Midday

Today, it’s Midday on Development .  Every so often, we talk to the folks who are involved in some of Baltimore’s commercial and residential projects that in many cases are game-changers for the neighborhoods in which they are being built, and for the city at large. Certainly, there are few game-changing projects in Baltimore that rival the enormity and significance of Port Covington , the 200-acr...

Today on Midday , a conversation about age and leadership . President Joe Biden turns 80 in less than a month. He’s the oldest president in US history. He himself has said it’s reasonable for people to worry about whether he is capable of handling the demands of the office. Speculation abounds as to whether or not he will seek a second term. The results of the midterm elections next week will undo...

Tom's guest for the hour today is the journalist and author, April Ryan . She is the Washington, DC Bureau Chief and Senior White House correspondent for The Grio , and a political analyst for CNN . Previously, she reported for the American Urban Radio Networks. A native of Baltimore and a graduate of Morgan State University, April is the longest serving Black female White House correspondent cove...

It's time for another visit with Midday 's theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins us each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today, Judy tells us about Maryland Ensemble Theatre 's new production of The Lifespan of a Fact. The 2018 stageplay, written by Jeremy Kareken , David Murrell and Gordon Farrell , is an adaptation of a book by John D'Agata and Jim Fingal that explores...

Tom's next guest is Marc Nathan . He's the proprietor of Cards, Comics and Collectibles , a comic book store in Reistertown, and the founder of the Baltimore Comic-Con , a festival that celebrates all things comic book. For 23 years Comic-Con has attracted fans of comics from all over the world to the Baltimore Convention Center. This year’s edition begins Friday and runs through Sunday. Click the...

More than 600,000 Maryland voters have requested a mail-in ballot, and early voting is now underway. Early voting locations are open every day, 7:00 AM until 8:00 PM, including this weekend. Voters have until next Thursday to cast an in-person ballot in advance of Election Day on Novemberf 8th. Today on Midday , the final installment in our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022 .  Tom'...

Early voting in Maryland begins tomorrow. Next on Midday , it's another in our series of " Conversations with the Candidates: 2022 . Tom's guest is Aruna Miller , a former Maryland Delegate (representing District 15 from 2011-2019) and now the running mate for Lt. Governor with Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wes Moore. Before her tenure in Annapolis, Miller worked as an engineer in Montgomery...

Early voting in Maryland begins tomorrow. The Elections Project at the University of Florida reports that in states where early voting has already started, turnout is high. What will that mean in key battleground states like Georgia, Ohio, Arizona and Pennsylvania? What does it portend here in Maryland, in statewide races for Governor, Attorney General and Comptroller? A little later in the progra...

Today, we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022 with the Democratic nominee for Maryland Attorney General. Brian Frosh , the Democratic incumbent, will retire in January. Tom had planned to speak with Republican nominee Michael Peroutka during the first half of the program today, but the candidate's office called to cancel his appearance an hour before our broadcast. As a...

We continue now with Midday 's series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022, with the Republican nominee for Maryland's third congressional district . Joining Tom is Yuripzy Morgan , a lawyer and former WBAL talk show host, who is running against the Democratic incumbent, Rep. John Sarbanes. This is the Republican's second try for public office. She ran for Congress in the 2nd district in 201...

Early voting in Maryland begins this Thursday. Today, we continue our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022 , Tom's guests are the Democratic and Republican nominees for Maryland's 3rd congressional district. The district includes Howard and most of Anne Arundel Counties, plus a slice of Carroll County. It used to include parts of Baltimore City and Montgomery County, but the lines wer...

Today, a conversation about the media and the Big Lie. Former President Donald Trump’s repeated false assertions about the results of the 2020 election — that it was rigged by Democrats and that he, not Joe Biden, was the actual winner — have been ingrained in the public psyche for more than two years. Trump began making his outrageous claims even before the election was called for Joe Biden. It w...

