Midday

Today, a look at the road ahead for the millions of Americans who’ve lost their jobs during the coronavirus pandemic. Over the past three months, as COVID-19 has taken the lives of more than 90,000 Americans and sickened over a million and a half others, it has also ravaged the US economy. Nationwide business shutdowns have produced levels of unemployment and business failure that haven’t been see...

Today, our series of Conversations with the Candidates continues with the newest member of the Maryland congressional delegation, 7th District Congressman Kweisi Mfume. Rep. Mfume, who previously served five terms representing the 7th District from 1987-1996, before stepping down to head the NAACP until 2004, recently won back his old House seat in the April 28 special election held to fill the re...

Maryland House Speaker joins Tom to talk about her efforts to develop benchmarks for re-opening MD schools, and when that happens, ways to flatten the curve of access to technology. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Former Baltimore Police Department spokesman T.J. Smith is one of six Democrats who are considered leaders in the race for Baltimore mayor. This is Mr. Smith’s first run for political office. He is a former Anne Arundel County police lieutenant who joined the Baltimore Police Department in 2015, with the arrival of Commissioner Kevin Davis. Smith served as the BPD chief of communications until 201...

Maryland Senator Jill P. Carter is Tom’s guest. She is one of the 19 Democrats running for Congress in Maryland's 7th District. After 14 years in Maryland’s House of Delegates, Sen. Carter has represented the 41st District in the Senate for the last two years. Sen. Carter is the daughter of the late Baltimore civil rights activist, Walter P. Carter. A lawyer, she is 55 and lives in Hunting Ridge,...

Maya Rockeymoore Cummings is a public policy consultant who holds a doctorate in political science. She’s the former head of the Maryland Democratic Party and she worked for several years on Capitol Hill. For a brief period, she was a candidate in the 2018 Maryland gubernatorial race. She left that race when her husband encountered some serious health problems. Dr. Cummings placed 2nd behind Mr. M...

State Senate President Bill Ferguson joins Tom to discuss how the legislature will move forward in light of the Governor’s vetoes of virtually all of the legislation passed in the abbreviated 2020 session that requires any additional state funding. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Now, Midday takes a break from its coverage of the COVID-19 pandemic. Tom welcome a best- selling author who has written a fascinating novel that takes place before COVID 19. Way before. The plot unfolds in first century Palestine and Egypt, in locales that are familiar to anyone with even the most minimal knowledge of Christianity and Judaism. It is peopled with figures whose imprint on biblical...

Mary Miller is one six Democrats considered leaders in the race for mayor. This is her first run for political office. After a long career at T Rowe Price, she was appointed by President Obama to top jobs at the Treasury Department. She was the first woman to serve as Under Secretary for Domestic Finance. For the last few years, she has been a Senior Fellow at the Johns Hopkins University 21st Cen...

The Holy Month of Ramadan is a time when Muslims around the world mark the Prophet Mohammad’s receiving of the first chapters of the Quran from Allah. It is a time of reflection, prayer, and celebration, but this year , the coronavirus pandemic has made observance of Ramadan exceptionally tough. Dr. Faheem Younus is an infectious disease expert at the University of MD and member of the Ahmadiyya M...

More than half of Maryland’s COVID-19 fatalities have been nursing home residents - a population that's especially vulnerable to this virus. At least six nursing facilities in the state have each reported 100 or more cases of COVID-19. Clearly, we need to protect them and the nurses, doctors, aides, therapists and others coming to work each day in America’s nursing homes. To that end, Maryland Gov...

Tom's guest is City Council President Brandon Scott, Democratic candidate for Mayor. Mr. Scott was first elected to the Council in 2011 to represent the 2nd District. Prior to that, he worked in the office of then Council President Stephanie Rawlings Blake as her representative in Northeast Baltimore. In 2018, Jim Shea picked Mr. Scott as his running mate in their unsuccessful bid in the Democrati...

