Midday

(Originally broadcast October 21, 2020) Today, on this archive edition of Midday, a conversation Tom had two weeks before the November election with Gerald Seib, a journalist who's covered politics for The Wall Street Journal for morte than forty years, and now serves as the paper's Executive Washington Editor. The election results showed us that the divisions in our country and within the Republi...

Rebroadcast: this program originally aired on Oct. 30, 2020. African American participation in COVID-19 vaccine trials is critically low despite the pandemic's disproportionate impact on Black communities. From the Tuskegee Study to Henrietta Lacks, centuries of anti-black racism and discrimination in American healthcare have led to chronic distrust of medical research among African Americans. Tom...

This Thanksgiving, as many Americans forego travel due to the pandemic, large gatherings of friends and families will give way to more intimate feasts. Whether you're cooking for one, two, or ten - today, we're sharing recipes and tips to help make your Thanksgiving dinner a delicious and memorable affair. Chefs David Thomas and John Shields are with us once again to talk you through any questions...

Today on Midday, in the spirit of Thanksgiving, we’re going to take a break from news about the pandemic, or our recalcitrant president, or the intractable murder rate here in Baltimore City. Instead, we are going to take some time to show Baltimore a little love. It is easy to complain about our town. It takes only a mild dash of cynicism to point out what’s wrong with Baltimore. But as veteran j...

A third pharmaceutical giant, AstraZeneca, announced this morning that late-stage clinical trials of a COVID 19 vaccine in the UK and Brazil show more promising results. The London-based company joins the American companies Pfizer and Moderna in expressing confidence that an effective vaccine will be available soon. But in the meantime, the coronavirus continues to surge here in Maryland and acros...

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom with a look at a couple of new streaming-arts endeavors helping to entertain and inspire us as the raging COVID-19 pandemic keeps most of the nation's theaters and movie houses dark. She leads off with a review of HBO's new all-star adaptation of writer Ta-Nehisi Coates’s Between the World and Me, the testimonial he published in 2015 about the realit...

Now, it's another edition of Smart Nutrition, with our good friend Monica Reinagel — a licensed nutritionist and host of the Nutrition Diva podcast, one of the most popular health and fitness podcasts on the Web. Monica is also the author of several books, including Nutrition Diva’s Secrets for a Healthy Diet. She's also the co-host of a new podcast launched in March called Change Academy, which f...

As the country falls deeper into a morass of a surging pandemic, the President has ignored the coronavirus and most of his other presidential duties, and instead -- through hundreds of Tweets -- has attempted to rile up his supporters around unfounded allegations of massive, Democrat-directed election fraud. He fired Christopher Krebs, a respected Department of Homeland Security professional who w...

Our Newsmaker guest today is Baltimore City Police Commissioner Michael Harrison. The COVID-19 pandemic has crippled businesses across the city and forced many to close, but it has had no appreciable effect on the number of murders in our city this year, which stands at 294 as of today. Yesterday, the Baltimore Police Department announced the arrests of 14 people who are believed to have been invo...

Yesterday, at a news conference at the State House in Annapolis, Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan gave a somber summary of the scope of the COVID 19 pandemic in the state. Some hospitals in Western Maryland are at or near capacity. For three of the past five days, the state has reported more than 2,000 new cases, as the country sees new infections surpass 140,000 every day. Hogan announced that effective...

Today, on Midday, the complex decision facing school administrators in Maryland and across the country: when and how to reopen schools for in-person learning. Dr. Darryl L. Williams, the Superintendent of the Baltimore County School System, and Dr. Sonja Santelises, the CEO of Baltimore City Schools, discuss who’s in school a building now, who’s staying home, and why. Email us at midday@wypr.org,...

In 1961, President John F. Kennedy implored Americans to “ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country.” Twenty years later, Ronald Reagan won election by asking Americans, “Are you better off now than you were four years ago?” Not if the country was better off; if you were better off. In their fascinating, compelling and wholly original new book, The Upswing: How...

