Midday

A little more than half of Marylanders have been fully vaccinated against COVID-19 so far. Nationally, we may not reach President Biden’s goal of vaccinating 70% of all Americans by the fourth of July. Mass vax sites are out. Mobile units are in. Convincing the adult holdouts to get a vaccine, and vaccinating children are now the focus of public health officials. It's The Midday Healthwatch...

We open this segment with the music of jazz pianist Bill Charlap , recorded live at Keystone Korner , one of the great jazz clubs in the country, which is right here in Baltimore’s Harbor East neighborhood. The proprietor of Keystone Korner is Todd Barkan . He was the 2018 recipient of the distinguished NEA Jazz Master award, and for decades, he’s been revered as one of the great jazz...

Tom's first guest today is Jim Hunter . He was the voice of the Baltimore Orioles for 24 years. The team has been in a rebuilding mode for some time now, and that rebuild included a complete revamp of its broadcast team last January, when Jim and six of his colleagues in the Os broadcast booth were swapped out for a new team. Jim is now contributing his talents to Maryland Public Television, and h...

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck , who joins Tom today with her review of Palestinian/Irish playwright Hannah Khalil 's Scenes From 73* Years . The play is a complex tapestry of stories about daily life in Palestine since the state of Israel was established in 1948. The streaming production, utilizing a large cast from the Chicago-based Medina Theater Collecti...

If you’re headed down the ocean this weekend, as the saying goes, it’s almost a sure bet that depending on what time you leave to head east over the Chesapeake Bay Bridge to Kent Island, you will spend part of the time during your trip snarled in traffic. And if you live on the Eastern or Western Shore, your commute or your drive doing errands will be slowed down too. The traffic that...

For decades, the term “Critical Race Theory” was known only to law professors and historians, but lately, it’s been all over the news. CRT was first introduced more than 40 years ago by legal scholars Derrick Bell, Kimberlé Crenshaw and Richard Delgado. The theory holds, basically, that racism is not simply a matter of inter-personal animus. Rather, it’s also a socia...

Tom's guest today is Calvin Butler , the Senior Executive Vice President of the energy company, Exelon and the Chief Executive Officer of Exelon Utilities , a group of six Exelon companies that includes BGE . Mr. Butler is also the Chair of the Board of Directors of the Greater Baltimore Committee , a network of business and non-profit CEOs, university Presidents, and religious leaders. African Am...

Coming up a little later in today's program, Dr. Gigi Gronvall , a senior scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security, joins us to discuss the latest news about the coronavirus. But Tom's first guest today is Beth Benner . She’s the Executive Director of the Women’s Housing Coalition . With the rates of vaccination against COVID 19 slipping across the country, health offici...

Tom's next guest is Dr. Gigi Gronvall , an immunologist and senior scholar with The Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security , part of the Bloomberg School of Public Health . She joins us to discuss what we know - and what we still need to know - about the origins of the SARS CoV-2 virus . What is the evidence that the virus originated in a lab, instead of passing to humans through animals? And wh...

To round out the program today, Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom with her review of playwright Dominique Morisseau 's Pipeline . It's a powerful new drama about a mother whose dreams for her son's education clash with the systemic racism in the schools that she believes are rigged to ensure her son fails. The virtual production, starring Dylan Fleming, Eleasha Gamble, Bekah Zornosa,...

It's Midday at the Movies, our monthly look at films, filmmaking and the movie experience. Today Tom is joined once again by Jed Dietz , the founding director of the Maryland Film Festival . Midday's other regular movie maven, Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday , is away this week. Jed and Tom discuss some of the highlights of the recent Maryland Film Festival , which ran May 19-27, includin...

On Tuesday, Governor Larry Hogan became the 25th Republican Governor across the country to end federal enhanced pandemic benefits for people who are out of work. Some businesses are facing worker shortages, a problem the Governor described as critical, and he said that with jobs and vaccines now in good supply, the benefits are no longer needed. The decision affects about 150,000 Marylanders, who...

