Midday

It's another edition of Midday at the Movies, our monthly look at new films and new trends in filmmaking, with our movie maven regulars: Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday, and the Maryland Film Festival's founding -- and soon-to-retire -- director, Jed Dietz. Jed and Ann, long-time partners on these monthly Midday get-togethers, spend a few minutes considering the important and enduring cha...

It's time for another weekly visit with our peripatetic theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins Tom today with reviews of not one but two theater-season openers here in Baltimore. The first is the new production at Baltimore's Center Stage of Tennessee Williams' sultry American classic, Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. This searing drama about multi-generational family ties and unsustainable deceptions u...

It’s anybody’s guess whether or not President Trump's nominee for the Supreme Court, DC Circuit Court Judge Brett Kavanaugh, will replace retired Justice Anthony Kennedy on the High Court. The FBI is reported to be finishing up its supplemental background check on Mr. Kavanaugh, looking into multiple allegations of past sexual assault and misconduct made in recent weeks against the nominee. Former...

On today’s Midday Culture Connection with Dr. Sheri Parks: a conversation about sexual assault in education. When Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and Judge Brett Kavanaugh testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, not only was it another pivot point in the #MeToo Movement, it also afforded a window into a culture of drinking and bad conduct among privileged young people in the 1980s. Wa...

This week, two important gatherings are taking place in Baltimore that will explore ways to increase investment in small businesses and other ventures that will help the city grow its economy. Today, tomorrow and Wednesday, the Johns Hopkins 21st Century Cities Initiative, in conjunction with the Federal Reserve of Philadelphia, will host a conference called Investing in Opportunity. And later thi...

When Democratic Senator Doug Jones won his election in Alabama against Roy Moore last year, many credited his victory to the large turnout among African American voters. Yet more than 100,000 Alabama voters can’t vote because they don’t have the ID required by the state. Most of the people who are affected by strict voting regulations, in Alabama and elsewhere, are people of color. Today, a conver...

Today: President Trump’s record on race. In Kenansville, North Carolina, in September of 2016, Mr. Trump declared that black communities in the United States today are ----absolutely in the worst shape that they've ever been in before.----Putting aside the president’s apparent ignorance of slavery and Jim Crow, Trump’s basic pitch to African American voters came down to a phrase that Juan Williams...

Today we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates with three people who will be on the ballot in November -- who are neither Democrats nor Republicans. The Democracy Fund Voter Study Group reports that for the first time in the last 25 years, 2/3 of Americans see the need for a third party. This support for alternatives to Democrats and Republicans grows out of dissatisfaction with...

Today, in the blizzard of news over the last couple of weeks, including new revelations last night, about Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh, and reports that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein will resign in anticipation of his being fired by the President, we thought it a good idea to take stock of where things stand in the Mueller probe. Tom guest is New York Times reporter Scott Shane....

In her new book on presidential leadership, Pulitzer Prize winning author and historian Doris Kearns Goodwin asks: Do leaders shape the times or do the times summon their leaders? Goodwin argues persuasively that while great presidents were highly ambitious and driven to succeed, they also overcame devastating personal setbacks to lead the country through the most difficult challenges our republic...

Today, Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom with her review of Sweeney Todd, The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, now playing at the Rep Stage in Columbia. From the pages of the Penny Dreadful, to the stage and screen, the story of the 'Demon Barber of Fleet Street' has been adapted many times over over the years. But, be it a fable of love or revenge, the shocking deeds of the murderous b...

On today’s show, polls released by Goucher College on Tuesday and Wednesday revealed some contradictory preferences among MD voters. Gov. Larry Hogan enjoys a sizeable lead in his bid to be re-elected, but several of the ideas espoused by his Democratic opponent, Ben Jealous, also enjoy wide support. An increase in the minimum wage, Medicare for All, and increasing funding for education are all po...

Today, another in our series of Conversations with the Candidates, with Maryland Insurance Commissioner and former state delegate Al Redmer, Jr. Mr. Redmer is a Republican, who is closely aligned with Gov. Larry Hogan. He is running against Democrat Johnny Olszewski, Jr. Mr. Redmer served as the MD Insurance Commissioner during the Ehrlich administration, and in 2015, Gov. Hogan appointed him to b...

