Midday

Tom’s guest today is General Michael Hayden. In more than 40 years in the Air Force and the Intelligence Community, the retired four-star General served as the Director of the National Security Agency from 1999-2005, during the George W. Bush Administration. He also served for about a year as the Principal Deputy Director of National Intelligence, and in 2006, he became the Director of the Central...

Early Voting began last Thursday and continues through this Thursday. As of today, about 30,000 more people have voted early than had done so at this point in the last election. Election Day is a week from tomorrow. Please be sure to vote. Or as the American Civil Liberties Union is fond of saying: Vote like your rights depend on it. Because they do. Indeed, the right to vote is one of the civil l...

Now, a conversation about a unique classical choral concert that’s happening tomorrow night in Towson, and the unique chorus that will be performing. Berkshire Choral International is an organization that for more than 30 years has brought choral singers together from all over the world, to perform in venues all over the world. Tomorrow night, the BCI will be at Goucher College's Kraushaar Auditor...

Valerie Ervin joins Tom Hall this afternoon on the line from Silver Spring. Last month, Valerie Ervin shook-up the Democratic primary race for Governor when she announced her candidacy to replace her former running mate, Baltimore County Executive Kevin Kamenetz, who died suddenly on May 10th. Yesterday, Valerie Ervin shook-up the Democratic primary for Governor for the second time, when she annou...

In the final installment of Conversations with the Candidates, Tom Hall is joined in the studio by Sheldon Laskin, a democratic candidate for the Senate in Maryland’s 11th district, which includes Pikesville, Owings Mills, and Hunt Valley in northwest Baltimore County. Mr. Laskin is running against incumbent Democrat, Senator Bobby Zirkin, who has been in the Senate for 12 years. He also served fo...

Our theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins us now with her regular Thursday review of one of the region's many thespian offerings. Today, she spotlights playwright Mark Scharf's The Quickening, now getting its world premiere at Baltimore's Fells Point Corner Theatre, in a co-production with the Collaborative Theatre Company. The Quickening is a modern ghost story about a pregnant woman and her husba...

Early voting in the MD Primary begins tomorrow. Marylanders can vote early, at locations around the state, for a week, until June 21st. Then, there’s a four-day break in voting until Election Day, Tuesday, June 26th. A reminder that if you are not yet registered to vote, you can register and vote on the same day --but only if you vote early. You will not be able to register on Election Day. The la...

Maryland’s primary election is two weeks from today. Early voting begins on Thursday. And so, today, we’re talking about voting. Americans vote at much lower rates than citizens of other advanced democracies. And while voting is the central tenet in a strong democracy, many states have enacted laws and voter requirements in recent years that actually make it harder to vote. What can be done to enc...

Today we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates with Baltimore City State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby. She is running for re-election in the Democratic primary that takes place on the 26th of this month. Early voting begins on Thursday. She is opposed by two other candidates, Ivan Bates and Thiru Vignarajah. The winner of the primary will run unopposed in the general election. Mari...

Norma Pera is a dancer and dance teacher who has trained generations of young dancers in Baltimore at the Baltimore School for the Arts, where she has led the dance department since 1992.She joined BSA’s dance faculty in 1979, 39 years ago, when the innovative pre-professional public school for the arts first opened. Many of her students have gone on to illustrious careers in dance or the arts, an...

Tom’s guest today is Jennifer Palmieri. She was the Communications Director for Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the White House Communications Director for President Barack Obama. She is also a former national press secretary for the Democratic Party, the press secretary during John Edwards’ 2004 presidential campaign, and she served in the Clinton White House, as well. Jennifer P...

Each Thursday, Midday's peripatetic theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, joins us with a review of one of the region's many theatrical offerings. This week, she's spotlighting On Your Feet!, the new touring musical production based on the life and career of Cuban pop sensations (and husband-and-wife team) Gloria and Emilio Estefan, that's now on stage at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre. With Christie P...

On this edition of Midday at the Movies -- our monthly look at new flicks and new trends in the film industry --movie mavens Ann Hornaday, film critic for the Washington Post and Jed Dietz, founding director of the Maryland Film Festival, join Tom to consider the surprisingly weak box office performance of the latest iteration of the Star Wars franchise, director Ron Howard's Solo: A Star Wars Sto...

