the Baltimore Speakers Series, presented by Stevenson University. Today, he dishes to Sheilah about the Father of Our Country.