Midday

It's Thursday, and that means Midday's theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, is back with another of her reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, she tells us about a new work by the young playwright Noah Diaz, called Richard & Jane & Dick & Sally, currently enjoying a world premiere at Baltimore Center Stage. The play by Mr. Diaz -- a 3rd-year graduate student at the Yale School of Drama -- is a darkly c...

As the Democratic presidential hopefuls barrel toward the Super Tuesday primaries in less than two weeks, President Donald Trump's re-election campaign continues to amass a huge war chest. The Trump juggernaut plans to spend more than one billion dollars on his re-election. According to my guest today, a lot of that money will be spent on a media disinformation campaign unparalleled in US politica...

Today, another in our series of Conversations with the Candidates running in the 2020 elections for offices to lead Baltimore, the region and the nation. This week, we've turned our attention to the race for Baltimore City's second-most-powerful post, after the mayor -- the office of City Council President. It's a job being sought by eight contenders — seven Democrats and one Republican. One of th...

Tom's guest is Democratic Councilwoman Shannon Sneed. She is one of 8 candidates running for City Council President. Councilwoman Sneed was elected in 2016 to represent Baltimore’s 13th Councilmanic District, where she’s lived since 2008. She holds a Bachelor’s degree from the University of Maryland Eastern Shore and a Master’s Degree in Communications Management from Morgan State University. Befo...

Jerry Mitchell's tenacious reporting about killings committed during the Civil Rights era re-opened cases that led to convictions of men who, for decades, had literally gotten away with murder. His efforts led to justice for Medgar Evers, Michael Schwerner, James Chaney, Andrew Goodman Vernon Dahmer and four young girls killed in a 1963 Birmingham church bombing. Mitchell has chronicled each murde...

There is no institution that is more integrally connected to Baltimore than Hopkins. Hopkins is the largest employer in the state of Maryland, with more than 17,000 Baltimore City residents on its payroll. The Applied Physics Lab in Laurel, the School for Advanced International Studies in Washington, its programs in Europe and Asia and its work in public health around the world make the Hopkins’ i...

We begin today with a conversation about hunger in Maryland. Elliot Jaspin is a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist who has written a multipart series for the great website, Maryland Matters, about the scope of the problem, which persists not just in poor neighborhoods in Baltimore City, but in places like Anne Arundel County. Jaspin points out that Anne Arundel is one of the richest counties in our...

Today, acclaimed French-Dominican jazz vocalist Cyrille Aimee joins Tom live in Studio A, for a preview of her 5-show engagement this weekend at Baltimore's Keystone Korner jazz club. The popular cabaret and recording star, who makes her home today in New Orleans, is renowned for her graceful improvisations, a gypsy-jazz vocal styling she says she learned as a young girl singing at Roma encampment...

It's Thursday, and time to welcome back our theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, for another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland stage. Today, she tells us about the new production of We Are Proud to Present, the powerful 2012 work by Pulitzer Prize-winning playwright Jackie Sibblies Drury, now on stage at Baltimore's ArtsCentric organization. The full title of Drury's play is We Are Proud to Presen...

Today, analysis of the New Hampshire primary, as Democrats turn to Nevada and South Carolina. NPR’s Mara Liasson and Politico’s Stephanie Murray unpack the results and look ahead as the 2020 primary season heats up. Plus, President Trump weighs in on Rogers Stone sentencing. Darlene Superville of the Associated Press joins us from Washington with the latest. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us:...

In the race for Mayor of Baltimore, most of the major candidates have promised to spur economic development and expand the footprint of development to include historically neglected neighborhoods. Several high profile locations, like Harborplace downtown and Cross Keys in north Baltimore are in need of a facelift. A redeveloped State Center complex remains a dream for adjacent neighborhood associa...

