Midday

It’s  Midday on Politics .  We begin today with  Dr. Mileah Kromer,  associate professor of political science and director of the  Sarah T. Hughes Field Politics Center  at  Goucher College , who gives us a look behind the findings of the Center's latest  Goucher Poll .   What do Marylanders think about the state’s vaccine distribution...

It’s time now for another edition of  Smart Nutrition .   We're joined by our good friend,  Monica Reinagel .   She’s a licensed nutritionist, and the host of the popular  Nutrition Diva  podcast.  She also co-hosts  C hange Academy , a podcast about creating life-enhancing behavior changes. Yesterday marked the first anniversary of the&nbsp...

President Joe Biden  addressed the nation  Thursday night in his first effort to explain and build support for the  American Rescue Plan , the $1.9 trillion-dollar legislation that he signed yesterday.  We turn now to  Sen. Chris Van Hollen , Maryland's Democratic junior senator, for his reactions to the  President’ s speech, and his perspectives on how this new...

Today on  Midday on Ethics: as supplies of COVID-19 vaccines are ramped up and the pace of vaccinations in Maryland and across the country accelerates, a conversation about  vaccination ethics.   How are how public health and government officials  making the difficult decisions about who gets vaccinated, and when? One year ago today, the  World Health Organization &nb...

Today on  Midday :  are anti-Asian hate crimes increasing?  Viral videos of what appear to be random attacks on elderly Asian men in the San Francisco area have sparked outrage and led to renewed concern about tension between some Asian and Black communities.  Tom's guest today is a developmental psychologist who studies immigrant families and their experience of discrimination...

Tom's guest now is the best-selling novelist and essayist,  Anne Lamott .  She is the author of 19 books, the latest of which is replete with all the hallmarks that have made her such a popular writer for so long.  It is funny and compassionate and personal and insightful and loving.  In the tradition of some of her other best-sellers, like  Traveling Mercies  or&nbsp...

Tom's first guest today is  Dr. Letitia Dzirasa , Commissioner of the Baltimore City Health Department .  As the COVID-19 vaccine rollout continues, a new Goucher poll indicates that statewide, African Americans are trying to get vaccinated at rates that are just a few points lower than White Maryland residents.  The poll findings contradict those who contend that the inequity in va...

Today on  Midday ,  as  WYPR  begins its annual  Spring Membership Campaign ,  it's a special  Reporters' Notebook  edition, as three members of  WYPR' s outstanding local news team --  Emily Sullivan ,  John Lee  and  Sarah Y. Kim  -- join Tom to bring us insight into the  Baltimore   stories  each of them have b...

Midday  theater critic  J. Wynn Rousuck   joins Tom now with another look at the pandemic-inspired virtual theater scene.  We begin with her review of  Cry It Out , a new virtual production from  Everyman Theatre  of playwright  Molly Smith Metzler's  comedy about the perils of parenthood.  Filmed using COVID-safe techniques, the producti...

It’s another edition of  Midday at the Movies , our monthly look at films and filmmaking. We’re joined once again on Zoom by our good friend  Ann Hornaday  – she’s a film critic for the Washington Post and the author of the bestselling movie-goers’ guide,  Talking Pictures: How To Watch Movies.  Also with us on Zoom is our friend  Jed Die...

It’s  Midday with the Mayor ,  another in our series of live conversations with the Mayor of Baltimore,  Brandon M. Scott .  Among the topics Tom and the Mayor discuss: The mass vaccination site at M&T Bank Stadium has been open for a week.  When Governor Larry Hogan made comments about Baltimore getting more vaccines than it is entitled to, the reaction by...

Last December, Martha Jones, a historian at Johns Hopkins University, described in a  Washington Post oped  how her  research  had revealed that Johns Hopkins, the namesake of her institution, had owned slaves.  Long thought to be an abolitionist, Mr. Hopkins, in fact, claimed at least four men as his property in 1850, and prior to that, had used Black people as collateral...

