Midday

Tom’s next guest is Dr. Larycia Hawkins. She’s a political scientist and social activist who is currently the Abd el-Kader Visiting Faculty Fellow at the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and a lecturer at the University of Virginia. Before taking her current position, Dr. Hawkins was an associate professor and founder and director of the Peace & Conflict Studies Certificate Program at Whe...

As the nationwide protests continue over the police killing last month in Minneapolis of George Floyd, there have been renewed calls for defunding police departments, and at the very least, reforming use-of-force policies employed by police across the country. Protests have focused attention on the fact that people of color have been subjected to unconstitutional police tactics for generations. Ba...

Today, we follow up on the continuing crisis in America’s prisons caused by the Coronavirus pandemic. The Marshall Project, an award-winning non-profit reporting effort that examines problems in the criminal justice system, has found in its coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic that more than 40,000 prisoners have tested positive for the coronavirus. More than 8,400 correctional staff have been infect...

Dr. Leana Wen is an emergency physician and the former Health Commissioner of Baltimore City. She’s also a visiting professor of health policy and management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, a distinguished fellow at the Mullan Institute for Health Workforce Equity and a contributing columnist for The Washington Post. Yesterday, Dr. Wen testified bef...

Tom's guest is Dr. Gary Vikan. He was the director of the Walters Art Museum for nearly 20 years before retiring in 2013. He’s been writing books since then. His latest is about one of the most famous religious artifacts the world has ever known. The Shroud of Turin came to prominence during another pandemic, this one in the 14th century. Claimed for centuries to be the linen death shroud that cov...

It's another edition of Midday at the Movies, our monthly look at films and filmmaking. Today, we preview some of the hundreds of new documentary, feature and short films being showcased at the upcoming 2020 Virtual Maryland Film Festival, which will run completely online from June 12-21. Tom is joined again by two of our favorite film aficionados -- Washington Post film critic Ann Hornaday and Ma...

The Maryland State Board of Elections is in Day Two of its efforts to determine winners in the primaries for city-wide and city council offices in Baltimore City. Given the reports of problems with both in-person and mail-in voting, the Governor made it clear in his remarks yesterday that he would like to see State Elections Administrator Linda Lamone removed from her job. Other senior officials h...

Time now for another edition of Midday’s Back to the Garden, our seasonal foray into the essential pleasures and healthful rewards of planting and tending our own fruits, vegetables and flowers. On Today’s Summer Edition, Tom is joined on the line by two of our favorite gardening gurus: Carrie Engel is the greenhouse manager at Valley View Farms, a family owned nursery in Cockeysville, where she’s...

Maryland held its first statewide mail-in election yesterday (Tuesday, June 2, 2020). Late last night, the MD State Board of Elections announced the first batch of returns in the primaries, and then, at about 2:00 this morning, they took their totals for Baltimore City off of the website, without explanation. At about 10:00 Wednesday morning, the Board issued a statement saying that there was a “p...

Brandt Williams of Minnesota Public Radio joins Tom from Minneapolis with an update from the epicenter of the international protests. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

What’s the best way to manage your money in a recession that is unlike any other economic downturn in modern times? How will the pandemic upend plans like saving for college, buying a home or planning for retirement? Financial planners Lazetta Rainey Braxton and Nicolas Abrams talk about staying financially healthy during these uncertain times. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, o...

Legal scholar Michael Higginbotham discusses the prospects for further charges in the case that has been at the center of international attention. Plus, Baltimore Police Commissioner Michael Harrison talks about what happened in the city, and what he expects as protests around the country enter their second week. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Dr. Wilbur Chen, an infectious disease specialist from the University of MD on the public health impacts of these large gatherings, where social distancing is impossible for demonstrators who are demanding social justice. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

A third night of protests in Minneapolis in the wake of the killing of 46-year-oldGeorge Floyd on Monday by a Minneapolis police officer erupted in violence and looting. On Wednesday, the Mayor of Minneapolis called for the involved officers to be arrested. Earlier today one of the officers, Derek Chauvin was arrested and charged with third-degree murder and second degree manslaughter in Mr. Floyd...

Now, an update on how the American theater world is creatively adapting to the COVID-19 pandemic, which continues to keep its theaters and community stages dark. Theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck has been watching a steady stream of innovative online "virtual" productions by local and national companies, and she joins Tom on the line to share a few recommendations. Those include The Howard Ashman Cel...

Tuesday is the deadline to mail your ballot in the statewide primary election for President and Congressional offices and, here in Baltimore, for all three citywide offices and City Council. Maryland election officials quickly organized mail-in balloting in the special election for the Congressional seat in the 7th District, and now, just weeks later, they are conducting the statewide primary by m...

Why is it that 40% of Baltimore residents lack broadband access to the internet? In a city where red-lining in housing has a long history, has red-lining moved from the street to the internet? We begin with Dr. John Horrigan. He’s the author of a new report for the Abell Foundation that describes the impact of Baltimore’s Digital Divide on low-income city residents. Dr. Horrigan is a senior fellow...

Even as the death count from the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States continues to climb, many local and state leaders across the nation, including here in Maryland, have pointed to gradual reductions in coronavirus hospitalizations to justify their decisions to begin lifting two-month-old quarantine restrictions. Over the Memorial Day weekend, some areas of the country saw a surge in mass publi...

At 4:33 this afternoon, if the weather and all systems are go, a SpaceX-built Falcon 9 rocket, carrying two NASA astronauts in a crew capsule called “Dragon," will lift off from Launchpad 39A at Kennedy Space Center in Florida and soar toward a rendezvous with the International Space Station. The mission, dubbed "Demo 2," will be the first time a privately-built rocket will carry humans into space...

Tom's guest today is the acclaimed journalist and author, David Ignatius. For forty years, Ignatius has been a highly respected reporter on foreign affairs. He joined the staff of the Washington Post in 1986 and he began writing his twice-weekly column in 1998. Ignatius has also written 11 spy novels, the latest of which benefits mightily from his years of covering the CIA. It’s a contemporary nov...

On this special edition of Midday, six reflections on the April 27, 2015 Uprising, and how the community at the epicenter of that unrest - Sandtown-Winchester - has fared since 25-year-old Freddie Gray died from injuries he sustained while in police custody. At the heart of the protests and the rioting that erupted after Gray's funeral: anger and frustration with a system steeped in racism, inequi...

A poll that was commissioned by WYPR, The Baltimore Sun and the University of Baltimore indicate that all three city wide races in Baltimore are close, with perhaps as many as one in five voters yet to make up their minds. WYPR City Hall reporter, Emily Sullivan and Tom look behind the numbers. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Bakari Sellers made history in 2006, when at the age of 22, he was elected to the South Carolina legislature, becoming the youngest elected African American official in the country. Growing up in the rural south, Sellers father, Cleveland Sellers, was a civil rights activist who worked with Martin Luther King and other civil rights icons. In his new memoir, My Vanishing Country, Bakari Sellers wri...

Today, the final installment in our pre-primary series of Conversations with the Candidates. Tom's guest is Thiru Vignarajah, a veteran city and federal prosecutor and one of a crowded field of Democratic contenders in the June 2nd primary election for Baltimore mayor. A WYPR/Baltimore Sun/University of Baltimore poll released yesterday places Mr. Vignarajah just outside the group of three leading...

Since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic two months ago, more than 43,500 Marylanders have been sickened by the coronovirus. It has killed more than 2000 Marylanders, 270 of them residents of Baltimore County. And while the rate of hospitalizations in the state has finally begun to decline, as of today there are still 1,375 people receiving intensive care for COVID-19, many of them at medical faci...