Midday

On Tuesday of this week, Baltimore City State's Attorney Marilyn Mosby announced that her office would cease prosecution of marijuana possession. The State’s Attorney called the new policy a ----monumental shift---- and announced that her office is seeking to vacate nearly 5,000 cannabis possession convictions going back to 2011. How will the new policy affect policing and public safety? And, how...

Today, it’s Midday on Sports: Gridiron Edition. Super Bowl 53 is being played on Sunday. We thought it a good time to talk about the state of the NFL, particularly the league’s evolving response to the prevalence of serious head injuries, and the fact that the NFL and leagues like the Pop Warner Youth League for kids are having a hard time finding insurance companies who are willing to write polic...

It's Thursday and time again forMidday's peripatetic theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, to join us with another of her weekly reviews of regional stage productions. Today, she tells us about the Stillpointe Theatre revival of Company, the 1970 musical comedy with music and lyrics by Stephen Sondheim and book by George Furth. The original Broadway production was nominated for a record-setting fourtee...

E.J. Dionne of The Washington Post joins Tom to talk politics, as the 2020 presidential race gets underway, and the saga of the border wall continues. The State of the Union speech was supposed to have taken place last night but was rescheduled for next Tuesday. This is the first time since 1986 that a State of the Union has been delayed, when Ronald Reagan was slated to address Congress on the sa...

Today, Tom speaks with Dr. Richard Antoine White, a tubist with the New Mexico Philharmonic in Albuquerque. White is originally from Sandtown-Winchester, a neighborhood in West Baltimore. As a young child, he experienced homelessness and poverty. Despite this, he graduated from Baltimore School for the Arts and Peabody Institute. Now, in addition to the Philharmonic, he is a tenured Associate Prof...

Today, a conversation about one of the most fascinating figures, not only in baseball history, but in American history. Babe Ruth was born and raised in Baltimore, graduated from the school of hard knocks, and evolved into the most famous man in America, whose every swing of the bat seemed to be a matter of national interest, and whose every exploit off the field was a source of endless fascinatio...

Since 2016, Wanda Draper has served as the Executive Director of the Reginald F. Lewis Museum of Maryland African American History and Culture. In her two years as executive director, Baltimore native Wanda Draper has, by most accounts, breathed new life into the Lewis Museum. In 2018, for the first time in a decade, the museum was able to meet the state’s mandate to generate $2 million dollars in...

Today, a conversation about the 2019 priority agenda of Maryland’s Legislative Black Caucus. The fifty-six member organization has highlighted the issues that they believe address the concerns of Black Marylanders and will ensure greater equality and protection for their communities. Tom's guests are two members of the Legislative Black Caucus: Delegate Pamela E. Queen and Delegate Sheree Sample-H...

Today on Midday, a conversation about whether President Trump himself has committed the high crimes and misdemeanors that the Constitution elucidates as a reason for Congress to impeach him. In an essay in the March issue of The Atlantic, Yoni Appelbaum makes the case that Congress should impeach Mr. Trump. Appelbaum is a historian and a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he oversees the Ideas s...

In a recent report in the respected British medical journal, The Lancet, scientists who study nutrition and food policy took-on a heady and ambitious task. They sought to make recommendations about what people should eat to improve their health AND to do it in a way that enables us to provide enough food for the world’s projected 10 billion people by 2050, and in a way that protects and sustains t...

It's Thursday, and that means theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins us with another of her weekly reviews of the region's thespian fare. Today, she tells us about the traveling production of the new hit musical, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, now enjoying a 5-day run at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre,Based on the popular 1964 children's novel of the same name by Roald Dahl, the new musical also...

Today on Midday, a conversation about immigration and what it means to be an American with a journalist and filmmaker who many call the most famous undocumented immigrant in the country. Jose Antonio Vargas won a Pulitzer Prize as part of a team at the Washington Post. He has also written for the San Francisco Chronicle, The New York Times Magazine and Time. He is the founder of Define American, a...