Today, another in our occasional series, Midday on Higher Education in which we sit down with the presidents of colleges and universities throughout the state. Tom's guest is Dr. Debra McCurdy, president of Baltimore City Community College, a State-sponsored community college located in Baltimore's Park Heights neighborhood. Dr. McCurdy took the reigns at Baltimore Community College in May of 2019...

President-elect Joe Biden has been declared the winner of the presidential election in Arizona, bringing his total in the Electoral College to 290 votes. A hand recount ordered by state officials in Georgia will almost certainly confirm Biden’s win in that state as well. Ever since he burst onto the scene with an upset Senate victory in 1972, Joe Biden has been a power player in Washington and on...

Last May, an Ohio-based company called Persistent Surveillance Systems was granted permission to conduct a six-month trial program in Baltimore -- paid for by a foundation in Texas -- to determine if an Aerial Investigation Research (AIR) program was an effective way to help local police and prosecutors in their efforts to solve crimes. The trial period ended on October 31st. Final data from the t...

Tom's guest is singer Freda Payne. Some might know Ms. Payne for the 1970 Holland-Dozier-Holland song she recorded called Band of Gold. It was a huge, international top-40 hit single for the then-28 year-old singer. Payne had a solid run in the R&B genre, with another gold-record hit two years later, an anti-Vietnam War song called Bring the Boys Home. Despite her success in the 1970s with R&B, th...

Today on Midday: another check on the economic impact of the pandemic. For retailers, it's supposed to be the most wonderful time of the year. But this year, as cases of Coronavirus surge across the country, consumer spending may be a ghost of holiday's past. Bill Thorne, the Senior Vice President of Communications and Public Affairs at the National Retail Federation, explains why consumers should...

Early analysis of the results of the election underscore the deep divisions in our country. President Donald Trump garnered 8 million more votes this time than he received in 2016. He won solid majorities among white males. He was favored by both the wealthiest voters and those without a college degree. President Elect Biden won more votes than any candidate in history, winning majorities of Afric...

Tom's next guest is the acclaimed author Nicole Krauss. She is the author of four novels, including the international bestsellers Forest Dark, Great House, The History of Love, and her debut novel, Man Walks Into a Room. She’s been a finalist for the National Book Award and the Orange Prize, and she a winner of the Saroyan Prize and the Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger in France. Last week, on Elec...

The Family Survivor Network is a local non-profit organization in Sandtown Winchester that supports the hidden victims of gun violence - the survivors and witnesses of homicide who are left picking up the pieces after a traumatic death. Today on Midday, FSN Executive Director Dorian Walker explains how through individual counseling, peer support groups, and community-centered engagement, his organ...

As we head into the winter months, the number of cases of COVID 19 continues to rise in Maryland and across the country. On Thursday, Governor Larry Hogan warned of difficult times ahead, urging residents to stay the course, comply with pandemic restrictions, and to "wear the damn mask." Baltimore Mayor Jack Young has announced new restrictions for bars, movie theaters, and other public places. Th...

It's another edition of Midday at the Movies, our monthly look at films and filmmaking. As the world nervously awaits the results of vote-counting in multiple states that will determine who will be the next President of the United States, we spotlight some of the new films that have sought to capture the intense angst -- and hopefulness -- many Americans are feeling during this time of deep politi...

As the 2020 election vote-counting continues in Arizona, Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Nevada and Alaska, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is inching closer to being declared President-elect. Early this morning, Biden overtook President Trump’s early lead in Pennsylvania, as mail in-votes from the Philadelphia area are tallied. Pennsylvania election officials expect to complete...

Yesterday, a record 104,000 new cases of COVID-19 were reported in a single day. As infections surge, health officials in many areas once again fear that their health systems will be overwhelmed. England and Europe are in a second national lockdown. Dr. Leana Wen joins Tom for the hour to examine what's behind this new wave of infections. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call...

The status of the 2020 national election is inconclusive, but we can conclude that the country remains sharply divided over the best way to navigate the serious challenges that lie ahead for America. In the early morning hours today, Joe Biden encouraged his supporters to “keep the faith,” predicting confidently that he will prevail when all of the votes are counted. Soon thereafter, President Tru...