Tom's guest today is the American author,  George Saunders .   He’s published hundreds of short stories, and his first novel,  Lincoln in the Bardo ,  won the prestigious  Man Booker Prize  in 2017.  Saunders’ short stories have been published in  The New Yorker ,  Harper’s   and many other magazines, and collected in best-selling...

Today on  Midday ,  an update from the General Assembly in Annapolis with one of the leaders of the Republican caucus in the House of Delegates.   Tom's guest is  Delegate Kathy Szeliga .   She’s the  Minority Whip  who represents District 7, including parts of Baltimore and Harford Counties.   Delegate Szeliga and  Minority Leader Nic K...

Continuing today's focus on the 2021 Maryland General Assembly at the midpoint of its 90-day legislative session, Tom's next guest is  Ovetta Wiggins , who covers the Annapolis State House and Maryland politics for The  Washington Post. She discusses the key legislative developments of the 2021 session thus far, including efforts to advance  progressive policing reform. Ovetta Wiggi...

It’s the  Midday Healthwatch  with  Dr. Leana Wen .  Johnson and Johnson's COVID-19 vaccine , which is being manufactured here in Baltimore, has been approved for emergency use by the US Food and Drug Administration, adding an important weapon in the fight against the coronavirus.  Unlike the vaccines made by Pfizer and Moderna, the J&J drug requires only one dos...

Former President Donald Trump  has been voted out of the White House and removed from Twitter, which has considerably reduced his presence in the public psyche.   That is about to change.   On Sunday afternoon, he will give the culminating speech at  CPAC , the Conservative Political Action Conference  in Orlando, Florida, and he will do so as a still-dominant figure...

Tom Hall 's guest for the hour today is the president of the  Baltimore City Council ,  Nick Mosby . He leads a progressive council at a perilous time for our city, as we confront a  public health crisis , an economic downturn, and a continued epidemic of serious and deadly crimes. President Mosby has been a vocal critic of  Governor Larry Hogan , accusing the state government...

On today's  Midday , a conversation with the award-winning author and ethicist,  Harriet A. Washington ,  about the human costs of unethical medical research. In the current national debate about vaccine hesitancy among people in communities of color, people point to distrust of medical research that is premised on the experience in two famous cases:  one is Henrietta Lacks, a...

Last night,  President Biden addressed the nation  as we passed the grim milestone of 500,000 deaths from illness related to COVID 19.  A candle lighting ceremony at the White House commemorated the loved ones who have been lost.  Flags will fly at half-mast for the next five days.  Because of the pandemic, most of the deceased were denied the honor of a memorial service o...

As President Biden noted in his  national address  last night, we are struggling to comprehend the incomprehensible – that half a million of our fellow Americans – and another two million more people around the globe -- have lost their lives to the COVID-19 virus over the short span of a year.  We have also lost, in many cases, the traditional ways of grieving these trag...

Tom's next guest is  Cara Ober , the founder, editor-in-chief and publisher of  BMoreArt ,  an online and biannual print journal devoted to the local art scene.   She joins us on Zoom. Ms. Ober, who is also an artist and curator, was one of eight 2019 recipients of the Maine-based  Rabkin Foundation Arts Writer Award ,  the largest grant of its kind,   given...

Tom's  Newsmaker  guest today is  Baltimore City's Inspector-General, Isabel Mercedes Cumming . She was appointed in 2018.  Since then, her office, which was established as an oversight authority to investigate allegations of misconduct by City employees and contractors, has grown from four to 17 employees, and the number of complaints received on the OIG hot line has incr...

Tom's guest is the award-winning author  Chang-rae Lee .  He is the author of six novels.  His first,  Native Speaker , earned the  1996 Hemingway Foundation/Pen Award for First Fiction .   The Surrendered , which he published in 2008, was a finalist for the  Pulitzer Prize .  A subsequent novel,  On Such a Full Sea ,  was a finalist for the&n...

(Originally aired January 22, 2021) We begin today with an interview from the  Midday  archive.  It’s a conversation Tom had last month with a scholar from  Loyola University Chicago  about  anger .   If you haven't read her   fascinating chronicle of emotional history, it might not have occurred to you that anger, or any emotion, could have a&nbs...