Today a conversation with Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh. In 2017, the general assembly gave Mr. Frosh the power to sue the Trump administration. They did so over Gov. Larry Hogan’s objection. Last year, Mr. Frosh filed or joined at least 14 different lawsuits against the President. He and the attorney general of the District of Columbia have filed a lawsuit accusing Mr. Trump of profiting...

On this special edition of Midday observing Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, 2019, three conversations around three areas that defined Dr. King’s work: economic justice; non-violent resistance and dreaming of a future where hard work and talent are rewarded, without regard to race. Later in the broadcast (and posted sequentially on our Webpage and podcast stream), we’ll hear an interview I conducted w...

On this Martin Luther King Day, Midday's special edition celebrates the man who brought the philosophy of non-violent protest to a broad public. It seemed to us a good time to update you on the story of Elizabeth McAlister, who has devoted her life to the cause of non-violence. Elizabeth McAlister is a former nun who was married to Philip Berrigan, a former priest. He was a member of the Catonsvil...

As we conclude this MLK Day Edition of Midday, Tom introduces us to a young student from Commodore John Rogers Middle School in Baltimore. Charlie Grace Martin is 11 years old. She is in the fifth grade, and she is the winner of the 2nd annual Dream Big Essay Contest. The contest is sponsored by the Modell Lyric. Baltimore City School Students from grades 5-12 are challenged to write a 300 word es...

On today's Newswrap, an update on the partial government shutdown and the Trump-Pelosi showdown. Giuliani backpedals on comments about collusion and details from the Buzzfeed News report that President Trump directed Michael Cohen to lie to Congress CBS News Correspondent Paula Reid, whose beats include the White House and the Justice Department joins us this afternoon from the White House. And Li...

Acclaimed classical violinist Jennifer Koh joins us live from the studios of NPR in New York City. Not only is she a virtuoso player, she is one of the great champions of contemporary composers, having commissioned more than 70 works from a brilliant and diverse group of composers from all over the world. Ms. Koh will be playing a concert on Sunday, January 27 at 5:30pm at Baltimore's Hebrew Congr...

Today, the history of humor in the African American community. Tom's guest is Dr. Janette Dates, a former Dean of the Howard University School of Communications . With her colleague, Dr. Mia Moody Ramirez, Dr. Dates has written a book that traces the evolution of Black humor from African story tellers to modern day icons of popular culture. The book is called From Blackface to Black Twitter: Refle...

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom for another of her weekly reviews of the region's thespian fare. Today, she's talking about Thank You, Dad, the world premiere of Baltimore playwright Aladrian C. Wetzel’s trilogy of short plays based on the life of the Reverend Jim Jones, the notorious founder of the ill-fated religious cult, The Peoples Temple. It's the 2019 season opener for Rapid...

The British Parliament has spoken, loudly, rejecting the Brexit deal that British Prime Minister Theresa May negotiated with leaders of the European Union. NPR London correspondent Frank Langfitt joins Midday with the latest from London. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

The Consumer Electronics Show took place in Las Vegas last week. More than 4,500 vendors spread over 2.7 million square feet, most vying to be “the next big thing.” It’s Midday on Tech, and our annual look at what caught people’s attention, and what wild new gadget may just become the thing that everybody has in a few years. Will it be the bread vending machine? A robot that folds laundry? Or perh...

Today on Midday, a snapshot of the climate for small business in Baltimore from three married couples who run established and successful businesses. In the first segment, Tom is joined by Tim Hicks and Mariah Acap. The couple runs a family automotive repair business that Tim’s father, Dan, launched in 1982. It’s the Baltimore Body Shop, located at the corner of Sisson Street and 29th street in Rem...

Today, another in our occasional series, Midday on Higher Education. From time to time, Tom Hall sits down with the leaders of Maryland colleges and universities to talk about the challenges that each of their institutions face, and how those institutions are connected to the communities in which they are located. The series began last month, when Dr. Maria Thompson, the president of Coppin State...

Today, it’s another edition of the Midday News Wrap. Later in the program Tom will talk about the first three days of the Maryland General Assembly in Annapolis with Luke Broadwater, Statehouse and politics reporter for the Baltimore Sun. He’ll also talk with Phil Ewing, NPR's National Security Editor, about the latest developments in Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into possible co...