sequestration

Across-the-board federal spending cuts called “sequestration” were put in place March 1st.  They've already caused layoffs in Maryland. We talk with a federal public defender dealing with furloughs, and a government contractor that has laid workers off due to spending cuts at Fort Meade.

Then, Erika Robuck blends history into fiction in novels about famous authors. Her latest imagines an intense friendship between Zelda Fitzgerald and a psychiatric nurse in Baltimore.  We talk with Robuck ahead of her appearance Saturday at the Annapolis Book Festival.

April 10, 2013

The across-the-board spending cuts known as sequestration went into effect more than a month ago.  Some have been delayed—the Federal Aviation Administration announced it’s waiting until mid-June to close air traffic control towers around the country, including five in Maryland.  And the number of furlough days for civilian employees of the Department of Defense has been reduced by about a third.

The U.S.