WYPR Features

Morning Economic Report Week of May 18th 2020

The story of the very first radio station to broadcast in Baltimore is lost in the dustbin of Baltimore history - never to realize the full recognition it deserved.  That's because the father of the young builder of the station threw the station out - his son's most promising and historic creation!  

On this edition of The Weekly Reader, two new novels about the perils of trying to fit in: Marion Winik reviews Rufi Thorpe's The Knockout Queen, and Frances Cha's If I had Your Face.

On this edition of The Weekly Reader, two new novels about the perils of trying to fit in: Marion Winik reviews Rufi Thorpe's The Knockout Queen, and Frances Cha's If I had Your Face.

On this edition of The Weekly Reader, two new novels about the perils of trying to fit in: Marion Winik reviews Rufi Thorpe's The Knockout Queen, and Frances Cha's If I had Your Face.

On this edition of The Weekly Reader, two new novels about the perils of trying to fit in: Marion Winik reviews Rufi Thorpe's The Knockout Queen, and Frances Cha's If I had Your Face.

I think a lot of us are not dealing with food supply and menu planning quite the same way we did a few short months ago. We're making fewer trips to the grocery store and spending lots of time surfing the web for new recipe ideas. We're also casting a speculative eye at pots and bowls and containers of leftovers. And Chef Jerry Pellegrino will tell you, when it comes to re-purposing food our refrigerators are actually little gold mines.

  Some of the best white wines in the world come from France, and some of them are even quite reasonably priced.  

On this edition of The Weekly Reader, we review two new books about two very different wars. Marion Winik on Paul Yoon's Run Me to Earth and Ariel Lawhon's Code Name Helene.

Once rare and unknown, the French variety Viognier has become a world wide favorite. Some Viogniers can be quite costly, but Hugh has found some bargains.

While we've been in hunker down mode, I've been spending a lot of time with our slow cooker. There is something very appropriate about sitting around the house while the kitchen throws off mouth-watering aromas hour after hour. And Chef Jerry Pellegrino will tell you, one of the most tempting things you can prepare is good old pulled pork. But of course you don't have to use a slow-cooker.

Morning Economic Report Week of May 18th 2020

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Around the country, states have eased social distancing restrictions, ended stay-at-home orders and opened up more parts of their economies.

Although Maryland remains under a state of emergency, Gov. Larry Hogan allowed retailers, hair salons, manufacturers and places of worship to reopen at 50% of their maximum occupancy last Friday, pointing to the state's decline in hospitalizations as a key statistic in his choice to reopen.

Just days later, Maryland announced 1,784 new cases of COVID-19, the highest number of new daily cases since the outbreak began.

For millions, the just concluded ESPN series “The Last Dance” has been an eye-opening experience, a pass into a locker room like you couldn’t imagine.  

The 10 chapters, spread over five weeks, were supposed to open a window into one of the successful runs in American sports history, the six NBA championships of the Chicago Bulls during the 1990s. 

And those episodes should have provided a peek into the soul of one of the most significant figures in international popular culture over the last 40 years, that of Michael Jordan.

Last week, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan, a Republican, vetoed 38 bills passed in March by the Democratic-majority General Assembly. The governor explained that the economic crash caused by the coronavirus had opened up a massive state budget deficit which made the new proposals– including for increased funding for public schools – suddenly unaffordable.

However, at least one of the bills Hogan vetoed had absolutely nothing to do with state funds or the coronavirus.

That was Senate Bill 300, which would have outlawed the use of a pesticide called chlorpyrifos that researchers have concluded can cause brain damage in children and kill aquatic life in the Chesapeake Bay and elsewhere.

The Architect was born a century ago at the confluence of three rivers, where nature carved a perfect spot for trout. “Not so good for humans, though,” because the land was hard and isolated. Four distinct trails led Native Americans to and from the fresh water, but only a handful of people ever put down roots.

His family left quickly, too, following his physician father to Spokane, where a hospital had been built for homeless patients and orphan children. The building was a Beaux Arts castle, with tall ceilings and big windows that invited light and air into lives that had known little of either. “In it I saw the gift that order can bring to chaos,” he said.

All of us who are staying at home on a full-time basis are finding that we have a lot of time on our hands. I'm constantly keeping my eyes open for little projects that will eat up some of my spare time. And Chef Jerry Pellegrino will tell you, a kitchen can be a place for creativity and enterprise.

On this edition of The Weekly Reader, we review two new, dystopian novels that imagine a world in the throws of a pandemic: Marion Winik on Lawrence Wright's The End of October and Sarah Pinsker's A Song for a New Day.

It’s been said that you learn a lot about people when money’s on the line. If that’s true, we’re about to learn a lot about the integrity of the men and women who run colleges and universities.

That’s because in the next few weeks, those presidents and chancellors will have to make the call on whether college sports return in the fall or if they’re delayed on account of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.

You’ll notice that cancellation was not among the choices. The games will go on and for the most obvious of reasons: there’s too much money to be made. 

It was on the cold morning of February 3, 1964 when the wrecker’s ball smashed into the south wall of Ford’s theater, between Eutaw and Howard streets, where it had stood since 1871. A pile of rubble was all that was left of the grand store house of theater memories. Later that morning, two elderly ladies, could be seen sprinkling on the debris what was later reported to be rosemary. One of the ladies was heard to say, “As Ophelia said in Hamlet, ‘Here’s rosemary, for remembrance.’” The ladies remarked that it was a cold morning. For Baltimore theater goers it was a very cold day.