WYPR

In this hour of Midday on the Law, Baltimore attorneys Jim Astrachan and Julie Rubin, along with two experts in jury selection and trial strategy, talk about the voir dire process and their approach to juries during trial.

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The violence that marred the Inner Harbor July 4th celebrations this past weekend also raises new questions about the safety of Baltimore. Assessing the fallout from the fatal stabbing of a man and the shooting of a young boy in what is thought to be a safe downtown area. Our guests: Jean Marbella from the Baltimore Sun, Councilman Bill Cole, whose district includes the Inner Harbor and Councilman Carl Stokes of nearby District 12.

When a Florida Jury returned a not guilty verdict in the Casey Anthony trial, the country broke into an outraged, Twittering frenzy. Accused of murdering her two-year-old daughter, Casey Anthony has been in the national spotlight for several weeks, as the news and entertainment media fed an American obsession with crime. While murders occur all the time across the U.S., Casey Anthony’s trial was somehow more appealing to the American appetite for reality TV. How did a local tragedy and crime story become a national sensation?

***THE SIGNAL AIRS FRIDAYS AT 7 PM AND SATURDAYS AT 1 PM***

This week (July 8 & 9, 2011) on The Signal…

Late, great American folk icons Woody Guthrie and Cisco Houston are about to get a theatrical tribute in the upcoming original play, “Woody Guthrie Dreams,” and this week we talk with two local musicians, Caleb Stine and Michael Patrick Flanagan Smith, who’ll be stepping into the historical roles.

Just how much control does Google have over your use of the internet? Websites that gather information about you and then customize your web experience is cause for concern says Eli Pariser, our guest this hour. Board president of MoveOn.org, Pariser voices his concerns over the political and social implications of such personalization in his new book The Filter Bubble: What the Internet Is Hiding From You.

Dr. David Wilson, president of Morgan State University, joins Dan to talk about his first year heading up Maryland’s Public Urban University and his role on the Board of Advisors to President Obama on Historically Black Colleges and Universities.

Of the 50 schools across the state that showed the largest combined drops on math and reading scores in the Maryland School Assessment, 45 were in Baltimore. Most striking: Six city schools dropped 20 points or more in both reading and math since 2010. Coming on the heels of another cheating scandal, the test results raise two questions: were Baltimore's celebrated gains since 2007 under CEO Andres Alonso the result of test tampering or was this year's setback normal for a large, urban school system after years of rising scores? We'll hear directly from Dr.

Over half of foster children in Baltimore are teenagers but foster parents are reluctant to take them in. Finding homes for foster teens, with Molly McGrath Tierney, director of the Baltimore City Department of Social Services, Stephanie Whitehurst, program manager of the BCDSS’ Resource Parent Recruitment, Retention & Training Unit, Dijohn Thomas, foster teen and president of the BCDSS Youth Advisory Board, and Sam Macer, foster parent and incoming president of the Maryland Foster Parent Association.

By the end of this century, people may be able to control their appliances and cars with their minds. Scientists may be able to grow new kidneys and livers. Take a peek at life in the year 2100, with science guru Michio Kaku, author of Physics of the Future.
Originally aired 5/10/11