Today on Midday, we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates. My guest is Ben Jealous, the Democratic nominee for Governor. He was one of nine Democrats on the ballot in the primary last June. And he beat the crowded field handily, with 40% of the vote, defying pollsters and pundits, many of whom who had predicted a win by Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker. In the end,...

On today’s show, a conversation about the legacy of Jim Crow, representation, race and reclaiming racial stereotypes. The Reginald F. Lewis Museum of MD African American History and Culture has traveling exhibition from the Jim Crow Museum of Racist Memorabilia in Big Rapids, Michigan. It’s called Hateful Things, and it includes objects from the 19th century through the present that dehumanize Afr...

Today we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates with former state delegate John Olszewski, Jr., the Democratic nominee for Baltimore County Executive. He won a nail-biter primary, emerging as the winner in a four person race by just 17 votes. Mr. Olszewski, known as Johnny O, is running against Republican Al Redmer Jr, the state insurance commissioner in the upcoming general elec...

This, week Midday's esteemed theatre critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, joins us for a review of Dancing at Lughnasa. Director Amber Paige McGinnis brings playwright Brian Friel's 1990 Tony Award winning fable of family, harvest and hearth to Baltimore's Everyman Theatre. The play is set in 1930's Donegal, Ireland and tells the tale of the five Mundy sisters, who were fashioned after Friel's own mother and...

Today, Tom's guest is veteran White House Reporter, April Ryan. She has been a fixture in the White House press corps for more than two decades. In addition to her superb reporting for the American Urban Radio Networks on the administrations of Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump, she is also the author of three books, the latest of which explores the chaotic inner workings of the Trump admi...

Today, another installment in our series of Conversations with the Candidates. Susan Turnbull has been active behind the scenes of the Democratic party for years, and now, she is stepping out front as the Democratic candidate for Lt. Governor, running along-side former NAACP President Ben Jealous. Susan Turnbull served as the Chair of the MD Democratic Party from 2009-11. Prior to that, she was Vi...

It's Midday on edcuation. School children in Baltimore City and around the state returned to their classrooms last week. Some kids in the City and in Baltimore County couldn’t go to school, or they were dismissed early on a few days because their classrooms weren’t air conditioned. Others formed the first classes in brand new, state of the art buildings, constructed under the 21st Century Schools...

Our Conversations with the Candidates series continues with Calvin Ball, the Democratic candidate for Howard County Executive. He is facing incumbent Republican, Allan Kittleman, who has held the seat since 2014. Dr. Ball has served on the Howard County Council since 2006. He represents the Villages of Long Reach and Oakland Mills, as well as parts of Elkridge, Ellicott City and Jessup. He is the...

Our Conversations with the Candidates series continues now with Craig Wolf, the Republican candiddate for Maryland Attorney Genereal. He is facing incumbent Democrat, Attorney General Brian Frosh, who' held the seat since 2015. In the 1990s, Mr. Wolf served as a federal prosecutor in Justice Department, and as an Assistant State’s Attorney and Senior Circuit prosecutor in Allegany County. He also...

The fourth annual Madonnari Festival kicked off this weekend in Little Italy. The festival is the brainchild of Cyd Wolf, who runs Germano’s Piattini, a great cabaret venue here in Baltimore. Madonnari is art that literally takes it to the streets. 60 artists from all over the world are hard at work as we speak creating Chaulk art on the streets of Little Italy and in front of the American Visiona...

It’s the Midday Newswrap: The Labor Department released the monthly job numbers this morning, and, as has been the case for the last seven or eight years, the numbers continue to be good. The unemployment rate has stayed steady at 3.9%. The economy added 201 thousand jobs in August, and wages grew by .4 percent , up nearly three percent for the year. Analysts have observed that wages are growing a...

It's another edition of Midday at the Movies, our monthly look at trends in the film industry, and some the new movies lighting up local screens. We're joined again by our regular movie-mavens: the Maryland Film Festival's founding director, Jed Dietz, is with Tom in the studio. And Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday joins them on the line from Toronto, Canada, where she is reporting on the...