Midday

Today, Tom welcomes back to Midday the comedian and writer Lane Moore . In addition to being a published author, she is also a songwriter and the frontperson for the band, It Was Romance. Moore is in Baltimore featuring tonight at Baltimore Soundstage , where she will perform her stand-up show, Tinder Live . During the show, she displays her dating app on a screen and checks out various profiles i...

Today on Midday on Ethics , a discussion about advancements in technology that change the way humans reproduce. Tom's guest is Dr. Jeffrey Kahn , the director of the Johns Hopkins Berman Institute of Bioethics . He is also Professor in the Dept. of Health Policy and Management of the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. In a 2016 book, a researcher named Henry Greely predicted that in...

The case of Adnan Syed took another dramatic turn yesterday. You may recall that in 2000, Mr. Syed was convicted of the murder of Hae Min Lee , his girlfriend and classmate at Woodlawn High School. He served more than 20 years in prison, until September of last year, when his conviction was vacated and he was released. Then, in March of this year, the Appellate Court of Maryland reinstated that co...

This week, Republican Speaker of the House Kevin McCarthy led a bipartisan US congressional delegation to Israel, a delegation that included Maryland's Democratic Congressman Steny Hoyer. McCarthy addressed the Knesset, Israel's Parliament, and indicated that he might soon invite Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to address the US Congress. This is in stark contrast to President Joe Biden...

Tom's next guests are Dr. Mileah Kromer , the director of the Sarah T. Hughes Center for Politics at Goucher College , and Pamela Wood , who covers state politics for The Baltimore Banner, a WYPR news partner. The Banner and the Hughes Center have released a poll surveying Maryland residents about a wide range of issues, including their feelings about Gov. Wes Moore's performance in his first 100...

Today, a look inside rapid turnovers in the administration of Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott . Tom speaks with reporter Emily Sullivan , who covers local politics for the Baltimore Banner , a WYPR news partner. Yesterday, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott fired his Chief of Staff and his director of Communications , neither of whom had been at their respective jobs for long. The changes are the latest...

It's another edition of the Midday Healthwatch ,  our monthly conversations about public health with Dr. Leana Wen. Today, Tom will be talking with Dr. Wen about the latest health news from Maryland. The state's COVID-19 Dashboard was moved to the Maryland Department of Health's main website . The state COVID Alert system is set to end Tuesday, May 9, while the federal state of emergency comes to...

(This conversation was first broadcast on April 14, 2023.) Welcome to an encore presentation of Midday . Tom's guest is Bonnie Garmus . Her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry , is a huge, breakout hit. It has been on the New York Times best seller list for almost a year, and it’s been parked in the number one spot on that list for 14 weeks. It has sold more than 2 million copies, it has become a fa...

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins us each week with her reviews of the Maryland-DC regional stage. Today, Judy joins guest host Emily Sullivan to tell us about Nevermore , a 2006 musical inspired by the works of the master of the macabre, 19th century writer-poet Edgar Allan Poe . The production, which is getting its regional premiere at Baltimore's...

Today on Midday , guest host Emily Sullivan , a city government reporter for The Baltimore Banner, takes a deep dive into the Baltimore City budget – which is taking shape a little differently this year. For more than a century, the Baltimore City Council has had very limited power over the budget. The mayor would write it…and pass along a draft version to the council to officially vote through. T...

Now, Midday guest host Jayne Miller takes a look at the current state of redevelopment in downtown Baltimore. There’s a new Lexington Market and concerts at the CFG Bank Arena . But foot traffic is dwindling, some restaurants are closing and big businesses are moving out.  And Harbor Place , long slated for a major redevelopment, continues to languish. When and how can downtown bounce back? Jayne...

Welcome to Midday. Sitting in for Tom Hall once again is guest host Jayne Miller, the former WBAL-TV reporter and now an independent investigative journalist. Today, Jayne will be looking at the future of Baltimore from two angles: later in the program, the focus will be on the progress of downtown development efforts. She'll be joined by two Baltimore Banner reporters who recently wrote a soberin...

