Midday

It's another edition of the Midday News Wrap, our Friday discussion of some of the week's top news stories with a panel of journalists and commentators. Joining Tom Hall on this week's panel: reporter Jenna Johnson, who covered the 2016 Trump Campaign. Now, she covers the White House for The Washington Post, and she joins Tom on the line from The Post's radio studio. Also on the panel and with us...

It's Thursday, and that means our peripatetic theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, joins Tom in Studio A to review one of the region's many new stage productions. Today, Judy's reviewing the newly-revived traveling production of the Tony-Award-winning The Color Purple: The Musical, whose six-day run at The Hippodrome Theatre in Baltimore continues through this Sunday, October 22.The musical draws libe...

In his biographies of Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Steve Jobs, the historian Walter Isaacson has been drawn to his subjects by their uncanny capacity to make connections across disciplines, combining technical expertise with an artist’s eye for beauty, line and grace. In his latest opus, Isaacson chronicles perhaps history’s greatest creative genius: the 15th century Italian artist, scie...

On Saturday, More than 24,000 runners from all 50 states and 30 countries will hit the streets of Charm City for the 17th annual Baltimore Running Festival. On the next “Midday:” Dr. Miho Tanaka, an orthopedic surgeon and the Director of the Women’s Sports Medicine Program at Johns Hopkins Hospital joins me with tips on staying fit and avoiding injuries. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @Mid...

Elizabeth Strout is Tom's guest for this edition of Midday. She is the author of six novels and many short stories; her most recent book is a series of linked tales called Anything is Possible. Linking stories together was a structural device that Ms. Strout also employed in what is perhaps her most well-known work, Olive Kitteridge. The book earned her the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction , and Fr...

Tom speaks today with Van Jones, a Yale-educated lawyer, former Obama Administration advisor, founder of several social justice organizations, and a commentator and host on CNN. He's also an author, whose latest book is called 'Beyond the Messy Truth: How We Came Apart – How We Come Together'.In his new book, Jones asserts that even in our current climate of strident bifurcation in the political a...

On this edition of the Midday News Wrap, ​our Friday review of some of the week's top news stories, Tom is joined in Studio A by Heather Mizeur, a former delegate in the Maryland General Assembly who ran a vigorous but unsuccessful campaign in 2014 for the Democratic nomination for governor. Mizeur recently launched a non-profit group called MizMaryland-Soul Force Politics, which is producing a po...

Jacob Lawrence is one of the most important and renowned artists of the 20th Century. His paintings and prints offer rich portrayals of black life including his famed Migration Series which captured the mass migration of African Americans from the South to the North and Western US after the first World War, and his Toussaint L'Ouverture series about the famed leader of the Haitian Slave Revolt. No...

It's Thursday, and that means our peripatetic theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, is back in Studio A with a review of one of the region's many thespian offerings. This week, Judy joins Tom in a conversation about Lear, a new production of a 2010 play by Young Jean Lee, now on stage at Single Carrot Theatre. An artful weave of Elizabethan and modern pop cultures, Lear is a riff, of sorts, on Shakespe...

Joining Tom today to discuss ----religious freedom---- in America today: The Rev. Dr. Serene Jones. She is the president of the Union Theological Seminary in New York. She is the first woman to head the historic institution. She also holds the Johnston Family Chair for Religion and Democracy at UTS. She is the Immediate Past President of the American Academy of Religion, and she served for 17 year...

Is the President of the United States unfit to serve in that office? More than 64,000 mental health professionals have signed a petition that says that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness. They’ve told the cabinet that Mr. Trump should be removed from office. But how could those mental health professionals come to that conclusion without having spoken with Mr. Trump in person, and shou...

Midday, WYPR and the Baltimore Museum of Industry team up for a special program -- presented as part of BMI's Issues in Industry series -- examining Baltimore's calamitous de-industrialization, the challenge of rebuilding the city's workforce, and the future of work in Baltimore's increasingly dynamic industrial landscape. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8...

A Columbus Day conversation about efforts to replace the holiday with a day to honor indigenous people instead. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

On this edition of the Midday News Wrap President Trump visits Puerto Rico and discusses relief efforts for the US territory in the wake of Hurricane Maria The NRA issued a statement about ----bump stocks,---- the device that the Las Vegas killer used to increase the carnage he inflicted. “The NRA believes that devices designed to allow semiautomatic rifles to function like fully-automatic rifles...

It's Thursday and that means Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins us to spotlight one of the region's thespian offerings. Today, she talks with Midday senior producer and guest host Rob Sivak about ----The Cradle Will Rock,---- a 1937 ----play in music---- written by the late Marc Blitzstein that's getting a spirited revival by Iron Crow Theatre, at the Theatre Project, now until Sunday, Oc...

Today, it's another edition of our monthly Midday at the Movies, and movie mavens Ann Hornaday, film critic for the Washington Post, and Jed Dietz , founding director of the Maryland Film Festival, are here to help Midday senior producer and guest host Rob Sivak size up some of the new releases hitting local theaters this weekend, including Bladerunner 2049, the long-awaited sequel to director Rid...

Before we begin today’s show, here’s a link that lists organizations that are helping people in Ellicott City with shelter, food and other humanitarian relief, following the severe flooding in that city’s historic downtown on Sunday – the second deadly flood in two years. Today, it’s another edition of Midday on Ethics. We’re exploring some ethical questions pulled straight from the headlines. We...

It’s Midday Culture Connections with Dr. Sheri Parks of the UMD. We’ll talk about the devastating mass shooting in Las Vegas. What will the largest mass shooting in American history mean for the debate about gun regulation? Plus, the on-going controversy about protests in the NFL and elsewhere during performances of the National Anthem Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us...

A look ahead at the upcoming Supreme Court session. The court decided to postpone the hearings on President Trump’s travel ban, but there are plenty of hot button issues to consider; gerrymandering, workers’ rights and religious freedom are at the center of several big cases. Columbia Law Professor Jamal Greene and Midday Legal Eagle Edward Smith join Tom. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @M...

We speak with the artist and curator behind a provocative exhibition at UMBC in Catonsville. It’s called Gun Show. David Hess is the artist, and Dr. Kathy O’Dell is the curator who's put together this thought-provoking installation, which examines the ubiquity of guns in American culture, and what that signifies about our values as a nation. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or c...

Today, a Midday Newsmaker interview with Georgetown University law professor and former federal prosecutor Paul Butler. He’s written a book that is a clarion call for a complete change in the way we think about the problems of racial inequality and injustice. The book is Chokehold: Policing Black Men – A Renegade Prosecutor’s Radical Thoughts on How to Disrupt the System. In it, Butler quotes the...

It's Thursday, and that means Midday's theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck, once again joins Tom in the studio, this week with her review of a new musical production of The Bridges of Madison County, by the Red Branch Theatre Company in Columbia, Maryland. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

We’ve all heard of the campaigns in the US to legalize medical and recreational uses for marijuana -- the cannabis plant with potent therapeutic and hallucinogenic properties. Less well-known is the campaign to legalize marijuana’s weaker cousin -- hemp -- an industrial crop that won’t get you high, but yields a high-quality fiber and oil that’s used to make thousands of products, from rope to soa...

Tom is joined by author Kondwani Fidel for a conversation about the effect that violence and trauma have on children who are exposed to it. Fidel wrote an article “How a young boy has been decaying in Baltimore since age 10: A Death Note” which was featured in the City Paper. Annette March-Grier, also joins the discussion; she’s the President and Co-Founder the non-profit grief support center, Rob...

Author James McBride speaks to Tom about his new collection of stories ----Five Carat Soul---- Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.