Midday

A look at some of the most interesting local news stories with the reporters who covered them. Our top story: A jury orders Exxon Mobil to pay more than $1.5 billion in damages to Baltimore County homeowners for a gasoline leak in 2006.

How do you restore an urban river? Very slowly. But it happened in Norfolk and Boston. Environmental reporter and Midday contributor Rona Kobell of The Bay Journal returns for another edition of Midday on the Bay to talk with leaders of these two river restoration projects: Marjorie Mayfield Jackson, founder of the Elizabeth River Project in Norfolk, and Bob Zimmerman, longtime executive director of the Charles River Watershed Association in Boston.

Baltimore mayoral candidate Joseph T. "Jody" Landers III talks about his plan to reduce the city's highest-in-Maryland property tax rate and his vision for Baltimore.

Jane Wilson McWilliams visits Studio A to talk about her new book Annapolis, City on the Severn: A History- from its settlement in 1650 to its historic preservation campaign of the late twentieth century.

Hoarding is the compulsive, irrational drive to collect items in vast quantities and the inability to throw them out. Our guests are two Baltimore researchers who are at the forefront of an effort to seek the cause of, and treatment for the behavior: Jack Samuels, associate professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Johns Hopkins Medical Institutions and Gregory Chasson, assistant professor at Towson University’s Department of Psychology.

Dan takes your calls and comments about the latest news.

Scheduled for this coming Labor Day weekend, the Baltimore Grand Prix is expected to bring large revenues to downtown businesses and give the city a rare opportunity for national exposure. But many city residents have voiced their disapproval over the amount of time and money being invested in the race. Jay Davidson, president of Baltimore Racing Development and Marc Bunting of Team Baltimore Racing join us to discuss preparation for, what to expect from, and answer your questions about the Baltimore Grand Prix.

Days after the 9/11 attacks on the World Trade Center, a terrified nation was shocked again by a handful of anonymous letters laced with deadly anthrax. Five people died. Seventeen were sickened or injured; tens of millions were frightened. In a new book on the anthrax scare, Pulitzer Prize winner David Willman says the trauma boosted passage of the Patriot Act -- and gave the government vast new powers to spy on us. The Bush administration also used it to drum up support for war on Iraq.

Baltimore city’s property tax rate has become a central issue in this year’s mayoral race.  Our guest this hour is lifelong Baltimore resident, and visiting fellow at the Maryland Public Policy Institute, Louis Miserendino, who says that cutting the tax should be top priority, ahead of crime and education. We talk about his plan to cut the property tax significantly, using San Francisco and Boston as models for how it can be done.

On the docket for this edition of Midday on the law, with Jim Astrachan and Julie Rubin: The Supreme Court rules in the Wal-Mart job discrimination case and experts believe the ruling sounds the death knell for other class action suits like it. And while Maryland still debates same-sex Marriage, some county courts have already been considering same-sex divorce.