Pulitzer Prize winning journalist Scott Shane talks about Amazon’s growing imprint on the life of many Americans, and its impact on our local economy. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

President Trump has survived impeachment. Will it help or hurt his re-election chances? I’m Tom Hall. On the next Midday: Carol Leonnig and Philip Rucker of the Washington Post discuss their best-selling new book, A Very Stable Genius: Donald J. Trump's Testing of America. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's the February edition of Midday at the Movies, our monthly feature about films and filmmaking! Joining Tom to consider which great films and actors have the best chance of winning an Oscar this Sunday, (and which contenders should win) are two of our favorite film fans: Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday, who is also the author of Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies; and Maryland Film...

It's Thursday, and time to welcome theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck back with another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland stage. Because Midday was preempted today by special NPR programming, she joins Tom in this Web-only edition with her take on Safe Space, by award-winning playwright R. Eric Thomas. The production, by Single Carrot Theatre, is now on stage at Baltimore's Clifton Mansion. Safe S...

When Kweisi Mfume resigned from Congress in 1996, a four-term Maryland Delegate named Elijah Cummings won a crowded special primary and special election to complete Mfume’s term. Cummings, who went on to become one of the most respected leaders in the Democratic Party, died in October. Last night, Mfume won a crowded special primary to succeed Cummings in MD’s 7th District. He will face-off in a s...

Last night, in Washington, on the eve of a likely acquittal vote in his Senate impeachment trial, President Donald Trump delivered his annual State of the Union address. E.J. Dionne joins us now to discuss the speech. He’s a columnist for The Washington Post, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, and the author of several best-selling books. His latest book, just out yesterday, is called C...

Tom is joined in the studio by Erricka Bridgeford, co-organizer of Baltimore Ceasefire 365. Since August 2017, the grass-roots group has organized hundreds of events to bring people together to reduce lethal violence in Baltimore. It is calling for another Ceasefire this coming weekend, from Friday, February 7 through Sunday, February 9, during which it encourages community actions aimed at “promo...

By midday Tuesday, the Iowa Democratic Party had still not released any results from Monday evening's statewide Democratic presidential caucuses, citing problems with the new mobile software it had deployed to precinct managers to speed their reporting of caucus data. I.D.P. officials said they hope to release at least some of the results by 5 pm Eastern time Tuesday. Despite the disastrous delay...

Classical guitar virtuoso Irina Kulikova, 37, grew up in an artistic Russian family: her mother is a cellist and a now-retired music teacher; her father is a photographer. Irina got her first guitar at age five. By the time she was eight, she’d had her first public performance. At 12, she was a child star playing all across Russia and at festivals in Europe. When she was 14, her name appeared in M...

Britain gets to Brexit. NPR’s London Correspondent Frank Langfitt has the latest from across the pond. And the Baltimore Sun’s Pamela Wood checks in with an update on the MD General Assembly. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Let’s talk nutrition! January is a month that, for many of us, is filled with the best of intentions. We resolve to eat better, maybe lose some weight. How are we doing? If the mid-winter doldrums have set in, and you’re wondering how to kick-start your resolve to eat better in 2020, fear not. Today, it's Smart Nutrition, with the Nutrition Diva, Monica Reinagel. She’s a licensed nutritionist, the...

It's Thursday, and time to welcome theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck with another of her weekly reviews of the Maryland stage. Today she joins Tom in Studio A with her take on Be Here Now, the 2018 work by award-winning playwright Deborah Zoe Laufer, now on stage at Baltimore's Everyman Theatre. Be Here Now follows the transformation of a woman named Bari - a severely depressed, middle-aged misanthro...

Today, an expert on infectious disease joins us to address the growing international concerns about the new coronavirus outbreak in China, and how the highly contagious disease could impact public health in the United States, and in particular, in Maryland. The new pathogen, which epidemiologists are calling 2019 novel coronavirus, or 2019-nCoV, was first identified this past December in Wuhan - t...

Now, another perspective on the Senate Impeachment trial of President Trump, which continues today at 1:00. As always, we will bring you NPR’s live coverage at that time. Both the House impeachment managers and the White House defense team have now wrapped up their arguments. Today, the trial moves into the "Question" phase. During the next 16 hours, senators will submit questions to Chief Justice...