Midday

How are you feeling today? Flu-ish maybe? If so, you’re not alone. We keep hearing that this is the worst flu season in years. And if you’ve had this year’s flu, that’s no doubt how it feels. In fact, it is probably the worst flu season in the past three years, and we’ll have to wait until it’s over before the CDC can rank it more definitively. Here’s what we do know in this -- the 100th anniversa...

Today, Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh joins Tom in Studio A. Like Mayor Martin O’Malley, Mayor Sheila Dixon, and Mayor Stephanie Rawlings Blake before her, last Friday, Mayor Pugh fired the city's police commissioner. Kevin Davis was an outsider who had come to Baltimore after tenures in Prince George’s and Anne Arundel Counties. He was replaced by a 30-year veteran of the Baltimore Police, Darryl...

The Consumer Electronics Show ended 10 days ago in Las Vegas. From voice-activated AI, to Smart Cities, to innovations for the disabled, Tom talks to a panel of experts to walk us through the trends and some of the gadgets they took note of at this year's show. Dana Wollman is the executive editor of Endgadaget​, a website of technology news and reviews, and she is calling into Studio A. Haley Tsu...

Today, two editors of the Afro Newspaper in Baltimore join Tom to discuss the firing of Police Commissioner Kevin Davis and the hiring of his Deputy Commissioner Daryll DeSousa. Mayor Catherine Pugh announced this change-up last Friday citing her dissatisfaction with the city's high homicide rate. DeSousa, a 30-year veteran of the force, now inherits the challenges of his predecessor such as the o...

To close our Friday show, the wonderful jazz trumpeter, vocalist and composer Nico Sarbanes joins Tom in Studio A, along with guitarist Michael Benjamin. They play three pieces in the set, including ----A Cottage for Sale,---- by Willard Robison; ----There Will Never be Another You---- by Harry Warren; and to take us out, a rendition of ----Groove Merchant---- by Jerome Richardson. Nico, Michael a...

In this week's news, the federal government faces a shutdown as Baltimore’s police department is given a shake-up. The Congress and the Senate are arguing about passing a short-term spending resolution to avoid what Republicans are calling ----the Schumer Shutdown.---- Democrats say that the bi-partisan bill on DACA crafted by Senator Lindsey Graham and Senator Dick Durbin has what it takes to sol...

It's Thursday, and that means theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom in the studio for her weekly review of one of the region's many thespian offerings. This week, she spotlights Love Is a Blue Tick Hound, Rapid Lemon Productions' regional premiere of a collection of four short plays by Audrey Cefaly, three of which have received New York premieres, and all of which have won festival awards thro...

A week ago Tuesday, a few minutes before midnight, the temperature in Baltimore was below freezing. A man named Imamu Baraka stepped out of his office on Howard Street, near the University of Maryland Medical Center Midtown Campus for a quick trip to the drugstore. He encountered security guards from the hospital pushing a young woman in a wheelchair, who was dressed only in a hospital gown and so...

Today, Dr. Sonja Santelises, the CEO of the Baltimore City Public Schools joins Tom in Studio A for a conversation about the state of the school system. With nearly 60 schools closed due to the cold earlier this month and accusations of funding impropriety from the governor, mayor and parents, BCPS faces increased scrutiny and pressure to educate and provide for its students. At a press conference...

The global rebuke of President Donald Trump continues, after it was reported that he made racist comments about Haitian, Central American and African countries during a meeting on immigration in the Oval Office last Thursday. Since this story broke, the media has been awash with the testimonies of Black African immigrants from around the globe who have felt compelled to defend not only their count...

An international conference on the Korean crisis is underway today in Vancouver, Canada, without representatives from Russia and China. Have months of militant rhetoric between President Donald Trump and North Korean leader Kim Jung Un brought the world to the brink of an unthinkable war? Will the talks between North and South Korea in advance of the Winter Olympics help ease tensions? Tom explore...

On this Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday -- marking what would have been the slain civil rights leader's 89th birthday -- we are talking about Dr. King’s legacy, and how the movement for racial and economic equality and justice is positioned moving forward. This year, we’ll also mark the 50th anniversary of Dr. King’s assassination, as well as the Fair Housing Act, which President Lyndon Johnson si...