Today, on Midday, a conversation about the Foster Care System. Nearly 430,000 children and young people are currently in the care of foster families. About 112,000 of them are hoping to be adopted permanently. And for the young people who “age out” of the system on their 18th or 21st birthdays, the challenges are daunting, and the statistics are devastating. Only three to four percent of young peo...

On today’s, edition of Midday Culture Connections with Dr. Sheri Parks, we examine some of the stories making headlines across the country. We begin to with a look at the cognitive effects of violent video games and the Military’s stake in the multi-billion dollar industry of gaming. Following the deadly May 18th shooting at Santa Fe High School, Texas Lt. Governor Dan Patrick cited violent video...

Many have suggested that this election year is, once again, the year of the woman. As primaries continue in this mid-term cycle, there are nearly 80 women who have already secured a spot on November ballots for Congress and Governorships across the country. Today, Tom's guest is Amy Chozick, a reporter for the New York Times who covered Hillary Clinton, the most famous woman in American politics,...

Continuing our series of Conversations with the Candidates, our focus today is on the Democratic primary election later this month for Baltimore City State’s Attorney. Three candidates, including the incumbent, Marilyn Mosby, are competing in that race to be the city’s top prosecutor. It’s a big job, overseeing more than 200 lawyers and tens of thousands of prosecutions every year, and it's a job...

It's Thursday, and time again for a visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us in the studio each week with her reviews of the region's theatrical endeavors. This week, she spotlights the new production of Kiss Me, Kate, the Bard-inspired musical now on stage at Annapolis Shakespeare Company. Kiss Me, Kate is the ----backstage story---- of the production of a fictional musical...

Today on Midday, a conversation about race, and corporate culture. Last Wednesday, the NFL announced that they would ban players from kneeling on the field during the national anthem, and that they teams would face fines if any players chose to do so. On Tuesday, ABC cancelled the reboot of the popular 90’s sitcom “Roseanne” following racist tweets by the program’s star Roseanne Barr. While Barr w...

Early on Saturday morning, June 2, several thousand runners are expected to turn out for the start of the Baltimore Ten-Miler. It’ll be the tenth running of this challenging and scenic marathon -- which starts and finishes near Druid Hill Lake Park -- and, as happens when a lot of folks hit the pavement in varying states of marathon-fitness, there will be a quite a few twisted ankles, sore knees a...

This program originally aired on March 28, 2018 . Today on the show, a conversation with Dr. Mary Frances Berry. She is a scholar, an author and activist whose new book chronicles the history of American protest and resistance movements, from the Roosevelt administration through the Obama years. From the Vietnam War to the end of apartheid in South Africa, to her long tenure on the U.S. Civil Righ...

Today, Tom speaks with Derek Thompson, a senior editor at The Atlantic, where he writes about business and technology, and hosts the new podcast Crazy/Genius. He is also the author of Hit Makers: The Science of Popularity in the Age of Distraction. In his book -- which happens to be a best-seller -- Thompson takes a scientific approach to understanding why certain things in our culture become ----...

Today we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates...Here in Baltimore, the city’s top prosecutor is the Baltimore City State’s Attorney, an elective position that is often in the eye of the storm surrounding some very high profile criminal cases. The incumbent State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby, attracted national attention with her decision to indict six officers involved in the arre...

It's time again for our weekly visit from theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins Tom today with her review of the new production of The Book of Joseph, now on stage at Baltimore's Everyman Theatre. The play is a stage adaptation by Seattle playwright Karen Hartman of a book by former Baltimore newpaper and TV journalist Richard Hollander. After Hollander's parents were killed in a car accident...

Today, Midday goes Back to the Garden. It’s been a pretty unusual spring, with the Eastern United States recording one of the coldest Marches in nearly two decades and an April that was also colder and wetter than normal. But here we are in May, with the Memorial Day Weekend on the horizon. If you’re staying in town, sunshine is predicted at least for Saturday, and lots of us are raring to go in o...