Now, an update on a story we’ve been following for more than a year. Despite efforts by local journalists, non-profits, and a wealthy businessman to acquire the Baltimore Sun from the Tribune Company, it has been sold instead to a New York Hedge Fund, Alden Global Capital. This is a worst-case scenario nightmare for those who want to see the Sun return to local control, with a focus on local...

It’s Midday with the Mayor . Baltimore City Mayor Brandon Scott joins host Tom Hall for another of their monthly live conversations about key issues on the Mayor's agenda. After another violent Memorial Day weekend, the Mayor remains committed to a multi-pronged approach to violence reduction. Progress, however is slow. The City is strategizing on how to spend the first installment of $640 m...

Tom's first guest today is Michelle Orange , an author based here in Baltimore who has contributed to the New Yorker, Harper’s Magazine, the New York Times and other publications. She also teaches writing at Columbia University and Goucher College. Her 2013 collection of essays, called This is Running for Your Life , was critically acclaimed. Her new book is in part a memoir, a rumination on...

Tom's next guests today are two of his former colleagues in the world of choral music, an art form that has been particularly hard-hit by the pandemic. Early on in the Coronavirus crisis, it became clear to researchers that singing was one of the most dangerous activities one could engage in. Transmission of the virus among singers in choruses and in congregate settings in general were shown to be...

For more than 150 years, the Secret Service has protected Presidents and their families, other government officials, and visiting dignitaries. Originally housed in the Treasury Department, agents in field offices across the country also investigate financial crimes like counterfeiting. In her best-selling new book, Zero Fail: The Rise and Fall of the Secret Service , award-winning Washington Post...

On this Memorial Day, we mark the anniversary of one of the darkest days in American history. One hundred years ago today, a white mob began a two-day terror campaign that wiped-out a thriving Black community in Tulsa, Oklahoma. The Greenwood section of that city had come to be known as “Black Wall Street.” It was destroyed. 300 African Americans were killed. Hundreds more were injured...

(This interview was first broadcast on April 9, 2021) Tom's guest in this archive edition of Midday is the author of a book about three accomplished Black women: Alberta King, Louise Little and Berdis Baldwin . It’s part biography of these women, and part clarion call for recognition of all Black women. Anna Malaika Tubbs writes that erasure, mis-recognition and historical amnesia are, sadly...

As we enter this Memorial Day weekend, folks are feeling much, much better about going out and enjoying the things we weren’t able to enjoy during the long months of the pandemic. For people who are vaccinated, going to a restaurant is no longer tantamount to risking your life. For unvaccinated people, it’s a different story, for them and for those around them, but as more people, incl...

Tom's guest on today's edition of the Midday Newswrap is veteran Baltimore journalist Jayne Miller . She's been reporting for WBAL Television for more than 30 years, and is now the chief investigative reporter on the station's "11 Investigates" I-Team . For the past 15 months, she’s been reporting on the state’s response to the COVID 19 pandemic, and last February, she herself became p...

Today, we’re going to have some fun with a delightful book about English expressions, those idiomatic turns of phrase whose provenance isn’t always, or perhaps, hardly ever, known, but whose place in our language is undisputed. We're talking about phrases like “over the moon,” or “under the weather”; “on top of the world,” or “in over your head...

Tom's guest today is the data scientist, scholar, and author, Dr. Lawrence Brown . A former member of the Morgan State University faculty, he’s also been a visiting professor at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. He teaches in the Johns Hopkins Urban Health Institute’s Bunting Neighborhood Leadership Program , and he has spoken and written widely on racial equity and health issues....

Last week, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott vetoed a controversial bill that would have allowed renters a couple of alternatives to paying lump-sum security deposits. One alternative, supported by most housing advocates, would have allowed renters to pay the security deposits in installments. Another provision of the bill would have allowed renters to purchase “surety bonds” that would pl...

Tom's guest today is Michelle Zauner , a successful indie-rock composer and musician who has written a wonderful book. One could also say that she’s a compelling writer who has a great band (called Japanese Breakfast) . Her songs are good because they speak to universal notions in a unique and universal way. Her book is good because the story is poignant and sad and beautifully told, a remem...