Midday

Today on Midday, it's Reporters' Notebook, and Tom catches up with three reporters to discuss some of the great reporting they have done about vacant housing, climate change remediation, and education.

Tom's first guest is Justin Fenjustin fentonton, from our news partner, the Baltimore Banner.  He’s been writing about the swarm of foreign investors who are buying some of Baltimore’s huge stock of vacant houses, in the hope of renovating and renting them. But they are running into a myriad of problems.

Justin Fenton joins us on Zoom.

Then, Tom is joined in Studio A by WYPR’s Baltimore County and environment reporter John Lee. He tells us about the historic community of Turner’s Station, and the challenges they are facing with chronic flooding. It’s part of John Lee's new environmental series, Climate Change in Your Backyard.  You can find all the reports to date on the WYPR website.

Tom's final guest today is WYPR education reporter Zshekinah Collier, who discusses some of the latest developments in the region's school systems.  Zshekinah Collier joins us in Studio A.

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

Today on Midday, it’s Midday on Cars, with our good friend, John Davis, the creator, producer and host of MotorWeek, now in its 42nd season. MotorWeek is the longest running automotive show on TV. It's produced by Maryland Public television (MPT) and syndicated on more than 90% of PBS stations across the country.

Gas prices are coming down. From a peak of $5 per gallon in a lot of places earlier this year, we’re back down to a national average of $3.26. That’s lower than it was a year ago at this time.

The inventory of new cars is up. Dealers are trying to sell about 1.6 million new vehicles, the most they’ve had on hand all year.

California has passed into law a requirement that 35% of new car sales be electric vehicles by 2026. That’s just three years away. Will Maryland follow suit, and how quickly will ICEs (internal combustion engines) go the way of the dinosaur?

John Davis is with us for the hour today to take your questions and comments about all things automotive. If you’re in the market for a new car, what are you thinking of buying? What’s your experience been so far on the new or used market? How are you feeling about going electric?

John Davis joins Tom in Studio A…

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

Joining Tom now is Maryland Attorney General Brian Frosh.

After serving in the Maryland House of Delegates for eight years and the Maryland Senate for 20 years, he was elected to be the state’s chief legal officer in 2014, the same year that Gov. Larry Hogan was elected governor.

Frosh, a Democrat, has not always seen eye-to-eye with the governor, and just a couple of months ago, he was involved in a public dispute with the Baltimore State’s Attorney, Marilyn Mosby, a fellow Democrat.

Next month, he will retire at the end of this, his second term. He’ll be succeeded by Congressman Anthony Brown, who won election as Attorney General by a wide margin in November.

As Attorney General Frosh leaves office, we’ve invited him to the show today to reflect on his tenure in office.

Brian Frosh joins Tom in Studio A...

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

The Baltimore City Fire Department has been reeling lately following revelations contained in a damning internal report about a vacant house fire on Stricker Street last January that claimed the lives of three firefighters, the sudden resignation of Chief Niles Ford, and a meeting last week with the City Council in which department heads told members of the City Council that its fleet of vehicles is severely depleted.

To discuss these developments, Tom speaks with Joshua Fannon, a Battalion Chief with the Baltimore Fire Department, and the president of the International Association of Fire Fighters (IAFF) Local 964, the union that represents Baltimore fire officers…

Joshua Fannon joins Tom in Studio A.

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

Midday on Music continues now in the studio of our sister station, WTMD in Towson, where we are fortunate to be joined by members of the Mount Vernon Virtuosi Cello Gang. The founder of the Virtuosi is Amit Peled, an internationally acclaimed ‘cellist and conductor and, for the past two decades, a professor at Hopkins' Peabody Institute conservatory.

Peled founded the Mount Vernon Virtuosi five years ago to provide professional opportunities for young musicians, and to bring music to people young and old throughout the Baltimore-Washington area, in venues that are not restricted to just concert halls.

The Mount Vernon Virtuosi Cello Gang is a rotating ensemble composed of Peled and five of his gifted Peabody student cellists who frequently tour the country. The Gang currently includes Shawn Hsu, Paul Lee, Rachel Taylor, Natalia Vilchis and Jiaoyang Xu.

For today's Midday mini-concert, the group performs three distinctive works beautifully arranged for six cellos: Georg Golterman's Serenade, Op.119, No. 2; Sergei Rachmaninoff's Vocalise; and a Brett Howland medley arrangement of Leonard Cohen's Hallelujah and George David Weiss's What a Wonderful World.

You can find video of today’s performances by the Mount Vernon Virtuosi ‘Cello Gang on the WYPR YouTube page.

Amit Peled and his Cello Gang's performance today previews their concerts in Montgomery County, Maryland, this weekend. They'll be playing on Saturday, December 10 at 4pm at the Spencerville Church in Silver Spring.On Sunday, December 11, they will play two shows at the Bender Jewish Community Center in Rockville, at 2:00 and 4:00pm. Click the links for more details.

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

Today, it’s Midday on Music.  A little later we’ll hear from the ‘cellist Amit Peled and his Mt. Vernon Virtuosi ‘Cello Gang. But we begin with the composer and flutist Allison Loggins Hull.                                                    

This Sunday afternoon, the celebrated singer-songwriter Toshi Reagon will team-up with the contemporary music ensemble Alarm Will Sound to present the world premiere of a new song cycle by Toshi Reagon and Allison Loggins-Hull. It’s called Love Always.  It’s inspired by the African American tradition of elders writing letters to their children.

In addition to composing, Allison Loggins Hull is also an accomplished flute player. She and the flutist and composer Natalie Joachim perform together in a duet called Flutronix. Here’s a sample of their work, from the album City of Breath. The tune is called FlockAllison Loggins Hull joins us on Zoom from Montclair, New Jersey.

