WYPR's Fraser Smith talks to UMBC professor John Willis about the ins and outs of balancing a budget. 

The voters of Maryland are getting what a majority asked for at the polls: a balanced budget. Without delay, Governor Larry Hogan has offered a plan that would erase an $800-million shortfall—right  away.One result of that is a $143 million haircut for schools across the state. Baltimore’s share of the trim is $35 million. 

This story begins on the night of February 22, 1960, on St. Paul Street near the campus of Johns Hopkins University—and we will never know the end of it. That evening, in the time of the civil rights protests, Duke Ellington’s band was playing at Shriver Hall of Hopkins. And after the concert some of the student activists persuaded the Duke to help them integrate the Blue Jay restaurant around the corner—which had consistently refused to serve African-Americans. But even the Duke himself was turned away. Two days later the story took a strange turn—unexplainable to this day.

Back at the start of the school year, before she could get her class at West Towson Elementary humming along in a regular routine, Bianca Crockett had to pull each of her 18 students from the classroom and individually give them the Kindergarten Readiness Assessment, the KRA.

Barely four hours into office, Governor Larry Hogan angered environmental groups by withdrawing phosphorus regulations they had been seeking for years.  Fraser Smith talks to WYPR's News Director, Joel McCord about environmental policy, the new governor and how The Chesapeake Bay will fare. 

  It’s hard to imagine New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady leading the team’s Bible study, if, in fact, such a thing exists. But, after the last week, it might not be a bad idea for Brady to get himself immersed in the Good Book, or at least with the seventh verse of the sixth chapter of Galatians.

WYPR's Fraser Smith talks to The Daily Record's Danny Jacobs about Marilyn Mosby's new reign as the City State's Attorney.  Who is she letting go, why, and does her husband, Councilman Nick Mosby have any thing to do with those decisions?