Midday

“A man has not begun to live until he can rise above the narrow confines of his own individual concerns, to the broader concerns of all humanity.” — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. speaking at the New Covenant Baptist Church, in Chicago, Illinois, on April 9, 1967. Dr. King would be murdered in Memphis less than one year later. Today on Midday , on this Martin Luther King, Jr. Holida...

After a months-long investigation, a federal grand jury has handed down a four-count indictment alleging that Baltimore State’s Attorney Marilyn Mosby committed perjury on financial forms. Two counts of the indictment allege that Ms. Mosby falsely certified that she had experienced adverse financial consequences due to the Coronavirus. The other two counts allege that Ms. Mosby, the city's t...

It's another edition of Midday at the Movies , our monthly look at films and filmmaking. Tom is joined once again by two of our favorite film aficianadoes: Ann Hornaday, the movie critic for The Washington Post and author the best-selling filmgoers' guide, Talking Pictures: How to Watch Movies ; and Jed Dietz, the founder and former director of the Maryland Film Festival . Today, Ann and Jed remem...

Every day at 10:00 in the morning, the Maryland Department of Health publishes the latest data about COVID-19 in our state. Between Tuesday and Wednesday, the state recorded more than 11,000 new cases of the virus. Between yesterday and today, we added 10,587 cases to that frightful total, which does not include results of self-tests that anyone may have administered. The 7-day average positivity...

On Tuesday (January 11), 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 President Kamala Harris advocated for an end to the...

Today, it’s Midday on Tech.   The Consumer Electronics Show , better known as CES , took place last week in Las Vegas. It was on-line only last year. It was a hybrid deal this year: in-person and online, and although the crowd in Vegas was considerably smaller than in years past, when it comes to CES, small is a relative term. It still drew 40,000 people. By comparison, in 2020, when th...

The surge of cases of COVID 19 caused by the highly transmissible omicron variant continues in Maryland and around the world. More than 3,300 people in Maryland are currently hospitalized because of COVID, and the statewide positivity rate hovers close to 30%. Yesterday, about one of every three Baltimore City Schools shifted their instruction to on-line only. The plan is to return to in-person cl...

Today on Midday , a preview of the 2022 Session of the Maryland General Assembly , which begins Wednesday. A number of issues will be front and center as legislators head back to Annapolis, chief among them drawing new boundaries for state electoral offices. COVID will, of course, loom large logistically and legislatively. Federal funds from the American Rescue Plan and the Infrastructure bill hav...

(The original broadcast of this program featured musical examples of Paul McCartney’s work. Due to copyright laws, we could not include them on this Webpost or on Midday's podcast. The audio we've posted contains the complete conversation between Tom Hall and Paul Muldoon.) Rolling Stone Magazine called Paul McCartney's "Yesterday" “the best song of the 20th century.” It’s...

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom on Zoom for another of her weekly reviews of the region's thespian offerings. Today, in this Web-only critique, she spotlights Once Upon a One More Time , a fairy-tale musical that's getting its world premiere on stage at the Shakespeare Theatre Company in Washington, DC. In this satirical musical fantasy, written by Jon Hartmere , a group of classic...

Today, following NPR's live coverage of the remembrances in the US House of Representatives on the anniversary of the January 6th insurrection, Tom is joined by WYPR correspondent John Lee, who shares his report on how some members of Maryland's congressional delegation have reflected on the extraordinary events of January 6th and their implications for the American democracy. And we welcome our l...

Today on Midday , it's another edition of Smart Nutrition, with our good friend Monica Reinagel — a licensed nutritionist who hosts podcasts, blogs and on-line programs at Nutrition Over Easy.com . A survey conducted by the American Psychological Association found that 42% of Americans gained an average of 29 pounds during just the first year of the pandemic. (Perhaps all those sourdough sta...

Tom's guest today is Congressman Jamie Raskin , who represents Maryland’s 8th District, which includes parts of Montgomery, Carroll, and Frederick Counties. Raskin came to national prominence early last year when he was tapped by Speaker Nancy Pelosi to be the lead manager in Donald Trump’s second impeachment trial. Trump was charged with “incitement of insurrection” for th...

