Midday

Tom's guest is an African American religious scholar whose work focuses on the intersection of race and religion. Dr. Walter Earl Fluker is a Distinguished Professor at the Howard Thurman Center at Hartford University for Religion and Peace in Hartford, CT. He has been invited by the Institute for Islamic, Christian and Jewish Studies to give the annual Manekin-Clark Lecture, which he’ll deliver on Monday night at Northside Baptist Church. His talk is entitled Wake Up Running: A Vision for Connection and Transformation.

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On today's show, students and teachers in Baltimore City are in their second month back in classrooms following summer break. Each fall, at about this time in the new school year, Dr. Sonja Santelises joins us with updates on the school year so far.

Dr. Santelises has been the CEO of the City School System since 2016.

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On today's show, a conversation about the New York Times, one of the world’s most singular and powerful journalistic enterprises. Adam Nagourney joined the Times in 1996, and served as the chief political correspondent in Washington, D.C., and as the Los Angeles Bureau Chief. He now covers national politics.

Nagourney captures with exquisite detail and insight the triumphs and the tumult of the world’s “paper of record,” between the post-Watergate years in the 1970s through the surprise election of Donald Trump in 2016.

The book is called, The Times: How the Newspaper of Record Survived Scandal, Scorn and the Transformation of Journalism.

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Today, we continue our series of conversations about the conflict between Israel and Hamas. The latest crescendo of violence in the decades-long conflict began when Hamas terrorists attacked Israeli civilians on October 7, 2023.

Tom speaks with Dr. Shibley Telhami, the Anwar Sadat Professor for Peace and Development at the University of Maryland. He’s also a non-resident senior fellow at the Brookings Institution.

Later in the program, we hear from Palestinian-American scholar Dr. Sa’ed Atshan, the Chair of the Peace and Conflict Studies Department at Swarthmore College.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

It's time for another visit with Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck, who joins us each week with her reviews of the Maryland, DC and Virginia regional stage.

Today, a theater review about a new show, at a new theater in town. Pink Pen Theatre’s production of “Think Pink!” continues at St. Mark’s Lutheran Church through October 15.

(Photo by Robin Davis Mill)

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.

Today, on the Midday News wrap, we’re going to focus on local news with Baltimore Banner reporters Justin Fenton and Adam Willis.

First up, Fenton updates us on Baltimore Police Chief Richard Worley and ownership problems with vacant properties. Willis

shares the latest on city redistricting and the Mayor's Office of Recovery Programs. The reporters also address the proposed $48 million payout for the Harlem Park Three.

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Isabel Cumming, head of the Office of Inspector General for the City of Baltimore, joins us. The Office of the Inspector General estimates it saved the city nearly $7 million in 2022. We’re talking about some of the complaints she and her staff have been looking into lately.

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On today's show, Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott joins me to talk about violence reduction, economic development and redistricting.

Homicides are down in the city, year over year, but some high-profile shootings have people worried. And, city employees are headed back into their offices. Will that improve city services?

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We talk to a singer and guitarist whose musical compositions and style are unique, and genre-defying. Sara Serpa is a vocalist, composer, and improviser. She is a native of Lisbon, Portugal. She’s in town as part of a seven city tour with the guitarist André Matos. There new album is Night Birds.

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How much of a threat does artificial intelligence present to the creative community?

In their recent contract negotiations, writers of movies and TV shows wrangled with producers over the use of A.I. in creating content.

Allison Goldberg is a Baltimore comedian who organizes showdowns between humans and AI to see who’s funnier, faster. She joins me to explain when Chat GPT is a boon and when it’s a bust.

Email us at [email protected], tweet us: @MiddayWYPR, or call us at 410-662-8780.