This weekend at the Meyerhoff in Baltimore and at Strathmore Hall in Bethesda, the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra teams-up with the Baltimore Museum of Art to present pieces by Maurice Ravel (La Valse) and Claude Debussy (La Mer), two masters of musical impressionism. This music will also be accompanied with projections of Impressionist art, provided by the BMA as a part of the BSO's Off the Cuff Se...

Today, Midday's intrepid theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews the courtroom drama Inherit the Wind, now on stage at Vagabond Players. Based on the 1925 Scopes ----Monkey Trial,---- Inherit the Wind explores themes of science, religion, and intellectual freedom, as they swirled together in a historic courtroom debate over whether Charles Darwin's theory of evolution should be taught in public sch...

What’s going on in Baltimore City Public Schools? The buildings are old, the classrooms are cold, and city and state officials are out of sync when it comes to managing maintenance. We’ll cut through the finger pointing and find out how and when our schools will be worthy of our students. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It’s the beginning of a new year, and for many of us, that means following up on resolutions to shed those extra pounds. Today, on this edition of Smart Nutrition, Monica Reinagel, the Nutrition Diva, joins Tom in Studio A to talk about a few weight loss strategies. They also check in with Duke University behavioral economist Dan Ariely about a strategy he’s developed to ease the angst of weight r...

A preview of the 2018 MD General Assembly. Paid sick leave, off-setting the effect of the federal tax overhaul, health insurance for children, and what party would be complete without marijuana and craft beer on the menu? Baltimore Sun Annapolis Bureau Chief Erin Cox and WYPR’s Rachel Baye on what to expect in this election year edition of the session. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @Midda...

When the sweeping Republican tax bill was pushed through and voted into law just before Christmas, critics ripped into it as a gift for the wealthy. Many of them focused on the benefits that it will bestow upon the wealthiest of all -- the top 1% — and especially the top 0.1%. Critics worry that the ultra rich are becoming wealthier, while incomes for most other Americans are stagnant. Today's gue...

Baltimore-based classical guitarists Jorge Amaral and Mia Pomerantz-Amaral joined Tom in studio to give us a fabulous preview of their concert this weekend. Duo Amaral will be performing a program of Latin American music this Sunday, Jan. 7, at 3 p.m., in Columbia, Maryland, as part of the Sundays at Three Chamber Music Series. Click here for more information and tickets. Email us at midday@wypr.o...

On this week's edition of the Midday News Wrap: The Labor Department announced that the economy added 148,000 jobs last month, fewer than expected. The stock market is at record levels. The unemployment rate remained steady at 4.1%. Very few other things appeared steady this week. Steve Bannon’s list of BFFs is considerably smaller this week. President Trump says Bannon has lost his mind. People a...

It's Thursday, and that means it's time for theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck to bring us her weekly review of one of the Baltimore-Washington region's thespian offerings, and this week it's First Date, a musical comedy now on stage at Spotlighter's Theatre. The minimalist romp finds blind-date novice Aaron (played by Reed DeLisle) set up with serial-dater Casey (Lindsey Litka), and their casual drin...

On this month's edition of Midday at the Movies, Tom is joined by our regular movie maven Jed Dietz, the founding director of the Maryland Film Festival, and by special guest Max Weiss, the managing editor and film critic at Baltimore Magazine, who also writes about culture at Vulture.com, the entertainment website of New York Magazine. Awards season is underway, and our guests weigh in on some of...

Baltimore City council members Kristefer Burnett of the 8th district and Robert Stokes Sr. of the 12th district join me to discuss the issues before the council in 2018. The city ended 2017 with a record number of homicides. We’ll talk about ongoing efforts to curb violence and plans for the Associated Black Charities to administer the city’s new, 12 million dollar youth fund. Email us at midday@w...

The #metoo movement has shined a light on the pervasiveness of predatory behavior in our culture. On the next Midday: A conversation about what some scholars call the “pornifcation” of America. How do hypersexualized images of women in the media affect the way women are treated in society? Dr. Sheri Parks, along with scholars Gail Dines and Shanita Hubbard join me for Culture Connections. Email us...

Tom’s guest today is Alice McDermott, the New York Times best-selling author of eight novels. Three of them, After This, At Weddings and Wakes and That Night, were finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Another novel, Charming Billy, won the National Book Award in 1998.Her eighth novel, The Ninth Hour, published last September, is a profound and moving contemplation on the big issues: love, family, fai...