Midday

It's the July edition of Midday at the Movies, and Tom is joined again by two of our favorite movie mavens -- Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday and the Maryland Film Festival's founding director, Jed Dietz. As demonstrations for police reform and racial justice continue across the country, Ann and Jed discuss the ripple effects the national dialogue on race is having on film culture, from H...

In 2016, when Mike Pence accepted the Republican nomination for vice president, he introduced himself to the national electorate as a “Christian, a conservative and a Republican, in that order.” Mike Pence and President Donald Trump appear to be polar opposites. Why does Pence serve and defend a man so distant from the moral ideals that Pence himself has so long espoused? According to a probing bi...

HBO and NBC are going national with their newest streaming services. Netflix, Amazon and others are jumping on the Black Lives Matter bandwagon; and Issa Rae and Dave Chappelle are back. New standouts like Yvonne Orji are making a splash, and the show with a lot of buzz, HBO’s I May Destroy You raises important questions about victims and victimization. Tom's guests are Maureen Harvie, senior prod...

While the COVID-19 data for Maryland are good in comparison with many other states, more than 3,000 people have died, and the pandemic is still having a profound impact on the lives and livelihoods of Marylanders. Even as Governor Hogan’s Stage Two re-opening plan allows businesses to resume limited operations, one of the pillars of the state’s economy – child care services for working parents – i...

It’s the Midday Healthwatch, with Dr. Leana Wen. 29 states around the country, largely in the south and the west, are seeing a spike in the number of new cases of COVID 19. The CDC has revised its risk assessment for the disease to reflect the fact that more young people are being infected. Are the numbers headed in the wrong direction because the US is re-opening too soon? Dr. Leana Wen is a visi...

The torrent of news that NPR and its affiliates around the country need to cover would be daunting in the best of times, but to cover it while the health risk is high and revenue is down presents unprecedented challenges. About a year ago, when LaFontaine Oliver took over as president and general manager of WYPR, we talked with him on this program about his plans for our station moving forward. We...

As we went to air today, the House Judiciary Committee convened an investigative hearing into “political interference and threats to prosecutorial independence” at the U.S. Justice Department. The hearing opened on the heels of last weekend’s firing of Geoffrey Berman, the US Attorney for the Southern District of New York. President Trump’s plan to install in his place a political ally with no pro...

The region's theaters remain dark as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to prevent traditional indoor public stagings. But as we've reported previously here on Midday, the shows must - and do - go on, through a rich variety of live-streamed and pre-recorded streaming productions. Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom today to tell us about some upcoming and continuing virtual theater events...

Theaters, concert halls and live performance venues were the first to close when the pandemic arrived, and many will be among the last to re-open. Tom talks with jazz impresario Todd Barkan Co-owner of Baltimore jazz club Keystone Korner and Audrey Fix Schaefer communications director of the National Independent Venue Association on what’s needed to keep independent music venues alive. Then Ken Sk...

We begin today with a check on the state of Maryland’s efforts to mitigate the coronavirus and continue Gov. Larry Hogan’s Roadmap to Recovery. Tom’s first guest is Fran Phillips. She is Maryland’s deputy health secretary for public health services and a member of Gov. Larry Hogan’s Coronavirus Response Team. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Joining Tom for the hour today is the senior Democratic senator from Maryland, Ben Cardin. First elected to the Senate in 2006, he is currently the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Small Business and Entrepreneurship. He also serves on the Senate Finance Committee and the Foreign Relations Committee. Some of the topics Tom questions Sen. Cardin about: President Trump held a rally in Tulsa...

From granting Juneteenth as a paid holiday to marketing campaigns designed to align their businesses with protesters, companies are suddenly falling over themselves to express solidarity with the Black Lives Matter movement. Are these claims credible, or are they simply part of a nimble marketing strategy aimed at exploiting a unique moment? Tom’s guests are Dr. Pamela Newkirk, professor of journa...

In June, 1921, White mobs destroyed Tulsa Oklahoma’s Greenwood neighborhood, a thriving African American community known as Black Wall Street. An estimated 200 - 300 African Americans were killed during the attack. Perhaps as many as 10,000 people were left homeless. There has been renewed interest in this bloody chapter in America’s history because President Trump is set to hold a campaign rally...

