Midday

Tom's next guest is Johns Hopkins, the executive director of Baltimore Heritage since 2003, and the host of “Five Minutes of Baltimore History,” a new feature which debuts on WYPR this week.

Tomorrow, the government shutdown reaches the distinction of being the longest shutdown in American history. Ongoing legal cases involving federal judges in Massachusetts and Rhode Island will determine if federal food assistance -- SNAP benefits -- will be funded through the rest of the shutdown. Maryland Secretary of Agriculture Kevin Atticks joins Midday to help navigate the latest news on SNAP...

It’s the Midday Healthwatch with former Baltimore City Health Commissioner and Washington Post columnist, Dr. Leana Wen. Dr. Wen joins Midday on the first Monday of every month to discuss important developments in the field of public health, and to answer your questions about medicine, health and wellness. Her latest book is Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health.

Midday's theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews the new production of Yasmina Reza's 'Art' at the Everyman Theatre.

As BMoreArt publishes its 20th bi-annual issue, founder/publisher Cara Ober and Managing Editor Chelsea Lemon Fetzer mark a decade of arts community-building and journalism.

As the latest government shutdown enters day 31, Maryland's Rep. Sarah Elfreth joins Midday to discuss the latest on negotiations and the urgent need of funding for SNAP benefits. On Saturday, the effects of the shutdown are likely to be felt more sharply as federal SNAP benefits end for 42 million Americans, including 680,000 Marylanders. Following our conversation with Elfreth, Gov. Wes Moore ga...

Christie Dashiell, who plays Keystone Korner Baltimore tonight, is a singer/songwriter whose latest CD earned a 2025 Grammy nomination for Best Jazz Vocal Album.

The Maryland Data Centers Analysis Group is looking to make better information available to the public and policymaker.

The number of data centers across the country nearly doubled between 2021 and 2024. We take a look at Maryland's effort to attract this lucrative industry to the state.

Midday on Cars takes a look under the hood and answers your questions about your automobile. John Davis, the Host of Motorweek on Maryland Public Television and PBS, joins the show to discuss the outlook for electric vehicles, how tariffs are changing the domestic automotive market and how to care for your car as winter approaches. Davis has hosted Motorweek since it began nearly a half century ag...

Joining Tom now is Maryland Congressman Johnny Olszewski, Jr. He represents Marylanders living in the state's second district, which includes parts of Carroll and Baltimore counties, as well as a sliver of Baltimore City. The second longest government shutdown in history is slogging along into its 28th day. Meanwhile, President Trump is traveling in Asia, the Senate is stalled, and the House isn’t...

Tom's first guest today is Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman. A recent 78-page report in the Comptroller’s “State of the Economy” series focuses on the cost of housing, which has risen more than 60% nationwide in just the past six years, and left about half of Maryland residents struggling to afford a place to live. In her introduction to the report, the Comptroller writes: “A troubling conseque...

Last Friday, Maryland Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks joined U.S. Representatives Don Beyer and James Walkinshaw (both D-Va.) and more than 60 of their colleagues in the Senate and House in urging the Trump Administration to immediately reinstate any furloughed employees of agencies that are funded by collected user fees. Because they are funded by fees, these agencies are not affe...

People are increasingly living more of their lives on a screen, interacting with the digital world on social media platforms, games and apps. These online spaces are big business for companies, who sell the enormous amounts of data that most people freely make available when they surf, scroll and click. Corporate America says that the information they collect about us is used to better customize o...

The acclaimed ensemble of traditional musicians performs live in our studio, ahead of their concerts, tonight through Monday, in Annapolis, Baltimore and Rockville.

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews Liza Jessie Peterson's powerful one-woman show about mass incarceration, at Baltimore's Center Stage.

WYPR's statehouse reporter Sarah Petrowich covered losses in revenue in Maryland from the government shutdown and Gov. Wes Moore's efforts to right the state's budget.

The property tax rate in the city of Baltimore is twice what it is in Baltimore County and other surrounding jurisdictions. The amount of tax that a homeowner or a business pays starts with an assessment of a property’s value, and in Baltimore, that assessment is not made by city officials. Maryland is the only state in the country where the assessment process is centralized at the State level. Va...

In Baltimore City, the residential vacancy rate hovered between 7 and 8 percent in recent years. Now the city’s billion-dollar plan to get a handle on a vacant housing crisis might be sidetracked by a “housing hustle.” A trio of reporters at our news partner, the Baltimore Banner, have been investigating how out-of-state buyers are using a new type of mortgage loan that is fueling an uptick in for...

Tom's guest for the hour today is Dr. Keisha N. Blain, a historian and Africana Studies professor at Brown University. She also serves as editor-in-chief of Global Black Thought, a journal of ideas about the Black experience in the US and across the African diaspora. With her deep scholarship in African American history, Dr. Blain has written extensively on the pivotal role Black women have played...

Jonathon Heyward began his tenure as the Music Director of the Baltimore Symphony Orchestra in 2023, in a five-year contract that established him as one of the youngest Music Directors of a major symphony in the country and the only Black leader of a major orchestra. Last week, the BSO announced that he has extended that original contract to run through 2031. Heyward is set to conduct in three con...

We begin today with a conversation about stress. It’s part and parcel of all of our lives. And while the downside effects of stress are readily apparent: worry, anxiety, insomnia. Is there an upside to stress? Dr. Leigh Vinocur thinks that by reframing what stress is and managing it correctly, we can turn stress into a force for good. Dr. Leigh knows a thing or two about stress. She’s an Emergency...

Dara Horn is a writer and Jewish scholar who is slated to give the Jerome S. Cardin Memorial Lecture at Loyola University of Maryland this week.

Veteran health reporter Julie Rovner, Washington correspondent for KFF Health News, joins Midday to bust the myths of healthcare and immigration.

Last Monday, President Donald Trump flew to the Middle East to address Israeli lawmakers at the Knesset. He then flew to Sharm Al-Sheikh in Egypt for a signing ceremony of a ceasefire agreement, which included Egypt, Qatar, and Turkiye, countries which helped mediate the deal. The ceasefire has held for the most part, although there is much uncertainty about the deal. A condition of the agreement...