Midday

(This conversation was originally broadcast on April 26, 2022) Good afternoon and welcome to an encore edition of Midday . Tom's guest today is Dorothy Roberts , a professor of law and sociology at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of four books, including Killing the Black Body,   about systemic abuse of African American women, and Fatal Invention ,  which explores the r...

It's time for another visit with theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins Tom each week with her reviews of Maryland's regional stage. Today, she spotlights The Joy That Carries You , now getting a world premiere production at Olney Theater Center. Co-written by two local playwrights, Awa Sal Secka and Dani Stoller, the uplifting drama combines sharp comic dialogue with sparkling spoken-word poe...

Nearly 45 million Americans have amassed $1.6 trillion dollars in student loan debt. The Biden Administration is expected to announce its plan for student debt relief soon, perhaps as early as this weekend. One of the ideas the President is considering is an executive order that would forgive $10,000 of each borrower's debt, which would wipe out loans for 4.6 million borrowers. More than 1 in 5 bo...

The trauma that the country feels in the aftermath of these all-too-common mass shootings is palpable, raw and not quickly relieved. And imagine what the medical staffs of the hospitals experienced as victims of these attacks are rushed into their facilities. And another kind of trauma continues to afflict them: COVID infection numbers are climbing again. For people who have been vaccinated, there...

We begin today with Elizabeth Williamson , a feature writer for the New York Times and the author of Sandy Hook:  An American Tragedy and the Battle for Truth.   Elizabeth joined Tom in March to talk about her very important book, and you can hear their Midday conversation here. As we know, another American tragedy occurred Tuesday at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, when a murdero...

The Fraternal Order of Police held a vote of no-confidence last night regarding Baltimore County Police Chief Melissa Hyatt , and called for her dismissal. The County school system is grappling with persistent transportation problems and a nationwide driver shortage. And concerns over Baltimore County teacher pay and school safety sparked a protest rally last week outside a school board meeting. T...

Now, we turn to Mark Reutter , a senior editor and investigative reporter with the Baltimore Brew.   One of the stories he has been covering, for years, is the development at Port Covington , announced with great fanfare in 2016. But the scope and parameters of the project have changed since then, and Mark joins us on Zoom with an update on the most recent turns in the huge development projec...

Memorial Day weekend is right around the corner, and in anticipation of all those summer crab feasts folks are looking forward to, we thought we’d take a look at the status of crabs in the Chesapeake Bay . Since 1990, the MD Department of Natural Resources has conducted a Baywide Blue Crab Winter Dredge Survey , to determine the size of the blue crab population in the Bay. And this year, the...

We are, as a general rule, living longer. The average life expectancy of Americans in 1960 was just over 69 years. In 2022, it’s 79 years. A team of physicians and researchers at Johns Hopkins University have formed a group to study ways that we can stay healthy as we get older, exploring medical and technological fixes for what might ail us. Dr. Jeremy Walston is the director of the Johns H...

We open with Kenny Rogers singing Through the Years , one of the many hit songs written by Tom's next guest, Steve Dorff. The winner of more than 40 BMI Awards, Dorff is an inductee to the Songwriters Hall of Fame , and he has written more than 20 top 10 hits for iconic artists like Barbra Streisand, Celine Dion, Whitney Houston, Anne Murray, Garth Brooks, Dolly Parton, Willie Nelson, and Dusty Sp...

Time now for another edition of Midday at the Movies, our monthly look at films and filmmaking. Jed Dietz , the founder and former director of the Maryland Film Festival and Parkway Theatre , joins Tom to talk about the Cannes Film Festival , running May 17-28 in France, where one of the showcased new films is Top Gun: Maverick , the long-awaited sequel to the 1986 blockbuster action film. Tom Cru...

The White House has taken a number of steps to address the current shortage of infant formula . President Biden invoked the Defense Production Act to make sure ample supplies of formula can be created in the US and he has directed the USDA and the Defense Department to coordinate picking up and delivering formula from abroad. The first shipments are scheduled to arrive in the next few days. The go...