Welcome to Midday . Today, guest host Jayne Miller talks about challenges in Maryland health care services. We begin with a look at the problems of first-responder burnout as a result of the pandemic and long waits in the emergency room. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services finds that Maryland’s wait times in hospital emergency rooms are among the worst in the nation, at nearly four hour...

Today on Midday , Jayne Miller, the former WBAL reporter and now an independent investigative journalist, begins a three-day stint here guest hosting for Tom Hall. The latest US Census data show Baltimore City continues to lose population . The total number of city residents is 569,930, according to the latest count — a staggering 40% decline since the 1950’s. But inside those numbers are trends,...

Tom's Midday Newsmaker guest today is Baltimore City Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. He’s been on the job a little more than four years, overseeing the implementation of a federal consent decree , trying to change the culture of the department, and fix the fraught relationship between the police and the majority African American community in our city. There might be a perception that crime i...

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins us each week with her reviews of the Maryland-DC regional stage. Today, she spotlights The Awakening, a new production by the Endangered Species Theatre Project , on stage until Friday at New Spire Arts in Frederick, Maryland. The Awakening was adapted from the Kate Chopin novel by playwright Rebecca Chase, with mus...

If you’ve just joined us today, it’s Midday on the Environment. More than 6% of waste in the US comes from household textiles. The Secondary Materials and Recycled Textiles Association , or SMART, a network of companies involved in fabric recycling, says that 95% of textiles can be reused or recycled. Old curtains, towels, sheets, shoes, stuffed animals and more can all be turned into new stuff. A...

Saturday is Earth Day , a day that's been observed annually since 1970 to draw attention to the problems facing the global environment. Today on Midday , two environmental movements that are rapidly gaining interest and adherents: the green burial movement and sustainable fashion. A little later we’ll talk about how the Johns Hopkins Women’s Board is giving new life to old clothes, and cutting dow...

Juanita Jackson Mitchell (January 2, 1913 – July 7, 1992) is one of Maryland's most revered civil rights icons. An activist whose imprint on the struggle for civil rights is immutable, she was the first Black woman to graduate from the University of Maryland Carey School of Law, and the first African American woman to practice law in Maryland. Her legacy will be honored when the building in Baltim...

Recent surveys have shown that people looking for employment in this country are putting greater emphasis than previous generations on what's being called the "the work-life balance" — favoring jobs that more closely reflect their values and lifestyles, even if they offer lower salaries. This morning, LinkedIn , the Microsoft-owned business and employment-focused social media platform, released ne...

The recent revelations by investigative journalists from Pro Publica about Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas’ relationship with the Republican megadonor Harlan Crow have rekindled the debate about the lack of a code of ethics for members of the nation’s highest court. We begin today with our Newsmaker guest, Sen. Chris Van Hollen . Last November, he was overwhelmingly elected to a second term...

Today, it’s Midday at the Museum .  Two museums, to be exact. The Baltimore Museum of Art and the Maryland Center for History and Culture have each named new directors within the last several months. Asma Naeem took the reins of the BMA in February. Katie Caljean assumed the top job at the Maryland Center last fall. They join us today on Midday to talk about their plans for their respective instit...

On Easter Sunday night, a large crowd of young people gathered near the Inner Harbor in Baltimore. A fight broke out, and according to police, while officers were breaking up that fight, less than 40 feet away, a 14-year-old and a 16-year-old were shot. One is listed in “critical but stable” condition and the other in stable condition, according to Police Commissioner Michael Harrison . Over the w...

Tom's guest today is Bonnie Garmus . Her debut novel, Lessons in Chemistry , is a huge, breakout hit. It has been on the New York Times best seller list for almost a year, and it’s been parked in the number one spot on that list for 14 weeks. It has sold more than 2 million copies, it has become a favorite book club selection across the country, and it’s been named by The New York Times, the Washi...

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins us each week with her reviews of the Maryland-DC regional stage. Today, she spotlights Hadestown, the 2019 musical that won 8 Tony Awards, including Best Musical, and that's now in a touring company production at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre. Written by Anaïs Mitchell (book, music and lyrics) and co-developed with...