Today, in our first show of the new year, it’s the Midday HealthWatch .  Tom's guest is Dr. Leana Wen , who for years has been so generous sharing her time and expertise with Midday listeners. Dr. Wen is an emergency physician and former Baltimore City Health Commissioner. She teaches at the George Washington University School of Public Health . She’s also a columnist for the...

(This conversation originally aired on December 7, 2021) Welcome to this archive edition of Midday. Tom Hall 's guest today is the acclaimed writer, Ann Patchett . She is the winner of many awards, including the 2002 Pen Faulkner Award and the Orange Prize for Fiction , and her work has been translated into more than 30 languages. She is the author of eight best-selling novels, the latest of which...

(This conversation originally aired on September 15, 2021) Good afternoon and welcome to this archive edition of Midday. Tom Hall 's guest is Jelani Cobb , one of the most important public intellectuals of our time, a scholar and commentator who has offered invaluable insights in the study of racial equality in America in several books, and as a contributor and staff writer at The New Yorker . Dr....

(This conversation was originally aired on November 12, 2021) Welcome to this archive edition of Midday . Tom Hall 's guest today is the acclaimed author, Louise Erdrich . She is one of the most gifted and compelling writers in American literature today. Readers all over the world are irresistibly drawn to her bevy of complex and endearing characters who navigate the world in fascinating and unexp...

(This conversation originally aired October 15, 2021) Welcome to this archive edition of Midday . Today, we revisit a conversation host Tom Hall had this past fall with the acclaimed author, Alice McDermott . She is the winner of a National Book Award. Three of her novels have been finalists for the Pulitzer Prize, and she’s garnered many other prizes and accolades in a career that has spann...

(This conversation originally aired on October 22, 2021) Welcome to this archive edition of Midday . Tom's guest today is Elizabeth Strout . She is the best-selling author of eight novels and many short stories. She won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for her wonderful novel, Olive Kitteridge . A film series adaption of that book, starring Frances McDormand on HBO, won eight Emmy Awards. Elizabeth Strout&...

Hello, and Happy Holidays! Welcome to the Midday Christmas Eve Special , with your host, Tom Hall . Today, we’ll spend the hour listening to some music and some poetry of the season, plus, a story by Baltimore writer Rafael Alvarez . We've put together a playlist of our selections, and you can find them below in the order you'll hear them in the program: MUSIC: I Saw Three Ships Come Sailing...

It is my custom on this program to take some time near the end of the year to remember, briefly, some of the people in our local area who have passed away during the year. As always, this is not an exhaustive list. I simply want to mention a few of the people in the area who I was blessed to know, and who our community was blessed to have. Leslie Starr died in February. She was a wonderful musicia...

It's time for another visit from Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins Tom this week with her review of A Strange Loop , playwright Michael R. Jackson 's Pulitzer Prize-winning 2020 musical that's getting a new production at Woolly Mammoth Theater Company in Washington, D.C. The first musical written (book, music and lyrics) by Jackson, a gay Black playwright, A Strange Loop tells the s...

Today on the Midday Newswrap , Tom's guest is Luke Broadwater . As a reporter for the Baltimore Sun, he led the team that won the Pulitzer Prize for their breaking coverage of former Baltimore Mayor Catherine Pugh and the scandal that landed her and two associates in jail. Luke now covers Congress as a correspondent for The New York Times . Luke discusses COVID and the fast-moving omicron variant'...

A week and a half ago, a man shot his girlfriend in Federal Hill here in Baltimore, then drove to Columbia, where he murdered his ex-wife, before taking his own life. Last month in Franklin County, Pennsylvania, a man murdered his wife in their home, and after shooting the woman’s mother and the family dog, committed suicide. The woman was a nurse in a domestic violence center. Recent survey...

Next week, Will Baker will retire as the president of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation , a position he has held since 1982. He joined the organization six years prior to that, as an intern, fresh out of college. The foundation is the largest nonprofit conservation organization dedicated solely to preserving, protecting, and restoring the Chesapeake Bay. Will Baker joins us on Zoom to reflect on his t...