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins us each week with her reviews of Maryland;s regional stage. Today she tells us about The Legend of Georgia McBride , playwright Matthew Lopez 's quirky, tuneful 2014 comedy about show biz & social norms, now on stage at The Maryland Ensemble Theatre in Frederick, Maryland. Directed by MET's Associate Artistic Di...

And now, a conversation about a guy that back in the day in Baltimore, struggled, scraped and faked his way through school, fought at the drop of a hat, and found himself on the opposite side of legal more than a few times. He was far and away the least likely to succeed. But succeed he did. Leonard "Boogie" Weinglass was a charmer, a delinquent, a star athlete, a gambler, a partier and a patron....

We begin today with some breaking news that will alter the media landscape in the Baltimore metro area. WYPR and the Baltimore Banner, a multi-platform news organization that is expected to begin publishing this summer, announced this morning that the two organizations have entered into a joint operating agreement. LaFontaine Oliver , the president of the Your Public Radio Corporation and the Gene...

We open this part of the show with the music of the composer and performer Dan Deacon : a track called Sat by a Tree from his 2020 album, Mystic Familiar.   Deacon is one of dozens of Baltimore musicians featured in a new film about the Baltimore music scene that is receiving its world premiere Thursday night at the Charles Theater here in Baltimore. It’s called Do Whatever You Want All...

It's Midday with the Mayor,   another in Tom Hall's series of monthly conversations with Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott about key issues facing the city. With the national spotlight shining on Baltimore in this Preakness Week , City Hall is rocked by yet another ethics controversy, as the city's Ethics Board ruled that City Council President Nick Mosby violated ethics rules on campaign so...

Tom's guest today is John Waters . He’s the director of 16 films, a visual artist with museum shows to his credit, a spoken word artist who performs in venues around the world, an actor, and a pitchman for haute couture.  He is also a Son of Baltimore and one of America’s most original and enduring voices in the arts, with a deep artistic palette. His early films in the 1970s &mda...

Today on Midday, it’s another installment in our series of Conversations with the Candidates: 2022 . Tom's guest is Jon Baron , who is running in the Democratic primary for Maryland Governor. Mr. Baron has experience in both government and the nonprofit sector. Before running for Governor, he was the Vice President of Evidence Based Policy for Arnold Ventures , which describes itself as a no...

(This conversation first aired on December 8, 2021) The House Select Committee investigating the insurrection at the US Capitol on January 6, 2021 has interviewed hundreds of witnesses and made several criminal referrals to the US Justice Department for witnesses who have refused to appear before the Committee. Meanwhile, hundreds of rioters have been indicted and many imprisoned for their role in...

(This program first aired on January 12, 2022) Back in January of this year, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris traveled to Atlanta to speak about the importance of voting rights , and the need for federal legislation to overcome the dozens of state laws that have been enacted and the hundreds of laws that are being considered to restrict voting. Before the President spoke, Vice...

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins Tom each week with her reviews of the regional stage. In keeping with today's housing theme, she spotlights Dream Hou$e, playwright Eliana Pipes ' energetic satire about how two LatinX sisters deal with cultural assimilation, capitalism, and the American home-ownership dream, now running at Baltimore Center Stage. T...

This week brought news of some positive signs in the area of real estate development in Baltimore. As five buildings near completion in the Port Covington Project on the city’s Southern tip, it was announced that two development firms have been chosen to lease and provide marketing for the next phase of the project. MAG Partners is based in New York. It is a woman-owned firm. MacFarlane Part...

For decades, political discourse in Baltimore has included condemnation of the fact that there are “two Baltimores,” one in which opportunity abounds and the other in which systemic racism and inequity create insurmountable barriers. Tom's guest today has lived in both Baltimores, and he has written a fascinating memoir that paints a vivid portrait of these two disparate worlds, and of...

This past weekend, Baltimore Ceasefire 365 coordinated a number of events to call attention to the pain and trauma caused by the excessive levels of violence in our city. Ceasefire Weekends are held four times a year, and after each one, we pause here on Midday to reflect on how all of us can act to reduce violence and heal those who are broken by it. Joining Tom today are Erricka Bridgeford .&nbs...