Streets around the world remain filled with protesters demanding that police be “de-funded.” Today on Midday, a police perspective on the intensifying calls to defund and reform the nation's police departments. Tom is joined by Officer Seth Templeton, a beat cop in Baltimore County who wrote an open letter in the Baltimore Sun to a protester, hoping to bridge the gap between demonstrators and law...

Nationally, the United States ranks 26th in the world in voter turnout. It remains to be seen whether more voters will embrace the power they yield at the ballot box in November. Tom’s guest is Kim Wehle, a constitutional scholar who has written a primer on voting: how voting differs from state to state, what the structural barriers are to voting, and how those barriers can be overcome. Wehle is a...

Now, a look at how restaurants are adapting to "the new normal." The National Restaurant Association estimates that about 40% of US restaurants will be forced to close because of the pandemic. Many will never re-open. Here in Maryland, indoor dining is now allowed in many jurisdictions, although not yet here in Baltimore City. Later in this program, we'll be joined by two chef-owners of restaurant...

All 50 states are in some phase of re-opening their economies after a few weeks, and in some cases several months, of lockdown. Here in Maryland, health officials announced another day of fewer than 400 new cases of COVID-19, and the statewide positivity rate has dropped to 6.2%. It’s been 10 weeks since we’ve had as few COVID patients in ICU beds as we do now, and as of yesterday (6/15/20), overa...

We are nearly three weeks into sustained worldwide protests over the Minneapolis police killing last month of George Floyd. On Friday night, a white police officer in Atlanta named Garrett Rolfe killed a 27 year old Black man, Rayshard Brooks, as he fled after failing a sobriety test. Brooks had taken a Taser gun from another officer and pointed it, and possibly fired it at Rolfe. The coroner has...

A Middle River crab house has become a flashpoint in the struggle for social justice in Maryland. On June 1st, Vince Meyer, the owner and operator of Vince’s Crab House wrote on Facebook, “There is one place I bet the protesters/rioters won’t light on fire or break into or even block the road to .... the social services buildings.” Tom's guest is local activist Kellie Vaughan, who organized the pr...

If history repeats itself and the Democratic nominees for local offices prevail in November, a new cadre of progressive leaders will take a sharp left turn on their way to Baltimore City Hall, where they will assume responsibility for the COVID 19 pandemic, the re-build of the local economy, a persistent murder rate and the reform of a police department. Political strategist Sophia Silbergeld and...

At the heart of Gov. Hogan’s plan to reopen the state economy are increased testing for COVID-19 and contact tracing. The state has tested more than 460,000 people and deployed 1,400 contact tracers so far. Vickie Fretwell is special assistant and senior advisor in the office of Maryland Health Secretary Robert R. Neall. And she is leading the Maryland Health Department’s new statewide effort to e...

A new coalition of local business leaders, foundations and the union that represents journalists at The Baltimore Sun have banded together to try once again to buy the paper so that it is locally owned, and then turn it into a nonprofit. The group has launched a campaign called Save Our Sun, and two of its leaders join Tom. Liz Bowie is a Sun reporter and a leader of the Baltimore Sun Guild. Matt...

Black conservationists and avian enthusiasts are challenging the widely-held racist stereotype that Black folks and people of color are more suited to urban landscapes than to the fields and forests of the natural world. Tom's guests are Dr. J Drew Lanham, an Alumni Distinguished Professor of Wildlife Ecology at Clemson University. And, Corina Newsome, a field biologist who is pursuing a graduate...

One of the key elements in reopening plans, across counties or states, is to increase contact tracing to determine if people infected with COVID-19 may have exposed others to the virus. Maryland employs about 1,400 contact tracers so far, and last week, Mayor Jack Young announced that the new Baltimore Health Corps will hire nearly 300 contact tracers. If you are interested in applying for one of...

We begin our show today with a focus on foreign policy, and America’s role in the world. Tom's first guest is Dr. Richard Haass, a veteran diplomat and policymaker who entered US government service in the 1970s. He served as senior Middle East adviser to President George H. W. Bush and as director of the Policy Planning Staff under Secretary of State Colin Powell. He is a recipient of the Presiden...