More information, including tickets, are available at: newnextfilmfest.com.

Baltimore Mayor Brandon Scott joins Midday to discuss a new agreement between the city and large educational and medical nonprofits to make payments in lieu of taxes. Does the deal satisfy advocates who say institutions like Johns Hopkins University are not paying their fair share? The agreement comes as members of the City Council attempted to assemble a task force to recommend what anchor institutions should pay.

Plus, a discussion of a controversial package of zoning laws intended to boost the availability of affordable housing. In an unusual move, two of the bills in the package have been sent back to the committee that had already approved them.

Kim Wehle joins Midday to look ahead to the upcoming docket of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Wehle is a professor at the University of Baltimore School of Law, the author of four books, an in-demand public speaker and commentator, and the host of a popular Substack she calls The Little Law School with Professor Kim Wehle, where she unpacks legal headlines and offers timely perspectives on politics and the law.

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck joins Tom with another of her weekly reviews of the Baltimore regional stage. Today, she tells us about the new touring company production of Water for Elephants, the hit Broadway musical that's now onstage at Baltimore's Hippodrome Theatre.

The 2024 musical, which was nominated for seven Tony Awards including Best Musical, tells the story of young Jacob Jankowski who, after experiencing a family tragedy, moves on to find a new life with a traveling circus during the Great Depression of the 1930s. The show features exciting circus acrobatics, original music, and intricate puppetry to tell its tale of love and personal survival.

The musical's original direction is by Jessica Stone, with a book by Rick Elice and music by PigPen Theatre Co., based on the novel by Sara Gruen.

Water for Elephants continues at The Hippodrome Theatre through Saturday, October 4.

Reginald Moore, the Director of Baltimore City’s Recreation and Parks Department, joins Midday to discuss the wide array of facilities and resources he shepherds.

Moore oversees an ever-evolving list of 51 recreation centers, 4 dog parks, 3 skate parks and more than 4,700 acres of parkland in 262 parks. That portfolio includes everything from the Greenmount Recreation Center’s AI youth computer lab to Druid Hill Park, which has been under construction for a long time.

Moore discusses upgrades to several recreational centers and parks, and the latest on construction at Druid Hill Park and the opening of the pedestrian loop around Druid Lake.

Baltimore City's largest institutions of learning and medicine, such as Johns Hopkins University and University of Maryland Medical Center, make annual payments to the city.

PILOT (payment in lieu of taxes) agreements allows Baltimore to recoup costs from massive nonprofits exempt from property tax. According to reporting from WYPR news partner The Baltimore Banner, the 14 institutions with which the city has PILOT agreements collectively own $4.8 billion of real estate; they currently pay $6 million a year under the PILOT.

Now, a new PILOT agreement sees these institutions pay more. But is the increase enough? Advocates say no and voiced disappointment that negotiations were conducted behind closed doors.

The Banner's Emily Opilo joins Midday to discuss the latest.

Last Friday, Ari Shapiro signed-off as a host of NPR's All Things Considered for the final time, ending a ten-year run in the host chair and a 24-year career that he began as an intern for Nina Totenberg.

Shapiro has appeared as a vocalist with the band Pink Martini for many years. He’ll be appearing with them Friday night at the Meyerhoff Symphony Hall here in Baltimore.

Shapiro joined Midday to discuss his retirement from NPR and his plans to stay connected with his audience through his writing, his storytelling and his singing.

Veteran Democratic congressman Steny Hoyer joins Midday. He has represented Maryland's 5th District in the House of Representatives since 1981.

Congressman Hoyer discusses the likelihood of a shutdown of the federal government, the newly announced Trump proposal for an end to the Israel-Gaza war and the outlook for Russia's three-year-old war on Ukraine.

The Maryland state senator's candid new memoir describes how his work as a young apprentice electrician helped turn his life around.

The former Librarian of Congress and past head of Baltimore's Enoch Pratt Library discusses her new but familiar role at the Mellon Foundation: advancing public knowledge through libraries and archives.