Midday

The Maryland Data Centers Analysis Group is looking to make better information available to the public and policymaker.

The number of data centers across the country nearly doubled between 2021 and 2024. We take a look at Maryland's effort to attract this lucrative industry to the state.

Midday on Cars takes a look under the hood and answers your questions about your automobile.

John Davis, the Host of Motorweek on Maryland Public Television and PBS, joins the show to discuss the outlook for electric vehicles, how tariffs are changing the domestic automotive market and how to care for your car as winter approaches.

Davis has hosted Motorweek since it began nearly a half century ago. On November 8, Motorweek is set to air a special anniversary episode celebrating 45 years of dispensing automotive advice and covering the automotive industry.

Joining Tom now is Maryland Congressman Johnny Olszewski, Jr. He represents Marylanders living in the state's second district, which includes parts of Carroll and Baltimore counties, as well as a sliver of Baltimore City.

The second longest government shutdown in history is slogging along into its 28th day. Meanwhile, President Trump is traveling in Asia, the Senate is stalled, and the House isn’t even in session.

As the shutdown continues, health care subsidies are set to expire, triggering potentially catastrophic increases in health insurance costs for tens of millions of Americans.

If there is a light at the end of this tunnel, it is a very dim and distant light.

We’ve invited Congressman Olszewski back to talk about the prospects for a resolution.

Tom's first guest today is Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman.

A recent 78-page report in the Comptroller’s “State of the Economy” series focuses on the cost of housing, which has risen more than 60% nationwide in just the past six years, and left about half of Maryland residents struggling to afford a place to live.

In her introduction to the report, the Comptroller writes: “A troubling consequence of high housing costs is that working-aged, middle-income households are moving to more affordable states. In recent years, we’ve been losing a net average of about 40,000 people per year to states with lower housing costs and more housing options. This outmigration is a downward drag on our labor market, economic output, and state and local revenues. It could also result in Maryland losing federal representation after the 2030 census."

Tom spoke with the Comptroller earlier this morning. She joined us on Zoom…

Maryland Comptroller Brooke Lierman will participate in a Town Hall in Howard County this Thursday evening at 6:00 at the Applied Physics Lab of Johns Hopkins University. She’ll be joined by Congresswoman Sarah Elfreth, Senator Angela Alsobrooks, and MD Attorney General Anthony Brown.

Last Friday, Maryland Senators Chris Van Hollen and Angela Alsobrooks joined U.S. Representatives Don Beyer and James Walkinshaw (both D-Va.) and more than 60 of their colleagues in the Senate and House in urging the Trump Administration to immediately reinstate any furloughed employees of agencies that are funded by collected user fees.

Because they are funded by fees, these agencies are not affected by the lapse in appropriations from Congress. Most of these agencies have continued their work during previous shutdowns.

For an informed perspective on the latest from Washington, we turn to Luke Broadwater, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist and a White House correspondent for the New York Times. He’s also the author, with Annie Karni, of Madhouse, a chronicle of Congressional dysfunction in the wake of the January 6th attack on the US Capitol in 2021.

People are increasingly living more of their lives on a screen, interacting with the digital world on social media platforms, games and apps.

These online spaces are big business for companies, who sell the enormous amounts of data that most people freely make available when they surf, scroll and click.

Corporate America says that the information they collect about us is used to better customize our experience online, but let’s not kid ourselves, this information is extremely valuable to advertisers, vendors, politicians, and companies across the spectrum.

But few people know how their data is being used.

Advocates say that is on purpose. They accuse giant tech companies of hiding their true intent for people’s data behind byzantine legal mumbo-jumbo and confusing privacy settings.

Lawmakers are beginning to launch more active attempts to protect people’s privacy online, and restrict how their data can be used.

One of the most stringent data privacy laws in the nation went into effect in Maryland, on October 1, 2025.

Caitriona Fitzgerald joins Midday to discuss the new law and trends in data privacy. She is the Deputy Director at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, or EPIC.

And Markus Rauschecker, Director of the University of Maryland Center for Cyber, Health and Hazard Strategies, joins the show to talk about data security and what Marylanders can expect in the future when it comes to their personal information online.

The acclaimed ensemble of traditional musicians performs live in our studio, ahead of their concerts, tonight through Monday, in Annapolis, Baltimore and Rockville.

Midday theater critic J. Wynn Rousuck reviews Liza Jessie Peterson's powerful one-woman show about mass incarceration, at Baltimore's Center Stage.

WYPR's statehouse reporter Sarah Petrowich covered losses in revenue in Maryland from the government shutdown and Gov. Wes Moore's efforts to right the state's budget.