Next on Midday , a visit with our peripatetic theater critic, J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins us each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today she's back, just in time for Halloween, to tell us about Edgar Allan Poe's 'Blood Sweat and Fears, ' the first live stage production by the National Edgar Allan Poe Theatre. The non-profit company produces Poe's works for educational and mass m...

Much of the conversation about crime tends to fixate on the perpetrators, and how or even if they are prosecuted. So much of the discussion about public safety is centered around getting criminals off the streets and incarcerated to keep them away from the rest of us. The victims of crimes are often left out of the conversation. Today on Midday , we are going to center them. What do we owe victims...

We're focusing on Baltimore County today on Midday .  Tom's next guest is Kristen Griffith , a former Carroll County Times reporter who currently covers education in Baltimore County for WYPR's partner news organization, The Baltimore Banner.  She helps us size up the roster of candidates for the Baltimore County School Board , and discusses some of the key issues facing the county school system,...

Today on Midday , our focus is on Baltimore County . We begin with another installment in our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022 . Tom's guest is Johnny Olszewski, Jr., the Democratic Baltimore County Executive who is running for a second term against Republican challenger, former Delegate Pat McDonough. After a close primary contest in 2018, Olszewski cruised to victory in the Gene...

Tom's guest for the hour today is one of the most distinctive and fascinating voices in contemporary literature, whose new book is being published today. George Saunders won the 2017 Man Booker Prize for his novel, Lincoln in the Bardo , the acclaimed book that told a terrific story about a grieving Abraham Lincoln, with a wholly original approach to its structure and narrative arc. Before the suc...

Election Day (Tuesday, November 8) is just 22 days away. In addition to choosing candidates for statewide offices and Congress, Maryland voters will decide several issues that have been put to referendum. And Baltimore City voters will also have several ballot questions that pertain exclusively to the city government. One of those question concerns term limits for city elected officials, another h...

Tom's first guest today is New York Times White House correspondent and CNN analyst Maggie Haberman . She began her career in the mid-1990s covering New York politics for the New York Post and the Daily News .  She has known Donald Trump and many of those in his orbit since then, and when Trump was elected U.S. president, her reporting was essential reading for anyone interested in understanding t...

Midday on Books continues with Tom's next guest, Dan Fesperman . After a long career as a journalist and foreign correspondent for the Baltimore Sun , he turned his attention to writing award-winning thrillers, often set in the foreign locales he covered for the Sun.  His latest novel is a terrific page-turner, set in Berlin, Germany, around the time of the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 It’s cal...

It’s Midday on Books.   A little later in the hour, Tom speaks with Dan Fesperman , a former journalist with the Baltimore Sun who for many years has had a successful career as an author of thrillers, and he's written a new one that's terrific. But we begin with one of the most original and compelling voices on the literary scene today. Mohsin Hamid has written five novels and a collection of essa...

It's time again for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins Tom each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today, she brings us reviews of two notable DC productions. The first is the revival of esteemed playwright Mary Zimmerman ' s The Notebooks of Leonardo Da Vinci, now on stage at Shakespeare Theatre Company . The highly visual production, directed by...

Today, it’s another installment in our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022. Tom's guest is Heather Mizeur. She is the Democratic candidate for Congress in the First District , which encompasses the Eastern Shore of Maryland, as well as parts of Baltimore, Harford, and Carroll counties. The seat is currently held by Andy Harris , the lone Republican in Maryland's Congressional delegat...

Paul Simon wrote Old Friends — the song that opens Midday today — when he was 26 years old and singing with his young friend, Art Garfunkel. Tomorrow, Simon celebrates his 81st birthday. Old friends are treasures. They ground us, they sustain us, they’re always there when we need them. There’s nothing quite like an old friend. But what does it take to make new friends? As we get older, does it get...

Nearly 2 million people are incarcerated in the United States. More than twice that many are in the parole and probation system. Women make up 10% of those who are incarcerated, but they are the fastest growing population in prisons. And the racial disparities in the system are acute. One third of all Black American men will spend some time in jail or in prison. Today on Midday , a conversation wi...