Love Always is receiving its premiere at the University of MD’s Clarice Center in College Park. The concert starts at 3:00. It features Toshi Reagon and Alarm Will Sound. Follow the link for more details.

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

In his new book, Stop the Road:  Stories from the Trenches of Baltimore’s Road Wars, retired city planner E. Evans Paull tells the story of transportation plans that were overtly racist, and disastrously short-sighted. Had it not been for the tenacious efforts of neighborhood activists, some of Baltimore’s most cherished and beloved historic neighborhoods would be very different places today.

Those activists saved places like Fells Point, the Inner Harbor and Canton. Other, mostly Black neighborhoods didn’t survive the onslaught of highways intended to accommodate white suburbanites. Places like Rosemont on the West Side were destroyed. More than 1,500 residents were displaced. Dozens of businesses, even a school were eliminated in the service of a stretch of highway that was begun, but eventually halted after years of organized opposition.

The stories of the infamous Highway to Nowhere and the planned East-West Expressway are chronicled in Stop the Road.  Author E. Evans Paull joins Tom today in Studio A… 

Klaus Philipsen, an urban planner, community activist and president of the Baltimore architectural firm ArchPlan, Inc., is the author of Baltimore: Reinventing an Industrial Legacy City. He joins us to talk about some of the lessons that can be learned from the mistakes of the past. Klaus Philipsen is with us in Studio A as well.

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Evans Paull discusses Stop the Road and signs copies of his book tonight (Thursday, Dec. 8) from 7-8:30pm at Snug Books in Baltimore. For directions and more information, click here.

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

Mobile sports betting has arrived in Maryland. On November 23rd — just in time for the Thanksgiving onslaught of football and the World Cup — Marylanders were allowed to place wagers on their phones. In these early weeks of legalized mobile betting, from TV to Twitter, we have been bombarded with ads trying to entice us to register with one or more of seven “sportsbooks,” as the betting apps are called, which will enable us to bet on all manner of things related to professional and some other sports. Three more state-approved sportsbooks are on the way soon.

Today on Midday, a conversation about what sports betting means for Maryland, what the experience of other states has been, and what worries those who treat people with gambling addictions.

According to the website Gaming Today, in most markets, more than 70% of sports betting is done online. In some states, such as New York and New Jersey, that percentage rises to 90%.

And the amount of money being wagered is astonishing. Last January, the first month that mobile betting was allowed in New York, $1.7 billion dollars was wagered on sporting events.

Tom's first guest is Pamela Wood, who covers Maryland politics and has reported on the state's gaming boom for our news partner, the Baltimore Banner.  Pamela Wood joins us on our digital line.

Then, Tom is joined on Zoom by Bennett Conlin, a writer who covers sports betting for the SportsHandle and US Bets online sites. He gives us an overview of how mobile betting is working in nearby states, some of which started their mobile betting programs a while ago.

Later in the program, Tom speaks with Rob White, a licensed clinical professional counselor and director of the Maryland Center of Excellence on Problem Gambling at the University of Maryland School of Medicine about his concerns with making gambling so easy and accessible. Mr. White joins us on Zoom.

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

Tom's Midday Newsmaker guest today is Maryland’s senior senator, Ben Cardin. 

The senator is a longtime member of the Foreign Relations Committee. He was at the COP 27 Climate Change Conference last month in Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt, alongside House Speaker Nancy Pelosi as they led their respective US congressional delegations at the summit. When President Joe Biden addressed the gathering, he pledged the US would do its part to avert “climate-hell,” but meeting clean energy goals and helping developing countries transition to clean energy remain a heavy lift.

And, as winter takes hold in Ukraine, what’s next for US support of the war effort there? Russia continues to target key infrastructure sites, denying power and water to millions of people across the country. Next month in Washington, when the GOP assumes its narrow majority in the House, Republicans have targeted Ukraine aid, sending signals that they are less inclined to continue US help.

Plus, what do the social unrest and protests in the authoritative regimes in Iran and China portend for the future?Sen. Cardin is also the chair of the Small Business and Entrepreneurship Committee. He’s sponsored a bill to re-authorize support for small businesses from the Small Business Administration.

Ben Cardin has been a fixture in Maryland and then national politics since he was first elected to the Maryland General Assembly in 1967. Twenty years later he was elected to the House of Representatives, and twenty years after that, he was elected to the US Senate.

Senator Cardin joins us on Zoom from his Senate office on Capitol Hill.

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

It’s the Midday Healthwatch, with Dr. Leana Wen.

COVID numbers are up, compounded by big increases in rates of influenza and RSV. Is there a full blown COVID surge on the way in the US? Experts fear that there may be a surge in China. Will highly transmissible Omicron variants prove to be too much for China’s zero-COVID policy to handle?

And the advances made in telemedicine during the pandemic made healthcare more accessible for millions of people. Will policy makers make sure that access continues?

Democrats and the Biden Administration have promised to lower the cost of prescription drugs. In a column in the Washington Post, Dr. Wen profiled Chiquita Brooks-LaSure, the first Black woman to lead the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, and the woman charged with overseeing the drug pricing program, and a host of other programs.

We'll discuss these and other topics today...

Dr. Wen is one of America’s most trusted and knowledgeable public health experts. She is a former health commissioner of Baltimore and an emergency physician. She teaches at the George Washington University's Milken Institute School of Public Health. She writes a column for the Washington Post.  She’s a medical analyst for CNN, a non-resident Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institution and the author of Lifelines: A Doctor's Journey in the Fight for Public Health.

Dr. Leana Wen joins us on Zoom…

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