Policy

May 22, 2013

Audio for this segment will be available by the end of the day Wednesday.

May 15, 2013

Governor Martin O’Malley is scheduled to sign the Firearm Safety Act of 2013 into law tomorrow.

Web Extra: Daniel Webster on when we will know whether the law is having an affect on gun violence

May 13, 2013

It’s estimated that one out of every three bites of food you take comes courtesy of honeybees. They pollinate many of the plants that humans and animals eat. 

What would you do if Michael Bloomberg gave you $5 million to improve Baltimore or some aspect of life in Maryland? Midday listeners get a chance to share their ideas as we look at those that won $9 million in prizes in the inaugural Mayors Challenge sponsored by Bloomberg Philanthropies. Some 400 cities, including Baltimore, submitted ideas to win the prizes to fund their implementation. Baltimore’s did not win, but we’ll hear about those that did from the April edition of The Abell Report.

May 1, 2013

April 16, 2013

April 5, 2013

About 40 percent of African-American students in Maryland’s public four-year colleges attend one of the state’s four Historically Black Colleges and Universities, or HBCUs – Morgan State University, Coppin State, Bowie State and the University of Maryland-Eastern Shore.

Ray Winbush full interview

April 3, 2013

Maryland is negotiating the biggest changes in its health system in four decades, even bigger than the changes facing other states, because Maryland is the only state with authority to set hospital charges that are paid by all insurers, and by uninsured patients.

Web Extra: Carmela Coyle on the growth rate of hospital costs

Web Extra: What would the change mean for Maryland hospital patients?

Web Extra: What is at stake financially with the change?

Web Extra: What would the Maryland Hospital Association have liked to see proposed that wasn't?

Under President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, enacted during the Great Depression, when more than half of the nation’s senior citizens were in poverty. Ira Katznelson, professor of political science and history at Columbia, expands our definition of the New Deal by examining the domestic and global forces behind it. Katznelson is the author of Fear Itself: The New Deal and The Origins of Our Time.

The Congressional Budget Office thinks so. Currently, earned income in excess of $113,700 is entirely exempt from the 6.2 percent payroll tax that funds Social Security. Removing it, says the CBO, would stabilize the Social Security system. Others believe means testing makes more sense.