On February 23rd, a young Black man named Ahmaud Arbery was jogging near his home outside of Brunswick, GA, when he was shot and killed by two white men. No arrests were made in the case until a video of the encounter came to light two months later. Arbery, 25, was unarmed. Was the killing of Ahmaud Arbery a modern day lynching? Guest: Dr. Terry Anne Scott, Associate Professor of History and Direc...

Baltimore Ceasefire 365 is a community-based movement that soon will be marking the third anniversary of its campaign to reduce violence in Baltimore. Throughout the year, and annually on four designated weekends -- including this past Mother’s Day weekend -- the group holds activities across the city designed, it says, to “promote peacefulness and celebrate life,” as it asks people in Baltimore,...

Since Governor Larry Hogan issued a stay at home order for Marylanders on March 30, public health officials and protective services workers have noted a precipitous decline in police reports of domestic and child abuse. And the state-run Child Protective Services agency in Maryland reports 70% fewer calls during the first week of April, compared to the same period last year. But experts are concer...

Tom's guest is former Baltimore City Mayor Sheila Dixon, who is in a crowded field of Democrats running for the office she held from 2007 to 2010. Ms. Dixon represented the 4th District on the City Council for 12 years in the late '80s and '90s. She served as president of the City Council from 1999 until January 2007, when she became mayor after Martin O’Malley became governor. She was elected to...

And now, a first-person account from a woman who was diagnosed with COVID-19 last month after experiencing symptoms in the middle of March. Cara Ober is the founding editor and publisher of BmoreArt, an online magazine that covers art and culture in the Baltimore-Washington Corridor. The magazine has published two extended essays Ms. Ober wrote, over the course of a month, describing her harrowing...

It's another edition of our series of Conversations with the Candidates, and Tom's guest today is the Mayor of Baltimore, Bernard C. "Jack" Young, a veteran city lawmaker and former City Council President who stepped into the mayor’s job about a year ago when Catherine Pugh resigned. Mayor Young has spent years in City Government, and the year he has spent as the Mayor has been eventful, to say th...

On today’s ‘Midday Healthwatch’ with Dr. Leana Wen: When can the state and the country re-open safely? What have we learned about the virus so far, and are researchers getting closer to a treatment? Dr. Leana Wen is a visiting professor of health policy and management at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University, and a distinguished fellow at the Mullan Institute...

Now, a conversation about how the COVID-19 pandemic is threatening not only our physical and financial well-being, but also our mental health. Across the nation, tens of millions of people in all walks of life - from front-line hospital staff and shuttered small business owners to unemployed restaurant workers and parents staying home with their kids — are reporting increased levels of psychologic...

The Pulitzer Prize is journalism’s most prestigious award. Yesterday, the Pulitzer committee announced that our local paper, the Baltimore Sun, won the 2020 Pulitzer for Local Reporting. Its series of reports on the Healthy Holly scandal, which began in March of 2019, were described by the Pulitzer judges as “illuminating and insightful.” The Sun’s reporting led to the conviction and upcoming impr...

Today on our program: The role of non-profits and philanthropy in the COVID-19 pandemic, through the lens of two local leaders. With the profound social and economic disruptions caused by the coronovirus, the need for food, child care, and medical services has never been greater. How are charities and grant makers responding? And how are non-profits themselves staying afloat to continue their impo...

Sen. Chris Van Hollen on the latest small business relief bill. Mariah Acap and Tim Hicks of the Baltimore Body Shop share their experience applying for a Paycheck Protection Program grant and Mary Ann Scully, the president of Howard Bank talks about the challenges of keeping up with the massive demand for help. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

With more than 60,000 deaths nationwide from Coronavirus, more than 1,000 here in MD, the racial disparities in those who are infected, and those who die from COVID 19 continue to be staggering, and heartbreaking. Nationally, African Americans are dying at twice the rate of whites and Asians. Today on Midday, we examine what is happening in two MD African American communities that are Hotspots for...

We’ll hear how Baltimore Co. is responding to the pandemic and what the shutdown might mean for the county’s proposed budget. As County revenue declines, what will that mean for funding schools, police and other essential services? County Executive Johnny Olszewski, Jr. joins us via Skype from his office in Towson. Email us at midday@wypr.org, tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.